Events

Bridget R. Scanlon, Ph.D. - Bureau Seminar Series

Assessing Linkages between Drinking Water Quality Violations and Social Vulnerability in the United States

Increasing concern over our drinking water supplies, particularly in socially vulnerable communities, has prompted government initiatives to increase compliance and provide safe drinking water for all. Here we evaluated health-based violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act in community water systems across the US to decipher spatiotemporal relationships between violations and social drivers. We show that water quality violations are strongly linked to social vulnerability in the Southwest US (e.g., arsenic, radionuclides, and nitrate) and Southcentral US (disinfection byproducts) where violations and social vulnerability are both high and in the Midwest where both are low. However, violations are generally not linked to social vulnerability in the Southeast (low violations, high social vulnerability) and in the Northeast (high violations, low social vulnerability). Texas ranked first in terms of EPA serious violators and in number of community water systems with any health-based violations. Approximately 100 times more people experience both high levels of any drinking water violation and high social vulnerability (~12 million people) relative to populations with low violations and social vulnerability. Of all social vulnerability metrics, poverty and minority status exhibited the strongest linkages to violation incidence. Notably, persistence of violations over time is strongly linked to social vulnerability (R²: 0.62–0.83) across the US, indicating much greater challenges for socially vulnerable communities to attain and maintain system compliance. These water quality challenges and associated environmental justice issues are likely exacerbated by climatic factors. Understanding spatiotemporal variability in noncompliance can help guide deployment of new infrastructure funding to address health-based violations which disproportionately persist in socially vulnerable populations served by very small to small community water systems in mostly rural settings.

Bridget Scanlon is a Senior Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin. Her current research focuses on water quality issues related to EPA regulations and linkages to social vulnerability throughout the U.S., with particular emphasis in Texas. This study should help guide water infrastructure funding to improve compliance with EPA regulations. She has (co)authored ~160 publications. Dr. Scanlon is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

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Buddy Price presenting for Bureau Seminar Series

“New Insight into Basinal Depositional Processes and Resulting Stratal Architecture in the Permian Basin”

 Over the last two decades studies have emphasized the underappreciated impact of bottom currents and point-sourced gravity-driven currents in deepwater allochthonous carbonate depositional environments, leading to re-interpretations of many previously examined systems.  Wolfcampian and Leonardian intervals in the Permian Basin provide a thick succession of basinal strata to re-evaluate with updated insight and models. Subsurface mapping and cross sections highlight multiple mounded and elongate carbonate-mud rich accumulations reaching up to 800m thick along the western slopes of the Delaware Basin. The mounded nature, lack of platform-focused sourcing, and presence of oblique cross-cutting channels suggest these features represent carbonate contourite drifts generated by bottom currents as opposed to gravity-driven deposits. Thickness relationships also indicate bottom currents may locally sweep sediments from toe-of-slope environments, inhibiting platform progradation.

In the deeper basin, mapping highlights previously undocumented point-sourced carbonate accumulations interpreted as calciclastic submarine fans. Some fans extend into the basin over 100km and reach 250m in thickness. The fans range in composition, containing both carbonate debrites and turbidites with varying volumes of mud-rich siliciclastic deposits. Runout of gravity flows resulted in concentration of comparatively coarser carbonate material in proximal fan environments and finer siliciclastic mudstone, siltstone, and organic matter in fan fringe environments.

The findings are significant as the processes responsible for drift and fan formation impart significant control on facies distribution and subsequent reservoir quality, reservoir architecture, organic matter distribution, and vertical and lateral distribution of barriers to induced fracture growth. Correct characterization across multiple zones may highlight stacking of sub-environments to explain production trends, identify advantageous locations for multi-zone development, or inform spatial differences in horizontal well spacing and stacking. Lastly, as these new interpretations recognize calciclastic drifts and fans in one of the most heavily studied and geologic data-rich areas in the world, it indicates these systems are likely overlooked and more common in the ancient rock record.

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Spring Semester Classes Begin

Charles Kerans, Ph.D. presenting for Bureau Seminar Series

Carbonate Sedimentologic/Stratigraphic Record of Climate Change from Bahamas-Caicos Archipelago

One of the most compelling uncertainties of global warming scenarios is the magnitude and rate of sea-level rise if temperatures continue to increase at current rates unchecked. The most immediate insights into this ongoing crisis derive from careful monitoring and modeling of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, whose potential for rapid collapse pose an imminent threat to coastal inundation. Reconstructing the rate and magnitude of sea-level rise from the earth’s most recent warm periods, or interglacials, and in particular the well-studied last interglacial (LIG) or marine isotope stage 5e (MIS 5e), provides additional constraints.  The carbonate sedimentologic/stratigraphic record of the LIG is uniquely well suited to record the deep-time record of climate forcing with its high-fidelity track of shorelines and reefs. Studies conducted over the past 7 years within the carbonate group at UT Austin in collaboration with Exxon-Mobil and USF have generated significant insights into the role of such critical climate events as LIG peak sea-level, the Middle Pleistocene Transition (MPT), the Last Interglacial (LIG), and melt-water pulses (MWP’s) following T1 (the last glacial termination). Important questions regarding the global mean sea level response during peak LIG warming, and the impact of glacioisostatic adjustments (GIA) on this record and the Holocene record of sea level rise will be considered.

