Department of Earth Sciences
Newton Horace Winchell School of Earth Sciences

Calvin Alexander

Office: 

107A Pillsbury Hall

Phone: 
612-624-3517
Email: 
alexa001


Professor
PhD, 1970, University of Missouri-Rolla


Research Interests

  • Focus on the rate of movement of fluids in hydrogeology and include the use of isotopic techniques (tritium, carbon-14, and stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopes) and inadvertent tracers (pollutants, pesticides, and nutrients) to measure fluid flow or residence times on time scales ranging from months to tens of thousands of years and the use of artificial tracers such as fluorescent dyes and anions to measure fluid flows on time scales of minutes to years. An initial interest in karst hydrology has expanded into the whole range of non-Darcian phenomena such as preferential flow in soils, and flow in fractured and granular media. Recent karst projects include work on the distribution and prediction of new sinkholes in southeastern Minnesota, on spring-shed tracing and mapping, on the design of monitoring systems in karst terrains, development of karst features on sandstone, and on the management of animal agricultural facilities in Minnesota.
  • Click here for map of Minnesota Karst Lands by E. Calvin Alexander and Yongli Gao*, 2002
    Click here for map of Minnesota and Iowa Sinkholes

Professional Society Memberships

  • American Geophysical Union
  • Geochemical Society
  • ASTM
  • American Society for the Advancement of Science
  • Sigma XI
  • Meteoritical Society
  • National Speleological Society
  • Geological Society of America
  • National Ground Water Association



Courses Taught

  • Planets of the Solar System
  • Our Changing Planet
  • Earth Resources
  • Geochemical Principles
  • General Hydrogeology
  • Tracers and Karst Hydrogeology
  • Regional Aquifer Systems of North America
  • Geofluids Seminar
  • Geochronology and Earth History
  • Seminar: Brines



Selected Publications

  • Robert A. Edwards, Beltran Rodriquez-Brito, Lind Wegley, Matthew Haynes, Mya Breitbart, Dean M. Peterson, Martin O. Saar, Scott Alexander, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr. and Forest Rohwer (2005) Using Pyrosequencing to Shed Light on Deep Mine Microbial Ecology Under Extreme Hydrogeological Conditions. submitted to Nature 19 Sep 2005.
  • Dean M. Peterson, Thomas L. Kieft, George J. Hudak, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., Scott C. Alexander and Martin O. Saar (2005) Towards an Intergrated EarthLab at the Proposed Deep Underground Science & Engineering Laboratory, Soudan Mine, northeastern Minnesota. submitted to Vadose Zone Journal.
  • E. Calvin Alexander, Jr. (2005) Invited keynote address: Karst Hydrogeology and the Nature of Reality Revisited: Philosophical Musings of a Less Frustrated Curmudgeon. 10th Sinkhole Conference, San Antonio, 26-28 September 2005. in press.
  • Jeffrey A. Green and E. Calvin Alexander, Jr. (2005) Springshed Mapping in Support of Watershed Management. 10th Sinkhole Conference, San Antonio, 26-28 September 2005. in press. Gao, Alexander and Bounk (2005) Karst Data Base. Proceedings of the 10th Sinkhole Conference, San Antonio, 26-28 September 2005. in press.
  • E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., Scott C. Alexander, James J. Piegat, Kelton Barr and Bradley Nordberg (2005) Dye Tracing Sewage Lagoon Discharge in a Sandstone Karst, Askov, Minnesota. Proceedings of the 10th Sinkhole Conference, San Antonio, 26-28 September 2005. in press.
  • Robert G. Tipping, Anthony C. Runkel, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., Scott C. Alexander, Jeffery A. Green (2005) Hydrogeologic Characterization of a Heterolithic Ordovician Carbonate Unit, Southeastern Minnesota. 32 ms pages + 16 fig. in press Sedimentary Geology.
  • Anthony C. Runkel, Robert G. Tipping, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., Scott C. Alexander (2005) A Rigorous Hydrostratigraphic Characterization of Intergranular and Secondary Porosity in a Cambrian, Sandstone-Dominated Aquifer of the Cratonic Interior of North America: Improving Predictability of Hydrogelolgic Properties. 34 ms p. + 12 fig. in press Sedimentary Geology.
  • Y. Gao, E.C. Alexander, Jr., R.G. Tipping, (2005) Karst Database Implementation II: Analysis of Sinkhole Distribution, in press, Environmental Geology, 41 ms. p.
  • Y. Gao, E.C. Alexander, Jr., R.G. Tipping, (2005) Karst database development in Minnesota: design and data assembly, Environmental Geology, v. 47, n. 8 (May 2005), p 1072-1082.
  • *Gao, Yongli, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., and Robert G. Tipping (2002) The Development of a Karst Features Data Base for Southeastern Minnesota. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies, April 2002, v. 64, n. 1, pp. 51-57.
  • *Gao, Yongli, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., and Robert Tipping (2001) Application of GIS Technology to Study Karst Features of Southeastern Minnesota. In: (Barry F. Beck and J. Gayle Herring, eds.) Geotechnical and Environmental Applications of Karst Geology and Hydrogeology, Balkema Publishers, Exton, PA, p. 83-89.
  • Green, Jeffrey A., William J. Marken, E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., and Scott C. Alexander (2001)  Karst Unit Mapping Using Geographic Information System technology, Mower County, Minnesota, USA.  In: (Barry F. Beck and J. Gayle Herring, eds.) Geotechnical and Environmental Applications of Karst Geology and Hydrogeology, Balkema Publishers, Exton, PA, p. 89-94.
  • Alexander, E. Calvin, Jr., (2000) Iron meteorites and paradigm shifts [invited paper]. In: (O. Manuel, ed.) Origin of Elements in the Solar System:  Implications of Post-1957 Observations, Proceedings of the International Symposium Organized by Glenn T. Seaborg and Oliver K. Manuel. Kluwer Academic/Phenum Publishers, New York, p. 401-406.
  • Davis, Stanley N., June Fabryka-Martin, Laura Wolfsberg,  Stephen Moysey, Robert Shaver,  E. Calvin Alexander, Jr., and Noel Krothe  (2000) Chlorine-36 in Ground Water Containing Low Chloride Concentrations.  Ground Water, Vol. 38, No. 6, p. 912-921.
  • Denniston, Rhawn F., Gonzalez, Luis A., Baker, Richard G., Asmerom, Yemane, Reagan, Mark K., Edwards, R. Lawrence, Alexander, E. Calvin, (1999) Speleothem Evidence for Holocene Fluctuations of the Prairie-forest Ecotone, North-central USA, The Holocene, v. 9. n. 6, p. 671-676.
  • Caffee,  M.W., Hudson, G.B., Velsko, C.,  Huss, G.R.,  Alexander, E.C., Jr. and  Chivas, A.R. (1999) Primordial Noble Gases from Earth's Mantle: Identification of a Primitive Volatile Component, Science, v. 285, n. 5436, p. 2115-2118. 
     

    *designates a student author


Recent Research Support

  • Minnesota DNR Chemistry and Isotopes
  • LCMR Quarrying Impact on Groundwater
  • US EPA 319 Karst Education

Recent Consulting Work 


  • MPCA, MDNR, various Counties (Hydrology, Karst Hydrogeology)
  • HDR Engineering, Inc., (Hydrogeology)
  • Versar/USEPA, (Karst Hydrogeology)
  • Delta/Amoco, (Karst Hydrogeology)
  • RMT, (Karst Hydrogeology)