EugeneNov 22

🎉 A small milestone for my hydrogeochemistry monograph about #SvystunovaGully

Today, my Zenodo record passed 1,500 downloads across both released versions — something I never expected when I began this project as a personal, curiosity-driven exploration.

It’s an independent study on groundwater–rock interaction, technogenic metasomatism, and carbonate–water equilibria, based largely on PHREEQC thermodynamic modelling and geospatial data.

I’m grateful to everyone who took an interest, skimmed, downloaded, or shared it.
Your attention gives this work a life I didn’t imagine it would ever have.

❗ And one more thing: in the monograph’s preamble I explicitly thank the developers of free and open-source software. Without their tools — R, PHREEQC, QGIS, LaTeX, Linux, JabRef and many others — this research would simply not have been possible.

#Hydrogeochemistry #Geochemistry #Groundwater #PHREEQC #FOSS #OpenScience #RStats #QGIS #Zenodo #EnvironmentalScience #Carbonates #Metasomatism #GeoData #WaterPollution

Greem (Graeme. Not Graham!)Jul 14, 2025

There is little in life as satisfying as chemically descaling a kettle.

#kettle #descaling #HardWater #carbonates #FormicAcid

Ars Technica NewsJul 13, 2025
A new Martian climate model suggest a mostly cold, harsh environment https://arstechni.ca/pbTk #planetaryscience #Climatescience #Curiosityrover #climatemodel #carbonates #Science #rover #Mars
A new Martian climate model suggest a mostly cold, harsh environment

A model built using data from the Curiosity rover suggests wet periods were rare.

Ars Technica
Dr. Or M. BialikMar 5, 2025
Thallium isotopes are an interesting proxy for #ocean oxygenation, and it has an interesting partitioning mechanism related to Mn oxides. But it never got very popular.
For my personal preference, it's nice to see it works in #carbonates... sort of (meteoric diagenesis might be an issue)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016703725001048
Dr. Or M. BialikFeb 28, 2025
#WeekendReading: Rivas et al., on an Early #Cretaceous volcaniclastic–carbonate ramp in southern Chile. An interesting aperture into the Cretaceous temperate #carbonates (lots of #oysters) and their interactions in #volcanoes
I constantly find myself comparing and contrasting with these Late Cretaceous volcanic #atolls I worked on.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10347-023-00669-4
A “cool-water”, non-tropical, mixed volcaniclastic–carbonate ramp from the Early Cretaceous of southern Chile (45°40’S) - Facies

The Aysén-Río Mayo Basin was a back-arc/marginal basin developed in southwestern South America (43°–47°S) between the Tithonian–Aptian. Its sedimentary fill corresponds to the Coyhaique Group, which represents a transgressive–regressive succession. Six lithofacies and five microfacies were defined for three outcrops exposed south of Coyhaique (45°40’S). The outcrops have a mixed calcareous–volcaniclastic composition and were assigned to the early transgressive Toqui Formation, i.e., lowermost part of the Coyhaique Group. These mixed rocks comprise bioclastic–volcaniclastic conglomerate, gravelly allochemic sandstone, and gravelly–sandy allochem limestone. Bedding is sharp to amalgamated, sometimes rippled, depicting a wave- and storm-influenced, mixed inner- to mid-ramp. The ramp developed over a Valanginian, active volcanic terrain (Foitzick Volcanic Complex), source of the volcaniclastic sediments. Limestones are rich in reworked bioclasts, and controlled by calcitic organisms including gryphaeid oysters, non-geniculate red algae, and echinoid fragments, defining a heterozoan association (“maerl”-like sediments); less frequent are ahermatypic corals, serpulids, and carbonized wood. Based on their inferred paleolatitude (south of 45°–50°S), fossil assemblage (heterozoan), and kind of carbonate platform (ramp-type), these calcareous rocks of the Toqui Formation depict a “cool-water” (sensu lato), non-tropical setting. The fossil assemblage includes oysters (Aetostreon spp.), and abundant calcareous red algae attributed to Archamphiroa jurassica Steinmann (1930), a taxon previously known from the upper Tithonian Cotidiano Formation of Argentina. A. jurassica is here reported for the first time for the Lower Cretaceous of Chile, suggesting a broader upper Tithonian—Valanginian-Hauterivian? range for the species. The facies model presented here contrasts with the depositional environments depicted for correlative reefal rocks in Argentina (Tres Lagunas Formation), which reflect a “warm-water” setting. In the Aysén-Río Mayo Basin, the influence of sea-water key physical variables in the carbonate sedimentation, as well as the position and hydraulic regime of the carbonate platforms within the basin, and their interaction with the volcanism are still unclear.

