GeoSphere

It is already May!! Crazy. Everyone in the department is incredibly busy right now trying to get all of those things on their winter to-do list checked off before it is time to head out to the field once again and re-fill the to-do list for next winter with sample prep, analysis and some interpretation. It is also time to start thinking of preparing for the field. Some of you hard rock folk might think it is a bit early to start prepping since all you need is a hammer, some canvas bags, and….what else do you need? However, for the geochemist it is time to start organizing our MESS aka. Mobile Experimental Sampling Supplies. Yes, I did just make that up, but I think you get my drift.

For real though, there are numerous essential items that every aqueous geochemist/hydrogeologist needs to bring or at least consider bringing into the field and since these type of items often get back ordered around this time of year it pays to start thinking about it early. Otherwise, one could find oneself lacking anything from their new pH meter to bottle caps the day before one leaves. Not that either of these things has ever happened to me…..mistakes are part of learning, right?

Uh-oh! Notice the chipped edges and the crack. These are not good things and this guy ended up in the garbage. (Photo: Ian Clark)

Key parameters that must be measured in the field are pH, Eh/ORP, temperature, alkalinity and conductivity. There are many other parameters that may be measured in the field, but those five are the most essential as they are subject to change once the sample is collected and therefore any long delay in measuring these can compromise the integrity of the data.

The most essential piece of field equipment is probably the pH meter. It is the one completely indispensable measurement that must be taken sitting beside the sampling site. The other four, are essential as well, but if I could only do one, I’d do pH. The reason I am touting pH measurements so highly is simply because in geochemistry so much depends on pH: speciation/redox, dissolved gases, dissolved aqueous complexes, mineral mobility, alkalinity, etc. The list goes on and on. The reason it is so essential to measure pH in the field is because it can often change once the sample is collected due to temperature changes or CO2 degassing. One key thing that must be done before any pH measurements are taken is calibration. It is very important to calibrate the probe at least once each day in order to make sure of getting the most accurate performance.

Our current pH meter and probe: the YSI Pro Plus meter and combination pH/ORP electrode. So far so good, although it has yet to face the rigours of the field. Note the geochemical nature of the background. (Photo: Matt Herod)

The other measurement that goes hand in hand with pH is Eh/ORP (oxidation reduction potential). ORP is a measurement of the oxidation/reduction potential of the water. It measures the electron activity of the water which has a major influence on the specification and solubility of elements and minerals in the water. Eh/ORP measurements are given in volts and often go hand in hand with pH. In fact, many pH probes also measure ORP at the same time so both of these crucial parameters are recorded simultaneously.

Conductivity is another measurement that uses its own probe. Conductivity of a water sample is a measurement of salinity of the water. It is basically a measurement of the ions in solution. Conductivity is not a particularly quantitative measurement in that the numbers that it gives are not super accurate, however, it does provide a very good idea of the relative salinity of different waters. For example a cold freshwater spring might have a very low conductivity whereas a lake after a rainstorm might be very high, due to increased sediment influx from runoff.

A nicer pic of our conductivity meter than I could take. (Source)

Alkalinity is another key field parameter that measures the acid buffering potential of the water sample, which directly corresponds to the concentration of HCO3 in the water, except in rare circumstances, where other species provide the acid buffering capabilities. Alkalinity titrations are a bit of a process, and do take a bit of time, but it is essential to do them ASAP as the loss of CO2 from the water can change the alkalinity. Alkalinity is measured by taking the initial pH and then slowly adding acid using a digital titrator and taking the pH along the way. The keys to this are to know the volume of water being titrated, the volume of acid added and the pH after each acid addition. With those basic numbers the amount of HCO3 can be calculated. The key equipment needed for alkalinity titrations are the pH meter, filtering apparatus, the digital titrator and a flask. By the way, helpful tip: don’t store the acid with the titrator, or make sure the acid is well sealed or else this can happen….and those babies aren’t cheap.

This is what happens when the acid is put away with the titrator. (Photo: Matt Herod)

Other field parameters that can be measured depending on the type of work being done are dissolved oxygen (DO), which is a common parameter in groundwater sampling and ion selective electrode measurements (ISE). ISE’s can provide a guide to the concentrations of certain ions in the field such as Cl, NH4, F, etc. Ion selective electrodes are great, but they often have a higher limit of detection that the mass spec back in the lab. They are very useful for groundwater sampling or contaminated water sites, where the concentration of dissolved ions is high.

