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Faculty Research

Jennifer M. Elick

Faculty Research Interests for 2008-2009
Students in Earth and Environmental Sciences must fulfill a capstone requirement. The capstone requirement in EES may include any one of the following: student teaching (BA degree only), field camp, internship, or they may work with a professor on a research project. Below is a list of research projects and interests for the EES faculty. Students who desire to fulfill the capstone by conducting research should read through these descriptions and talk with individual faculty about potential research projects.

Geological Mapping, Rocks and Minerals and Paleological Investigation

Faculty Research- Jennifer M. Elick
Quarry operations need to be able to tell the companies that purchase their product the potential composition of the rock they sell. This summer, I worked with a student (Michelle Siegel) to describe the strata in a local limestone quarry and identify the environments that those rocks represent. Once the stratigraphy was understood, thin sections of the rock were produced, which were analyzed using a polarizing microscope. The samples were also analyzed using our new x-ray fluorescence (XRF) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) instruments to determine chemical and mineralogical composition, respectively. In this study, and hopefully future studies, I hope to determine the relationship between depositional environment, diagenesis, and chemical/mineralogical composition.

Vegetation can be responsible for stabilization or destabilization of a landscape, depending on the nature of the environment. Recently, the Penn Valley Airport clear-cut the vegetation along a stretch of Penns Creek in an effort to increase visibility for pilots using new, extended runways. In the spring semester, Andrew Cole and I tried to determine the impact of this action. Spikes were driven into the stream cut bank along transects at different intervals to measure the amount change over the spring semester. The clear cutting has led to variable amounts of erosion and deposition, as well as the overall reshaping of the bank.

Using thermal infrared airborne imagery, one can remotely sense the heat reradiated or emitted from the Earth’s surface. Recently, I collected thermal infrared images from Centralia, PA, the location of a coal fire that has been burning since 1962, and compiled them with images collected since the early 1970s to produce a map that depicts the history of the fire movement. I have also worked with students in geologic mapping projects. Most recently, I have worked with a Angela Dippold to map the geology (bedrock and geologic structures) of the region around Centralia. This effort was made in order to update an older map and add new details to our understanding of the structure in that region.
As always, I continue my Devonian paleoecological research. This research has involved studying Devonian (408-354 million years old) age rock in Pennsylvania, New York, and Québec to better understand how early terrestrial (land) environments expanded and influenced the world. I study sedimentary rock containing plant and root traces, fish, insect, and marine fossils/traces, and sedimentary structures in order to produce paleoenvironmental reconstructions for the Devonian.

Acide Mine Drainage, Stream Analysis, Groundwater Modeling and Particle Tracking in Porous Media

Ahmed lachhab

Coming Soon

Combustion gas contributions to microbial ecology

Daniel Ressler

My recent research has been to characterize the surface environment at the Centralia PA mine fire. Studies of microbial ecology have been conducted at sites of different temperature. Soils have been analyzed to determine the nutrient content and to investigate how the fire affects soil chemistry and thus the conditions that affect the microbial ecology. Water relations have been recently examined and experiments that detail the gas composition and contribution to the soil environment are about to get underway.

I have also recently completed an urban tree inventory in Sunbury, Pennsylvania as well as experiments that examine microbial ecology and nutrient interactions in natural wetlands.

A vent at the Centralia mine fire.

Measured and predicted concentrations of sulfur dioxide in the plume of a coal-fired power plant

Derek Straub

One of my current student-involved research projects is the examination of elevated sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations in the vicinity of a local coal-fired power plant. SO2 is a colorless gas that can reduce lung function and lead to other health effects as a result of long term, high concentration exposure. In addition, SO2 contributes to regional visibility impairment and acid deposition. During the 2004 summer, we set up SO2 monitoring equipment and began measuring SO2 levels at a location that was periodically influenced by the plume of a coal burning electrical generation plant located 6 km to our northeast. While background concentrations were relatively low, we measured peak concentrations exceeding 100 to 200 ppb for brief periods, reflecting the influence of the power plant plume. As part of this project, we used a computer-based dispersion model to predict SO2 concentrations during these peak events. Comparison between the measured and modeled concentrations showed reasonably good agreement. SO2 was also sampled from a department vehicle on two days to help characterize power plant emissions over a wide area during a relatively stagnant period and during a windy period. Future studies will focus on the conversion of SO2 to sulfate in the SO2 rich plume during the frequent fog episodes experienced in this region.

Katie Beem '06 adjusts the mobile SO2 monitor before a day of measurements.

Surface precipitation in the Madden-Julian Oscillation

Katherine Straub

I recently competed a study with Donna Strahan '05 on observations of precipitation in the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). The MJO is an oscillation in tropical cloudiness, rainfall, winds, and other meteorological variables with a period of 30-60 days and a spatial scale of 10,000 km. As the MJO moves eastward from the Indian Ocean to the central Pacific, it strongly influences rainfall and cloudiness in locations such as India and Australia. In this study, we analyzed daily rainfall data for 700+ tropical stations to determine changes associated with the MJO. Specifically, we contrasted the in-situ rainfall data with a more commonly used dataset, satellite-derived outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) data, which measures the temperature of cloud tops. Previous studies have used OLR as a proxy for precipitation, but this study suggests that actual precipitation patterns are in some cases vastly different from those inferred from OLR. The results of this study point to a need for further analysis of in-situ precipitation data to determine the true rainfall and heating patterns within the MJO.

A map of OLR (shading) and precipitation (circles) associated with one phase of the MJO