(1953- ) American Aqueous Geochemist
Some people think that research that benefits environmental conditions is diametrically opposed to that which benefits the petroleum industry, and yet the research that Lynn Walter performs seems to span the gap. Lynn Walter is one of the foremost experts on aqueous geochemistry of sediments and soils under surface to shallow subsurface conditions. She achieves this research by performing detailed analyses on samples taken in the field as well as performing experimental work under laboratory conditions. She has worked carefully on precipitation and dissolution kinetics of carbonates. These carbonates can form cements in hydrocarbon reservoir rocks, reducing oil flow rates, and thus this research is of interest to petroleum companies. However, because carbonates also readily interact with surface waters and air, the research also has implications for environmental processes. Walter’s paper, “Dissolution and Recrystallization in Modern Shelf Carbonates: Evidence from Pore Water and Solid Phase Chemistry,” is an example of her main body of work.
Lynn Walter in her office at the University of Michigan
Most of Lynn Walter’s research involves the interactions of soils and rocks with the pore fluids that they contain. This work involves detailed geochemistry and isotope geochemistry of the fluids, coupled with detailed observations on the soil and rock using an analytical electron microscope. Coupling these two data sets yields powerful predictive capabilities for diagenetic (burial and lithi-fication of sediments) processes and groundwater chemistry. This work can be done on a regional basis to evaluate the oil and gas potential of a specific rock unit or of a basin. An example of this work is the paper, “Fluid Migration, Hydrogeo-chemical Evolution and Hydrocarbon Occurrence: Eugene Island Block, Gulf of Mexico Basin.” However, each sample is analyzed in painstaking detail to make these prognoses. Because soils and modern sediments interact with the contained fauna and flora, there is also a component of biogeochemistry to this work. For example, the paper, “Carbon Exchange Dynamics and Mineral Weathering in a Temperate Forested Watershed (Northern Michigan): Links Between Forested Ecosystems and Groundwaters,” illustrates this research.
Lynn Walter was born on April 18, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in geology in 1975. She did graduate work at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and earned a master of science degree in geology in 1978. She studied the hydrogeochemistry of Saint Croix for her thesis. She earned her doctoral degree at the University of Miami, Florida, in marine geology in 1983. Her dissertation was on phosphate interaction with carbonate sediments. She received a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Miami in 1982-83 before becoming a research assistant professor in 1983. Her postdoctoral re search was an experimental study of the growth rate of carbonate cement. Lynn Walter joined the faculty at her alma mater at Washington University, Saint Louis, in 1984. She accepted a position at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1989, where she remains today as a full professor.
Lynn Walter has been very productive. She has published more than 50 papers in professional journals and volumes. Her first paper was in the prestigious journal Science, and all of the others are in the top international journals, including one in the equally prestigious journal Nature and several in the high-profile journal Geology. She has been extremely successful with research funding, obtaining approximately $3.6 million from the National Science Foundation, Gas Research Institute, oil companies, foundations, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Lynn Walter has received many awards and honors. She has been Phi Beta Kappa since 1975 at Washington University. She was awarded both Chevron and Pennzoil scholarships at Louisiana State University. She was awarded the Koczy Fellowship and the F.G. Walton Smith Prize at University of Miami. In 1987, she received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and she received the Distinguished Service Award from the Geological Society of America in 1999.
Lynn’s professional service is also exemplary. She served as editor for the Geological Society of America Bulletin from 1995 to 1999. She served as associate editor for many top professional journals, including Journal of Sedimentary Petrology from 1989 to 1992, Geological Society of America Bulletin from 1990 to 1995, Geology from 1991 to 1996, and Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta from 1999 to the present. She served as a member of several important panels, including two for the National Research Council, one for the National Science Foundation, one for the Environmental Protection Agency, and one for the American Geophysical Union.
