Research Interests

• My scholarship activities unfold in two complementary directions. On the one hand, I try to assess the impacts that environmental perturbations have on biogeochemical cycling at ecosystem interfaces (coastal margins, lakes and flooded terrestrial zones, wetlands, urban atmospheres). On the other, I seek to address issues of scientific literacy in both a general social context as well as a specific one in the development of environmental curricula
   
  I have been constantly fortunate in my career to have mentors that showed me there was beauty and fascinating information in the "small stuff". My wife laughs that I spend most of my life measuring things I can’t see, but I find it particularly amazing that from a few millionth of a gram of a substance you detected in a deep sediment, you could reconstruct the history of contaminant transport in an area, or the type of vegetation in a drainage basin and the fluxes of terrigenous matter to receiving sedimentary basins. Looking at sediments and soils is like unveiling the mysteries of an untold story, one that is fragmented and distorted by the own passage of time. Finding the right tool, and looking through the right magnifying glass, is what really drives a lot of what I do. I think that there are still so many conundrums in trying to explain the natural world around us that we don’t run a risk of getting bored any time soon.
   

 Academic Background

• Post-Doc. Marine Chemistry, University of Texas Marine Science Institute, 1998-1999.
   

• Ph.D. Environmental Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), 1997. Dissertation: "Biogeochemical Cycles of Natural and Anthropogenic Compounds in Recent Sediments From a Coastal Environment: The Saguenay-St. Lawrence System, Canada”.
   

• M.Sc. Environmental Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), 1992. Thesis: "Biogeochemistry of Mercury in Hydro-Electric Reservoirs From Northern Québec."
   

• B.Sc. Marine Biology, McGill University, 1989.
   

Teaching

• Marine Instrumental Analysis (MARS 450)
   

• Multidisciplinary Ocean Studies

Selected Publications

• Louchouarn, P., S. Cohen, B. Herbert, and T. Heikkila. (2006 - Submitted). Building practice through authentic scientific inquiry: Formalization of multidisciplinary approaches in graduate professional education. Science Education.
   

• Hammes, K., M.W.I. Schmidt, L.A. Currie, W.P. Ball, T.H. Nguyen, P. Louchouarn, and co-authors. (2006, In Review). Comparison of black carbon quantification methods using reference materials from soil, water, sediment and the atmosphere, and implications for the global carbon cycle. Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
   

• Louchouarn, P., S. Chillrud, S. Houel, B. Yan, D. Chaky, C. Rumpel, C. Largeau, G. Bardoux, D. Walsh, and R.F. Bopp. (2006 – In Press). Elemental and isotopic evidence of soot- and char-derived black carbon inputs to New York City’s atmosphere during the 20th Century. Environmental Science & Technology. Vol. 40.
   

• Louchouarn, P., T. Naehr, J. Silliman, and S. Houel. (2006). Elemental, stable isotopic (δ13C), and molecular signatures of organic matter in late Pleistocene to Holocene sediments from the Peruvian margin (ODP Site 1229). In Jørgensen, B.B., D'Hondt, S.L., and Miller, D.J. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, 201: 1-21. http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/201_SR/113/113.htm
   

• Houel S., P. Louchouarn, M. Lucotte, R. Canuel and B. Ghaleb. (2006). Translocation of soil organic matter following reservoir impoundment in boreal systems: Implications for in-situ productivity. Limnology & Oceanography. Vol. 51(3)., p: 1497–1513.
   

• Benner, R., P. Louchouarn, and R. Amon. (2005). Terrigenous DOM in the Arctic Ocean and its transport to shallow and deep waters of the North Atlantic. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Vol. 19.
   

• Ishikawa, T., A. Barnston, K.A. Kastens, P. Louchouarn, and C. Ropelewski. (2005). Testing the efficacy of climate forecast maps as a means of communicating with policy makers. Cartography and Geographic Information Science. Vol. 32(1), p: 3-16.
   

• Brandenberger J., P. Louchouarn, B.E. Herbert, and P. Tissot. (2004). Geochemical and hydrodynamic controls on arsenic and other trace metal cycling in a seasonally stratified US sub-tropical reservoir. Applied Geochemistry. Vol. 19. p: 1601-1623.
   

• Farella, N., M. Lucotte, P. Louchouarn, and M. Roulet. (2001). Deforestation at the origin of modified terrigenous organic matter inputs to the Rio Tapajos, Brazilian Amazon. Organic Geochemistry. Vol. 32, p: 1443-1458.
  Louchouarn, P., S. Opsahl, and R. Benner. (2000). Isolation and quantification of dissolved lignin from natural waters using solid-phase extraction (SPE) and GC/MS Selected Ion Monitoring (SIM). Analytical Chemistry. Vol. 13, p: 2780-2787.

Patrick Louchouarn
Associate Professor of

Marine Sciences

Texas A&M University at Galveston

louchp@tamug.edu  

Phone: (409)740-4710  

Fax: (409)740-4787