Transcript Introduction to Environmental Geochemistry

Introduction to Environmental
Geochemistry
GLY 4241 - Lecture 1
Fall, 2014
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Love Canal
• The neighborhood was a
bit creepy
• Empty house after empty
house
• All with lawns minimally
cared for
• A lot of peeling paint and
rotten awnings
• A noticeable absence of
kids, parked cars, pets,
lawn furniture
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Love Canal Video
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Rachel Carson 1907 - 1964
• September27, 1962
- Silent Spring
published by
Houghton Mifflin
• Set a series of
events in motion
Audio file from Birdnote
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Carson’s Later Life
• January, 1963 Albert Schweitzer award from Animal Welfare
Institute
• April 3, 1963 CBS Reports airs “The Silent Spring of Rachel
Carson.”
• June 3, 1963 Carson testifies on the misuse of pesticides; US
Senate Subcommittee of Government Operations. 88th Cong.
1st.sess.
• June 6, 1963Carson testifies before the US Senate Committee
on Commerce
• December, 1963 Awarded the National Audubon Society
Medal. Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and
Letters
• April 14, 1964 Carson dies in Silver Spring, Md. at age 56
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Carson’s Legacy
• Prohibition of the agrichemicals aldrin, dieldrin and
heptachlor
• Passage of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
– signed into law January 1, 1970
• Establishment of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency – December 2, 1970
• Banning of DDT in the United States in 1972 and the end
of its use by much of the world's agriculture within the
half-century.
• Presidential Medal of Freedom (Jimmy Carter awarded it
to her posthumously in 1980)
• The post office in her hometown of Springdale was named
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in her honor in 2008
London Smog
• Left, Jacqueline Morreau, Impression of
Killer Fog, Embankment 1952
• Right in 2001
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Earth Day
• The first nationwide Earth
Day was held April 22,
1970
• Celebrated with marches,
speeches, planting and
cleanup projects, it raises
awareness of
environmental issues,
promotes conservation
efforts, and encourages
respect for the Earth
• The stamp was issued in
1999
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Backlash
• A considerable backlash to the environmental
movement exists
• Examples:
 Battles in Alaska since statehood (1959)
 Water for the Everglades
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Role of Scientists
• Scientists play many roles in the environmental
problems faced by society
 Provide data to help assess changes caused by man, by
nature, and a combination of the two
 May be involved in environmental cleanup
 Help to formulate government policy regarding the
environment
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V.M.
Goldschmidt
• Swiss-born Norwegian
mineralogist and
petrologist who laid
the foundation of
inorganic crystal
chemistry and founded
modern geochemistry
• Born 1888, died 1947
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HighTemperature
Geochemistry
• Eruption of Mt.
Vesuvius, Italy
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Low-Temperature Geochemistry
• Animas River, San Juan
Mountains, Colorado
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Natural and Anthropogenic
Problems
• Environmental geochemists often study problems that may
combine natural pollution, such as volcanic emissions,
with anthropogenic pollution, such as weathering reactions
involving acidic mine waste
• The volcanic processes are high-temperature, while the
mine discharge and subsequent weathering are lowtemperature
• Environmental geochemists are not concerned with the
study of the distribution and amounts of the chemical
elements in minerals, ores, rocks, soil, water, and the
atmosphere, from an economic or exploration standpoint.
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Interactions with Living
Organisms
• Much of environmental geochemistry involves interactions
with living organisms, which is a biogeochemical input to
the system
• Thus, the ability to work across several disciplines is
important
• Most especially, the ability to understand another
discipline well enough to carry on a conversation with an
expert in the field, to find relevant literature in the
discipline and read it with sufficient comprehension to
understand the significance for one's only area of study, is
necessary
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Environmental Chemistry
• Manahan (1990) defines this as, "science of
chemical phenomena in the environment.“
• One essential difference between an
environmental chemist and an environmental
geochemist is the geochemist's knowledge of
natural phenomena, gained via a good knowledge
of geology in its broadest science
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Detergents
• This is the Dunn “blob”, August 17,
2004
• “Officials surmised the foam resulted
from heavy rains, which caused
Stoney Run Swamp to swell and spill
over the Hannah’s Pond dam just to
the north of Jonesboro Road. The
churning rapids created by the fastmoving water turned soap runoff into
suds.”
• Similar foaming events used to
happen at sewage treatment plants
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Foam Video
• Foam in a ditch
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Eutrophication
• Upper, Water hyacinth
in Lake Dianchi,
China
• Lower, scum in a lake
with high nutrient
levels from runoff
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New Chemical Species
• It has been estimated that 20,000 new chemical compounds
are produced and introduced into the environment every
year.
