John Neil Christensen

Staff Scientist

Building 070A, Room 4418B

M/S 70A4418

Phone: 510-486-6735

Fax: 510-486-7152

jnchristensen@lbl.gov

Curriculum Vitae

Biography

John Christensen graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in geology, and received his Masters and Ph.D. in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. He did post-doctoral work at the University of Michigan’s Dept. of Geological Sciences and stayed on as research scientist before joining the LBNL Earth Sciences Division in 1999. In 2006 he became a staff scientist. John is an isotopic geochemist who uses MC-ICPMS and TIMS to develop techniques he uses in a wide variety of research, including basic science as well as problems in environmental science and environmental remediation.

Research Interests

Current projects concern contaminant transport from the vadose, zone to groundwater and surface water at the Hanford Nuclear Site (WA) and the Savannah River Site (SC); the monitoring of Cr reduction/oxidation processes through isotopic fractionation, the isotopic tracking of atmospheric aerosols and ozone; the isotopic fractionation of solutes by diffusion in a variety of solvents (e.g. water, alcohol, propylene carbonate). John is in charge of a suite of clean laboratories as well as a MC-ICPMS lab. His other research interests include paleoceanography and paleoclimatology, economic geology, geochronology, metamorphic and igneous petrology. He also has published on the kinetics of mineral growth and metamorphic reactions, the evolution of metamorphic belts, and the genesis of MVT Pb-Zn deposits, as well as on the petrogenesis of silicic magmas, and on geochemical and isotopic records of weathering and climate change.