NSF Award
0927767
This U.S - Chile Planning Visit proposal will support one junior and two senior researchers from the U.S., under the direction of Dr. Jerry Miller of Western Carolina University, for a visit to the Rio Loa valley. The Rio Loa, one of the most important rivers in northern Chile, heads on the western flank of the Andes and flows downstream across the extremely arid Atacama Desert to the Pacific Ocean. Previously collected data show that water and sediments within the Rio Loa are contaminated by toxic trace metals and metalloids including arsenic, copper, lithium, and lead, among others. Arsenic is thought to be particularly problematic because of its well known human health effects and its extremely high concentrations in river waters (which locally exceed drinking water guidelines proposed by the World Health Organization). The objective of this visit is for the U.S. research team to develop an integrated, multidisciplinary investigation with Chilean researchers that (1) effectively tracks the movement of trace metals from source areas through the Rio Loa basin using novel geochemical fingerprinting methods, and (2) determines the relative contributions of toxic trace metals to the river from specific contaminant sources (including several mine sites) using modified and improved statistical modeling methods. <br/><br/>The need to develop new, more effective methods of determining the source and quantity of contaminant influx to rivers where multiple sources exist has become increasingly recognized in recent years. The project to be developed from this visit will address this important problem by taking advantage of the Rio Loa's unique physiochemical environment where multiple metal sources exhibit distinct chemistries that are contributed to specific reaches of the river. The project will be developed and carried out using an interdisciplinary approach that combines the geochemical expertise of Drs. Nelson Guerra and Leonardo Romero at the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta, Chile with the geomorphologic, geochemical, and statistical modeling expertise of U.S. scientists from Western Carolina University, the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, and Northern Kentucky University. The program to be developed also will include a training and educational initiative focused on research experiences for undergraduate and graduate (M.S.) students and the development of a multi-institutional student and faculty exchange program.
