Sigurdur R. Gislason

Biosketch

Sigurdur R. Gislason, PhD is a Research Professor at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland. He earned his BSc in Geology from University of Iceland, and his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in geochemistry. He joined the Science Institute, University of Iceland in 1985. He is a fellow of the Geochemical Society (GS/USA), the European Association of Geochemistry, and the International Association of Geochemistry. He is an international member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS/USA). He has been the president of the European Association of Geochemistry, and co-founder and co-director of the CarbFix project. Awards include the Patterson Award of the Geochemical Society, Order of The Falcon from the President of Iceland, and a Falling Walls Winner in Physical Sciences in Berlin.

Research Interests

Dr. Gislason was a co-founder and co-director of the CarbFix project that developed a method to capture CO2 gas in water and store it in the form of carbonate minerals in reactive rocks. This includes laboratory experiments and large-scale underground field experiments in basaltic rocks that has led to an industrial scaleup. His main scientific contributions apart from CarbFix are 1) quantifying the CO2 mineral-storage potential of basaltic rocks, 2) measuring the climate dependence of atmospheric CO2 capture via chemical and physical erosion rates of basaltic terrains and the role of this capture in the global carbon cycle, 3) laboratory measurement of the dissolution rates and dissolution mechanisms of volcanic glasses and minerals as a function of their compositions, aqueous solution compositions and temperature, and 4) assessing the environmental impact of volcanic eruptions.