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Magma is extremely hot—between 700° and 1,300° Celsius (1,292° and 2,372° Fahrenheit). This heat makes magma a fluid, able to create new landforms. The heat also makes physical and chemical changes to old landforms.There are many types of magma. One is called felsic magma. Felsic magma is thick (high viscosity) and has much of a mineral called silica. It mostly makes light-coloured rocks. Another type is called mafic magma, which is runny and has less silica. It usually makes dark-coloured rocks. A third type is intermediate magma. It is like both the other types.When magma becomes solid it’s usually by cooling slowly, far below the surface. This makes “plutonic” rocks such as granite. When magma comes out from the ground in a volcano and it is still melted, it is called lava. Lava cools more quickly, and forms other kinds of rock such as basalt. When magma is ejected by a volcano or other vent, the material is called lava. Magma that has cooled into a solid is called igneous rock.

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Lava, magma (molten rock) emerging as a liquid onto Earth’s surface. The term lava is also used for the solidified rock formed by the cooling of a molten lava flow. The temperatures of molten lava range from about 700 to 1,200 °C (1,300 to 2,200 °F). The material can be very fluid, flowing almost like syrup, or it can be extremely stiff, scarcely flowing at all. The higher the lava’s silica content, the higher its viscosity. Mafic (ferromagnesian, dark-coloured) lavas such as basalt characteristically form flows known by the Hawaiian names pahoehoe and aa (or a’a). Pahoehoe lava flows are characterized by smooth, gently undulating, or broadly hummocky surfaces. The liquid lava flowing beneath a thin, still-plastic crust drags and wrinkles it into tapestry-like folds and rolls resembling twisted rope. Pahoehoe lava flows are fed almost wholly internally by streams of liquid lava flowing beneath a solidified or partly solidified surface. Typically, the margin of a pahoehoe flow advances by protruding one small toe or lobe after another. In contrast to pahoehoe, the surface of aa lava is exceedingly rough, covered with a layer of partly loose, very irregular fragments commonly called clinkers. Aa lava flows are fed principally by rivers of liquid lava flowing in open channels. Typically, such a feeding river forms a narrow band that is 8 to 15 metres (25 to 50 feet) wide along the centre line of the flow, with broad fields of less actively moving clinker on each side of it. At the front of the flow, clinkers from the top roll down and are overridden by the pasty centre layer, like a tread on an advancing bulldozer.

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Synthetic organic compounds are widely used on large scale in different areas such as manufacturing processes, production, and preservation of food, for human and animal healthcare. A diverse array of sources responsible for the release of organic pollutants into the environment includes combustion of fossil fuels, chemical industries, traffic, pesticides used in agriculture area, and water treatment using chlorination. The occurrence of these chemicals exposes severe hazard to human health, ecosystem, and living organisms.One of the major class of toxic organic compounds is persistent organic pollutants (POPs) released in the environment by different human activities. These chemical substances become a major concern because of their persistence, toxicity, bioaccumulation, and susceptibility. POPs are halogenated organic compounds resistant to biological, photolytic, and chemical degradation. POPs are the world’s most harmful chemicals including dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and by-products such as dioxins and furans, etc. The continuous discharge of dangerous pollutants into the soil, water, and sediments imparts drastic effects on the whole world.POPs include PCBs, organochlorine pesticides, DDT, hexachlorobenzene, and other by-products of industrial processes including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. These organic pollutants are synthetic, persistent, lipophilic, highly toxic, and accumulate in the food chain. POPs bioaccumulate in adipose tissue and increase the risk of adverse health effects to infants. The individual organic compounds have diverse toxicological properties which impart adverse biological effects in fish, wildlife, and humans.Also, the highest levels of POPs are found in marine mammals, which lead to vitamin and thyroid deficiencies and cause microbial infections and reproductive disorders.

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The presence of toxic organic compounds in water because of the continuous practice of industrial effluents has led to the global need for generation of new, improved, advanced, and sound technologies to address the challenges of water quality. Effluents released from petrochemical refineries generate various wastes that cause water pollution and exert adverse effects because of their harmful properties such as carcinogenicity and mutagenicity. Phenols and their derivatives are common potential water pollutants and comprise a wide range of organic chemicals exhibiting poisonous characteristics. In this series, cresols are one of the types of phenols that are also considered as highly toxic pollutant because of carcinogen effect on environmental surroundings and human health issues. Therefore, it is imperative that the levels of phenols in wastewater must be reduced before discharge into the environment. Henceforth, the current chapter based on effective biodegradation and photodegradation method as well as related technologies for the remediation of organic pollutants from wastewater.

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In recent decades, rapid industrialization has significantly increased the level of toxic and hazardous chemicals in the environment which further adversely affects human health and the other organisms as well in one hand. While on the other, a rapidly mounting human population and their demand for food, fuel, and other necessities have remarkably increased the complexity of toxic effluents in the air, soil, and water. Conventional approaches to remove these contaminants from the environment are time- and cost-consuming. Recent understating of microbial metabolism, their occurrence in a diverse environment, cost-effectiveness, and eco-friendly nature has made them suitable for remediation of the environmental pollutants. Among these cyanobacteria are common phototropic microorganisms which play a distinct role in the ecosystem and can survive in a variety of environment. Diazotrophic cyanobacteria are capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen and carbon and thus increase the fertility of the contaminated soil, and they are being used for reclamation of usar/alkali soil in one way, while on other contributes to a significant proportion in global carbon fixation.Additionally, they are capable enough to remove/degrade the heavy metals from the contaminated sites by modifying their metabolic activities. Desirable traits of these microbes can be obtained by genetic engineering with increased efficiency to degrade the organic pollutants. In this chapter, the contribution of cyanobacteria to environmental remediation has been discussed.