So that is the basics on the different things we have to measure in the field, but there is a lot more stuff that has to come out in order to make these measurements possible and take the samples…and it is really, really easy to overlook something. For example, you can have a great pH meter and probes and be ready to go, but it won’t be much use if you forget one of the calibration standards back in the lab a few thousand kilometers away.

The key pieces of this list (if it were mine) include a lot of random, but very necessary, items such as: filter papers, syringes, filter cartridges, DIC/DOC septa, pH standards, AA and AAA batteries, digital titrator tips, acid, de-ionized water for rinsing, instruction manuals, rock hammer, ziploc bags, GPS and many other little things.

The list of stuff that must be brought to the field is dependent on the type of sampling that you are trying to do. The most important part of planning to the go the field is to pick the parameters that you would like to sample for and tailor your gear list, sample collection methods and field measurements to make sure the samples are of the highest quality. Follow these words of wisdom: “Determine what you are analyzing for in advance and collect your samples according to the proper protocols for each analyte!  An analysis can be only as good as the sample that goes into the ICP-MS” – Nimal De Silva (ICP-MS legend). Basically, what this means is that in order to ensure good results the samples must be collected properly, in the proper containers and stored the right way until they are analyzed. Failing to do so could compromise the quality of the results.

Thanks for reading and I would love to hear if I missed anything or if anyone else has field methods/gear that they use for other types of sampling. Please comment!

Wishing everyone a productive field season.

Matt

p.s. I forgot to mention the most important piece of field equipment in the geologists arsenal:

The photo of the week this week is of a very special place in Canada. Yes, predictably, it is the Yukon. However, this part of the Yukon is unique. It is a special region known as Beringia, which extends into Alaska and Siberia and it is the only part of Canada that was not covered by kilometers of ice during the last glaciation. Beringia is a special place because it is believed that that first human inhabitants of North America made their way across the exposed land bridge form Siberia into the Yukon and spread west and south. Geologically, Berinia is interesting as it is full of Pleistocene mammal fossils like mammoths, short faced bears, giant beavers and other giant mammals. It is also strange because of the degree of weathering and erosion that the rocks have undergone is like nowhere else in Canada. Piles of talus may not seem like a big deal to people from other parts of the world, but for a Canadian geologist this is a somewhat unusual sight as most of our mountains had a good scraping 20,000 years ago and we just don’t see this level of weathering anywhere else in the country.

Cheers,

Matt

This edition of the photo of the week highlights another piece from my personal collection.

Cephalopod – Matt Herod Collection (Photo: Matt Herod)

This is a cephalopod. More specifically it is a member of the Order Endocerida and the Family Endoceratidae. This creature, which hopefully you can see was pretty large (golf tee for scale) was the largest of the Ordovician cephalopods found in Ontario and this is a particularly fine/large example mainly because it tapers all the way to the apex at the end, which is a very rare find, and because of its large size (~7ocm). Cepahlopods, such as Endoceras, were the top predators of the Ordovician ocean that once covered most of southern Ontario and they grew up to several metres long. The cephalopods of the past resembled modern squids of today. Indeed, they were the progenitors of the Cretaceous ammonites and the squid and octopi of today’s oceans. If you enjoy calamari, thank a cephalopod!

(Photo: Matt Herod)

This zoomed in look at the cephalopod shows the siphuncle and the suture lines, which divide the inner chambers. The siphuncle was an inner tube that ran the length of the cephalopod and allowed it to control its buoyancy. The fact that the siphucle and sutures are clearly preserved is a great feature of this cephalopod, however, there is more….

When I was extracting this fellow from the giant boulder he was in I was unfortunate enough to break him in several pieces, which I have now super-glued together. But why, you may ask, did I not super-glue him completely together? The answer is pictured below.

(Photo: Matt Herod)

One of the points at which he broke contained this tiny little trilobite, which I am pretty sure is a Bumastus, based on the shape of its pygidium (tail). I decided not to rejoin the parts together so that we could still see this little dude that made this find a 2 for 1 deal. The obvious question is what is this little guy doing in a cephalopod? Was he eaten? Was he seeking shelter? Was he eating the already dead cephalopod? I have no idea, and it is pretty hard to prove one way or the other now. Please weigh in and let me know how you think he got in there!

