Geology, Hydrodynamics, Water Pollution, Agriculture, and Nutrition

BRUNDAGE, HARRISON T., Consulting Geologist, Houston, TX

More geologists are being employed to advise on water supplies that are increasingly subject to greater pollution. Thousands of new chemicals that did not exist before World War II are now in the environment. Since man did not evolve with these chemicals, their long-term effects on humans are poorly known. Geologists, a tiny political minority, have been unable to prevent ill effects of municipal development within their expertise: e.g., installation of household water wells on the same small tract as septic tanks on the darcy-permeability glacial terminal moraine of Long Island; new residual construction on artificially dredged sediments in earthquake-prone San Francisco; and along the Long Point fault system in Houston where the same house may have one end actively upthrown and the ther downthrown.

Geologists can also use their knowledge of hydrodynamics, mineralogy, paleontology, physics, and chemistry-in addition to general geology-to apply constructively to agriculture, medicine, and nutrition.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91006 © 1991 GCAGS and GC-SEPM Meeting, Houston, Texas, October 16-18, 1991 (2009)