Ryan Kerrigan's current research

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     Prior to joining the faculty at Pitt-Johnstown I was an environmental consultant at Adapt Engineering in Seattle, WA for four years. My main duties at Adapt were Phase I Environmental Site Assessments, pollution assessment and delineation, and the development of remediation plans for contaminated sites. At Pitt-Johnstown I have begun working with local environmental firms to investigate standard practices of environmental assessment and explore the assessment of local sites.

Components of this research have been presented at regional PCPG:

• Louderback, S. V., Weyandt, C. and Kerrigan, R. J. (2018) Bailing Out the Technicians: Assessing Purge Volume Protocols. Pennsylvania Council of Professional Geologists Annual Conference, March 20, 2018, Harrisburg, PA. 

    I have begun working with local environmental firms to assess brownfield sites in the Johnstown area. Johnstown was once a thriving steel mill town, however, with the collapse of the US steel market, many of the old mill sites have been left abandoned and contaminated. Many of the companies responsible for the contamination are defunct, leaving no responsible party to pay for clean up. Luckily, the federal government has set up funds for those who are interested in assessing and restoring these contaminated sites. In conjunction with local environmental firms, I have begun identifying candidates that would be ideal for assessment and remediation. This project is just beginning, but by next summer we should have a site, or sites to begin field work.


I'm always looking for interested students to take on more projects!!!

Future Projects on Environmental Assessment:

• Investigating the validity of environmental sampling protocols
• Assessing Johnstown brownfields sites
• Determining the environmental history of Johnstown brownfield sites
• Identifying point source locations for contamination
• Delineating the extent of contamination
• Developing remediation protocols

Other Projects:

• Petrology and Geochemistry in Portugal
• Volcanic Ashes and Hydrothermal veining in the Alleghany Plateau
• Petrology, Geochemistry, and Structural Geology of Ultramafic Rocks
• Petrology, Geochemistry, and Structural Geology of Pegmatites
• Petrology, Geochemistry, and Structural Geology of Granites
• Structural Geology of Large Fracture Zones in the Allegheny Plateau

Top images (left to right): Geologic Map of the Youngsford Road ultramfic body; field work at Bells Mill Road with Ryan Kerrigan, Loring Simboli, and Sam Louderback; XPL image of orthopyroxene altering to anthophyllite; Secondary electron image of relict olivine altering to serpentine; field contact between the Bells Mill granodiorite and the Wissahickon schist; trace element chemical discrimination diagram for serpentinites. Copyright © 2024 Ryan Kerrigan (last updated Jun 2024)