Geochemistry Commons^™

The Astrobiological Figure Of Humboldt As Pioneer In The Rock Varnish Research, Jose Jordan-Soria

Homage to Alexander von Humboldt: Travels to and from Spain Throughout the Centuries / Homenaje a Alexander von Humboldt: Viajes hacia y desde España de todos los siglos

From Humboldt is particularly interesting -and little know- his description of mineral coatings on rocks 200 years ago, reported in his book Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the years 1799-1804, co-written with Aimé Bonpland, for which is considerate the father of rock coating research. On June 5th 1799 set sail from A Coruña -Spain- to Cumaná -Venezuela- beginning five years of expedition. While they explored the Orinoco River system, in th eriver basin waterfalls, Humboldt observed the presence of dark coating depositions. He ascertained a manganese-rich accretion, reporting similar structures in other …

08 - Blue Carbon Sequestration And Sediment Storage In Seagrass Meadows Of South Bay, Luke C. Clements, Adriana Amrhein, Richard P. Hale

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Blue carbon is stored in coastal and marine ecosystems like seagrass meadows and salt marshes, which helps combat climate change by preventing greenhouse gas emissions. This study examines the role of seagrass in carbon storage by comparing sediment cores from a mud channel and a seagrass meadow in South Bay.

We collected a 100 cm core from the mud channel and a 55 cm core from the seagrass area, taking samples every 10 cm to analyze grain size and organic carbon content. Using a wet sieving method, we separated sand from mud and measured organic carbon through loss on ignition. …

Evaluating Reclaimed Mines And Heavy Metal Soil Contamination, Torin A. Matthews

ATU Scholars Symposium

Arkansas has a rich history of lead and zinc mining. While there are still some active mines, many historical mines have been abandoned and/or reclaimed. Although most reclamation procedures result in the burial and containment of target minerals, accessory minerals and elements can be leached out of waste materials/tailings piles and include heavy metals (i.e., Pb, As, Cd). We aim to evaluate the soil and watershed of a few abandoned/reclaimed mines in Pope County, AR, for the presence of heavy metals/source minerals. Soil and stream sediment geochemistry will be conducted using a portable x-ray fluorescence analyzer. Field work and sampling …

The Phosphorus Puzzle: Why Metal Phosphites Could Be The Missing Piece, Eleanor Boyle, Thomas J. Leyden Iii

Symposium of Student Scholars

It is well understood that phosphorylation of organic molecules is a keystone mechanism toward developing early cell function. However, the source of phosphorous in prebiotic chemistry is under debate. Phosphate minerals were abundant on the early Earth, but they are highly insoluble. In comparison, metal phosphites are significantly more soluble. While they may not have been preserved in the geological record, there are several plausible pathways for their formation under prebiotic conditions. We hypothesize that metal phosphites were a major source of phosphorus. To test our hypothesis, we synthesized and characterized metal phosphites, containing the most abundant cations on the …

Geoarchaeology Of The 1926 Seeberger Excavation - Jackson County, Iowa, Nicolas Duffy, Chad Heinzel Ph.D., Faith Luce, William Green

Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Symposium

In 1926, Paul Nesbitt discovered around 350 shards of clay pottery in Seeberger Cave, located 6 miles north of Maquoketa, Iowa. It is unknown if these artifacts were made in Iowa, or brought over from neighboring states. For this project, Dr. Heinzel, Faith Luce and I traveled to the area to collect samples of clay and stone. We got close to the cave, but didn’t have the equipment to cross the river at the time. The area we collected our samples from is about 600 meters away from the original site. The samples will be used to characterize the site, …

Revisiting The Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary In Western Kentucky, Usa, Jarred Asselta

Scholars Week

This study revisits a Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) sedimentary section in western Kentucky to determine the nature of this boundary and the depositional environments. Although previous pollen work identified the boundary over four decades ago, to our knowledge no work has been carried out at this important K-Pg boundary site. A combination of stratigraphy and sedimentology were used to characterize the section in detail. Bulk and oriented samples were collected for grain-size, geochemical, and petrographic analysis. We relocated the site and measured 1.5m of section that includes the K-Pg boundary. Four distinct units were identified and from base to top of section …

200— Chemical Analysis Of Slag From Standish, Ny, Maria Leonard, Dori Farthing

GREAT Day Posters

From 1883 to 1907, magnetite was smelted in Standish, NY. During this time, a large amount of slag, a byproduct of smelting, was created. The slag is now in a pile that covers ~13 acres in the northeastern region of the Adirondacks. The slag at the site has been classified into 6 broad types based on their physical properties. Exemplars of select types were crushed and analyzed by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF). Both major elements and trace element data was collected for these samples. The XRF results indicate that all Standish slag is dominated by SiO2, CaO, and Fe2O3(t) regardless …

