Fountain Named Chair Of Department Of Geology

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- John C. Fountain, Ph.D., UB professor of geology, has been appointed to a three-year term as chair of the department, part of the university's College of Arts and Sciences.

Fountain is nationally known for his research, which involves the use of surfactants -- a major ingredient in soaps and detergents -- to treat and remove chemical contaminants from underground water supplies.

With his UB colleague Robert Jacobi, Ph.D., professor of geology, he conducted research using soil gas to delineate fracture systems along the Clarendon Linden Fault Zone and in the Akzo-Nobel Retsof salt mine in Western New York to predict areas of future collapse.

Fountain also is director of the department's Environmental Geochemistry Program. The program's members conduct much of their research using surfactants and studying other treatments for water supplies contaminated with non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) such as chlorinated solvents, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which flow through fractured rock.

In 1998, Fountain received the Water Environment Federation's Jack Edward McKee Award for outstanding achievement in groundwater protection, restoration or sustainable water use.

He served on the National Research Council Committee charged with evaluating the use of peer review of the Department of Energy's Environmental Management Office of Science and Technology (OST) Program.

Fountain, who joined the UB faculty in 1975, also served on National Research Council Committees charged with evaluation of technologies for remediation of dense nonaqueous phase liquids at Department of Energy sites. He also is a member of the UB Environment and Society Institute's steering committee.

He received master's and doctoral degrees from University of California, Santa Barbara.

Fountain lives in Amherst.