Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The chemistry of natural solids (rocks, sediments, minerals and biominerals, as well as surface layers and nano particles) and fluids are functions of the processes by which they formed and the environment(s) they formed, or are located, in. The concentration and distributions of suites of trace elements (and isotopes) in these solids and fluids provide information on their formational processes as well as the environment(s) they have been/are in contact with. Ongoing advances in analytical instrumentation and methodology are enabling new approaches to studying and modeling these systems and this interplay is the focus of this research proposal. ) My research will develop new, and improve existing, geochemical analytical methods and approaches and apply them to selected studies of earth and surficial environmental processes. I will utilize the state of the art micro analytical facility at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), to study the mechanisms by which natural solids and fluids and the systems in which they formed have evolved. This work will utilize both experimental and empirical approaches. A principle objective of this work is to explore the use of the new trace analytical capabilities that have been developed over the last decade, at the scale (a few to 10's of micrometers) needed to provide mechanistic information on processes important in geological and the environmental sciences. I will also utilize several geological/environmental systems to explore the application of detailed trace element and isotopic distributions as environmental tracers for understanding mechanisms of element incorporation during crystal and biomineral growth as well as the evolution of natural fluids and environmental systems.