369— Comparison Of Wilkins Creek And Spring Creek Stream Chemistries, Victoria Taylor, Brooke Stickles

GREAT Day Posters

A stream's chemistry and health can be affected by seasonal fluctuations, environment and land usage. Wilkins Creek and Spring Creek are tributaries of Conesus Lake located in Livonia, New York. The two streams flow through varying terrain. Wilkins Creek flows predominantly through wetlands, residential and agricultural land. Spring Creek runs through the village of Livonia. The different environments may result in altered stream chemistries. An analysis of water chemistry was taken at different points in Wilkins Creek and Spring Creek before they converged. Alkalinity, chloride, oxygen, pH, conductivity, and water temperature were measured at each location. Samples were collected and …

Geochemical Analyses Of Base Metals In Sediments And Stream Water Black Cypress Bayou, Marion County, Texas, Melanie L. Ertons

Undergraduate Research Conference

Black Cypress Bayou is a primary tributary of Caddo Lake watershed in eastern Texas. The watershed is underlain by Eocene-aged strata from the Wilcox and Claiborne groups, which represent transgressive/regressive shoreline fluctuations that deposited interbedded friable sandstones and mudstones. The Wilcox Group is of special interest because it contains lignite coal, which has a direct link to heavy metals in sediment and natural waters. Caddo Lake has been listed on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality 303(d) list for impairment due to mercury in edible tissue since 1995 and Black Cypress Bayou has been listed for impaired waters due to …

A Terrestrial Reconstruction Of Gona, Ethiopia Before And During The African Humid Period, Marie N. White, Gary E. Stinchcomb

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The African Humid Period (AHP) resulted in more humid conditions across Northern and Eastern Africa from 15 to 5 thousand years ago (ka). This wetter climate affected flora, fauna and the Homo sapiens living in East Africa. The lack of terrestrial paleoenvironmental reconstructions is a problem in East Africa, especially during the AHP, where most are done utilizing lacustrine or marine proxies. In the case of Gona, Ethiopia, terrestrial proxies are desired due to the rich archaeological and fossil concentrations that occur in the area. Paleosols provide more direct, localized reconstructions that provide context for these finds. This study utilizes …

Geochemical Analysis Of The Chinchín Formation In Southern Ecuador, Katherine Ludwig

Celebration of Learning

The subduction of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate has led to the uplift of the majority of the Andes Mountains, but in Ecuador, the Nazca Plate subducts underneath the North Andes Plate, which then collides with the South American Plate. This tectonic setting has formed two parallel mountain chains as well as a complex series of basins between them. However, the formations that make up these basins are poorly understood. This study focuses on the Chinchín Formation, an ~3.5 km thick, volcanic formation that serves as the bedrock of the Quingeo Basin in southern Ecuador. This study …

Living In The World Of Manmade Chemicals: Lessons Learned From The Migrations And Collapses Of Civilizations, Satish Myneni

Sustainability Seminar Series

Many of the world’s natural surface and groundwater resources are getting contaminated with an increasing number of manmade chemicals, which include farm and household insecticides, industrial pollutants, and pharmaceuticals. As the sizes of potable water bodies are decreasing steeply, it is warranted that we find economic ways to preserve, and purify the available water resources. In this presentation, a discussion on two of the naturally occurring and most widespread contaminants in the world and their human exposure, how one of these contaminants contributed possibly to a collapse of a thriving ancient civilization and the lessons one can learn from these, …

Are The Oxygen Isotope Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Different From The Open Ocean?, Camille H. Dwyer, Corinne Myers, Viorel Atudorei

Shared Knowledge Conference

The Western Interior Seaway (WIS) was a North American epicontinental sea that was connected to the open ocean through the passage of the northern Boreal Sea and the southern Tethys Sea from the early Albian (~113 million years ago) to the early Paleogene (~65 million years ago). The WIS began to recced and lost its connection to the southern Tethys Sea in the late Campanian (~72 million years ago). In the early Paleogene, the WIS dried up completely. The oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of benthic bivalves was measured from the upper Campanian and lower Maastrichtian (75 million years ago to …

Natural Trace Element Salinization Of The Jemez River, New Mexico By Geothermal Springs And Major Tributaries, Jon K. Golla, Laura J. Crossey, Abdul-Mehdi S. Ali, Karl E. Karlstrom

Shared Knowledge Conference

The Jemez River (JR), a tributary of the Rio Grande, is in north-central New Mexico within the Jemez Mountains, which houses the active, high-temperature (≤ 300 oC), liquid-dominated Valles Caldera geothermal system (VC). This work focuses on the northern portion of the JR, spanning a reach from the East Fork JR to the town of San Ysidro. Previous decadal work during low-flow or baseflow conditions (~10-20 cfs) has identified and characterized significant major-solute contributions from two outflow expressions of the VC, Soda Dam Springs and Jemez Hot Springs, and two major tributaries, Rio San Antonio and Rio Guadalupe. There is …

