Soil Science Society of North Carolina Meeting

Hi everyone, this is Audrey. I know, long time no post. Everyone has been busy traveling or working in the lab with no time to blog. We have some exciting posts to share, so I hope you enjoy them! On January 20-21, the Soil Science Society of North Carolina held their yearly meeting which is one of the largest state meetings in the country. Believe it or not, North Carolina is one of the leading states in soil research. I had a poster looking at arsenic and lead levels in porewater and sediments of golf course and sod farm ponds across the Sandhills region of North Carolina.

Allison also had a poster on her current work looking at the effects on soil and crops from the coal ash spill from Duke Energy into the Dan River. This is, of course, a topic of extreme interest, so Allison had her work cut out for her answering all the questions. Overall, Allison won 3rd place for her poster, so congratulations to her!

And finally, Matt gave a talk on the cause and effects of arsenic loading into groundwater in Southeast Asia's and how soils play a role. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture, but he gave a great talk! Liz was the moderator for the Soil and Groundwater Contamination session as well. As you can see, we were an active group in this years meeting!

Fun at the Argonne National Laboratory?

Greetings from Chicago (sort of)! Matt, DJ and I (Audrey) are at the Argonne National Laboratory using the synchrotron for our Cambodia sediments and the MSMA turfgrass project. If you aren't well versed in the synchrotron, you can find information here. Don't worry, we're still learning more about it ourselves (well, except for Matt). Here is an aerial view of the whole system:

*photo courtesy of the APS*

As you can see, it is quite the setup. Here are some additional pictures from our trip so far:

Work Station-yes, we use around 8 monitors

 This is actually where we put the sample in. We don't get to see this room very often and it closes with authority. The beam goes through the metal that transects the room. There are also cameras, mirrors, and other really scientific stuff that happens in here that perhaps Matt can explain more.

Here is DJ loading a sample into a magnetic tray that will move the sample around (the beam doesn't move)

Loaded sample with a camera and detector shooting on it. Just look at those coarse sediments!

This place is so big that we need tricycles to get around. Yes, I'm serious. Here we are going to get lunch at the cafe down the path.

Anyway, this is just a quick post to show you what we've been doing. Matt, Liz and I will be attending the SSSA conference from Nov. 3-7 so I think you'll get another blog post soon. 

*Audrey*

Soil Digestion Time

I know, it's been extremely too long since we've blogged! Since the field work is over, we've been spending some quality time in the lab working on the data. I thought it would be nice to post what I've been working on for the past few weeks and that is soil digestions. In this process, you add concentrated acids (nitric and hydrochloric acid) as well as 30% hydrogen peroxide (yup, just like you use on cuts, but in a much higher concentration) to extract different elements from the soil. Oh, and if that's not bad enough, you have to heat up these acids to 95 degrees C. No worries, proper PPE is always worn. Here are some pictures of the final product:

Volumetric flasks with concentrated acids that contain elements of interest

The tubes for the digestions are quite large

When the digests are finished, the soil looks extremely different from when you started. 

Soil before digestion

Soil after digestion

As you can see, you pretty much just end up with ultra pure sand in the end and all of the organic matter has been extracted from the soil. Well, that does it for now. I hope enjoyed the post, and if you have any questions, please feel free to post a comment!

-Audrey

More Sediments...

Here's another small sampling of sediment images from our recent Cambodia trip.  There is tremendous variation throughout the subsurface!

The Blur Between Fun and Work in Cambodia

And we're off!  We tried to pack light but somehow still ended up with boxes up to our heads.

After arriving to Cambodia late at night following 30 hours of travel, the cafe dukdagohdagah (iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk) is a jetlag tonic.

And a little mi mama (ramen soup) to get things going.

We've been getting a whole bunch of wells installed at different depths to examine groundwater chemistry and flow.  In the area we're working, well water is arsenic free, so the wells can be used as a drinking water source.

The end product, just about finished.

During well drilling we take time to examine and collect sediments.  There's great variation in sediment type with location and depth.

Next to one of our drill sites, you can see the remnants of the floods that have devastated Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.  Waters are now receding, but there is still a long way to go.

While looking for a monitoring site along the Mekong River, we stumbled across a temple.

Audrey has become enamored by all the cows in the countryside (and along all the roads).