Mariette Wolthers appointed professor of Aquatic Geochemistry

As of 15 December, Mariette Wolthers is appointed professor of Aquatic Geochemistry in the Earth Sciences Department of the Faculty of Geosciences. Wolthers currently works as associate professor in geochemistry at the same department and leads, among other things, her ERC consolidator project CRYSTAL CLEAR. "With this chair in Aquatic Geochemistry, I focus on interactions between water and Earth materials in the earth's surface and their implications for sustainability and societal challenges and system Earth", Wolthers says. "My focus is on Earth materials, or minerals, that are composed of ions, for example lime and chalk, which consist of calcium and carbonate ions. Interaction of water with these minerals changes the composition of water and these minerals themselves, and have a broad application, both for fundamental understanding of system Earth and for highly applied issues." An example is Earth's fresh surface water and groundwater that is our source of drinking water and water for food production. Methods to protect or clean these water sources are based on controlled mineral formation or immobilization on mineral surfaces. Wolthers uses insights from her fundamental earth-science research to make these methods more sustainable and to develop new ones. Wilco Hazeleger, Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences: "Mariette's work shows very well how fundamental knowledge about the earth system can be applied for a sustainable world.