Also, the other great fossil in my collection, the two trilobites that were featured in the Photo of the Week #25 and are named “Bert and Ernie”. We have a similar pair here, but they lack the awesome name. Please suggest your favourite names for this odd couple.

Cheers,

Matt

Satellites are now so ubiquitous in our lives that there is something of a precedent to take them for granted. A normal daily routine for may people across the world may include watching television (satellite) as you check your twitter account (satellite) and have a look at the weather (satellite), all before you’ve even eaten your breakfast (not a satellite); whilst for those of us in the remote sensing community, whose work consists of analysing data from a large plethora of Earth-observing satellites, it can often seem that our lives are intertwined with those majestic flying machines as they dance their cosmic waltz far above the confines of planet Earth. It is almost staggering to believe that just over 50 years ago there was not a single manmade satellite in space, especially when you take into the consideration the fact that since its conception in 1957 the United States Satellite Surveillance Network (SNN) has chartered some 8,000+ anthropogenic obiters.

Sputnik 1 (souce: www.interestingfacts.org)

After the Second World War, the two global powerhouses of that era, the USA and the USSR, found themselves locked in a conflict of attrition that will come to be known as the Cold War. A war whose victors are judged not by the more conventional markers of land gain or battle tallies, but rather through the accumulation of weaponry and the rapid advancement of technology, of which the race to get into space plays a key and pivotal role. Most people, if asked who they considered to be the winners of the Space Race, would tell you that it was of course the USA, taking one small step for man and one giant leap for capitalism when Neil Alden Armstrong walked across the lunar landscape on July 21^st 1969. Ask another group of people from a certain vintage or scientific persuasion, and they would probably tell you that the true winners of the Space Race were the Soviets, seeing as they were the first to actually get something up there with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4^th 1957.  But for me there can only be one winner, and it is neither Apollo 11 nor Sputnik 1, but instead the much less lauded US satellite: Explorer 1.

The Sputnik satellite may have been the first into space, and the Apollo missions may have bee the first to demonstrate the capability of manned spaceflight, but as an Earth observational scientist it was the Explorer 1 satellite that I find to be the most intriguing, being as it was the first to carry a scientific payload; a set of instrumentation which would be used to make the first great scientific discovery from space.

The achievements of the Russian polymaths in ensuring that the Soviets were the first into space should of course never be overlooked, nor would it be strictly fair to say that the scientific significance of Sputnik 1 disappeared as soon as it had successfully reached the edge of the atmosphere – by measuring the drag on the satellite, scientists were able gain useful information about the density of the upper atmosphere – but I like to think of Sputnik 1 as that valiant guest at a wedding, who wishing to get the party started with suitable aplomb, makes a line straight for the empty dance floor only to find that once there they lack any of the necessary moves to do anything of particular note. Explorer 1 on the other hand can be thought of as the louder, more eccentric cousin of Sputnik 1, strutting up to the dance floor without a tie (incredibly there was no tape recorder installed on Explorer 1, meaning that data could only be analysed in near real time as it was transmitted back down the scientists on the ground) before starting to cut shapes that would make even a computerised lathe turn green with envy.

From left to right: William H. Pickering, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which designed and built Explorer 1. James A. Van Allen, University of Iowa physicist who directed the design and creation of Explorer’s instruments.
Wernher von Braun, head of the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency team that designed and built the Jupiter-C rocket (Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum).

Explorer 1 was launched on the 31^st January 1958, becoming the first of the USA’s forays into the vast unknowns of the surrounding cosmos. The design and build of the scientific payload was Lead by Dr. James Van Allen of the University of Iowa, its purpose being to measure cosmic rays as they made their way from the Supernovae explosions of distant stars within our galaxy and towards the Earth. The instrumentation was effectively a Geiger-Müller counter, set up to count the number of high energy cosmic rays as they passed through the relatively fragile shell of the satellite’s metallic exterior, and it was expected that the instrument would return values of approximately 30 rays per second. However, the scientists noted that at certain points in its orbit the instrumentation was returning values of 0 rays per second. Upon closer inspection of the data (along with the measurements taken by Explorer 3, launched on 26^th March 1958, and complete with requisite tape recorder) it turned out that these zero values all seemed to be concentrated around South America, and that they only seemed to be present when the satellite was flying at an altitude of greater than 2000 km; at altitudes less than this the instrument recorded the expected 30 counts per second. The team at Iowa soon deduced that these zero counts weren’t zero counts at all, rather they were errors in the data brought about by the instrumentation being bombarded by a powerful stream of highly energised particles that were beyond its measuring capabilities. Van Allen (and others at the University of Iowa) proposed that the reason for this localised concentration was a doughnut-shaped belt of highly energized particles, trapped in formation as a result of the Earth’s magnetic field. These belts have since been named after their discoverer (and not as I had assumed, much to the amusement of one of my undergraduate lecturers, after US rock-hero Eddie van Halen), becoming the first scientific discovery to be made from space.

