Sabbatical Research

In May of 2010 I began to make plans for a sabbatical leave. Since our children our young, my wife and I decided that it was a good time to travel and so I began to send out inquiries far and wide. Luckily, one letter I sent was to Anne Helene Fostier at the University of Campinas in Campinas, Brazil. Anne and I have overlapping interests in soil mercury chemistry, and after a few exchanges we had worked up an idea to study the effect of deforestation on soil mercury emissions in the Brazilian Amazon. Unfortunately, there is a legacy of mercury pollution in some areas of the Amazon due to Artisnal gold-mining operations in which liquid mercury was used to extract traces of gold from sediment, and then the mercury was boiled off without control leaving behind small flakes of gold. Intact forests, and soils within those forests, can serve as a sink for atmospheric mercury, reducing its movement in the environment and subsequent exposure of nearby populations. However, deforestation that is resulting from agricultural development in the Amazon releases mercury from these forests, and this may result in long-term degradation of soils and further release of Hg from these soils. Our plan is to travel into the Amazon in late September to study this process.

I arrived in Campinas, Brazil with my family just over two weeks ago (8 Aug) and I have to admit I had little understanding of the scientific enterprise in Brazil before arriving. I have been delighted and impressed with things so far. Unicamp has an excellent reputation in the sciences and probably has the stature of a CalTech-type institution in the States. The campus is circular in nature, with several concentric circles of roads and buildings. The main science institutes (Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Geosciences) are all located on the innermost concentric circle, at the heart of the University itself. These Institutes are well-funded by various state and federal agencies including FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo), CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), and other organizations. And as a result, the technology in place is impressive. From atomic absorption spectrometers, to GC, MS, LC, electron microscopy, and just about every type of Inductively Coupled Plasma spectrometer one can think of, they all are available at the University. I am still getting to know the place, but am excited to learn my way around.