Olivier is a PhD student at the Centre for Environmental Geochemistry (British Geological Society / University of Nottingham) researching iodine dynamics.
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| The Vienna International Centre |
April 7
– 12 marked a very successful EGU General Assembly at the Vienna International Centre in Vienna, Austria. I was
one of 29 members of BGS staff in attendance, alongside many other scientists
from 113 countries.
As this was my first EGU assembly, and first
large scale conference I wasn’t too sure of what to expect. The annual
conference is the largest geoscience conference in Europe, with something for everyone; from atmospheric sciences to tectonics and
structural geology. With 5531 oral, 9432 poster, and 1287 PICO
presentations given in just 5 days the
timetable and most importantly map of the venue, provided via the EGU app, were
an absolute necessity!
During the conference I presented a poster entitled
‘Iodine Dynamics in Soil Solution’. This work was a combination of experiments
I’ve conducted whilst studying for my PhD at the Centre for Environmental
Geochemistry (British Geological Survey – University of Nottingham). The
aim of this work was to further understand the rapid soil-plant-iodine
interactions which immediately follow an iodine addition event (e.g. rainfall, irrigation,
and fertilisation). Understanding iodine dynamics in soil solution and availability
for plant uptake could be used to plan future phytofortification strategies.
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| Olivier presenting his poster 'Iodine Dynamics in Soil Solution' |
Through the
poster I presented data on the first application of microdialysis, an extraction technique predominantly used in neuroscience, to sample
isotopically labelled iodine (129I) from soil solution every 2.5
hours for a total of 40 hours to assess short-term sorption and fixation processes.
The results showed that iodine undergoes
a number of reactions; (i) iodine is instantaneously adsorbed – the proportion
of which is significantly influenced by specific soil properties, (ii)
inorganic iodine is partially converted to soluble organic compounds and (iii)
the remaining iodine in soil solution is rapidly removed, incorporated into the
solid soil phase. We found that the newly formed soluble organically-bound
iodine had relatively low molecular weights (<5 kDa). Interestingly, we also
observed a
slower time-dependent formation of larger iodinated compounds (12-18 kDa) in some soils. Loss rates were modelled
using simultaneous ordinary differential equations and demonstrated that
iodine present in soil solution, not instantaneously absorbed, had an average half-life of <2 hours. The results from this research have the
potential to influence future strategies for iodine phytofortification as
iodine applied to soils is rapidly lost, therefore, alternative fortification
process, which are not reliant on the soil-to-crop transfer would be
favourable.
Overall,
the conference was a great success. As well as being able to share my research
with the scientific community, some of whom are also trying to apply
microdialysis to soil science, I was
able attend a lot of fantastic talks, engage in a few stimulating PICO and engage
with some great poster sessions. . I’ll be aiming to attend next year; see you
there?
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The PhD was supervised under the umbrella of
the Centre for Environmental Geochemistry: Dr Scott Young, Dr Liz Bailey and
Professor Neil Crout (University of Nottingham) and Dr Louise Ander and Dr
Michael Watts (BGS).
EGU is Europe’s general assembly for geoscientists,
held in Vienna, Austria each year. The 2020 assembly will be held May 3 – 8.
More details here.
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