The Van Allen belts (source: Wikipedia

It was this monumental achievement that formed a significant contribution towards the potential of satellites to inform on the many wonders of our home planet, and it is for this reason that I put forward the Explorer 1 (and by association the USA – sorry soviet fans) team as the true winners of the Space Race, a worthy recipient of a truly intergalactic (well ok, monogalactic) battle.

Sam is a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Manchester, where he spends most of his time working on the development of an algorithm for the retrieval of trace and greenhouse gas measurements from aircraft measured spectra, an algorithm that he affectionately refers to as MARS (the Manchester Airborne Retrieval Scheme). In his spare time Sam enjoys convincing scientists that they can learn to communicate their research more effectively by embracing theatrical technique in all its many guises.

Thanks for reading!

Sorry for the brief hiatus from blogging. This past week I was in Kenora and Dryden, Ontario getting into some great science outreach with an organization from uOttawa called Science Travels. Science Travels is a science outreach organization that sends science graduate students from the University of Ottawa and Carleton to northern communities to give presentations about a variety of science topics. This was my second Science Travels trip and it was a great one. I was teamed up with a neuroscientist, a chemist and a molecular biologist and together we gave talks on DNA, invasive species, the brain, chemistry, digestion, ecology and of course, geology! Throughout the week we presented 8 times per day and in total to well over 500 students. We were also lucky enough to present at three first nations reserves and it was a great experience to learn about first nations culture and present some science in some more isolated communities. It was a tiring week, but there is nothing better than than the feeling that the four of us may have gotten some kids interested in science or opened the door to a career that may not have been considered before.

Here is a map showing where we were. Kenora is the largest community nearby and has approximately 15,000 residents.

Click for larger image.

The photos for this week were kindly donated by my colleague Erin Adlakha from the University of Ottawa. They are some nice zoomed in microphotographs (XPL and PPL) of magnesiofoitite (alkali-deficient dravite) replacing dravite in basement metapelite below the Athabasca Basin.

Magnesiofoitite in XPL (Photo: Erin Adlakha)

Magnesiofoitite in PPL (Photo: Erin Adlakha)

Pretty amazing pics. I am trying to convince Erin to supply me with a few more so stay tuned for some more great photos from the Athabasca Basin.

Cheers,

Matt

The photo for this week was taken in Quebec near the town of Thetford. These are a really beautiful example of pillow basalts. Pillow basalts form during underwater volcanic eruptions and have the unusual quality of appearing bulbous and rounded. The ones pictured below have had their tops shorn off and are therefore visible in plane view. e.g. You’re looking down at them from above after they have had the tops cut off. As I mentioned above these particular pillows are located in Thetford Mines, which is a mining town (obviously). The principle commodity of Thetford Mines is the extremely dangerous and controversial mineral asbestos.

Here is a fantastic video showing pillow basalts forming today.

Cheers,

Matt

Yesterday the “Great Fracking Debate” took place at EGU2013 and I tuned in via webstream for the royal rumble of good vs. evil that was sure to take place. I have to say I was a little disappointed (not really) because the tone of the debate was very respectful and sophisticated. I guess if I want to see a good verbal sparring match I’ll have to head over to Parliament and take in a question period. The panellists speaking were: Tom Leveridge from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee at House of Commons, UK; Brian Horsfield from the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Germany; Jesús Carrera from the Department of Geosciences, Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, Spain and Jurrien Westerhof from Greenpeace, Austria.

