Seminar by Professor Rolf Kipfer from Institute for Biogeochemistry and Pollution Dynamics, Department of Environmental System Science, ETH Zurich
08 January 2026
KST 10:00
The Seminar is being held in Room 1010 (Jasmin) – Integrated mechanical engineering building. Click here for the campus map.
Atmospheric noble gases dissolve into aquatic systems through gas-water partitioning, resulting in their water concentrations directly reflecting the physical conditions during gas exchange [1]. Consequently, dissolved atmospheric noble gases serve not only as tracers for gas partitioning processes between phases but also as valuable indicators for reconstructing past environmental and climate conditions. By integrating these concepts with a mechanistic understanding of gas-water partitioning in porous media, groundwater recharge patterns in North America following the last glaciation can be reconstructed [2, 3].
Recent advancements in experimental techniques enable the analysis of noble gas concentrations in ultra-small water samples (<1 mg, [4]) and facilitate real-time, on-site determination of noble gas concentrations in various terrestrial fluids under field conditions [5, 6].
These methods facilitate the extraction of past environmental data from noble gases trapped in fluid inclusions within speleothems [7]. They also provide insights into fluid transport around Black Smokers and ocean sediments [8, 9], submarine groundwater discharge [10], and the potential impact of CH4 formation on arsenic mobilisation in groundwater [11].
This presentation will summarise and discuss our latest advancements in utilising atmospheric noble gases to investigate aquatic environments, analyse gas transport in trees [12], and explore the potential connections between fluid dynamics and seismic activity [13].
[1] Seltzer A. M. et al. (2021) Nature, 593, 228-232, [2] Klump S. et al. (2008) Geology, 36, 395-396, [3] Grundl T. et al. (2013) Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 369-370, 78-85, [4] Vogel N. et al. (2013) Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 14, 2432-2444, [5] Mächler L. et al. (2012) Environ. Sci. Technol., 46, 8288-8296, [6] Brennwald M. S. et al. (2016) Environ. Sci. Technol., 50, 13455-13463, [7] Ghadiri E. et al. (2018) Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 495, 192-201, [8] S Berndt C. et al. (2016) Geology, 44, 767-770, [9] Horstmann E. et al. (2021) Marine Geology, 434, 106419, [10] Engelhardt E. et al. (2022) Goldschmidt conference, abstract # 9793, [11] Lightfoot, A. et al. (2022) Water Research, 214, 118199, [12] Marion C. et al. (2022) Goldschmidt conference abstract # 9606, [13] Giroud S. et al. (2022) Goldschmidt conference abstract # 8935.
Short biography.
Dr. Rolf Kipfer (RoKi) is a senior research scientist at the Department of Water Resources and Drinking Water of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), where he leads the Environmental Isotopes research group. Additionally, he is a Professor at the Institute for Biogeochemistry and Pollution Dynamics of the Department of Environmental System Science (D-USYS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ). He holds a PhD in Natural Science from ETHZ, where he lectures on aquatic physics, tracer hydrology, and noble gas isotope geochemistry.