Stable Isotope Tracing in the Environment - SITE
Light and heavy stable isotope systems are powerful tools for understanding geochemical processes. Stable isotopes do not undergo measurable radioactive decay, but the relative mass difference between stable isotopes causes fractionation. The mass difference varies strongly throughout the periodic table; while light stable isotope systems have high variations (up to 1000%), differences in heavy isotope systems can decrease to below 1%. Detailed knowledge is needed to understand the biogeochemical cycling of various elements and to track pollution sources.
Environmental Forensics is used to identify sources, the timing of the release, and transport pathways for potentially hazardous environmental contaminants. Combining different analytical techniques with knowledge from several research areas, such as chemistry, geology, geochemistry, hydrogeology, and statistics, can give information on the source and/or time of release into the environment. During recent decades public awareness of our environmental effects has grown, reflecting technological advances, the increased demand for raw materials and the related release of emerging contaminants. Further, climate-induced changes lead to changed run-off patterns, and increased soil export capacity becomes more frequent. Climate change is affecting the shallow and deep groundwater aquifers, changing transport pathways. This project will broaden the environmental forensic approach by combining multi-elemental analysis with multi-isotope analysis, focussing on developing the light-stable isotope measurements at LTU sustainably and effectively. The overall purpose of SITE is to enhance the analytical capabilities of stable isotope analysis on the Delta-Q (light stable isotopes), and the multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) on available sample material from ongoing projects within Applied Geochemistry, LTU. The gathered isotope data will be combined into an accessible database, and the knowledge gained on element cycling and contaminant behaviour will be used to enhance the field of environmental forensics.
The project starts on 2023-12-01 and lasts 24 months until 2025-11-30 and is carried out by post-doctoral researcher Sandeep Thapa, who will spend time at the Applied Geochemistry laboratory facilities at LTU and ALS, Scandinavia.
The project is financed by the Kempe postdoctoral scholarship (JCSMK-230083).
Contact
Sandeep Thapa
- Visiting Researcher
- 0920-491443
- sandeep.thapa@associated.ltu.se
- Sandeep Thapa
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