During a July ceremony at the 2025 Goldschmidt Conference in Prague, Avner Vengosh, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Quality, accepted the Clair C. Patterson Medal from the Geochemical Society.
Named for a 20th-century geochemist who determined the age of Earth and the solar system, and who conducted foundational analyses of lead contamination in the environment, the annual award recognizes innovative contributions to environmental geochemistry, particularly in service to society, within the last decade.
鈥淟ike Clair Patterson, who battled the tetramethyl lead corporation to eliminate the use of lead as an antiknock agent in petroleum products [to prevent abnormal combustion], Avner has made important contributions to many areas of environmental geochemistry, and he has been an acknowledged global leader in deciphering the potential environmental and human health impacts of both unconventional energy development, as well as more conventional energy waste products, such as coal ash,鈥 said W. Berry Lyons, a distinguished university scholar in the School of Earth Sciences at Ohio State University, during the ceremony.
Vengosh and his peer and student collaborators have published more than 180 peer-reviewed journal papers, including pivotal studies on the water-quality effects of . Also known as fracking, the process involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into deep rock formations to facilitate oil and gas extraction.
Lyons also recognized Vengosh鈥檚 work quantifying the uptake of trace metals into the human body; describing the impact of fertilizer production and its effects on water and soil quality; and contributing to scientific understanding of global geochemical cycling.
In his acceptance speech, Vengosh emphasized the importance of his lab鈥檚 pioneering work in developing tools called isotopic tracers to track water contamination. Isotopic tracers are essentially different forms of atoms that can provide information about chemical conditions in the environment.
鈥淥ne of the key lessons I have learned over the years is the utility to integrate multiple tracers, rather than using a single geochemical tool,鈥 Vengosh said during his acceptance speech. 鈥淭hese studies have been the foundations for establishing the scientific criteria for our ability to link water contamination directly to fossil fuel activities.鈥
During the ceremony, Lyons also highlighted Vengosh鈥檚 book Water Quality Impacts of the Energy-Water Nexus, co-authored with John O. Blackburn Distinguished Professor Erika Weinthal, as the 鈥済o-to compilation of the ramifications on energy development and production on water resources globally.鈥
The Vengosh Lab is currently investigating the environmental sustainability of energy development that relies on critical minerals, with a focus on the effects of lithium mining on global water resources.
Opening image: Avner Vengosh, left, and Elisabeth Sikes, president of the Geochemical Society, at the medal ceremony. Photo by Gael Kazaz
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