Iranian Journal of Earth Sciences
Volume:8 Issue: 2, Oct 2016

Focusing on environmental impact assessment as a new tool to determine the harmful effects of projects on the environment is very necessary. The establishment of cement plants in Iran is accompanied by huge investments that aim to create jobs and have others economic aspects; this trend is on the rise. However, cement plants contribute to environmental pollutions. Therefore, understanding the effect of activities in these potentially polluting centres will greatly help determine future strategies. For the control and prevention of pollution, it is necessary to use a model for the quantitative assessment of environmental impacts. In this study, the Folchi method has been using to recognize and identify environmental pollution by cement plants and effective solutions to decrease the negative impacts of environmental pollution by Shahrood cement plant. According to the results, the contamination generated by the plant, especially for environmental components such as air quality, area landscape, soil of the area, ecology, and area usage are more significant than other environmental components. The EIA results are then obtained and used to assess the sustainability of the complex using Phillips mathematical model. The obtained results indicate that this complex is unsustainable; therefore, preventive environmental activities must be recommended with a preference to reduce environmental damages through its components.

The trace fossil assemblages from the Unit 2 of Deh-Sufiyan Formation are described for the first time from The Central Alborz Range of northern Iran, improving the record of the assemblages in the Cambrian of the Middle East. Twenty-one ichnogenera have been identified in the Deh-Sufiyan Formation, namely Arenicolites, Bergaueria, Chondrites, Circulichnus, Cruziana, Diplichnites, Didymaulichnus, Diplocraterion, Halopoa, Helminthopsis, Gordia, Gyrophyllites, Lockeia, Monomorphichnus, Palaeophycus, Phycosiphon, Planolites, Rosselia, Rusophycus, Skolithos, and Treptichnus. Characteristics of the facies, lateral and vertical relations between these facies, associational types of the facies and the depositional profile of the shelf transect examined show deposition on a wave-dominated carbonate ramp. Integration of ichnologic data with sedimentologic information supports a firm interpretation of the depositional systems and their evolution. Ethological grouping of the trace fossils resulted from the physico-chemical depositional constraints which defines the proximal-distal ichnofacies gradient pattern of the wave-dominated successions of the Deh-Sufiyan ramp. Considering the obvious deepening of the shallow marine depositional systems of wave-dominated parts of the carbonate ramp, the succession of archetypal ichnofacies can display a bathymetric trend from deeper to shallower parts, and from lower-to-higher hydrodynamic conditions, from the bottom to the top of the Unit 2 of the Deh-Sufiyan Formation. The identification and interpretation of the archetypal ichnofacies are employed to further refine the sedimentary interpretations of parameters such as wave energy, substrate properties, nature of available food supply, salinity, dissolved oxygen content, and variability in sedimentation rates.

The Chehel Kaman Formation of the upper Paleocene age formed from carbonate and siliciclastic sediments is located, in the Kapeh Dagh Sedimentary Basin. Two sections where considered for the purpose of research into the effective diagenetic processes of this formation. The Cheshmeh Qorban section with a thickness of 270.8m located 140km down the Mashhad – Sarakhs Highway while the Shourlog Section with a thickness of 288.3m is situated 130km down the Mashhad – Mozduran – Sarakhs Highway. 120 samples were taken from these sections and 100 thin cross sections produced from these samples. The carbonate rocks of this formation have been affected by diagenetic processes such as cementation, micritization, neomorphism, dissolution stress and porosity. These processes have taken place at the four marine diagenetic stages of the underground and surface sweet water. All cross sections were investigated using a gypsum bladein order to identify any extant porosity. All changes including type and percentage were plotted for each section. The results of the investigations indicated that in the Cheshmeh Qorban section of the Chehel Kaman Formation the lowest porosity content with a 3% rate of recurrence was related to microporosities while the greatest accumulation of porosity with a 7% recurrence rate in porosity was due to fracture porosity. In the Shourlog section meanwhile the lowest porosity content with a 2% recurrence rate was related to microporosities and the greatest accumulation with a recurrence rate of 6% was due to vuggy porosity.

