Our group works in the areas of surface processes and low-temperature and environmental geochemistry, including the use of radiogenic isotopes for stratigraphic correlation and dating; studies of cation cycling in atmosphere-soil-vegetation systems, carbonate diagenesis, terrestrial weathering, acid mine drainage, groundwater, paleoclimatology paleoceanography, and geoarcheology. Our facilities include labs for the separation, dissolution, and micromorphological, elemental and isotopic analysis of rock, soil, plant and natural and polluted waters.

Environmental geochemistry: AMD, coal flyash

Current work focuses on (1) the use of mass spectrometry techniques to investigate the interactions of trace elements in coal byproducts with natural waters (2) mineralogic and microbiologic study of coal mine drainage iron oxide deposits (3) hydrogeological study of the interaction of AMD flows and gas brines with Fe contaminated discharges (4) experimental investigation of pyrite dissolution.

Early earth (astrobiology)

Our investigations involve geochemical and isotopic analysis of paleosols ranging in age from 400 million years old to nearly four billion years old. Fossil soils are one means of determining past atmospheric chemistry and the terrestrial environment, through their preservation of the chemical products of atmosphere-mineral interaction.

Geoarchaeology (caves and corrals)

Recent projects involve (1) a collaboration with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to investigate migration patterns and the timing of horse domestication in Kazakhstan and (2) Integration of geochemistry and micromorphology to identify feature function in cave deposits at a Paleoindian - Archaic site in Alabama.

Chemical weathering, diagenesis, and soil formation

We combine field, mass balance and isotope tracer studies to investigate the effect of climate change on weathering and soil forming processes. Field areas include sites at the Desert Soil-Geomorphology Project, New Mexico, and the Kohala Peninsula, Hawaii.