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The accumulations of waste and hazardous material have often increased toxicity level in nature, causing several adverse effects including human health. At present, the incineration is widely used as common method for remediation; however, it has several limitations. One of the alternative approaches to incineration is bioremediation that exploits the potential microorganisms for abolishing the accumulated pollutants in nature. Fungi are among potential candidates producing various hydrolyzing enzymes that play a significant role in decomposing the waste materials and adapt to different environmental conditions which enables them to survive in diverse condition. Therefore, it is required to identify the fungal species targeting to certain pollutant for achieving an effective mycoremediation. This chapter describes the different fungal groups with their habitat and potential role in bioremediation of hazardous material occurring in environment. The several fungal strains in nature are producing numerous enzymes, viz. hydrolases, lyases, transferases, and oxidoreductases, and decomposing and detoxifying the different pollutants and materials. The application of fungi in bioremediation for different toxic waste materials with details of the bioremediation pathways and fungal stains has also been described for the development of potential technology for removal of pollutant and toxic materials from environment.

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Over last few decades, environmental contaminants have emerged as the severe concern to the productivity of number of natural ecosystem. Rapid industrialization in developed countries and indiscriminate overexploitation of chemical fertilizers in developing countries are the important factors responsible for changing environmental conditions. In addition, anthropogenic activities such as mining activities, huge amount of wastewater discharge, and xenobiotics application and natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions and rock weathering have directly or indirectly affected the productivity of plant, soil, and environment and human health. To remediate the hazardous environmental contaminants, various conventional physicochemical methods are presently in practice, but because of their high cost, toxicity, and production of secondary pollutants, the process is still inefficient for large-scale application. In this context, management using biological agents such as microbes or specific plants is being practiced to remediate the environmental contaminants. This chapter discusses about the environmental contaminants and their impact on the normal functioning of plant, soil, and animals. It has also emphasized on the role of plant growth–promoting bacteria and their potential mechanism of action in bioremediation strategies for the management of environmental contaminants.

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Currently the growing human population of the world is facing the challenge of low crop production. Changing climatic conditions and the adverse impact of biotic and abiotic stresses limit the growth and yield of crop production. Currently, a range of abiotic stresses including salinity, draught, heat, cold, accumulation of heavy metals, and xenobiotics not only affect the agricultural productivity but also the heath of human. Salinity is one of the severe stresses that limit the crop production, continuously increasing by an area throughout the world. Salinity largely influenced the root systems, physiology, and external morphology of the plant system. Salinity affects the productivity of the plants by generating reactive oxygen species that works as a signal of stress. For combating the salt stress conditions with the aim of sustainable development, recently, plant growth–promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are used as promising agents to promote the growth, biocontrol, and in the management of biotic and abiotic stresses in the plants. In this chapter, we focused on the salinity stress and the management strategies used by PGPR.

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Petrochemical industry plays major role in Indian economy and growth. However, with rise in energy demand, petrochemical production has also increased, consequently generating complex waste during onshore and offshore exploration, refining, and production of oil. Petrochemical industries are the major source of organic and inorganic toxic pollutants. Organic pollutants primarily consist of complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and are mutagenic, carcinogenic, persistent in environment, and cause adverse affects on the environment and human health. These pollutants are major source of esthetic pollution and ecological disturbance in aquatic life because of their toxicity. Various chemical methods are applied for the removal of these pollutants because of the production of secondary pollutants. Thus, biological techniques are emphasized as ecological sustainable approach. Use of biological technologies in bioremediation is still in developing stages of research. In spite of great success in ex situ conditions, field-based studies are needed for appropriate technology implementation in environmental conditions. In bioremediation, use of bacteria and bacterial consortium was very well used with many advance applications. Mycoremediation (fungal treatment) method and its potential for PAHs removal is infancy. This chapter focuses on use of different fungal strains for the removal of PAHs. The metabolic, cellular, and molecular functioning of fungi has also been discussed in relation to PAHs. A brief discussion on recent trends and methods related to enzymology and fungal pelletization is included for the better understanding of the current research scenario in the field of mycoremediation.

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In recent years, because of strict government legislation and environmental regulation, remediation of dyestuff compounds is a deeply researched topic. The removal of textile dyes from colored industrial effluents is considered as most important for environment protection and sustainability. Effluent released in waterbodies from textile and dye manufacturing industries has adverse impacts on the environment in terms of BOD (biological oxygen demand), COD (chemical oxygen demand), color, suspended solids, salinity, and a wide range of pH (5–12). The ratio of BOD/COD ranges from 0.2 to 0.5, which demonstrates that these effluents contain a large proportion of nonbiodegradable organic matter. Both new and modified techniques were projected chiefly concentrating on successful remediation of recalcitrant dyes from industrial effluent. The biological degradation routes for recalcitrant and xenobiotic pollutant compound have been intensively researched. Biodegradation by the conventional two-stage aerobic/anaerobic activated sludge or immobilized biofilm processes is most generally utilized practice worldwide because of its simplicity and low cost. For the complete abatement of textile dyes from industrial effluent, current obstacles, and future prospects by means of biotechnology-based remediation strategies, intensive study is required.

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