WyCEHG postdoc uses hydrogeophysics to understand aquifers

For Mine Dogan, a geophysical engineer and postdoctoral research scientist with the Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology andGeophysics (WyCEHG), math and physics are the gateway to understanding the universe.

          

“I believe there is nothing in the universe that we cannot understand and/or model using math and physics,” she says. “Mastering these two fields gives one not only the knowledge but also analytical thinking and problem solving skills.”

Mine installs a pressure transducer at
a field site in Mississippi

She explains, “I like the way these two fields can expand people's mind and provide new perspectives. Geophysics is not simply a tool that you can hit some buttons and get what you need. It is a field of science which requires knowing the theories, limitations, pros, and cons of each method.”

          

Dogan, who grew up in Turkey, developed her interest in math and physics at an early age and that interest led her down a path of varied research projects. She received her bachelors and masters of science degrees in geophysical engineering from Istanbul Technical University in Turkey, and her PhD in hydrogeophysics from Michigan State University.

She has worked as a geophysical engineer in coal mines in western Turkey, and contributed to research projects related to archaeogeophysics and earthquake engineering. Currently, her focus is on hydrogeophysics, particularly in regards to aquifers.

“As a geophysicist, I want to contribute to this growing field by introducing innovative approaches to collect and interpret the geophysical data needed to map the spatial and temporal changes in soil, aquifers, and surrounding material,” she says.

Mine (right) measures snow density at the
No Name watershed in the Snowy Mountains

Her recently published paper, “Predicting flow and transport in highly heterogeneous alluvial aquifers,” provides a solution to a long-standing challenge of modeling flow and transport in highly heterogeneous alluvial aquifers. She and her colleagues coupled novel characterization tools and stochastic methods to provide the solution, which they hope will make a big impact in understanding contaminants in aquifers and developing effective remediation schemes.

Cutting edge hydrological research like this exemplifies Dogan's long-term goals of “contributing to the deterministic aspects of hydrology by developing novel ways to collect, process, and interpret geophysical data.” She hopes that in doing so, she can “collaboratively provide solutions to hydrogeology-, groundwater remediation- and pollution-related problems.”

Collaboration with other scientists is a key reason she landed at the University of Wyoming nearly a year ago as a post-doctoral researcher with WyCEHG. She sought an interdisciplinary environment that would allow her the opportunity to collaborate with scientists across disciplines.

Not only does her passion for math and physics motivate her to push limits with her research, so does the potential future impacts of that research.

Says Dogan, “Being able to provide knowledge which will likely effect the lives of next generations is the mostimportant and satisfying aspect of my work.”

For more on Dogan's work, visit www.minedogan.com, and watch this short film http://vimeo.com/112085751.

By Manasseh Franklin

Rock drilling leads WyCEHG scientists to groundwater

Not far from the Blair-Wallis picnic area in Vedauwoo near Laramie,Wyoming, literal breakthroughs in science are underway. A drill rig standing several stories tall and manned by four men wearing hard hats is moving, slowly. The drill is cutting through granite and pulling out long cylindrical core samples that offer UW’s Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics (WyCEHG) researchers unlikely clues about ground water in Wyoming.

            
The drilling began on October 7^th and will continue until four boreholes extending to depths of 262 feet are dug in the Blair-Wallis area. Once these core samples are gathered, the drill crew will move to the Red Buttes area south of Laramie. Researchers hope the Red Buttes area cores will extend to over 900 feet.

Drilling began on October 7th at Blair-Wallis.
Photo Credit: Brady Flinchum

"Understanding groundwater in mountain regions is crucial so that we can estimate how much water will be available for use downstream," says Brady Flinchum, a geophysics graduate student and WyCEHG member at UW. But groundwater can be a tough thing to measure, particularly in the Laramie Range.

“As it turns out, the granite rock type in the Laramie Range makes it extra difficult to quantify groundwater because groundwater flow is concentrated into small fracture zones,” says Flinchum. Information gathered from these boreholes will allow WyCEHG geophysicists to “measure the properties that control the groundwater flow and storage in the subsurface and to determine the source of groundwater. We will be extracting water samples from different depths and using geochemistry to see if the water in the subsurface is the same as the rain water or stream water.”

According to Dr. Steve Holbrook, this project is a hugely important for WyCEHG. “A primary focus of our work is using geophysical imaging methods to infer subsurface material properties, including hydrological properties like porosity and fracturing. With the geophysical methods we can cover a lot of ground quickly, but to have confidence in our interpretations, we need to have some ground-truth data to calibrate our geophysical images against. 

"The drill holes currently being drilled in the Laramie Range will give us that ground truth and enable us to extrapolate known subsurface properties over the larger landscape."

Granite core offers clues into groundwater movement
Photo credit: Brady Flinchum

Holbrook has been working on getting the project in place for two years. He credits the support and cooperation of colleagues at the U.S. Forest Service in getting it off the ground.

Flinchum agrees with Holbrook on the significance of the drilling. “Scientists using geochemistry can learn about the source of the deep ground water from our samples, which is all part of the story of how water travels from the high mountains to the oceans.”

             




By Manasseh Franklin

WyCEHG Collaboration leads to deeper understanding of water transport and storage

On September 30^th, California-based hydrologist and geomorphologist Daniella Rempe spoke at a Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics (WyCEHG) meeting to share her study findings related to water storage and movement. Rempe, a University of California Berkeley PhD candidate in Department of Earth and Planetary Science, came to communicate her research but also to discuss the ways WyCEHG is helping to further that research.