Paleocene and Lower Eocene deposits in SW Iran are known as Pabdeh formation.Pabdeh formation is one of the most important lithostratigraphy unit as source rock has been deposited in Zagros basin over an extremely long period in time. The area under research is the Ghachsaran 55 subsurface Section located from the Ghachsaran oil field in Dezful embeyment in zagros fold zone. The Lower boundry of this formation around Ghachsaran basin is identified by Gurpi formation. Study on lithostratigraphy of Paleocene and lower Eocene deposits have been led to the separation following units: clay limestone section in gray colour,11m in thickness, clay limestone section 18m in thickness containing chert inter layers, silt clay limestone section 3m in thickness, The clay limestone section 3m in thickness containing chert interlayers, clay limestone section 4m in thickness . biostratigraphy investigation of Pabdeh formation have been led to the identification of 39 species and 9 genera of foraminifers.In addition , basis of Paleocene- Early Eocene planktonicforamimnifers bioevent in Wade biozonation such as Morozovella velascoensis, Globanomalina pseudomenardii, Psudohastigerina wilcoxensis, Acarinina soldadoensis , Morozovella subbotinae , Morozovella formosa , 9 biozones and 4 subzones are recogenized and these correlated with oldest biozones of (Wynd 1965) Beside,the bio-boundary of Paleocene and early Eocene is identified based on (Wade et al. 2011).

The objective of this research is to determine all processes in the magmatic evolution and related hydrothermal activities that created the volcanic rocks and associated ore-forming systems of the Bafq ýmining district. Several iron oxide-apatite (IOA) deposits were investigated in this area with a focus on the Sechahun ore deposit. The Bafq ýmining district is well known for hosting significant IOA ore deposits with several million tons of iron ore and with some economic resources of rare earth elements. To achieve the goals of this research, detailed petrographic, fluid inclusion microthermometry, and lithogeochemical studies were obtained and supported by geological investigations at both local and regional scales. Textural, mineralogical, and fluid inclusion evidence indicates the ore genesis by fluid mixing. Magmatic-hydrothermal iron oxide-apatite ore precipitated during circulation of deuteric solutions within the host rocks at the early stage of mineralization. The mesothermal iron oxide ore of the Sechahun deposit was emplaced at the relatively shallow depths, while the near-surface epithermal hematite-jaspilite ore formed in a subaqueous environment. The most likely source of iron oxide-apatite mineralization would be a combined magmatic hydrothermal to convective hydrothermal model ýwith magmatism originating from the upper mantle and related bimodal volcanism resulting in felsic volcanic rocks. Rifting of the continental lithosphere during the Early Cambrian was associated with emplacement of a highly fractionated bimodal ýmagmas along the regional ýfracture-fault lines, a major controlling factor for mineralization processes in the Bafq district. ý

Land salinization is a major obstacle to the sustainable development of agriculture in arid regions. The demand for food, fiber, fuel and fresh water has increased in the recent decades, particularly in developing nations, due to alarming rise in population. As fresh water resources and productive lands for crop production are limited, new strategies for the sustainable utilization of marginal lands and water resources have become urgently necessary. The objective of this article is to propose Haloculture as a holistic approach for the sustainable management of saline resources, enhancement of environmental quality and improvements in socio-economic conditions in less developed salt affected regions. Haloculture refers to the sustainable production of agricultural and industrial products in saline environments. It is essentially an integrated production system that makes use of diverse salt tolerant aquatic species and halophytes to produce different economically and industrially valuable products such as food and fuel and environmental services from the salt affected lands. Although immense socio-economic, industrial and environmental benefits of Haloculture are increasingly becoming evident, careful ecological, cultural and economic considerations are a pre-condition for the successful implementation of Haloculture-led improvements in saline environments.

It is now common in the mining industry to deal with several correlated attributes, which need to be jointly simulated in order to reproduce their correlations and assess the multivariate grade risk reasonably. Approaches to multivariate simulation which remove the correlation between attributes of interest prior to simulate and then re-impose the relationship afterward have been gaining popularity over the more common joint simulation methods because of their better accuracy and computational efficiency as the number of attribute being simulated increases. Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of these approaches. However, PCA suffers from some drawbacks such as the factors that are uncorrelated just for collocated locations. Minimum/ maximum autocorrelation factors (MAF) is a modification of PCA approach which the factors are uncorrelated for two lags. As an expectation, when linear co-regionalization model contains only two nested structures, the factors do not have any spatial correlations. The main aim of this research is to compare the results of MAF approach with some traditional approach for multivariate simulation (Co-simulation and independent simulation approach). To this end, two variables have been simulated with three different methods and are then compared together based on some yardsticks such as ability to reproduce the original correlation coefficient between two variables.