Bayani Cardenas

Assistant Professor
William T. Stokes Centennial Teaching Fellow
Ph.D., New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technol., 2006

Fields of Study:

Hydrogeology, Surface Water Hydrology, Fluvial Processes, Applied Hydrogeophysics, Heat Transport and Sensing, Flow and Transport through Porous and Fractured Media, Applied Geostatistics

My research involves integrating hydrogeology, fluid dynamics and land-surface depositional processes. The problems I address range from fundamental to applied. My primary research interests are in surface water-groundwater interactions with equal emphasis on both hydrodynamic and geologic aspects. I use a suite of tools including hydraulic testing/ aquifer characterization, hydrogeophysics, geostatistics, tracer testing, laboratory analog experiments, and computational modeling.

Having fun while doing science in the field

 

Preliminary work in the Texas Gulf with Dr. Hedy Edmonds (UT MSI)

Professors Ken Dunton (pilot and plane owner) and Hedy Edmonds (UT-MSI) getting ready for some preliminary airborne thermal remote-sensing work using our FLIR camera.

My first class view and Hedy doing great as camera person. (Yes, it did take 3 professors do this preliminary work). Stay tuned for results!

 

Airborne and ground-based work at the Virgin River Utah in collaboration with Dr. Beth Nielson, Dr. Christopher Neale (USU) and Beth's excellent group of students

 

I get to ride "first class" again, this time thanks to the Utah State Aggies plane.

Enrique Rosero and Lindsey Gulden (Dr. Yang's grad students) helping out and having fun in the field.

 

Look at the pink river! I wonder how it got that way.

 

Gorgeous basalt flow with different cooling fractures. Yes, the river is also pink here. Some birds call the basalt "home".

 

Some airborne sensing on the ground.

 

Nutrient and hyporheic zone dynamics in Nebraska. This is a campaign organized by Dr. Durelle Scott (Nebraska), Dr. Jud Harvey (USGS), and Dr. Aaron Packman (Northwestern). I dropped by to participate.

 

Set-up for round-the-clock sampling of tracers and water quality.

Getting ready for dye injection. Look at that dye get dispersed!

 

Field studies in a large gravel bar (it's more like an island) on the Colorado River near Austin (site of Laura Merner's 2007 REU project and Blair and Travis' research site)

Getting to the field site.

Laura describing some sediments we augered. Was there a flood here?

Blair, Travis, Audrey (and Bayani) return to the island

The group just chilling out and exploring the island. Soon this place will be riddled with piezometers and instruments courtesy of Blair and Travis. How did this big tree run into another tree?

 

 

Cuatro Cienegas (Mexico) field work with Brad Wolaver and his adviser, Dr. Jack Sharp

Getting ready to dive into the springs. Laura and Dawn (REU students) taking field parameters.

You need to be in water in order to understand it! Brad retrieving dissolved gas diffusion samplers.

It's all about the fish!

 

Pictures from our field methods class can be seen here (for 2007) and here (for 2008).

Pictures from the joint GEO391C/346C trip to Mexico is here.