Publications by authors named "Briant A Kimball"
Article Synopsis
- Low-flow sampling may lead to inaccurate assessments of mining-impacted watersheds since it doesn't capture variability during rainfall.
- Findings showed that while low-flow conditions met aquatic standards, rain-induced runoff caused metal concentrations to spike dramatically, sometimes exceeding low-flow levels by over ten times.
- Key mechanisms for increased metal release include erosion, streambed resuspension, and elevated groundwater levels during rainfall events.
Article Synopsis
- Indium is a metal increasingly used in electronics and energy technologies, but its environmental behavior, particularly from mining, is not well understood.
- The study focuses on Mineral Creek in Colorado, where heavy metal contamination has altered the water chemistry, revealing high indium levels that change significantly with pH adjustments.
- Laboratory experiments indicate that indium can switch from a dissolved state to a solid phase when pH increases, highlighting the environmental impact of nonferrous mining on indium mobility.
Gaining streams can provide an integrated signal of relatively large groundwater capture areas. In contrast to the point-specific nature of monitoring wells, gaining streams coalesce multiple flow paths. Impacts on groundwater quality from unconventional gas development may be evaluated at the watershed scale by the sampling of dissolved methane (CH4 ) along such streams.
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- A post-audit evaluates a reactive transport model for acid mine drainage treatment systems, using low and elevated pH hydrogeochemical data for calibration and prediction.
- The model accurately predicts reductions in dissolved concentrations of metals like Al, As, Fe, H(+), and Pb, correctly indicating water quality standard attainment in 19 out of 25 cases.
- However, errors in predicting Cd, Cu, and Zn stem from incorrect assumptions about the amount of sorbent mass, and the audit reveals that some calibration steps negatively impacted predictive outcomes, challenging traditional methods.
To characterize the partitioning of metals in a stream ecosystem, concentrations of trace metals including As, Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn were measured in water, colloids, sediment, biofilm (also referred to as aufwuchs), macroinvertebrates, and fish collected from the Boulder River watershed, Montana. Median concentrations of Cd, Cu, and Zn in water throughout the watershed exceeded the U.S.
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- A reactive transport model is used to analyze data from an acid mine drainage stream, focusing on the impacts of various chemical reactions and the behavior of metal concentrations in the water.
- The model simulates conditions in a 3.5-km reach of the stream by predicting changes in pH and metal concentrations through processes like precipitation and sorption of metals onto iron oxides.
- Two remediation plans involving the addition of CaCO3 to raise the stream pH from 2.4 to 7.0 are evaluated, both leading to reduced metal loads, but with differing impacts on dissolved lead concentrations due to variations in system saturation levels with iron oxides.