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McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research Project (MCM-LTER)One of 26 National Science Foundation funded long-term study sites, the MCM-LTER was established in 1992. However, research in these valleys has been conducted for many years starting in 1904, the early days of Antarctic exploration. Today's research is an interdiciplinary study of the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems including soils scientists, glaciologists, hydrologists, limnologists, and geochemists. For more information please see the MCM-LTER web site. |
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Regional and Antarctic mercury geochemistryDr. Lyons and his group have conducted several mercury geochemistry studies in recent and past years. These studies have ranged from gold/silver mining related contamination in Nevada to water and fish contamination in Alabama to anthropogenic mercury in Antarctica. They are currently conducting research evaluating mercury bioaccumulation and flux in Lake Erie and some of its tributaries. |
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Physical and chemical weathering in alpine regionsIn collaboration with colleague Anne Carey and her research group, studies are being conducted on the relationship of chemical and physical weathering in tectonically active areas such as New Zealand and Taiwan. |
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Agricultural and urban effects on surface water geochemistryMany natural and anthropogenic factors affect the geochemistry of surface waters. The Lyons and Carey groups study water quality issues such as nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) flux from farming and feedlots, and urban contributions such as salts and metals from road runoff. |
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Chemical weathering and carbon and nutrient fluxes from Central American watersheds.Lyons and Carey have been recently working in Panama and the Caribbean Islands, Dominica and the Dominican Republic to better quantify chemical weathering yields, especially from volcanic lithologies. Gregg McElwee, an undergraduate in the School of Earth Sciences joined Lyons and Carey in the field in August. He will do his senior thesis on the Panama samples he collected. Future work in Nicaragua and Costa Rica is currently in the planning stages. |