SpringerLink
Dr. Or M. BialikNov 8, 2024
#WeekendReading: Słowakiewicz et al., on the wierd interactions between #viruses, #biofilms, and the formation of #freshwater #carbonates.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-75998-7
Biofilms in modern CaCO3-supersaturated freshwater environments reveal viral proxies - Scientific Reports

Biofilms are mucilaginous-organic layers produced by microbial activity including viruses. Growing biofilms form microbial mats which enhance sediment stability by binding particles with extracellular polymeric substances and promoting growth through nutrient cycling and organic matter accumulation. They preferentially develop at the sediment-water interface of both marine and non-marine environments, and upon the growing surfaces of modern tufa and travertine. In this context, however, little is known about the factors, environmental or anthropogenic, which affect viral communities in freshwater spring settings. To explore this issue, geochemical and metagenomic data were subjected to multidimensional analyses (Principal Component Analysis, Classical Multidimensional Scaling, Partial Least Squares analysis and cluster analysis based on beta-diversity), and these show that viral composition is specific and dependent on environment. Indeed, waters precipitating tufa and travertine do vary in their geochemistry with their viruses showing distinct variability between sites. These differences between virus groups allow the formulation of a viral proxy, based on the Caudoviricetes/Megaviricetes ratio established on the most abundant groups of viruses. This ratio may be potentially used in analysing ancient DNA preserved in carbonate formations as an additional source of information on the microbiological community during sedimentation.

Nature
Bill MinarikOct 7, 2024

Congratulations to Dr. Pascale Daoust, who successfully defended, "Ocean Acidification: Insights from the Behaviour of Ancient and Modern Carbonates", supervised by Al Mucci and Galen Halverson.

The work involved field and laboratory studies of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum section near Campo, Spain.

The figure shows the depositional environments at the time; from Daoust et al, submitted, modified from Pujalte et al. (2014)

#McGillUniversity #EarthSystemScience #Carbonates #PETM

Dr. Or M. BialikAug 9, 2024

#WeekendReading: Akhtar et al. show a multi-element/isotopes approach to explore the differences in early #diagenesis of #carbonates with marine and meteoric fluids, as well as along the gradient.
(In the Bahamas and Great Barrier #Reef)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2024.08.002

Geochemical fingerprints of early diagenesis in shallow-water marine carbonates: Insights from paired δ44/40Ca and δ26Mg values

We present a suite of major element, stable isotope (δ13C, δ18O, δ44/40Ca, δ26Mg), and selected trace element (Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca) data from Pleistocene …

Dr. Or M. BialikJul 19, 2024
#WeekendReading: Li et al. on how shallow water #carbonates and deep water #siliciclastics may end up mixed together.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/dep2.301
Bill LoguidiceMay 31, 2024

The genesis and chemistry of bastnäsite and rare earth carbonates vital for tech industry shown to be extremely complex #research #bastnasite #carbonates #techindustry #recycling #greentech

https://fullsteamahead365.com/2024/05/31/genesis-and-chemistry-of-bastnasite-and-rare-earth-carbonates/

The genesis and chemistry of bastnäsite and rare earth carbonates vital for tech industry shown to be extremely complex - fullSTEAMahead365

In the Wiley Open Access journal, Global Challenges, new research, "Chemical Textures on Rare Earth Carbonates: An Experimental Approach to Mimic the Formation of Bastnäsite," has unveiled the intricate factors that influence the genesis and chemistry of bastnäsite and rare earth carbonates vita for the tech industry and its hardware outputs.

fullSTEAMahead365