This book offers thorough, up-to-date coverage of controls on the chemical quality of surface and subsurface waters, both pristine and polluted, with an emphasis on problem-solving and practical applications. The text is appropriate for courses in aqueous geochemistry or aquatic chemistry. Desirable prerequisites are introductory courses or the equivalent in thermodynamics and solution chemistry, and in physical geology including mineralogy.

Many geochemists focus on natural systems with less emphasis on the human impact on those systems. Environmental chemists frequently approach their subject with less consideration of the historical record than geoscientists. The field of environmental geochemistry combines these approaches to address questions about the natural environment and anthropogenic effects on it. Eby provides students with a solid foundation in basic aqueous geochemistry before discussing the important role carbon compounds, isotopes, and minerals play in environmental issues. He then guides students through how these concepts apply to problems facing our atmosphere, continental lands, and oceans. Rather than broadly discussing a variety of environmental problems, the author focuses on principles throughout the text, leading students to understand processes and how knowledge of those processes can be applied to environmental problem solving. A wide variety of case studies and quantitative problems accompany each chapter, giving each instructor the flexibility to tailor the material to his/her course. Many problems have no single correct answer, illustrating the analytical nature of solving real-world environmental problems.

Environmental and Low-Temperature Geochemistry presents conceptual and quantitative principles of geochemistry in order to foster understanding of natural processes at and near the earth’s surface, as well as anthropogenic impacts on the natural environment. It provides the reader with the essentials of concentration, speciation and reactivity of elements in soils, waters, sediments and air, drawing attention to both thermodynamic and kinetic controls. Specific features include: • An introductory chapter that reviews basic chemical principles applied to environmental and low-temperature geochemistry • Explanation and analysis of the importance of minerals in the environment • Principles of aqueous geochemistry • Organic compounds in the environment • The role of microbes in processes such as biomineralization, elemental speciation and reduction-oxidation reactions • Thorough coverage of the fundamentals of important geochemical cycles (C, N, P, S) • Atmospheric chemistry • Soil geochemistry • The roles of stable isotopes in environmental analysis • Radioactive and radiogenic isotopes as environmental tracers and environmental contaminants • Principles and examples of instrumental analysis in environmental geochemistry The text concludes with a case study of surface water and groundwater contamination that includes interactions and reactions of naturally-derived inorganic substances and introduced organic compounds (fuels and solvents), and illustrates the importance of interdisciplinary analysis in environmental geochemistry. Readership: Advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying environmental/low T geochemistry as part of an earth science, environmental science or related program. Additional resources for this book can be found at: www.wiley.com/go/ryan/geochemistry.

An expanded chapter explores atmospheric chemistry and changing climate, with the most up-to-date statistics on CO2, the carbon cycle, other greenhouse gases, and the ozone hole.

In this updated and expanded second edition, new literature has been added on contaminant fate in the soil-subsurface environment. In particular, more data on the behavior of inorganic contaminants and on engineered nanomaterials were included, the latter comprising a group of “emerging contaminants” that may reach the soil and subsurface zones. New chapters are devoted to a new perspective of contaminant geochemistry, namely irreversible changes in pristine land and subsurface systems following chemical contamination. Two chapters were added on this topic, focusing attention on the impact of chemical contaminants on the matrix and properties of both liquid and solid phases of soil and subsurface domains. Contaminant impacts on irreversible changes occurring in groundwater are discussed and their irreversible changes on the porous medium solid phase are surveyed. In contrast to the geological time scale controlling natural changes of porous media liquid and solid phases, the time scale associated with chemical pollutant induced changes is far shorter and extends over a “human lifetime scale”.

This book consolidates much of what is known about the geochemistry of arsenic and provides new information on relationships between high concentrations of arsenic in ground water and geochemical environments. The subject matter of this book ranges in scope from molecular-scale geochemical processes that affect the mobility of arsenic in ground water, to arsenic contaminated ground water at the national scale. Chapters were contributed by an international group of research scientists from a broad range of backgrounds.