When: 10:00 a.m., September, 22nd (Wednesday), 2021
Tencent Meeting ID: 318 891 307
Speaker: Dr. Robert B. Finkelman, Research Professor, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
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 and an Adjunct Professor at the China University of Geosciences, 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. He has a diverse professional background having worked for the federal government (USGS) and private industry (Exxon), and has formed a consulting company (Environmental and Coal Associates). He has lectured and provided mentorship at colleges and universities around the world. 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 850 publications and 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; Chair of the International Association for Cosmochemistry and Geochemistry, Working Group on Geochemistry and Health; founding member and past Chair of the International Medical Geology Association; President of the Society for Organic Petrology; member of the American Registry of Pathology Board of Scientific Directors and is Past-Chair of the GSA’s Geology and Health Division. Currently he is a Board Member of the U.S. Section of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health and is on the Advisory Board of the GeoHealth Section of the American Geophysical Union. 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. 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.
Abstract: Coal provides many useful products such as electricity, heat, steam, and a wide range of chemical and other valuable byproducts. However, coal mining and coal combustion comes with a steep price. Their impacts on the environment includes acid mine drainage, acid rain, smog, aerosols, dust, ecological destruction, land subsidence, and carbon dioxide emission. Health impacts include exposure to potentially toxic elements such as arsenic, fluorine, selenium and mercury; mobilization of minerals may contribute to black lung disease and lung cancer; polluting aquifers may lead to kidney disease, exposure to particulates can cause a wide range of respiratory diseases. Uncontrolled coal fires may contribute to many of these health problems. Fortunately, there are practical solutions to all but one of these problems.