The discussion ranged from talking about how much the world needs fossil fuels and the hydrogeological implications of contamination all the way to the environmental and energy policy and the political will needed for fracking to become practicable in Europe. Overall the debate was a little light on the science and a bit heavy on the policy for my taste. However, it is obviously critical to discuss the politics of fracking since the science is merely a tool to inform the ultimate political decision and is not itself able to determine what is right or wrong. To that end there was a good bit of discussion on the future energy needs of the UK and Europe and if fracking was a necessary tool in order to provide for the energy needs of future generations. Furthermore, the panelists made some excellent points about the need for basic science in this issue and how by continuing to study the impacts and develop more effective ways to extract shale gas we can open the door to a whole new resource for the world and not just Europe or the US. If you would like to watch the entire debate it is archived here.

Since the science wasn’t really discussed I thought I’d throw out this primer to fracking and how it works. Enjoy!

Why are we fracking?

The first question that we should ask, before discussing what fracking is, is why are are we using hydraulic fracturing and what are its benefits. It’s an undeniable fact that the world is highly dependent on fossil fuels for energy, particularly natural gas and oil. However, our thirst for fossil fuels has led to the depletion of most of the easily accessible reserves around the world. This means that oil and gas companies, in their quest to meet demand, are developing new technologies and exploring new regions that were previously overlooked. One new source of natural gas is in shale. Most oil and natural gas is produced in shales due to their high organic content and subsequent heating during lithification (turn to rock). This heating produces oil and natural gas that slowly migrates from the shale into other rocks where it is trapped in what, until recently, were conventional reserves. Oil and gas recovery in the past focused on looking for places where oil and gas was trapped. However, the depletion of these reserves has forced us to look elsewhere, such as in the source rocks like shale, primarily for natural gas and coalbed methane. In theory this sounds great, similar to the old adage: why get an apple from the basket when you can get one from the tree, but in practice things are a little more difficult. The reason for this is that shale is made of very, very fine mineral grains. The natural gas that we would like to recover is trapped in the tiny pore spaces between these grains making it almost impossible to extract. In order to overcome this, the oil and gas industry has been forced to develop new technologies to enhance recovery. One of the most successful, but controversial, is fracking.

What is Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking)??

The simplest answer to “what is fracking” is that it is a process in which fluids (more on that later) are injected into a borehole to increase pressure. This results in the rock at the bottom of the borehole fracturing. This allows us to recover resources that are hard to get more efficiently.

What is fracking? (Source: EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan,November 2011 - used with permission)

A good analogy is to think of a common scenario you likely tried as a kid. Imagine you have a juice box and instead of sucking on the straw (which represents the borehole) you blow into it instead. Most often this increase in pressure results in juice spraying out to top of the straw. However, one day you blow particularly hard, so hard that the sides of your juice box spit open and you experience catastrophic juice spillage on your favourite pants (not that this actually happened to me or anything…) However, the point is that this increase in pressure inside your juice box resulted in the sides splitting. Fracking works on the exact same principle. When the fracking liquid is injected into a drill hole the pressure on the surrounding rock goes up substantially  If the pressure continues to rise we can cause the rock to fracture. As I mentioned above the permeability of shale is very low and therefore just drilling the well is not enough to recover the gas efficiently. In order to increase recovery we have to increase the permeability. Artificially creating fractures is the way we do so.

What gets injected?

Unfortunately, only the oil companies know the exact answer to this question. However, we do know that the mixture is mainly water with numerous chemical additives.

EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan, November 2011 – used with permission

Obviously there is a laundry list of chemicals that may be incorporated. It is worth noting that it would certainly not be beneficial to ingest any of these substances or to find them in groundwater. In fact, some of these chemicals can be toxic at ppb levels meaning that even the most minor contamination can have huge consequences. Furthermore, this is by no means a full list. The above chart is merely and example of some the chemicals you might expect to find in a fracking fluid. The fracking fluid that is used for each well is tailored specifically for that rock formation being targeted in order to maximize recovery.

What are the environmental effects?

One of the most controversial issues with fracking is the potential for environmental harm that may result from the practice. Some of these include surficial spills of the fracking fluid at the well site, contaminating groundwater either through subsurface migration of the fluid, infiltration from a spill, leaking around a bad well casing, or even earthquakes from the injection of the fluids. Furthermore, fracking requires large amounts of water and also produces large amounts of waste water. The problem created by getting this much clean water and then disposing of the resulting waste water also has potential for large environmental impacts on water sources such as local groundwater reserves in terms of both depleting and contaminating them.

EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan, November 2011 – used with permission

As of now, the impact of fracking is still being studied and moratoriums on drilling and fracking exist in many states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada. To date there have been numerous studies on the environmental impact of fracking and it is essential that these studies be performed in order to truly gauge the impact fracking could have at a particular site.

That is all for now. I realize that I have not addressed some of the more complex issues surrounding fracking. My intention was not to omit any piece of information, but to provide a basic primer about what fracking is and the issues surrounding it. For more detailed information or information about a particular site I encourage you to do more research. Thanks for reading.

Finally, what are your opinions on fracking? Is it a necessary evil? Or is it evil at all? Do you think we can be trusted to frack responsibly? I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on fracking.

Matt

References:

US Environmental Protection Agency: http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/index.cfm

US Environmental Protection Agency Hydraulic Fracturing Study Plan: http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/upload/hf_study_plan_110211_final_508.pdf

Note: This post was originally published at my pre-EGU blog on November 5, 2011. However, after recently watching the Great Fracking Debate at EGU2013 I thought I might do a re-post.

Firstly, I am not actually attending EGU 2013 this year. However, that does not mean I can’t participate. In fact, it has been incredibly easy for to me join in, although I have had to wake up very early in the morning to make up for the time difference between Vienna and Ottawa.

I took part in two press conferences on Tuesday. The first called: The consequences of nuclear accidents: Fukushima and Europe and promised to be extremely interesting especially from my point of view as a researcher of environmental radionuclides. In fact, I was tuned in for more than just the EGU blogging part since I am in the midst of a project investigating the effects of Fukushima here in Canada and the transport of radionuclides from the accident. I intend to present the work at Goldschmidt later this year and write a publication on it which will comprise a part of my thesis.

The session was started by Dr. Yuichi Onda from the Centre for Research in Isotopes and Environmental Dynamics at the University of Tsukuba.

Dr. Onda and his group are studying the transfer and fallout of Fukushima radionuclides in every aspect of the environment. This is an incredibly daunting task. The infrastructure required to sample so many different environmental reservoirs is mind-boggling and Dr. Onda showed in several of his slides how tough it could be. The group sampled trees, soil, soil water, soil erosion, water in both cultivated and non cultivated environments, sediment in rivers and lakes as well as transport between these reservoirs and then finally the transport to the ocean from all of these sources. Basically, they set up one bad-a$$ monitoring network!

The conclusions from this network were that the deposition process of the radionuclides began by falling on trees but then over time washes off and between .2 and 3.5% of the fallout washes into streams and rivers where it is then transported to the oceans. In a very basic way it kind of looked like this:

Source: Wikipedia

The next speaker was Dr. Kazuyuki Kita from Ibaraki University. He was explaining one step earlier in the whole transport process than Dr. Onda since Dr. Kita’s focus is on the atmospheric transport and dispersion of radionuclides from Fuksuhima. Basically, once the accident occured tons of radionuclides were released into the atmosphere and blown hither and yon until they are eventually deposited in rain or adsorbed onto aerosols and settle because of gravity’s relentless nature. They can also be re-suspended after the fact. This is particularly common with iodine (I know about this one…) Dr. Kita then went on to show a picture of the fallout of cesium-137 over Japan, which is pictured below. Furthermore, the measured concentrations agreed very well with the predictions made by atmospheric modelling, which is a tricky business at the best of time, but must be even more so when the entire world is breathing down your neck asking where will the radionuclides go? The difference were due to rainout, which is difficult to predict.

Slide from Dr. Kita’s talk showing the actual fallout vs. the modelled fallout.

Dr. Kita then went on to talk about the variation of radionuclides in the atmosphere over time following the accident  and the influence of re-suspension on radionuclides sitting on the land surface. He showed this graph which illustrates very clearly how 137Cs and 134Cs concentrations spiked following the accident and then declined over time. However, if you look in October you can see that the levels start to rise again, which Dr. Kita attributes to re-suspension. Furthermore, these peaks were coincident with the transport of air parcels from Fukushima as well making it certain that this was the source of the radionuclides. Another source of radionuclides since the disaster has been the re-emission of iodine and cesium from the ocean surface as well.

A slide from Dr. Kita’s talk showing the temporal trend in cesium fallout from Fukushima.

