INTERNATIONAL VIEW POINT AND NEWS Limnogeology, news in brief Michael R. Rosen • Elizabeth Gierlowski-Kordesch Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (outside the USA) 2014 We’ve invited Michael R. Rosen, water quality spe- cialist within the USGS Water Science Field Team in Carson City and Elizabeth Gierlowski-Kordesch, pro- fessor of geology at Ohio University, to take a look at the intriguing new developments that are emerging in limnogeologic studies. These studies are increasing our understanding of how climate and movements of the Earth’s surface influence terrestrial environments, as well as how contaminants are distributed and retained in the environment. They present a selection of recent significant research on sediments, rock, and biota that have been preserved in modern and ancient lake basins. Limnogeology is a relatively new field of study in a formal sense, in that the term limnogeology was coined in the early 1990s, although research on how lakes have formed and evolved over time has been studied since at least the 1800s (for example Russell 1885; Gilbert 1890). Over the past several years, new exciting techniques have been applied to limnogeologic studies. These studies have expanded our understanding of how climate and tectonics affect change in terrestrial environments. As these past changes have been shown to be important for predicting future climate change, interest in limnogeology has increased. In addition, understanding how contaminants are distributed and pre- served in the environment is essential for protecting wild- life and human health. Lakes form in a diversity of geologic structures and rock types as well as all climate zones. The diversity of lacus- trine geology and biology that contribute to lake sediments requires a multidisciplinary approach to solve important issues. Issues such as differences between regional and global paleoclimate variations over time, tectonic effects over time, changes in contaminant histories with varying land use within watersheds, and the unraveling of hydro- logic changes caused by human or natural modifications within a watershed through interdisciplinary techniques elucidate these problems. Because of the variety of subject matter in lacustrine basins, the studies presented here are divided into studies of contaminants in lake basins, of recent lake basins (unconsolidated lake sediments) and of ancient lake basins (sediments that have lithified into rock). Contaminants in lake sediments One of the most interesting studies of substantial regional contamination of lake sediments comes from studies of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are eroded and leached from coal-tar-based sealants used to protect and enhance the appearance of asphalt pavement (primarily parking lots and driveways) in the United States and Canada. Van Metre and Mahler (2010) showed that the sealants were a major contributor to PAH concentrations in sediments of 40 lakes throughout the United States. High PAH concentrations were noted in central and eastern lakes in the USA where coal-tar is more frequently used than in the west. Based on fingerprinting of the different PAH compounds in the sediment, Van Metre and Mahler (2010) M. R. Rosen (&) U.S. Geological Survey, Water Science Field Team, 2730 N. Deer Run Rd., Carson City, NV 89701, USA e-mail: mrosen@usgs.gov E. Gierlowski-Kordesch Department of Geological Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA e-mail: gierlows@ohio.edu 123 Environ Earth Sci (2015) 73:913–917 DOI 10.1007/s12665-014-3700-0