Longitudinal Study Of Water Quality In Jennings Creek, Bowling Green, Kentucky: Urbanization Impacts On Karst Groundwater, Lea Mitchell, Jason S. Polk, Rachel Kaiser, Ethan Givan, Kegan Mcclanahan

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Karst groundwater systems, which occur in areas where caves, sinkholes, and underground rivers dominate the landscape, are vulnerable to pollution from surface contaminants. In urban areas, like Bowling Green, Kentucky, which is home to extensive caves and groundwater supplies, the immediate transport of heavy metals, organic waste, chemicals, and other pollutants from surface activities into groundwater poses a serious threat. This research project was done to examine the water quality of urban karst sites in Bowling Green, Kentucky at Jennings Creek, which is a local river primarily fed from springs; the water quality of Jennings Creek was never tested before …

Groundwater Contamination At Coal Ash Deposit Sites In Kentucky, Brandon Rose

Scholars Week

No abstract provided.

Theory On Thermodynamic Constraints To Biogeochemical And Metabolic Diversity, Jordan Okie, Everett Shock

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Hydrochemical Characteristics And Formation Mechanism Of Groundwater In The Liulin Karst System, Min Yang, Feng'e Zhang, Sheng Zhang, Miying Yin, Guoqing Wu

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The Liulin karst system is typical of hydrogeological systems in northwestern China, with a group of springs as the dominant mechanism for regional groundwater discharge. To reveal the hydrochemical formation mechanism of the Liulin karst groundwater system, we studied the hydrogeochemical processes of karst groundwater in aquifers at the base of the hydrogeological investigation. Then starting from the chemical composition of karst groundwater together with the recharge-runoff - discharge process of groundwater systems, we analyzed the solutes origin and the dissolved mineral facies of the groundwater chemical composition. The results showed that the anionic and cationic compositions of karst water …

Determination Of The Relationship Of Nitrate To Discharge And Flow Systems In North Florida Springs, Sam B. Upchurch

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The Suwannee River Water Management District has collected quarterly discharge and water quality data from 30 1st and 2nd magnitude springs in the Suwannee River Basin since 1998. These data were collected quarterly well into the late 2000s and constitute a valuable database for characterizing spring discharge behavior. Trend and correlation analyses were used to compare the relationships of NO3- + NO2- (nitrate in this paper), specific conductance, and spring discharge. Trends were considered significant if alpha levels of the trend slopes were ≤ 0.05. Data from 50% of the springs show that nitrate concentrations increase as discharge from the …

Using Nitrate, Chloride, Sodium, And Sulfate To Calculate Groundwater Age, Kimm Crawford, Terry Lee

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Regression analysis is used to identify monotonic trends to assign water age using ion data from two large well water databases from southeast Minnesota (SE MN). Nitrate (NO3-N), chloride (Cl), sodium (Na), and sulfate (SO4) ions in the commonly used aquifers in SE MN can be used as groundwater tracers since they are either entirely or partly anthropogenic in their sources, their loading occurs on a regional scale, and they are almost entirely conserved. Ion concentrations over time are used to establish six trend patterns. Two patterns are unchanging (background and stable above background), and four are changing (linear up, …

Hydrologic And Geochemical Dynamics Of Vadose Zone Recharge In A Mantled Karst Aquifer: Results Of Monitoring Drip Waters In Mystery Cave, Minnesota, Daniel H. Doctor, E. Calvin Alexander Jr., Roy Jameson, Scott C. Alexander

Sinkhole Conference 2015

Caves provide direct access to flows through the vadose zone that recharge karst aquifers. Although many recent studies have documented the highly dynamic processes associated with vadose zone flows in karst settings, few have been conducted in mantled karst settings, such as that of southeastern Minnesota. Here we present some results of a long-term program of cave drip monitoring conducted within Mystery Cave, Minnesota. In this study, two perennial ceiling drip sites were monitored between 1997 and 2001. The sites were located about 90 m (300 ft) apart along the same cave passage approximately 18 m (60 ft) below the …

Tracer Studies Conducted Nearly Two Decades Apart Elucidate Groundwater Movement Through A Karst Aquifer In The Frederick Valley Of Maryland, Keith A. White, Michael K. Cobb, Thomas Aley, Ethan Weikel

Sinkhole Conference 2015

A pair of groundwater tracer studies at a single karst test site were completed 18 years apart. The results of these studies have provided evidence of both relatively rapid advective transport via conduits and an extreme capacity for dye storage and retardation. The tracer results, coupled with other subsurface investigation data, are used to develop a conceptual model for groundwater movement through this karst aquifer in the Frederick Valley of Maryland, as well as identify implications for remediation. Three fluorescent tracer dyes used in the initial study were detected in several background monitoring locations established for the second study conducted …

