Wenatchee Erratics Chapter, Ice Age Floods Institute will meet 7:00 P.M. Tuesday February 9, at Wenatchee Valley Museum, 127 South Mission, Wenatchee.

Dr. Charlotte Sullivan, geologist and senior researcher, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will discuss 'Changing Man-Made CO2 into Minerals: An Important Role for Columbia River Basalts.' Man-made carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere world-wide are greater than 25 billion tons per year, of which more than 5.5 billion are from the U.S. Under current conditions, these emissions are expected to cause atmospheric CO2 to rise at an alarming rate. Some of the largest stationary sources of carbon dioxide in the Pacific Northwest include cement plants, ethanol plants, and paper mills. Injecting CO2 into deep geologic formations produces ordinary carbonated water. However, injecting CO2 into deep lava rock, such as the Columbia River Basalts, changes part of the CO2 into new rock, in the form of carbonate minerals.

PNNL is leading the research for using ancient lava flows to change man-made CO2 into rock. Called 'carbon sequestration in basalts,' why would we want to do this? Why basalt? What and where is the best basalt? How do we get CO2 into basalt? Will it leak out? What happens to the basalt?

The program is free & open to the public.