Dr Sebastien Lamontagne

I am a member of the Environmental Tracers and Applications team of CSIRO Land & Water. We use environmental tracers (properties of the water molecule or compounds dissolved in water) to help us understand the origin (rainfall, river infiltration, etc.) of water and the time since a given water source has entered the water cycle. The latter is especially important to evaluate the sustainability of groundwater resources. The team is currently building the first facilities in Australia to measure noble gases and radioactive noble gases in water samples. Current applications include the evaluation of connectivity between geological formations in unconventional gas settings, aquifer recharge rates, groundwater - surface water interactions, and submarine groundwater discharge.