Johanna M. Blake, Ph.D.

Johanna Blake has devoted her career to understanding geochemical processes that may effect surface water and groundwater especially related to rock-water, sediment-water, and ash-water interactions. She focuses her research on inorganic geochemistry related to mining, sediment, and wildfires and specializes in elements including uranium, arsenic, molybdenum, selenium, lead, chromium, and rare earth elements. Johanna has worked on issues related to uranium mining in the Grants Mineral Belt, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation, and along the Texas Gulf Coast. She has been the lead scientist in New Mexico working on post-Gold King Mine spill research in the Animas and San Juan Rivers and has worked on understanding potential effects of mining on two drinking water reservoirs along the Animas River. She is the co-lead for a large project working to track the source(s) of metals to the San Juan River through Navajo Nation. In addition, Johanna works on wildfires and water quality including identifying mechanisms of element mobility from ash especially related to systems with multi-stressors including drought, flood, wildfire, and mining. More recently, Johanna has joined a multi-disciplinary team to understand the effects of coal mining on a transboundary reservoir in Canada and Montana.