Benjamin J Siebers

Ben Siebers presents his Art of Science illustration series at the Upper Midwest Water Science Center face-to-face meeting.

Artistic rendition of the mineral lifecycle from a natural state through to exploration, permitting, mining, and reclamation. Designed for the Minerals Lifecycle Integrated Science Team to depict one aspect of their science focus.

This is a loosely drawn illustration of two hikers on the trail. It was drawn for the final page of a fact sheet and intended for text overlay. The text primarily indicates avenues of further study and next steps of the project.

This is a small inset drawing of a truck traveling a haul road from a mine site.  It is a southwestern landscape, and depicts dust kicked from the road and becoming airborne over the surrounding vegetation and landscape.

Part of a series of small inset drawings, this is quite simply, an Elk. The backdrop is that of pinion pine and Red Butte.

Green Lake is the deepest natural lake in Wisconsin. The drawing relates the water-quality response of Green Lake, with emphasis on the Metalimnetic Oxygen Minima, to total phosphorus loading from its watershed. The drawing depicts data collection, analysis, modeling, and real-time monitoring.

Created for a fact sheet on the implications of breccia pipe Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region, this drawing packs a significant amount of information into a single image.

Part of a series of small inset drawings, this is of a sign located near Horn Creek. The Creek is contaminated with high levels of Uranium. Sign states: "Horn Creek, Danger, Contaminated Water, Do Not Drink! Water in Horn Creek exceeds EPA health standards for radioactivity"

Part of a series of small inset drawings, this is a top view of Havasupai Falls, its aquamarine colored water is highly recognizable and it is a site of tribal, cultural, and recreational significance to the greater Grand Canyon region.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulates uranium mill tailings under the Uranium Mill Tailings Control Act of 1978. This drawing is a straight-forward cross sectional schematic of the different types of mill tailing covers.

This image was drawn for a fact sheet on Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon region, but was ultimately unused.  It still has utility to serve as inspiration to those who want to form ideas on how their science can be represented.  The image is quite literally, a view into the Grand Canyon.  But on a deeper level also is a conglomerate of both the geol

The Winnebago Pool is a chain of 4 shallow lakes in Wisconsin. The drawing relates real-time monitoring as well as sampling that took place on the lakes, the agricultural factors affecting the nutrient loading of the pool, and the importance of the Winnebago Pool fishery.

Great Lakes tributaries are influenced by a multitude of stressors that may cause adverse ecological effects. The drawing represents 5 of the many significant chemicals effecting the ecosystems – Atrazine, Deet, BPA, Metolachlor, and 4-nonylphenol.

Great Lakes tributaries deliver pathogens from many different sources. This drawing represents the various sources of these pathogens along with hydrologic, land cover, and season patterns by which they enter the Great Lakes tributaries. It references the virus sampling that took place with the backdrop based largely on the Milwaukee, WI.

Artist rendition of pathogen contamination in a mixed land use watershed.

Both macro- and microplastics are contaminants of concern in freshwater environments. The drawing depicts the different types of plastics and the amorphous means by which they enter the Great Lakes environment. The backdrop is a conglomerate of different landscapes that represent the many different tributaries at which the study was conducted.

Illustration created by Ben Siebers, USGS scientist, for journal article "Human and bovine viruses and bacteria at three Great Lakes beaches: Environmental variable associations and health risk".

Chloride concentrations in these studied northern U.S.

The Lake Michigan Mass Balance Project measured and modeled concentrations of persistent contaminants in air, water sediment, and fish and bird tissues in and around Lake Michigan. This report provided an updated concentration data and load estimates for nutrients, mercury, and PCBs.

Changes in water quality in urban areas may present themselves in conspicuous ways – such as murky or stinky stream water. They may also present themselves in less conspicuous ways – such as fewer native or pollution sensitive organisms.  This drawing is a conglomeration of streams studied in the Milwaukee, WI area.

This study identified typical ranges and magnitudes, temporal distributions, and principle factors affecting concentrations and yields of sediment, nutrients, and other constituents in runoff from agricultural fields. The drawing shows water flowing through an agricultural environment.