John Farver

Students in my lab are typically engaged in interdisciplinary studies with colleagues in the Department of Biological Sciences. Ongoing ecological and environmental projects involving undergraduate researchers include:

• Determining sources, migration, and bioaccumulation of toxic metals in Lake Erie food web.
• Determining the spatial and temporal variability of water chemistry for Lake Erie and its major river sources including the Sandusky River and Bay.
• Employing fish otolith (earstone) microchemistry to evaluate the degree of philopatry and stock migration of important sports fish in Lake Erie.
• Quantifying the role of mayflies and the invasive mussels in the trophic transfer of persistent bioaccumulating toxic metals in Lake Erie.
• Employing otolith microchemistry of steelhead to address hatchery stock distribution in Lake Erie (mixed stock analysis), homing behavior and vagrancy, return rates, and potential natural reproduction in some Lake Erie tributaries.
• Quantifying the effects of water chemistry and stress on the uptake and distribution of trace elements into fish otoliths.

I also maintain a high temperature and pressure mineral kinetics lab in the Department of Geology. Much of the research is collaborative with Dr. Charlie Onasch and ongoing projects include:

• Quantifying quartz cementation rates and mechanisms in quartz-rich hydrocarbon reservoir rocks and the role of chemistry and secondary minerals.
• Analysis of gold in quartz vein deposits from the Mesquite Mining District.
• Applications of fluid inclusion composition to quartz vein associated ore mineralization.
• Experimental evaluation of the distribution of common geologic fluids and chemical transport rates in rocks commonly associated with the salt domes to evaluate hydrocarbon migration and toxic chemical and nuclear waste isolation and carbon dioxide sequestration.

jfarver@bgsu.edu
(419)372-7203
103 Moseley Hall

SETGO Summer Research