Research Topics

Coastal fluxes of carbon and other pollutants, Carbonate Chemistry, Hydrothermal vents, water-rock reactions, toxic metal and metalloid cycling in coastal environments, bioenergetics, redox disequilibria and microbial ecology, and alkaline shallow-sea vents as early Earth analogs

Dr. Roy Price is an aqueous geochemist who specializes in understanding the coastal fluxes and cycling of various contaminants. Research conducted in the "Coastal Fluxes" laboratory includes understanding long term trends in carbonate chemistry of the New York Bight, water-rock reactions in the context of environmental hydrogeochemistry and hydrothermal vents, and the implications these reactions have for life, both in the present and past. He has numerous publications in diverse disciplines, ranging from arsenic biogeochemical cycling to bioenergetics to contaminants of emerging concern to astrobiology.
Visit Dr. Price’s YouTube Channel.

My research focuses on element cycling in the hydrological cycle, including:

• Geochemical evolution of hydrothermal vent fluids, particularly shallow-sea vents.
• Cycling of toxic elements in coastal marine environments, either naturally occurring or anthropogenic.
• Environmental geochemistry, emphasizing source, fate, flux, transport
 and bioaccumulation of toxins.
• Mobilization mechanisms and fate of arsenic in groundwater aquifers.
• Abiotic vs. biotic (microbial) processes across redox gradients.
• Shallow-sea analogs for early-Earth conditions and the origin of life.

Recent presentations:

• Hydrothermal Venting in Coastal Environments
• Searching for the origins of life in the modern ocean
• IODP Expedition 366: Spotlight on Geochemistry 
• Hydrothermal vents could explain the chemical precursors to life