Ben Odhiambo Kisila, earth and environmental sciences, and his former UMW research students Elyse Clark ’13, Ph. D. candidate in the department of crop and environmental sciences at Virginia Tech and Matthew Ricker ’06, postdoctoral fellow in the school of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University, have their research paper, “Comparative analysis of metal concentrations and sediment accumulation rates in two Virginian reservoirs, USA: Lakes Moomaw and Pelham,” published in the February issue of the peer-reviewed journal Water, Air, and Soil Pollution.
The research results shows comparable levels of trace metals loadings in the more human stressed Lake Pehlam system and the more pristine Lake Moomaw probably because of the relative importance of atmospheric deposition in the mountainous forested watersheds. The steep slopes coupled with the highly erodible colluvial soils and the prevalence of shoreline erosion also exacerbates both sediment and trace metal fluxes in Lake Moomaw.