• While a few of these, such as new pharmaceutical
products, are extensively tested, most are tested very little
or not at all
• Even prescription drugs can have serious unforeseen
consequences (e.g., thalidomide, many cases of drug
interactions, etc.)
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“Ecologically Illiterate Chemist”
• Manahan (1990) said, "The ecologically illiterate
chemist can be a very dangerous species.
Chemists must be aware of the possible effects
their products and processes might have upon the
environment. Furthermore, any serious attempt to
solve environmental problems must involve the
extensive use of chemicals and chemical
processes."
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Computer Designed Chemicals
• “ The chemical structure of these substances is
then optimized by computer-assisted drug design
and combinatorial chemistry. This technique
permits the production of a large number of
variants of the substances within a short time.
Previously, a chemist could produce 50 to 100
variants of a substance per year. Now, thanks to
new techniques, scientists can produce around
50,000 in the same time.” (Roche Canada, 2005)
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Cyanobacteria
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Early Geologic Science
• Our early concern with the earth was strictly with
exploitation of the environment.
 How could we find gold, silver, and other precious
metals?
• Later, as the ability to use more common metals
developed, we began to use large quantities of
common metals like iron and aluminum.
• The only objective of man's early efforts in this
area was to find, extract, and use these metals
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Man’s Role
• Horne (1978, p. 1), while discussing man, stated "He did not
discover his environment until the unregulated growth of his
numbers threatened to exhaust its resources. He did not appreciate
the delicate ecological processes of which he is a part until he had
grossly damaged many of them. He has been like a spoiled child,
pampered and nurtured in a comfortable home called Earth. He did
not care, he did not even realize that the rent was not free, that bills
must be paid, the roof kept in repair, the drains not clogged. But
now at last he has grown up. The house has become overcrowded.
The wear and tear and neglect of its fabric has become intolerable.
He realizes now that repairs must be made, care taken, that he must
become a husband in the older and more responsible sense of that
term."
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Ozone Hole
• Development of
ozone hole over
Antarctica in
September
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Acid Rain
• Above, forest damaged
by acidic precipitation
• Right, statue damaged
by acid rain
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Leadville, Colorado
• Leadville, Colo., is the
highest municipality in
the country
• This impoverished
town is also one of the
most polluted
• It's located entirely
inside the 16.5 squaremile California Gulch
Superfund site
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Map of Clark Fork Superfund Site
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Clark Fork
• Active erosion and metal salts deposition along the
streambank of the Clark Fork River
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Summitville, Colorado
Superfund Site Map
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Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE)
• Oxygenated gasoline is used in many areas to help cut
pollutants emitted into the atmosphere during the winter
months in many areas
• MTBE is introduced into the gasoline to reduce vehicle
emissions of carbon monoxide
• As temperatures decrease, fuel combustion is less efficient and
the amount of CO released rises sharply
• MTBE is added to increase the burning efficiency and cut CO
emissions
• In the extreme cold of a central Alaskan winter, where
temperatures below -50̊F are routine, this additive does not
work properly
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Asbestos
• Crocidolite, one of the most carcinogenic forms of
asbestos
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Danger!
Silica
Present
• Beach,
Virgin
Islands
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Pavement Sealer
• Pavement sealcoat (also called sealant) is a black
liquid that is sprayed or painted on asphalt parking
lots and driveways
• Most sealcoat products have a coal-tar-pitch or
asphalt base
• Coal-tar-based sealcoat is commonly used in the
central, southern, and eastern U.S., and asphaltbased sealcoat is commonly used in the western
U.S.
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Polycyclic Aromatic
Hydrocarbons
• Coal-tar pitch can contain 50 percent or more
PAHs by weight and is known to cause cancer in
humans
• Coal-tar-based sealcoat products typically are 20 to
35 percent coal-tar pitch
• Product analyses indicate that coal-tar-based
sealcoat products contain about 1,000 times more
PAHs than sealcoat products with an asphalt base
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Environmental Rankings
• A rating of twenty-one industrialized nations by
the New Economic Foundation, a London-based
think tank, rated the United States last in terms of
environmental performance in 1993
• The Yale University Center for Environmental
Law and Policy ranked the U.S. 45th out of 146
countries in 2005
• By 2010, the ranking decreased to 61st out of 163
ranked countries in 2010
• This improved to 33rd out of 178 countries in 2014
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