“WyCEHG significantly impacts my research by providing me with the means to image the fresh bedrock-weathered bedrock boundary that defines the base of the ‘critical zone.’” says Rempe. She further describes the ‘critical zone’ as “a boundary that controls many processes that influence how water and weathered rock are distributed across a landscape.”

Daniella (Center) with Professor Steve Holbrook (Right) 

and Professor Bill Dietrich of UC Berkeley (Left) 

discussing hypotheses about the planned 

geophysical survey locations.  Photo Credit: Alex Bryk 

The WyCEHG and Rempe collaboration began this past summer when Dr. Steve Holbrook and a crew of WyCEHG members joined Rempe and researchers from UC Berkeley at the Eel River Critical Zone Observatory in the Angelo Coast Range Research in Mendocino County, California. The WyCEHG crew used a variety of imaging techniques to image the boundary between weathered and fresh bedrock under hillslopes studied by the Eel River Critical Zone Observatory researchers.

Rempe is excited about the future of her research now that her relationship with WyCEHG has been established. “Collaboration with WyCEHG researchers will allow us to collect key data needed to test and constrain models that describe the evolution of the critical zone under landscapes.”

 She’s also enthusiastic about the ways in which collaborative science can have a broader impact on society as a whole. “Advances in our understanding of the complex interactions between rock, soil, water, air and biota are expected to significantly impact how we view our changing planet and ultimately lead to better informed environmental policy decisions.”

In addition to presenting at the WyCEHG All-Hands meeting, Rempe met with WyCEHG faculty and students to discuss future collaborations, including drafting manuscripts with Steve Holbrook on the WyCEHG field work at the Eel River.

By Manasseh Franklin

WyCEHG Call for Proposals supports integrative mountain hydrology research

Are you a UW scientist interested in mountain hydrology? Do you want to help further scientific understanding of mountain watersheds, snow hydrology, surface water and ground water interactions or weathering and critical zone processes?  WyCEHG (Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics) has issued a request for proposals (RFP) to UW faculty members for projects related to all of the above.

The proposals, which are due November 7, 2014, are funded  by Wyoming EPSCoR’s Track-1 grant. Approximately $2 million are available to individual faculty members or teams of faculty. Recipients of the funding will have access to WyCEHG’s study areas in Wyoming’s Laramie Range and Snowy Range.

“In announcing this RFP, we are hoping to attract new researchers into WyCEHG, while simultaneously focusing the funded activities on our key goals in mountain hydrology and environmental geophysics.  This represents a great opportunity for faculty, students, and postdocs to get involved in, and add value to, some exciting research topics in Wyoming," says WyCEHG co-director Steve Holbrook.

The most competitive proposals will address geological, ecological, hydrological, atmospheric, geochemical and geophysical processes that control water fluxes in mountain environments. And while the proposals should also fall into the following four scientific themes: 1) water balance in mountain watersheds, 2) snow hydrology, 3) surface water/groundwater interactions and 4) weathering and critical zone processes, integration among themes is highly encouraged.

For more information, see: http://www.uwyo.edu/epscor/wycehg_rfp_2014_final.pdf

By Manasseh Franklin

Faces of SRAP: Blandon Su, Emily Oaxaca, and Kim Barrios

The Summer Research Apprentice Program has officially come to a close, but we will still be featuring a few SRAP participants on our blog! Stay tuned!

Blandon Su, Emily Oaxaca and Kim Barrios have spent their time at SRAP studying in the Ecosystem Science and Management department with professors Ginger Paige and Scott Miller.

“They got an introduction into a whole bunch of field hydrology and geophysics the first week,” said Dr. Paige. “They were in the field a lot.”

Emily (left), Blandon (middle), and Kimberly Barrios (right)
conduct field research

After their time in the field, Blandon, Emily and Kim each came up with a different research project to complete.

Blandon, a junior from Chicago, Illinois chose to study a stream, saying “My project is investigating a stream at Blair-Wallis. It’s funny, because one day, there’s a lot of water in the stream, and the day after, it’s starting to lose water, so my project is really open-ended.”

Understanding how water gets to the stream, and where it goes when it leaves the stream is a question that has long puzzled scientists.

“The great part about Blandon’s project is that it’s one of those hydrologic conundrums where we have to look at multiple avenues of investigation to figure out what’s going on,” Dr. Paige explained. “One approach doesn’t necessarily give you the right answer, you have to do this multiple times and figure out the complexities of what’s going on within the system.”

Emily, a junior from Denver, Colorado is working on a project that includes her fellow SRAP participants.

“I’m going to interview my fellow SRAP students about their thoughts and opinions on climate change,” she says. “I want to learn if it depends on gender, or age, or other factors.”

Emily hopes to become a better researcher in her time at SRAP, and wants to understand how different factors can influence people’s perceptions.

“I want to learn how to ask the right questions,” she says. “I hope to learn how to get better at talking to people.”

Kim, a recent high school graduate from Rawlins, Wyoming chose to examine rainfall and soil moisture.

“I’m measuring soil moisture and rainfall,” she says. “I’m also comparing different types of rain gauges and moisture sensors, to see which ones are more appropriate for different uses.”

Kim’s research will help WyCEHG scientists better understand the capabilities and limitations of the equipment they use.

Kim has decided to attend the University of Wyoming in the fall to pursue a degree in Architectural Engineering. Both Blandon and Emily plan to attend college after they graduate from high school, although neither has decided what they would like to study.

SRAP is a six-week, intensive research program for high school students. It is based at the University of Wyoming and is sponsored by Wyoming EPSCoR. For more information about the program, click here, or search “SRAP” in the archives.

By Robin Rasmussen
Photo courtesy of Dr. Ginger Paige