Peter James Leggo

University of Cambridge | Cam · Department of Earth Sciences

A machine built to digest food waste is of great value as the product can b used together with ground zeolitic tuff to make organic bio-fertilizer. This material is of great value in promoting plant growth . The use of chemical fertilizers commonly results in the profound increase in nitro bacteria which gets energy from organic material. Hence den...

The organo-zeolitic biofertilizer is composed of organic and zeolitic components. The zeolitic component is a natural rock, zeolitic tuff, which is crushed and mixed with organic waste, animal manure. Decomposition of the waste produces ammonium ions that are adsorbed by the zeolite. When added to the soil the ammonium ions are slowly released and...

Abstract:- A highly effective biological fertilizer (bio-fertilizer) can be produced cheaply in countries that have a source of a suitable type of zeolitic rock (tuff). Such rocks occur worldwide in areas of past or current volcanism. In the event of explosive volcanic activity huge volumes of silicic glass and other debris are projected into the a...

The aim of this research is to evaluate the properties and benefits of using an organo-zeolitic fertilizer (biofertilizer) for the production of food crops and the vegetation of contaminated land. Apart from the ever increasing cost of chemical fertilizers their use over the last seventy or more years have had a deleterious effect on soil health. I...

A biofertilizer, composed of a mixture of crushed zeolitic tuff and organic waste, has been used to grow plants on coal waste. The growth experiment is reported together with control experiments to demonstrate the efficacy of the biofertilizer. Plants used were Brassica napus, Beta vulgaris,Linum usitatissimum, and Zea mays which were grown in pots...

Zeolitic tuff containing an appreciable abundance of clinoptilolite was composted with animal waste to produce a dry friable non-odorous material that can easily be mixed with soil to produce an amended soil substrate. In earlier work it was found that leachate samples taken from organo-zeolitic treated substrates had nitrate concentrations an orde...

Zeolitic tuff containing an appreciable abundance of clinoptilolite was composted with animal waste to produce a dry friable non-odorous material that can easily be mixed with soil to produce an amended soil substrate. In earlier work it was found that leachate samples taken from organo-zeolitic treated substrates had nitrate concentrations an orde...

The adsorption and ion-exchange properties of natural zeolite minerals such as phillipsite, clinoptilolite and mordenite are well studied and these microporous minerals are known to have a high selectivity towards the ammonium ion. Natural zeolites are often found as alteration products of volcanic glass, in deposits of volcaniclastic sediments. In...

The present work is an extension of earlier research [Leggo, P. (2000) An investigation of plant growth in an organo-zeolitic substrate and its ecological significance. Plant and Soil, 219: 135-146.] in which zeolitic tuffaceous rock containing clinoptilolite, a commonly occurring natural zeolite mineral, was composted with organic waste to produce...

The Maramures Basin, in the Carpathian mountain belt of northern Romania on the border with the Ukraine, belongs to the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin. In the study area, extensional tectonic movements during the Miocene were coeval with silicic and intermediate volcanism in the inner part of the Eastern Carpathians. Throughout this region, ex...

The pseudomorphic replacement of glass shards by zeolite minerals is a common feature of volcanoclastic sediments. In the majority of cases the initial stage of this reaction is the alteration of the glass surface to a clay mineral or celadonite after which the bulk of the glass is altered to zeolite. This replacement feature is seen particularly w...

Land south of Lille, contaminated by heavy metals from local metal refining, has become the subject of intensive research. Topsoil from this area is used in the current work to investigate the growth behaviour of Spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L., cv. Paragon) when amended with organo-zeolitic fertilizer. Research has shown that soil substrates am...

α-decay damage and recrystallization in natural zircon (with dose ranging from 0.06 to 23.3×1018 α-events g-1) were studied using polarized reflection infrared spectroscopy. The experimental results show that α-decay damage leads to a gradual decrease in reflectivity and a loss of anisotropy of IR spectra. Recrystallization of damaged zircon is fou...

This work concerns a series of experiments designed to test and understand the effect of ammoniated zeolite on plant growth. The affinity of the zeolite mineral clinoptilolite for NH4+ is utilised in organo-zeolitic substrates to enhance plant growth. By comparing plants grown in substrates with and without ammoniated zeolite, an increase in plant...

The argillised granites in the St. Austell area of Cornwell form a major part of the economically important southwest England kaolinitic clay deposits. Theoretical considerations and evidence from previous GPR surveys indicated that the strong electromagnetic wave attenuation properties of clay minerals would allow GPR to distinguish clay from unal...

Research on the natural variation of the isotopic species of hydrogen and oxygen has led to a firm understanding of the physical processes involved in the isotopic fractionation of these elements in water. Although much use has been made of artificially introduced chemical tracers to investigate flow patterns and characterise the groundwater, this...

A new method of continuous subsurface profiling that employs a ground impulse radar system is described. Its application as a tool for shallow geological investigation is illustrated by several surveys recently carried out with a commercially available system. -from Author

Geochronological reconnaissance ofthe Uganda basement suggests that the Watian Granulites of the West Nile are the oldest rocks. These rocks have been closed chemical systems for at least 2880 m.y. although throughout the basement they have also been reactivated at about 2550 m.y. This reactivation is seen as a widespread migmatization event involv...

Thirty-one new potassium-argon age determinations from the Archean basement gneisses and overlying metasedimentary sequences define more precisely the effects of the Pan-African episode in Uganda. The majority of mica retention ages from the basement complex gneisses (650 to 540 m.y.) reflect a widespread late Precambrian-early Paleozoic thermal ev...

FOR several years there has been controversy about the ages of the Uganda basement gneisses. Potassium–argon ages of micas from the basement rocks1 range from 600 to 415 m.y. whereas results for the apparently unconformably overlying Karagwe–Ankolean and Buganda–Toro sedimentary systems2,3 to the south (around the north end of Lake Victoria) sugges...

Eighteen potash felspars from the potash felspar gneisses of the Connemara migmatite belt have been partially analysed and the associated plagioclase optically determined. Comparisons have been made with seventeen similar felspar pairs from the Galway Granite. Albite components are expressed graphically in an attempt to illustrate sodium distributi...

Thirty-eight whole-rock samples of Connemara granites give the following Rb-Sr whole-rock ages: Galway granite, 384 ± 1 m.y.; Omey granite, 388 ± 17m.y.; Roundstone granite, 395±80m.y.; Inisk granite, 404±8m.y.; Oughterard granite, 510 ± 35m.y.; potashfeldspar gneisses, 725± 175m.y. As the field evidence shows that the Oughterard granite was intrud...

Rb‐Sr age measurements are reported for acid volcanic rocks, a tuffaceous siltstone, and two granites, all of Precambrian age, from the northwest division of Western Australia. The lava samples are from four localities within the Woongarra Volcanics, a formation situated near the top of the “Proterozoic” Hamersley Group, formerly a part of the “Nul...

Potassium‐argon and rubidium‐strontium isotopic age measurements show that emplacement of granitic rocks in Tasmania occurred during the Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous and in pre‐Devonian times, possibly in the Cambrian. In addition, a Precambrian granite, dated at about 750 m.y., has been recognized on the west coast of King Island.The gran...

Contrary to a previously published view, evidence is given to show that the Galway Granite is entirely later than both the quartzandesine migmatization and the potash-felspar migmatization in Connemara, and that the Oughterard Granite is probably earlier than the Galway Granite, not later. There is also strong evidence against regarding the foliate...