Title: How the Natural Environment Gets Away with Murder!

Abstract: Every day of our lives we eat, drink, and breathe minerals and trace elements. For most of us this interaction with natural materials is harmless, perhaps even beneficial, supplying us with some essential nutrients. However, for some, the interaction with the minerals and trace elements can have devastating, even fatal effects. Examples that will be discussed include: residential burning of coal that impacted the health of 10s of millions of people in China; a deadly fungus mobilized by earthquakes that impacts people in the U.S.; natural groundwater that has contributed to the death of more than 100,000 people in the Balkans and a similar situation that may exist in parts of the U.S; and a town in Montana that has been devastated by trace quantities of asbestos in a vermiculite deposit with a connection to North Carolina. In every case there are opportunities for geoscientists to work with public health researchers to mitigate these and other environmental health problems.

Bio: Dr. Robert B. Finkelman, retired in 2005 after 32 years with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). He is currently a Research Professor in the Dept. of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, a Distinguished Professor at the China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing. He is an internationally recognized scientist widely known for his work on coal chemistry and as a leader of the emerging field of Medical Geology. Dr. Finkelman has degrees in geology, geochemistry, and chemistry. Most of Dr. Finkelman’s professional career has been devoted to understanding the properties of coal and how these properties affect coal’s technological performance, economic byproduct potential and environmental and health impacts. For the past 25 years he has devoted his efforts to developing the field of Medical Geology. Dr. Finkelman is the author of more than 900 publications including 12 books, four books on Medical Geology. He has been invited to speak in more than 50 countries and he was the first person to have written a dissertation on the returned lunar samples. Dr. Finkelman is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America  and has served as Chairman of the Geological Society of America’s Coal Geology Division; founding member and past Chair of the International Medical Geology Association; President of the Society for Organic Petrology;  ands Past-Chair of the GSA’s Geology and Health Division.  He was a recipient of the Nininger Meteorite Award; recipient of the Gordon H. Wood Jr. Memorial Award from the AAPG Eastern Section; and a recipient of the Cady Award from the GSA’s Coal Geology Division, and the GSA’s Geology and Health Division’s Distinguished Career Award, 2021 and in 2022 he was presented with the John Castano Award, the highest honor of the Society For Organic Petrology. Dr. Finkelman was also awarded a U. S. State Department Embassy Science Fellowship for an assignment in South Africa and was a member of a National Research Council committee looking at the future of coal in the U.S. In 2019 he was appointed as a Fulbright Specialist for India.