ABOUT
Welcome. For the last >20 years, I have studied the geochemistry and movement of geofluids (including water, gases, and hydrocarbons) from the subsurface to the free troposphere. Since joining the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) as a professor in 2019, my research interests focus on:
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origin and geochemistry of brines (produced waters) and gases in oil and gas reservoirs
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water movement and transport in dryland vadose zones
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valorization of industrial waste products
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utilization of machine learning tools to understand the nature and sources of solutes in hydrogeochemical system
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I am a member of the Jin-Engle-Ma (JEM) group at UTEP. As a collective we collaborate on a broad range of projects in the critical zone and shallow subsurface.
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As an instructor, I leverage my experience from my previous careers as a hydrogeologist working in environmental consulting and as a research geologist and project chief for the U.S. Geological Survey to ensure that students gain necessary soft skills for their future careers. I teach a range of courses covering topics in hydrogeology and geologic resources.
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Contact e-mail: maengle at utep dot edu
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Capabilities of the Engle Lab
Analytical Geochemistry
Mark is a member of the Center for Earth and Environmental Isotope Research at UTEP. The center includes 3 inductively coupled plasma instruments, including an Horiba Ultima Expert optical emission spectrometer, a Thermo iCap Q quadrupole mass spectrometer, and a Nu Plasma multiple-collector mass spectrometer. Mark and his students analyze a wide range of earth materials for elemental and isotopic composition, with a special interest in strontium and boron isotopes. Taking advantage of their class 100 clean room, the group also utilizes chelation and ion exchange chemistry to purify or pre-concentrate elements from difficult matrices.
Geochemical and Hydrogeologic Modeling
With more than 20 years of experience utilizing geochemical models (Geochemist's Workbench, PHREEQC, Visual Minteq, etc.) members of the Engle lab utilize thermodynamic information to examine and predict processes, delve into controlling mechanisms of natural systems and predict future scenarios. Recently, the group transitioned into unsaturated groundwater flow modeling (HYDRUS 1-D) and are working on linking geochemical reactions in the unsaturated zone using HP1.
Hydrologic and Geophysical Characterization
As part of the JEM's group recent work on dryland critical zone research and teaching hydrogeologic courses, we have expanded our capability to understand shallow vadose zone hydrology and subsurface characterization using a range of field and laboratory geophysical tools. In our field investigations we have been deploying soil moisture and matric potential probes along with Ground Penetrating Radar mapping to investigate water movement in the shallow vadose zone. In the the laboratory, we can develop soil moisture curves for unsaturated flow modeling and determine saturated hydrualic conductivity.
Compositional Data Analysis and Machine Learning
With increased computing power over the past few decades, expansion of geochemical tools in the mathematical field of compositional data analysis, new numerical methods, and widely available packages, members of the Engle Lab are exploring new approaches and methods to interrogate their data in the context of broadly available pre-existing data. In particular, the group is utilizing emergent neural networks routines to identify and predict new patterns in data, untangle end-members using source apportionment techniques, and classifying data using both shallow and deep learning techniques within the framework of R.