Driftless Area Karst Of Northwestern Illinois And Its Effects On Groundwater Quality, Samuel V. Panno, Walton R. Kelly

Sinkhole Conference 2015

The bedrock aquifer of the Driftless Area of northwestern Illinois is Ordovician-age Galena Dolomite. Previous work by the authors and others showed that the geology and hydrogeology of this area fall well within the definition of karst. Bedrock in the study area has been shown to be extensively fractured and creviced; karst features in the county are dominated by solution-enlarged crevices from 0.4 inches to 3 feet wide within most road cuts and quarries examined. Other karst features include cover-collapse sinkholes ranging from 3 to 25 feet in diameter overlying Galena Dolomite, karst springs and crevice caves. A preliminary evaluation …

The Monica (Monitoring Of Ice Within Caves) Project: A Multidisciplinary Approach For The Geophysical And Paleoclimatic Characterization Of Permanent Ice Deposits In The Southeastern Alps, Renato R. Colucci, Emanuele Forte, Barbara Stenni, Marco Basso Bondini, Mauro Colle Fontana, Costanza Del Gobbo, Daniele Fontana, Doriana Belligoi, Valter Maggi, Marco Filipazzi

The International Workshop on Ice Caves

On days 30 September and 1-2 October 2013, a 7.8 m long ice core has been extracted from a permanent ice cave deposit in the Southeastern Alps (Vasto’s cave, Mt.Canin - Julian Alps). Each 20 to 100 cm long section of the ice core have been immediately stored in plastic bags and preserved thanks to dry ice. The ice samples, thanks to the helicopter, has been subsequently brought on valley and promptly stored in a refrigerated van, made available by BoFrost. Thus the ice cores has been transported intact to the EUROCOLD laboratory in Milan. These operations have been carried …

Ice Caves On Extraterrestrial Bodies: What Are The Prospects For Speleogenesis And Detection?, Penelope J. Boston

The International Workshop on Ice Caves

Potential mechanisms for creating cavities in icy extraterrestrial bodies have been tentatively explored by several authors. On one hand we have examples of mechanisms that create caves in water ice here on Earth. In addition, there may be unique mechanisms on other Solar System objects that do not occur on Earth but might produce cavities, e.g. sublimation of comets upon perihelion passage. The methods of detecting such cavities depend upon the nature of the icy body in question, the potential for orbital or landed missions to visit those bodies in the future, and remote or landed methods for detecting the …

Connecting Aerial Gamma Ray Surveys And Geochemical Data, Kara Marsac, Pamela Burnley, Elisabeth Hausrath, Russell Malchow, Daniel Haber

NSTec UNLV Symposium

• Radiation in the Environment
• Aerial Gamma Ray Surveys
• Radiation and Geology
• Collecting Existing Geochemical Data
• Rock Unit Geochemistry
• Model Creation and Comparison

Predictive Modeling Of Radiological Background Using Geochemistry, Daniel Haber, Pamela C. Burnley, Kara Marsac, Russell Malchow, Elisabeth Hausrath, Christopher Adcock

NSTec UNLV Symposium

• Introduction & Background
• Methods
• Models
• Results and Discussion
• Future Work

Water Column Variability In A Coastal Tourist Cave In Mallorca, Spain, Liana M. Boop, Bogdan P. Onac, Jonathan G. Wynn, Joan J. Fornós, Marta Rodríguez-Homar

National Cave and Karst Management Symposium 2013

Coves del Drac is visited by more than 1 million tourists annually and has been a tourist destination in the western Mediterranean for over 100 years. All areas of the cave are developed with historic or current tour route infrastructure, including walkways, handrails, and electric lighting. This study compares one vertical water profile collected along the current tour path with two other profiles from historic tour route locations. Differences in freshwater and organic inputs, as well as direct anthropogenic impacts, are clearly observed in the aquatic parameters and stable isotopes collected in the profiles. Anthropogenically-driven undersaturation in the cave pools, …

Mobile Technology As A Tool For Enhancing Student Learning In Geosciences, Sam Matson

Mobile Learning Symposium

Incorporation of mobile technology into the post-secondary classroom is becoming increasingly common as universities seek to facilitate active, student-centered learning through rapid access to information, connect students with course content through social media, and evaluate digital alternatives to conventional instructor-student interaction. The m-Learning Scholars Program at Boise State University was initiated during the 2010 – 2011 academic year, and provides a venue for exploring the potential of mobile technology to enhance student learning in the geosciences. Through this program, 38 students in an introductory Earth History course for non-geoscience majors each purchased a subsidized handheld device (iPod touch) that they …

Full Conference Program With Abstracts, Jason S. Polk, Leslie A. North

International 2011 Conference on Karst Hydrogeology and Ecosystems

No abstract provided.