Publications
Dive into our publications and explore the science from the Environmental Health Program (Toxic Substances Hydrology and Contaminant Biology).
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Modules based on the geochemical model PHREEQC for use in scripting and programming languages
The geochemical model PHREEQC is capable of simulating a wide range of equilibrium reactions between water and minerals, ion exchangers, surface complexes, solid solutions, and gases. It also has a general kinetic formulation that allows modeling of nonequilibrium mineral dissolution and precipitation, microbial reactions, decomposition of organic compounds, and other kinetic reactions. To facilit
Authors
Scott R. Charlton, David L. Parkhurst
Mercury export from the Yukon River Basin and potential response to a changing climate
We measured mercury (Hg) concentrations and calculated export and yield from the Yukon River Basin (YRB) to quantify Hg flux from a large, permafrost-dominated, high-latitude watershed. Exports of Hg averaged 4400 kg Hg yr-1. The average annual yield for the YRB during the study period was 5.17 μg m-2 yr-1, which is 3–32 times more than Hg yields reported for 8 other major northern hemisphere rive
Authors
Paul F. Schuster, Robert G. Striegl, George R. Aiken, David P. Krabbenhoft, John F. DeWild, Kenna D. Butler, Ben Kamark, Mark Dornblaser
Hydrogeochemical processes governing the origin, transport and fate of major and trace elements from mine wastes and mineralized rock to surface waters
The formation of acid mine drainage from metals extraction or natural acid rock drainage and its mixing with surface waters is a complex process that depends on petrology and mineralogy, structural geology, geomorphology, surface-water hydrology, hydrogeology, climatology, microbiology, chemistry, and mining and mineral processing history. The concentrations of metals, metalloids, acidity, alkalin
Authors
D. Kirk Nordstrom
Interacting vegetative and thermal contributions to water movement in desert soil
Thermally driven water-vapor flow can be an important component of total water movement in bare soil and in deep unsaturated zones, but this process is often neglected when considering the effects of soil–plant–atmosphere interactions on shallow water movement. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the coupled and separate effects of vegetative and thermal-gradient contributions to soil wa
Authors
C.A. Garcia, Brian J. Andraski, David A. Stonestrom, C.A. Cooper, J. Šimůnek, S.W. Wheatcraft
Biogeochemical evolution of a landfill leachate plume, Norman, Oklahoma
Leachate from municipal landfills can create groundwater contaminant plumes that may last for decades to centuries. The fate of reactive contaminants in leachate-affected aquifers depends on the sustainability of biogeochemical processes affecting contaminant transport. Temporal variations in the configuration of redox zones downgradient from the Norman Landfill were studied for more than a decade
Authors
Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, John K. Böhlke, Jason R. Masoner, George N. Breit, Michelle M. Lorah, Michele L. Tuttle, Jeanne B. Jaeschke
Atomic weights: No longer constants of nature
Many of us were taught that the standard atomic weights we found in the back of our chemistry textbooks or on the Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements hanging on the wall of our chemistry classroom are constants of nature. This was common knowledge for more than a century and a half, but not anymore. The following text explains how advances in chemical instrumentation and isotopic analysis have
Authors
Tyler B. Coplen, Norman E. Holden
MercNet: A national monitoring network to assess responses to changing mercury emissions in the United States
A partnership of federal and state agencies, tribes, industry, and scientists from academic research and environmental organizations is establishing a national, policy-relevant mercury monitoring network, called MercNet, to address key questions concerning changes in anthropogenic mercury emissions and deposition, associated linkages to ecosystem effects, and recovery from mercury contamination. T
Authors
D. Schmeltz, D.C. Evers, C. T. Driscoll, R. Artz, M. Cohen, D. Gay, R. Haeuber, D. P. Krabbenhoft, R. Mason, K. Morris, J.G. Wiener
Projected evolution of California's San Francisco bay-delta-river system in a century of climate change
Background: Accumulating evidence shows that the planet is warming as a response to human emissions of greenhouse gases. Strategies of adaptation to climate change will require quantitative projections of how altered regional patterns of temperature, precipitation and sea level could cascade to provoke local impacts such as modified water supplies, increasing risks of coastal flooding, and growing
Authors
James E. Cloern, Noah Knowles, Larry R. Brown, Daniel R. Cayan, Michael D. Dettinger, Tara L. Morgan, David H. Schoellhamer, Mark T. Stacey, Mick Van der Wegen, R.W. Wagner, Alan D. Jassby
Behavioral, clinical, and pathological characterization of acid metalliferous water toxicity in mallards
From September to November 2000, United States Fish and Wildlife Service biologists investigated incidents involving 221 bird deaths at 3 mine sites located in New Mexico and Arizona. These bird deaths primarily involved passerine and waterfowl species and were assumed to be linked to consumption of acid metalliferous water (AMW). Because all of the carcasses were found in or near pregnant leach s
Authors
J.P. Isanhart, H. Wu, K. Pandher, R.K. MacRae, S.B. Cox, M.J. Hooper
Mercury export from the Yukon River Basin and potential response to a changing climate
We measured mercury (Hg) concentrations and calculated export and yield from the Yukon River Basin (YRB) to quantify Hg flux from a large, permafrost-dominated, high-latitude watershed. Exports of Hg averaged 4400 kg Hg yr–1. The average annual yield for the YRB during the study period was 5.17 μg m–2 yr–1, which is 3–32 times more than Hg yields reported for 8 other major northern hemisphere rive
Authors
P. F. Schuster, Robert G. Striegl, G. R. Aiken, David P. Krabbenhoft, J. F. Dewild, K. Butler, B. Kamark, M. Dornblaser
In situ rates of sulfate reduction in response to geochemical perturbations
Rates of in situ microbial sulfate reduction in response to geochemical perturbations were determined using Native Organism Geochemical Experimentation Enclosures (NOGEEs), a new in situ technique developed to facilitate evaluation of controls on microbial reaction rates. NOGEEs function by first trapping a native microbial community in situ and then subjecting it to geochemical perturbations thro
Authors
T.A. Kneeshaw, J.T. McGuire, Isabelle M. Cozzarelli, E.W. Smith
A computer program for flow-log analysis of single holes (FLASH)
A new computer program, FLASH (Flow-Log Analysis of Single Holes), is presented for the analysis of borehole vertical flow logs. The code is based on an analytical solution for steady-state multilayer radial flow to a borehole. The code includes options for (1) discrete fractures and (2) multilayer aquifers. Given vertical flow profiles collected under both ambient and stressed (pumping or injecti
Authors
F. D. Day-Lewis, C. D. Johnson, Frederick L. Paillet, K. J. Halford