Student Research Profile: Brock Edwards

Brock Edwards is a third-year PhD student in the Department of Environment and Geography, under the supervision of Dr. Feiyue Wang and Dr. Peter Outridge. Brock started his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto studying for an arts degree before deciding to shift to the sciences. He finished his BSc in 2016 with a double major in Earth Sciences and English. Brock went on to finish is MSc at the U of T in Environmental Chemistry, focusing on iron biogeochemistry in freshwater environments, and for his PhD he wanted to stay in the field of Environmental Chemistry.

Brock believes his passion for academia stems from his childhood, “Since I was a kid, I’ve been excited about learning everything I can, especially when it comes to the natural world—weather, birds, rocks, space, plant life. I think that’s reflected in my passion for science, which was fostered in me by some really amazing mentors.” He also notes that his artistic endeavours on the side have helped his research, from grappling with scientific concepts to writing manuscripts, creating figures, and communicating his findings to a wider audience.

THE RESEARCH

Brock’s paper, "Fifty Years of Volcanic Mercury Emission Research: Knowledge Gaps and Future Directions, published in Science of the Total Environment," is a literature review carried out as he started his PhD program. He notes, that “although we have a pretty good handle on the amount of mercury released to the air from human activities, estimates of the amount released by volcanoes are all over the map. The number may be quite insignificant compared to anthropogenic emissions, or it may be substantial. Our paper delves into the reasons underlying this uncertainty, which span the diversity of volcanic gas release on Earth, the complex chemistry of mercury, and the range of methods used to study volcanic mercury, which are not always comparable.”

The paper includes a detailed summary of all current published work on volcanic mercury and demonstrates that there are significant differences in the amounts of mercury emitted by volcanoes based on their tectonic setting. For example, Brock highlights that “arc volcanoes that form at convergent tectonic plate boundaries, such as Miyake-jima in Japan, seem to emit much more mercury than hotspot volcanoes like Kīlauea in Hawaii.” He hopes that the evidenced distinction will “lay a path for an improved understanding of the specific processes involved in volcanic mercury release and help guide future field studies at the many volcanic regions globally where mercury hasn’t been measured.”

Brock emphasizes the importance of volcanic mercury research because volcanoes are increasingly becoming recognized as major contributors of airborne pollution to nearby inhabited areas, thus he warns, “when you have major population areas close to active volcanoes, like in Indonesia or Mexico, there is a safety risk not only from potential eruptions but also from the ongoing release of metals and particulate matter into the air… And once it’s emitted to the air, mercury can travel great distances before eventually depositing out and entering surface ecosystems. In this way, no part of the world is safe from airborne mercury, and we’re seeing that in remote parts of the Arctic for example, where mercury levels in water, soil, and living things are much higher than normal in some areas.”
This research will ultimately help us determine the relative balance of natural versus anthropogenic emissions of this element. Brock says this is a “critical knowledge gap as we work to reduce the amount of mercury being released from human activities globally and tackle the problem of mercury pollution as a public health threat.”

THE PUBLISHING

How did you select the journal to publish in? Since it concerns both mercury and volcanology, this paper sits at the nexus of several disciplines including geology, chemistry, biology, and atmospheric science. And because mercury pollution is a global environmental concern, there is also a major public health aspect to the material. My co-authors and I aimed to select a journal that is interdisciplinary in focus and which also has a broad readership. We chose Science of the Total Environment—knowing of course that you need second and third candidate journals, since your first choice may pass on your manuscript for content reasons or otherwise. We were fortunate enough to have the manuscript accepted after some revisions.

What did you think of the reviewer comments? They were very helpful in this case. As with any good feedback, the reviewers found the lines of weakness running through the manuscript, suggested improvements to make it stronger and more scientifically sturdy, and really encouraged more from us as authors to increase the paper’s impact and move it beyond just a “state of the art” review.

How did you find the process overall? I had published a few research articles previously from my M.Sc. work, but I had never written a review article, and it was a huge learning experience. I’m thankful for the guidance from my supervisors, and their patience in helping to untangle my many run-on sentences. It was a lesson in the economy of words. I also learned the importance of staying organized when moving through several versions of a manuscript, which altogether cited around 300 publications (although in the final version this number was pared down considerably). Working with the journal was a straightforward process. Even as I was anxious to see it through, I learned that you really have to be patient and attentive as you move through the stages of addressing the reviewer comments with your co-authors, writing your point-by-point responses, re-submitting the revised manuscript, submitting your figure images in the correct file formats, and so on. And then, of course, there’s sometimes a long wait to actually see it published! But I would say it was a very rewarding process altogether.

THE TAKE-HOME ADVICE

“Read papers within your field of study and read papers outside of your field of study. Find a paper that interests you, take it apart, analyze all the components, put it back together again. Also, ask your peers and supervisors about the process. Scientific writing and publishing is an intimidating enterprise, but I think that once you’ve had a look ‘under the hood,’ you’ll be more sure of yourself. The whole process might even be enjoyable.”

CONTACT:

Brock Edwards, PhD Student
Centre for Earth Observation Science (CEOS)
University of Manitoba
brock.edwards@umanitoba.ca
(204) 333–2759

Interview by Katarina Djordjevic