PhD Graduate Dr. Brock Edwards awarded the 2025 Distinguished Dissertation Award

Dr. Brock Edwards, a recent PhD graduate from the University of Manitoba’s Department of Environment and Geography, is a 2025 Distinguished Dissertation Award winner for his groundbreaking research on mercury emissions from volcanic activity in Iceland. His dissertation, Mercury Emissions from Icelandic Volcanism, offers new insights into how volcanoes contribute to the global mercury cycle. 

Dr. Edwards’ field research focused on measuring mercury emissions from volcanoes and geothermal vents in Iceland. To do this, he conducted field studies over four seasons using various sampling methods. Although volcanoes are known to be the largest natural source of mercury to surface environments, their role in the global mercury cycle has been not well understood by the scientific community. 

Dr. Edwards’ work is a significant step forward in the study of volcanic mercury emissions, which have an important impact on ecosystems and human health. The literature review portion of his dissertation shows that many volcanoes that emit large volumes of magmatic gases have not been studied for mercury emissions.

The results of Dr. Edwards’ fieldwork show that while geothermal activity in Iceland can release high levels of mercury into the local air and soil, its contributions to the global atmospheric mercury pool are very small. Studies of air, soil, and water across Iceland also suggest that the country overall has low mercury levels, likely because the volcanic activity there comes from a mantle source that contains little mercury. 

The University of Manitoba and Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies congratulate Brock on his outstanding achievement and looks forward to the lasting impact of his research in environmental science