Fall 2015 National Meeting Sessions

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Fall 2015 GEOC Sessions

250th ACS National Meeting 
Boston, MA: August 13-21, 2015

Structure & Reactivity of Mineral-Water Interfaces

Symposium Organizers:

Sebastien Kerisit, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Sebastien.Kerisit@pnnl.gov )

Stephanie Teich-McGoldrick, Sandia National Laboratories

(steichm@sandia.gov)

Many critical geochemical phenomena occur at mineral-fluid interfaces, including adsorption, nucleation, dissolution, and growth. These are complex phenomena due to the physical and chemical heterogeneity of minerals, the competition between various reaction pathways, and the often significant variations in fluid structure and composition at interfaces. As a result, experimental techniques with ever improving spatial, temporal, and chemical resolution have been developed and applied to interrogate mineral-fluid reactions in situ and in real time. In parallel, computational methods that can span increasing spatial and temporal scales are becoming widely available, allowing quantitative predictions of geochemical reactivity. We invite contributions from studies that showcase recent advances in probing and understanding mineral-fluid interfaces using both experimental and computational techniques. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, heterogeneous nucleation and growth at the surface of common minerals such as carbonates, metal oxides, and phyllosilicates, the role of mineral-fluid interfaces in the (bio)geochemical cycling of major and critical elements and in the fate and transport of contaminants, the effect of secondary species on mineral dissolution and growth, and the structure and reactivity of mineral surfaces in pure and mixed fluids. 

Confirmed invited speakers: Jose Cerrato (University of New Mexico), Owen Duckworth (North Carolina State University), Sabine Goldberg (USDA), Sara Mason (University of Iowa), Chongzheng Na (University of Notre Dame), R. Lee Penn (University of Minnesota), David Singer (Kent State University), Dongbo Wang (NIST), and Jianwei Wang (Louisiana State University).

Subsurface Geochemistry for Energy and the Environment

Symposium Organizers:

Catherine Peters, Princeton University (cap@Princeton.EDU )

Young-Shin Jun, Washington University in St. Louis (ysjun@seas.wustl.edu) 

Sustainable and effective stewardship of the subsurface environment and its energy resources is one of today's grand challenges. The subsurface provides vast energy resources as well as capacity for CO2 storage, nuclear and hazardous waste disposal, and intermittent energy storage. Common to all subsurface technologies is the need to understand, measure, characterize and predict geochemical processes and their role in controlling reactivity, mass transfer, and subsurface flows. Examples include interactions between hydrofracking fluids and shales that enable gas extraction but may also mobilize hazardous substances, clay mineral migration that serves to trap waste streams, mineral dissolution and precipitation that alters and adaptively manipulates flow permeability, and mineralization reactions that lead to long-term sequestration of CO2 and other substances. This session will highlight advancements in our understanding of geochemical processes in the context of energy and the environment of the subsurface. All types of contributions are welcome including experiments, field studies, imaging analyses, and modeling contributions, from the nano-scale to the continuum scale.

Confirmed invited speakers: Alexis Navarre-Sitchler, (Colorado School of Mines), Subhasis Ghoshal (McGill University), Athanasios Karamalidis (Carnegie Mellon University), Alexandra Hakala (National Energy Technology Lab), Jeff Fitts (Princeton University), Brian Ellis (University of Michigan), Sophia Hayes (Washington University in St. Louis)

Biogeochemical Cycling of Nutrients & Contaminants in Physically Complex Environments

Symposium Organizer:

Benjamin Kocar, MIT (kocar@mit.edu )

Physical and (bio)geochemical heterogeneity is inherent in soils and sediments, and often imparts overarching controls on the cycling of nutrients and contaminants within ecosystems. On the scale of nanometers to millimeters, (a)biotic processes transpiring amongst intricate assemblages of minerals, organic matter, solutions, and gases control the mobility and retention of chemicals. Further, the distribution of pore geometries control where advection or diffusion dominates, and steep biogeochemical gradients are observed where rates of (a)biotic solute depletion exceed rates of solute mass transfer. Thus, redox and other biogeochemical conditions may vary tremendously over millimeters or less. This session will focus on current progress made in deciphering (bio)geochemical processes in physically and/or (bio)geochemically heterogeneous systems that control the fate of nutrients, contaminants, and trace gases in soils and sediments. Examples include, but are not limited to, understanding contaminant mobility and retention in mineralogically complex systems, examining the role of diffusionally induced redox gradients on the fate of nutrients, and coupled physical-biogeochemical controls on greenhouse gas production.

Geochemistry Division: General Session

Symposium Organizers:

Young-Shin Jun, Washington University (ysjun@seas.wustl.edu )

This is a general session for the Geochemistry Division. This session accepts both oral and poster contributions, including posters for the SCI-MIX session.