One hour toward professional development is available for teachers and professional geologists attending the Geology Open Night lectures.

The effects of acid rain on Long Island’s ecosystems Gilbert N. Hanson 7:30 PM Friday September 23, 2016 ESS 001  Stony Brook University Westerly winds bring emissions from vehicular traffic and power plants to Long island. These emissions include nitrogen and sulfur oxides, which create acid rain. Unpolluted rain has a pH of 5.6. In the 1950’s acid rain was already present when precipitation on Long Island had a pH of about 4.8; pH continued to decrease and was about 4.3 by the mid 1980’s; as a result of clean air legislation the pH of precipitation has increased to about 4.6. When acid rain infiltrates the soil, hydrogen ions replace the base cations (Ca, Mg, K and Na) on exchangeable sites on soil particles. At the same time, they react with insoluble Al(OH)3 in the soil producing soluble aluminum ions. Exchangeable base cations in the soil are plant nutrients. Soluble aluminum in the soil is a poison to plants. Thus, the effect of the acid rain is to remove plant nutrients and to make poison available to the plants. The results are that plants less sensitive to acid soil conditions are replacing plants that are more sensitive to acid soil conditions. Before acid rain, the soil in Long Island’s forests was acidic with a pH of about 4.5 (using 0.01 m CaCl2). Presently, the forest soil has a pH of about 3 at the surface increasing to about 4.5 at a depth of about 50 cm. In this presentation, I will discuss the effects of acid rain on soil and the natural ecosystems on Long Island.   Dr. Hanson,  a distinguished service professor in the Department of Geosciences, has been interested in the geology and environmental problems of Long Island for the last couple of decades. High school students, earth science education students, earth science teachers and MS in Geosciences students carried out this research. Selected Links  Learning about Acid Rain Atmospheric Dust and Acid Rain Impact of Acid Rain and Fire on Soil pH in Dwarf Pine Plains, Long Island, New York Organic Sorption and Cation Exchange Capacity  of  Glacial Sand, Long Island Study of Soil pH in a Woodland at Stony Brook University The Change in Soil Acidity on the North Shore of Long Island, New York: Using Depth as a Window into the Past The effect of road salt on soil pH The Effect of Fires On Soil pH in the Long Island Pine Barrens Consistent Soil pH with depth of Pre-Acid Rain Soil  A Study of Soil pH and Effects on Vegetation: Locust Valley and Stony Brook University

How The West Collapsed: The Rise and Fall of the North American Cordillera William Holt 7:30 PM Friday October 7, 2016 ESS 001 Stony Brook University Western North America today consists of high topography with many roughly north-south trending mountain belts, including the Rockies, the Basin and Range province, and the Sierra Nevada range. The complex geology and topography owes much of its existence to a long history of subduction and mountain building along the western margin or North America, followed by the development of the San Andreas Fault system in California. At the conclusion of the period of wide-spread convergence about 35 million years ago a major mountain range existed to the west of the Rockies in what is now the Basin and Range province. Little is known about the precise height or distribution of this mountain chain. This topography experienced a dramatic collapse as subduction ceased along the western margin of North America and the current San Andreas fault system developed. This collapse of topography continues today. In this talk I will provide a tour through geologic time of the west and show new research results that demonstrate that this ancient mountain range was once as high as the Andes Mountains of South America. What remains enigmatic is how or why the lithosphere weakened enough for the topography to collapse. Geophysical evidence points to a hot upper mantle beneath these regions. Furthermore, the introduction of water into the upper mantle and crust from the ancient Farallon slab that subducted beneath North America likely played a major role as a weakening mechanism that facilitated the collapse of topography. William Holt is a Professor in the Department of Geosciences, Stony Brook University. His interests include seismology and active tectonics. Professor Holt uses observations from seismology, space-geodesy, and geology to constrain the forces operating in the lithosphere that are responsible for producing earthquakes, plate tectonics, and mountain building. Professor Holt is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, an NSF early CAREER awardee, and was given an Alumni Achievement award from the University of Arizona. Professor Holt was on the founding Board of Directors for the UNAVCO which is a non-profit university-governed consortium that facilitates research and education in geodesy.

Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to locate impurities in minerals that can tell us something about their history Brian Phillips 7:30 PM Friday November 18, 2016 ESS 001  Stony Brook University   Calcium carbonate minerals such as calcite are ubiquitous in nature, being the main component of limestones and similar rocks that are exposed over about 20% of Earth’s land surface.  Precipitation of carbonate minerals removes CO2 from the atmosphere, while creating a repository of valuable chemical information about the environment in which they formed.  During crystal growth various impurities are incorporated into the mineral, some of which geoscientists are exploiting to infer environmental conditions at the time and place the mineral precipitated, called “paleo-environmental proxies”.  With micro-analytical methods now available geoscientists can read such chemical and isotopic signatures at sub-millimeter resolution to determine chemical variability at geologically short time scales.  In this presentation I will discuss the factors that determine how an impurity becomes trapped in a mineral, whether its abundance is suitable for use as an environmental proxy, and the results of some of our research that show where impurities are located in calcium carbonate minerals.  For this research we use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which is based on the same phenomenon as MRI and measures the pitch of atomic nuclei “singing” in a strong magnetic field.  This allows us to locate impurity atoms from their chemical environment and identify some of their neighbors  Brian Phillips is a Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University. He has been on the faculty at Stony Brook University since 2002, where he investigates the atomic arrangement of minerals and related materials using primarily Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.  His research focuses particularly on bonding of atoms adsorbed to mineral surfaces and how impurities are incorporated in minerals.  He is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America.

 

You may also be interested in the following lectures: Astronomy Open Night, The World of Physics and The Living World These lectures are usually held in ESS 001 at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays during the academic year. Professional Development letters are available for teachers and geologists for attending these lectures.