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Toxic gases evolving from the soil in urbanized peatland regions constitute a serious hazard since buildings may be subject to the direct ingress of volatiles into the structures. Peat formed in swamp and rarely exposed to subaerial conditions has been associated with the development of the folded foreland of the Quaternary Kayseri pull-apart basin. The peat deposit is extensively urbanized but so far no studies have evaluated the extent of the ground gas hazard. In this paper, the geology, petrography and chemical variation of the Kayseri peat deposit have been studied in order to predict the public health risk from the land gases' behaviour, especially in soil gases. The main volatile species detected are methane (CH), hydrogen sulphide (HS) and carbon dioxide (CO), all of which are highly toxic. The primary means of gas entry is directly from the ground through the floors, walls, and especially subsurface telephone cable pipes. Indoor vents emit 1000-70,000 ppm CH, 330-49,000 ppm CO and 3.8-6.5 ppm HS in soil and subsurface pipes; concentrations high enough to present an acute respiratory hazard to persons close to the vents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regular consumption of fish has been widely recommended by health authorities. However, it is known that some species accumulate high levels of contaminants including heavy metals (e.g., Hg, Cd, Pb, and As). In this study, Cu, Pb, Co, Ni, Cr, Mn, Cd, and Fe were determined in the muscle tissue of 11 commercially available fish species ( Sparus auratus, Dicentrarchus labrax, Mullus barbatus, Belone belone, Psetta maxima, Epinephelus aeneus, Salmothymus, Soleidae, Pomatomus saltatrix, Engraulis encrasicolus, and Sarda sarda) supplied from retailers in Kayseri, Turkey. Determinations were carried out by flame atomic absorption spectrometry after the wet digestion method. The average metal concentrations of the 11 species were determined in the range of 0.54-1.79, 0.82-1.40, 2.38-4.54, 1.23-3.67, 5.01-5.97, 0.77-3.59, 0.48-1.06, and 5.05-122.8 μg/g wet weight for Cu, Pb, Co, Ni, Cr, Mn, Cd, and Fe, respectively. The permissible tolerable daily intake (PTDI) and calculated daily intake (CDI) values were compared, and the calculated daily intake values of the samples were found to be below the established values. Correlations between the metal contents in samples were investigated by performing correlation tests with SPSS 13.0 for windows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]