The final talk of the press conference was by Dr. Petra Seibert from the University of Vienna. Dr. Seibert, a meteorologist, gave a truly fascinating, yet somewhat scary talk about how prepared (or not) Europe is for nuclear accidents and the consequences they have with context from both Fukushima and Chernobyl. Dr. Seibert makes the point that despite ample opportunity to learn from our nuclear mistakes we have not addressed all of the deficiencies that exist.

Concerning Fukushima, Dr. Seibert points out that the dispersion of radionuclides from the nuclear plant is not simple and results in contamination outside of predicted zones. This means that the evacuation pattern of simply evacuating people in concentric circles depending on the distance from the plant is not a very effective way of ensuring that people are not affected since the atmospheric spread of radionuclides is not circular. Therefore, in order to be prepared for potential disasters a predictive model of dispersion is needed. Dr. Seibert has developed such a model and shows some of the incredibly variable, and somewhat artistic, results in the following image. The blank space shows a movie of a very complex dispersion.

A slide from Dr. Seibert’s talk showing the incredibly variable nature of radionuclide dispersion from a point source.

Dr. Seibert’s ultimate point is that despite what we have learned from Fukushima and Chernobyl we are not yet prepared enough to handle another large nuclear disaster. Indeed, she makes the point that one in Europe could result in continental scale contamination and that in order to prepare for this proactive measures like iodine tablets should be widely distributed. Furthermore, data distribution and communication between organizations and nations is not adequate as well, which would only serve to exacerbate the seriousness of a nuclear accident should one occur.

In my opinion to keys to avoiding another Chernobyl or Fukushima lies in open communication and learning everything we can from these two disasters. However, I put it to you, what do we still need to learn? What are our shortcomings when if comes to disaster preparedness. Do you agree with measures like iodine distribution in order to mitigate the risk from another accident or should we just cease nuclear energy production entirely?

I also tuned into the fantastic press conference on the Chelyabinsk meteorite fall, but Jon has covered it excellently so head over to his blog a for a summary of it. If you would like to watch the livestream of the press conference for yourself it can be found here: http://streams.h82.eu/EGU2013/index.php?modid=18&a=show&pid=206

The photo this week is of another self collected beauty. I collected this piece below at the Marmoraton Iron Mine in Marmora, Ontario a few years ago. When I found it none of the garnet crystals you see were visible. They were all covered by a thick layer of calcite. I could just make out the edge of a broken crystal at the side. However, I have been collecting at Marmora a lot and I knew that this had the possibility to turn out beautifully since at this quarry calcite often hides terrific and undamaged crystals below. You can still make out a little bit of it here and there (it is yellowish white). The key is to just get rid of it. Luckily, for me and many other collectors of Marmora minerals calcite dissolves easily in hydrochloric acid. So cleaning a find like this becomes a simple matter of placing it in a basin of HCl and waiting for the magic (chemistry)  to happen. After a few days, and a few changes of the acid the result is what you see pictured below: a beautiful cluster of 1-1.5cm grossular garnet crystals, with some magnetite veins, minor epidote and left over calcite.

(Photo: Matt Herod)

 Unfortunately, the garnet crystals of Marmora are not gem quality or anywhere near it, but they do form very attractive crystals of which I have a large, large number after years of collecting there. Marmora is also a great place to collect epidote, pyrite, calcite, pyrolusite, magentite, ilmenite, marcasite and actinolite. All of which are common and relatively easy to find with a bit of work. e.g. sledgehammering.

The quarry is larger than the town of Marmora!

Cheers,

Matt

p.s. Watch this space for EGU2013 updates starting tomorrow!! I’m really looking forward to the Fukushima press conference.

Happy April Fools/Easter everyone! I know that I am a day late, but yesterday was a holiday in Canada. Spring is also in the air, not today actually since it is -7 currently, but we have no more snow, and we had a few nice days over the Easter weekend. It is therefore appropriate for the photo of the week to be something eggy.

A piece of Pleistocene emu egg shell. Found near an ancient aboriginal campground in South Australia. (Photo: Matt Herod)

This photo is of a fragment of Pleistocene age emu egg shell that was found in Port Augusta, South Australia.

Bonus Photo: The duck-billed platypus, a monotreme and one only two types of egg laying mammal in the world.

Platypus (Photo: Matt Herod)

Cheers,

Matt