Mineral weathering research

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The weathering of minerals plays a fundamental role in both the natural and built environment. Without mineral weathering rocks wouldn’t turn into soil and nutrients wouldn’t be released to plants. Mineral weathering is responsible for acid mine drainage and the release of potential contaminants from ore minerals. Mineral weathering can neutralise the effects of acid rain. Mineral weathering leads to the decay of monuments and buildings.

I first became interested in mineral weathering when my PhD supervisor, Professor Ian Parsons from the University of Edinburgh, one of the leading international authorities on feldspar mineralogy was organising a NATO sponsored conference on feldspars in 1994. At the time I was an igneous petrologist working on layering of syenites in Greenland for my PhD thesis. As my PhD came to an end I obtained a postdoctoral position with Dr Simon Langan at the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen working on critical loads of acidity - essentially working out mineral weathering rates in soils to see how much acid rain could be neutralised by the soil before ecological damage occurred. I’ve been stuck in the soil ever since.

Minerals dissolve over their surface and release elements so you have to normalise element release rate to the amount of mineral surface area but just how do you measure this? I have spent a considerable amount of time considering this question along with colleagues, particularly Dr Martin Lee, University of Glasgow and Dr Eric Oelkers from Toulouse. I have also worked on determining the impacts of mineral microsctructure on weathering rates with Dr Martin Lee and Prof Ian Parsons and have investigated a number of assumptions in the weathering literature, for example the immobility of zirconium in soil profiles and the impacts of surface coatings on mineral dissolution.

A large NERC funded project led by Dr Martin Lee on leached layers at the surface of weathered minerals has just finished and currently I have a British Geological Survey funded postgraduate, Sam Parry, working on the evolution of reactive surface area during soil development. Dr Eric Oelkers (University of Toulouse) and Dr Simon Kemp (BGS) are co-supervisors on this project.

Mineral weathering papers

I am always happy to discuss possible collaborations. If you would like to work with us either here in Reading or at your home institution please get in touch.