Events

Speaker: Dr. Daniella M. Rempe, Assistant Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

Title of Seminar: "A different kind of fractured shale reservoir: bedrock weathering as a regulator of forest hydrology"

Abstract: Hydrogeologists are faced with the pressing challenge of forecasting water resources in montane environments under conditions of drought and land-use change. A central impediment to prediction is the lack of information about fluid storage and flow paths in the tens of meters of variably weathered and fractured bedrock that underlie mountainous landscapes. In this talk, I will present results from an intensive effort to directly quantify complex fluid and solute pathways in weathered shale bedrock. At intensive hillslope study sites associated with the Critical Zone Observatory program, we use novel sampling instrumentation and geophysical monitoring to provide an unprecedented view into the processes that regulate gas (CO2 and O2) and solute transport in weathered bedrock. Our observations demonstrate the significance of water storage in fractured bedrock to plant and aquatic ecosystem resilience in drought.

Biography: Daniella M. Rempe is a proud alumna of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, where she received her B.S. in 2008 in Geosystems Engineering and Hydrogeology. Dr. Rempe received her M.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering and her Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Science both from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Rempe has been an assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in the Jackson School of Geosciences since 2016. Dr. Rempe’s research focuses on fractured bedrock hydrogeology and vadose zone hydrology.