Acid Sulfate Soils

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Links

• Western Australians can now access new information on ASS via the Department of Environment and Conservation’s website. A series of factsheets on ASS can be viewed by visiting http://portal.environment.wa.gov.au/portal/page?_pageid=53,7163959&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
• Information Sheet "Acid sulfate soils along the lower River Murray" issued by SA Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation (DWLBC) December 2007
• ABC's Catalyst program 1 May 2008 [external link]
  A special edition of Catalyst investigates fire, flood and acid mud in the Murray Darling Basin.
• Centre for Environmental Contaminants Research - CSIRO Land and Water
• CRC for Landscape Evolution and Mineral Exploration (CRC LEME)
• Australian Soil Resource Information System (ASRIS) website
• Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water
• Department of the Environment - National coastal acid sulphate soils website
• ASSAY is a national, quarterly newsletter about current acid sulfate soil issues. It is funded by the Federal Government's Natural Heritage Trust
• National coastal acid sulfate soil webpage, currently hosted on DEWHA

Publications

Go to CSIRO Land and Water's online publications database and type'acid sulfate soils' into the Search in Title/Abstract field. Also tick 'View online publications only' to see items available online.

Images

To view some images of acid sulfate soils:
CSIRO's ScienceImage gallery  It's free to register and view photos, there are charges for reproducing images.
In the search "Keyword/Phrase" box, enter sulfidic to see some photos of ASS

Spelling

There has been some debate and protest about the spelling of the word ‘sulphur’ and the apparent trend to spell it as ‘sulfur’.   The debate and protest is not confined to Australia and is going on in many countries.  Note too that in some countries ‘phosphorus’ can be spelled ‘fosforus'.

Much of the variation in spelling arises from scientific spelling as opposed to usage in day to day literature.  About 20 years ago, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the equivalent of a ‘United Nations’ of world chemistry, and other scientific organisations adopted the ‘sulfur’ form.  For scientific correctness, most scientists have followed this form.  The Australian journals of science have also adopted this spelling. 

As outlined below in a segment quoted from Wikipedia, sulfur is a word of Latin origin and late Latin used the ‘f’ form of the word.  The ‘ph’ spelling to denote the ‘f’ sound is of Greek origin, hence the spelling of the Greek ‘phosphorus’. 

Really it boils down to choice, but it is likely that scientists in Australia will increasingly use ‘sulfur’ and this spelling will be taught in school science.   Non-scientists can probably use what spelling they like, but should accept that scientists will use the recommended form, if only because the journals they publish in follow the IUPAC decision.

To quote from Wikipedia: [external link]

Spelling and etymology

The element has traditionally been spelled sulphur in the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth including India, Malaysia, South Africa and Hong Kong, along with the rest of the Caribbean and Ireland, but sulfur in the United States, while both spellings are used in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. IUPAC adopted the spelling “sulfur” in 1990, as did the Royal Society of Chemistry Nomenclature Committee in 1992 and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority for England and Wales recommended its use in 2000.[3]

In Latin, the word is variously written sulpur, sulphur, and sulfur (the Oxford Latin Dictionary lists the spellings in this order). It means brimstone. It is an original Latin name and not a Classical Greek loan, so the ph variant does not denote the Greek letter φ. Sulfur in Greek is thion (θείον), whence comes the prefix thio-. The simplification of the Latin word's p or ph to an f appears to have taken place towards the end of the classical period, with the f spelling becoming dominant in the medieval period.