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Christophe Tournassat Honored by Clay Minerals Society2 min read

by Christina Procopiou on November 14, 2022

Energy Geosciences Division

Christophe Tournassat, currently an EESA visiting faculty scientist in the Energy Geosciences Division, has been named by the Clay Minerals Society to receive the Marion L. and Christie M. Jackson Mid-Career Clay Scientist Award for his contributions to the clay mineralogy field. He will receive the award during the 60th anniversary of the Clay Mineral Society in Austin next May. The award is designed to recognize mid-career scientists for excellence in contributing new knowledge to clay minerals science through original and scholarly research. 

Tournassat is an expert in reactive transport modeling whose work has spanned a range of topics from pore-water chemistry in claystones and the fate of iodine in clay barriers to sorption processes on clay minerals and anomalous transport properties of clayey materials. Improving what is known about these topics is essential to various energy-related applications such as the underground storage of radioactive waste, which involves engineered and natural clay barriers.  Clays are also important for geological carbon storage (GCS) technologies wherein carbon dioxide is injected and permanently stored underground in mineral form. Contributing to these important topics has required Tournassat to develop and apply expertise in the chemical and physical behavior of clays through experimentation, characterization, and modeling over a wide range of scales from the molecular to that of the underground research laboratory. 

Tournassat has worked at EESA in various capacities since 2013 when Senior Scientist and Geochemistry Department Head Carl Steefel invited him to collaborate on DOE projects exploring new horizons in clay science that make use of reactive transport modeling and molecular dynamics. The pair also co-edited a book with Ian Bourg and F. Bergaya on “Natural and Engineered Clay Barriers.” In 2020, Christophe Tournassat became a Professor at the University of Orléans, France, and, in 2021 Visiting Faculty at Berkeley Lab.

“Christophe has had a great impact on our field not just in the U.S. and France but across the globe. His work spans a breadth of topics using modeling, experimentation, and characterization, perhaps unique among present-day clay scientists,” Steefel said. “He is on the leading edge in developing models for simulating the behavior of contaminants in clay rocks, especially for the problem of geological disposal of waste in the subsurface. The models are the first of their kind in the world, and are of great interest to U.S. Nuclear Waste Program, as well as the Programs in Europe and Asia.”

News & Events

Former Intern Emily Nagamoto Wins AGU Award1 min read

March 27, 2023

Former Science Undergraduate Laboratory Intern (SULI) Emily Nagamoto received an American Geophysical Union (AGU) Outstanding Presentation Award, which honors exceptional presentations given during AGU’s 2022 Fall meeting. She was mentored by Staff Scientist Charuleka Varadharajan and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Mohammed Ombadi during her Summer 2022 SULI term. Currently an undergraduate student in Duke University’s Nicholas…

EESA Scientists Investigate How Tropical Soil Microbes Might Respond to Future Droughts2 min read

March 14, 2023

As the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems on Earth, tropical rainforests are just as critical to sustaining environmental and human systems as they are beautiful. Their unique climate with high temperatures, humidity, and precipitation promotes high primary productivity, which offsets high respiration, resulting in these ecosystems being one of the largest carbon sinks on Earth,…

Doubling Protected Lands for Biodiversity Could Require Tradeoffs With Other Land Uses, Study Finds4 min read

March 3, 2023

This article first appeared on lbl.gov. Scientists show how 30% protected land targets may not safeguard biodiversity hotspots and may negatively affect other sectors – and how data and analysis can support effective conservation and land use planning Although more than half the world’s countries have committed to protecting at least 30% of land and oceans…

Six Berkeley Lab Scientists Named AAAS Fellows6 min read

This article first appeared at lbl.gov Six researchers have been elected into the 2022 class of the American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has announced their 2022 Fellows, including six scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This lifetime honor, which follows…

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