Mr. E. Michael Thurman is a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Organic Geochemistry Research Laboratory in Lawrence, Kansas. He has worked with the U.S. Geological Survey for 25 years, since the completion of his Ph.D. in Organic Geochemistry at University of Colorado. He was the Director of Research for 3 years in the Denver regional office of the USGS and spent 10 years doing research on natural organic substances in water. During that time he published the first book on the nature of natural organic substances in water, called, Organic Geochemistry of Natural Waters (1985).The past ten years have been spent at the District Office in Lawrence, Kansas, setting up and directing research on herbicides in ground water, surface water, and rainfall of the midcontinental United States, a 12 state region that is impacted by agricultural nonpoint-source pollution. The laboratory in Kansas has become an active center for research on herbicide contamination in the Midwest. New methods of analysis of herbicides have been developed which include automated solid-phase extraction, GC/MS, and immunoassay procedures for triazine herbicides. These methods have been applied to over 45,000 samples from the Midwest. Many papers on these studies have been published in Environmental Science & Technology and Analytical Chemistry, including a recent book on Herbicides in Surface and Ground Water (1996) by the American Chemical Society. The laboratory funds both graduate students and undergraduates working in organic geochemistry and environmental chemistry at the University of Kansas.
When not working in the laboratory or writing papers, Mike keeps busy with several hobbies including cross country skiing, mountain biking, and most recently “farming.” He has a small farm located about 2 hours from the office that consumes his time and energy on weekends trying to raise organic crops and to appreciate what real farmers do on a daily basis.
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