Yonesha Donaldson receives the Farouk El-Baz Student Desert Research Award

Geology PhD Candidate Yonesha Donaldson has received the Farouk El-Baz Award from Geological Society of America for her research on transmission loss estimates for aquifer recharge in arid environments. Yannie is conducting fieldwork with her advisor, Dr. Adam Milewski in the in the Water Resources and Remote Sensing Laboratory at UGA.

Title: 

"A geophysical approach to understand flow and morphology of an inland freshwater lens in the arid southwest, US."

Abstract:

Mounting sea level rise, saltwater intrusion, and groundwater availability are some common issues in arid regions. The regional groundwater system in most arid environments is saline but with short and intense precipitation events (20 mm/day or more), an inland freshwater lens (IFL) forms. IFLs in desert fields provide drinking water for local populace, ecosystem support, and enhance vegetation growth to preserve dune structures. A series of geophysical techniques, i.e., time-lapse electrical resistivity and ground penetrating radar, were utilized in the desert dune field of White Sands National Park to monitor flow in a barchan dune system. White Sands National Park is included in the twenty percent of drylands driven by aeolian processes. Electrical resistivity was used to map conductive pathways for infiltrating precipitation to form IFLs, whereas ground-penetrating radar was used to map fine-scale depositional stratigraphy and the role dune cross-strata impact flow. The Farouk El-Baz research grant allowed me the opportunity to collect geophysical datasets over time and space to understand the inner network and flow in desert dune fields.

The Farouk El-Baz Student Desert Research Award was created after The Farouk El-Baz Desert Research Award, which was established in 1999 by the GSA Foundation as a Division award administered by Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology.

Congratulations, Yannie!

Two UGA doctoral students win international Geology Award | Franklin College of Arts and Sciences