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UTIG Seminar: Ariel Lellouch, Tel Aviv University

Contact costa@ig.utexas.edu for a link to join the live talk.

Speaker: Ariel Lellouch, Tel Aviv University

Host: Duncan Young

Title: Seismic applications of downhole DAS

Abstract: Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an emerging technology that leverages optical fibers to record the seismic wavefield with an unprecedented spatial resolution. In this talk, I will describe various seismic-band applications utilizing optical fibers deployed in boreholes. We first illustrate how records from a vertical DAS array can be simply and effectively processed to construct velocity models, detect microseismic events and earthquakes, locate them, and estimate their magnitude. Then, we show how a horizontal DAS array deployed in an unconventional shale reservoir records guided waves propagating for hundreds of meters with frequencies as high as 700 Hz. Thanks to the high resolution of DAS measurements, guided waves are recorded unaliased despite their very short (< 10 m) wavelength. We compare the field observations with semi-analytical and wave-equation modeling approaches. Guided waves are also strongly affected by open fractures induced by hydraulic stimulation. We use a horizontal cross-well acquisition of perforation shots recorded by a DAS array in a simple, geometrical analysis of horizontal fracture growth. We also analyze guided waves generated by microseismic events and can locate the events despite the unidirectional nature of the DAS measurements.

Water, Climate and Environment Seminar | Bridget Scanlon - JSG/BEG

Title: Assessing Global Water Scarcity Using Satellites

Planetary Habitability Seminar: Kennda Lynch, LPI

UT Paleontology Seminar: Dr. Alexis Mychajliw

Zoom link: https://utexas.zoom.us/j/91661118623

Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) Meeting

This is an internal Jackson School of Geosciences meeting for faculty and research scientists who are part of the Graduate Studies Committee.

De Ford Lecture | Debbie-Ann Gordon-Smith

Investigation of water resources and nutrient biogeochemistry on the island of Jamaica using environmental tracers

Dr. Debbie-Ann Gordon-Smith, The University West Indies, at Mona

Abstract: Global water resources have been under severe stress due to various factors including poor management, pollution and changes in rainfall patterns due to climate variability. The small islands of the Caribbean, such as Jamaica, have not been spared; prolonged periods of drought, extreme weather events and increased urbanization have led to water shortages and impaired water quality.
Sustainable management of these natural water resources requires an understanding of the dynamics of their physical behavior and their chemical constituents. Environmental tracers have proven to be very effective tools for studying the transport and mixing of surface and subsurface water on regional and global scales.
This lecture will introduce the audience to the use of stable and radioactive isotopes as tracers in the investigation of the fresh and coastal waters of Jamaica. The talk will describe the analytical techniques used in these isotopic studies, present findings related to the sources, pathways and fate of nutrients and other inorganic contaminants, and suggest implications of these findings for the sustainable management of Jamaica’s water resources.

DeFord Lecture Series
Since the 1940’s, the DeFord (Technical Sessions) lecture series, initially the official venue for disseminating DGS graduate student research, is a forum for lectures by distinguished visitors and members of our community. This is made possible through a series of endowments.

BEG Seminar: Peter Eichhubl, Ph.D.

Peter Eichhubl, Ph.D. – Senior Research Scientist – Bureau of Economic Geology -The University of Texas at Austin

A chemo-mechanical view on caprock failure—implications for carbon and hydrogen storage in subsurface reservoirs

Storage or disposal of fluids such as carbon dioxide, wastewater, or hydrogen in the subsurface can result in chemical disequilibrium between the resident brine and the formation. In this presentation I explore how chemical change can enhance or inhibit fracture growth, and how such processes can affect shale caprock integrity of storage reservoirs.

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UTIG Seminar: Lin Liu, Chinese University of Hong Kong

*** Due to the 14 hour time difference between Austin and Hong Kong, this seminar has been scheduled to start at 9:00am CT ***

Contact costa@ig.utexas.edu for a link to join the live talk.

Speaker: Lin Liu, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Host: Xiaohua Xu

Title: Geophysical investigations of thawing permafrost

Abstract: Accumulating observational evidence shows widespread thawing and degradation of perennially-frozen ground known as permafrost. Thawing permafrost has profound effects on terrestrial ecosystems, hydrologic and landscape processes, and infrastructure. However, it is challenging to study and monitor permafrost mainly because it is purely defined by the subsurface thermal condition. Through a few local to regional-scale studies, I will show how integrative measurements using geophysical methods, such as Ground Penetrating Radar, space-borne Radar Interferometry, and Surface Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, offer quantitative understandings on surface and subsurface processes associated with thawing ice-rich permafrost.