GEOL 525 - Environmental Geochemistry

• Describe geochemical cycles of water and carbon in terms of their principle reservoirs, residence times in those reservoir and fluxes between major reservoirs. They can differentiate between long-timescale processes (such as silicate weathering) and short-timescale processes (such as anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2).
• Have basic laboratory skills necessary to carry out a supervised geochemical study (e.g. can perform Gram titration of waters in field, can collect water samples using clean methods, can measure water content, textures and LOI of soils, etc.).
• Have basic knowledge of water and soil chemistry, controls on pH, cation and anion concentrations.
• Explain the role of clays in ion exchange.
• Understand the role of the oceans in geochemical cycles and as buffers for our environment. They know the controls on ocean chemistry.
• Be aware of geochemical techniques (isotopes, trace elements, etc.) which might be used to address that problem.
• Be aware of current topics of research in environmental geochemistry and can read and critically discuss a research article.
• Gormulate an environmental geochemistry research project, and express it in a concise proposal.