Professor, F.R.S.C.

University of Toronto
Department of Geology

22 Russell Str., Toronto
Ontario, Canada M5S 3B1

Tel.:  416 978 0770
Fax.: 416 978 3839
e-mail: bslollar@chem.utoronto.ca

Stable Isotope Laboratory website

Honours:
Canada Research Chair Tier I (Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth and the Environment) 2007-2014
Royal Society of Canada WISET Lecturer to Japan 2007
Canada Council Killam Research Fellowship 2004-2006
NSERC  EW.R. Steacie Fellow 1999-2001
Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer 1998

The Stable Isotope Lab pursues a wide variety of research programs, but most fall within two major areas of investigation:

I. Research in Contaminant Hydrogeology
Contamination of groundwater resources with petroleum hydrocarbons and chlorinated solvents is widespread and represents one of the most urgent challenges facing environmental science. My research group is one of the first to have successfully developed and applied techniques for using compound specific stable carbon isotopes to investigate controls on the origin of these low level dissolved priority pollutants and on their transport and fate in the subsurface and provided an essential foundation for applying compound specific carbon isotope analysis (CSIA) in groundwater - characterizing the isotopic fractionation associated with dissolution, volatilization and adsorption of two groups of priority pollutants - chlorinated solvents and aromatic hydrocarbons. This lab also provided the first demonstration of the substantial fractionation associated with biodegradation of several important organic contaminants, and to demonstrate that biodegradation of organic contaminants is controlled by a Rayleigh distillation model. This reproducible and predictable behaviour is essential for the use of isotope fractionation as a means, not just to identify and monitor biodegradation, but to provide an alternative quantitative measure of the extent of biodegradation and a new basis for calculation of biodegradation rates. In our recent work, the power of CSIA to elucidate degradation mechanisms is being demonstrated.

In summary, our group has contributed both to the establishment of fundamental principles and theories underpinning the field of compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA), but also innovative applications of these techniques to a wide variety of important remediation technologies and field applications.

II. Research on Hydrocarbon Gases - Implications for Deep Subsurface Microbiology
Sherwood Lollar et al. (2002) reports the first direct evidence for inorganic synthesis of methane and higher hydrocarbons in crystalline rocks of the Canadian Shield based on the carbon and hydrogen isotopic values of C1-C4 alkanes in samples from Kidd Creek Mine, Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Our research is the first indication that abiogenic reactions that contributed to the formation of primary organic molecules on the early earth continued to play a significant role in the production of hydrocarbons in the Precambrian rocks of the earth’s crust.
               
In addition, one of the most exciting scientific discoveries of the past decade has been the discovery that microbial life exists in the subsurface at depths hitherto unanticipated - the so-called “deep biosphere”. To date, studies of potential subsurface substrates necessary to support such deep microbial communities have focussed largely on H2-based chemolithotrophy. Sherwood Lollar et al. (2006, 2007) address the question of whether the abundant hydrocarbon and hydrogen gases we have documented in Precambrian Shield in Canada and in South Africa may serve as chemical reactants or substrates supporting microbial populations in the deep subsurface. Recently, Lin et al. (2007) demonstrated the important role of H2 autotrophy in deep microbial communities in a South African Gold mine.

Research with the NASA Astrobiology Institute
The Stable Isotope Laboratory, University of Toronto is part of an Indiana-Princeton-Tennessee team sponsored through the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) - a national and international research consortium that studies the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and in the universe. (http://www.indiana.edu/~deeplife/)

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