Geology Open Night

In-service Credit is available for teachers attending the Geology Open Night lectures.

Fate of Nitrogen in
Suffolk County’s Groundwater

Gilbert N. Hanson
Department of Geosciences

7:30 PM Friday
February 26, 2010
ESS 001

Suffolk County groundwater has relatively high inputs of nitrogen from sewage and lawn fertilizer. This is cause for some concern because elevated levels of nitrate in groundwater are harmful to infants who drink it. Also, groundwater with elevated levels of nitrate that enters the surrounding seawater around Long Island can result in low oxygen contents that are harmful to sea life. Interestingly, Porter et al (1980) suggested that Suffolk County groundwater has less nitrogen as nitrate than expected considering the relatively high inputs. The goal of our present research is to determine where this loss of nitrogen is occurring.

Along the path for water contaminated with lawn fertilizer, nitrogen loss may occur by

Denitrification in anaerobic zones in the unsaturated zone and groundwater.

Along the path for effluent from septic tank/cess pool systems, nitrogen loss may occur by

Adsorption of ammonium in the anaerobic zone near a cess pool or
Denitrification in anaerobic zones in the unsaturated zone and groundwater.

Two ongoing studies are determining the extent of nitrogen loss along these paths. Fang Liu is evaluating the fraction of ammonium in septic tank/cess pool effluent that is adsorbed in the anaerobic zone near a cess pool. Caitlin Young is evaluating the extent of denitrification in Suffolk County’s groundwater by measuring the amount of excess nitrogen gas dissolved in groundwater that is produced by denitrification. Ms Young’s results from groundwater in Northport suggest that there is little denitrification in this North Shore setting.

In this presentation Prof. Hanson will discuss the nitrogen cycle in the Suffolk County groundwater system, the methods that are being used to determine the extent of nitrogen loss, and early results of the research.

Coal and Human Health:
From the Hollows in West Virginia to Rural China

Martin Schoonen
Department of Geosciences

7:30 PM Friday
March 26, 2010
ESS 001

Coal-fired power plants are destined to remain the backbone of electricity generation in the US and China for years to come. While alternative energy resources are expanding rapidly, their market share is expected to remain small for the next few decades once increases in energy consumption and population are taking into account. The US and China are both endowed with very large coal reserves. The production of carbon dioxide as a result of burning coal and the formation of acid rain have received considerable attention in the public media. However, coal mining itself has a considerable environmental impact and can pose a significant public health burden.

Research by Martin Schoonen and his students is addressing both the impact of coal mining on streams in coal mining areas as well as providing new insight into the cause for black lung disease among coal miners. In this lecture, Schoonen will discuss his recent work on this topic and place the work in the context of the larger environmental health problem coal presents, with examples taken from the US and China.

Martin Schoonen received a Ph.D. from Penn State in Geochemistry and Mineralogy and joined the Geosciences faculty at Stony Brook in 1989. He and his students are interested in the reactivity of minerals. His most recent work has focused on mineral reactivity in the human lung. He co-directs a five year, NSF-funded program to train graduate students at the interface of environmental science and environmental health.

Discovering new materials and new phenomena
by simulation

Artem Oganov
Department of Geosciences

If your school requires that you have a sequence of educational opportunities in order to receive in-service credit, please advise them that during the Fall 2009 Semester we will be offering one-hour of in-service credit for each of the:

Geology Open Night, Astronomy Open Night, The Worlds of Physics and the Living World meet in ESS 001 at 7:30 p.m.

Information for these two events will be available on the Long Island Geologists web site at: www.geo.sunysb.edu/lig/

Geology Open Night

Spring 2010

There will be Refreshments and Demonstrations after the Geology Open Night Presentations.

Admission is Free!!

Fate of Nitrogen in
Suffolk County’s Groundwater

Coal and Human Health:
From the Hollows in West Virginia to Rural China

Discovering new materials and new phenomena
by simulation

In-service credit available for teachers and professional geologists