Dr. Jon Chorover Receives NSF Funding to Investigate Silicate Weathering Systems

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Dr. Jon Chorover, ENVS Department Head and Project 4 Principal Investigator (PI), received an NSF award of $466,484 (UA portion). The winning proposal was titled: “Collaborative Research: Concentration - Ratio - Discharge (C-R-Q) Relationships of Transient Water-Age Distributions.”

This project will take advantage of the Concentration–Isotope Ratio–Discharge (C-R-Q) relationship to develop a new series of reactive transport models. These models will be based on static and transient transit time distributions, and they will predict the chemical, isotopic and trace element signatures of silicate weathering systems operating under ambient conditions as well as responding to transient events.

Dr. Chorover noted, “The chemical composition of solutions emanating from weathering hillslopes is a non-linear function of the velocity and residence time of the transmitted water. This project will utilize stable isotopes and pseudo-isotopes of silicon to better resolve the geochemical mechanisms controlling that variation.”  The project, which is in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Druhan at University of Illinois and Dr. Louis Derry at Cornell, will make use of the Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO) located at the Biosphere 2 facility, and operated by the University of Arizona.

Congratulations and much success on your new project Dr. Chorover!