Gustavo Villarruel

I am a second-year PhD student at McGill University advised by Dr. John Stix. My research interests are in geological hazards, remote sensing, environmental science and landscape evolution. My PhD research centers on leveraging drone technology to investigate volcanic systems. My approach involves collecting a wide array of data, such as volcanic gas emissions, thermal infrared imaging, photogrammetry, and LiDAR, to better understand the factors leading to phreatic eruptions and improve their forecast. I completed my Master's degree in Geology at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where I was advised by Dr. Jeffrey T. Pietras and funded as a Fulbright Scholar.

For my undergraduate dissertation I studied the effects of wildfires on soils from the Calamuchita Valley, Argentina. After graduating with a degree in Geology (honors) from the National University of Cordoba, I was a Junior Geologist at Represas Patagonia. There, I enjoyed combining field measurements and remote sensing techniques to monitor the stability of the slopes of the Condor Cliff Dam and prevent potential landslides.

Outside of the office, you'll find me hiking, swimming, or cooking Argentinian dishes and pastries.

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Campi Flegrei is the largest active caldera in Europe, and it has shown signs of unrest since 2005 in the form of increased seismicity, uplift, gas flux and variations in gas geochemistry. Developing a safe, remotely-sensed method to determine CO₂ flux in this volcano is key for eruption forecasting, given the escalating activity may render unfeasible the use of traditional ground-based techniques for gas measurements. For this purpose I built a miniaturized MultiGAS device capable of measuring CO₂, H₂O and H₂S gas concentrations and used it to develop a drone-based approach to obtain direct gas fluxes and ratios. By comparing my results to simultaneous ground-based measurements, I discovered my drone-based MultiGAS approach can be a good alternative to monitor gas emissions and geochemistry at Campi Flegrei. Furthermore, I collected thermal infrared data from the crater and surrounding areas to shed light on ground instabilty processes operating in fumarole slopes which could pose a threat to local communities.

Despite of Canada being one of the world's largest per capita GHG emitters, their National Air Pollution Surveillance Program does not include the major GHGs such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) in their measurements. To bridge this data gap, I leveraged the capabilities of drone-based miniaturized gas sensors and samplers to reconstruct the vertical profile (from ground level up to 120 m) of CO₂ and CH₄ concentration and isotopic composition for the Greater Montreal Area, the second largest city in the country. The dataset reveals a strong correlation between GHG emission sources and altitude and suggests that the main source of GHG is fossil fuel burning. Future work involves using backward wind trajectory models to study the transportation of GHG in Montreal and to repeat the data collection to assess the temporal evolution of GHG distribution in Montreal.

The Trenton limestones were deposited along with volcanic ash layers in a foreland basin adjacent to the Taconic orogen during the Ordovician. By analyzing the lithology and XRF-based elemental data of five cores from the Mohawk Valley, New York, we performed a paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the carbonate shelf where these limestones and volcanic sediments were deposited. Our interpretations of ten lithofacies, along with a suite of elemental proxy data for bulk mineralogy and paleo-redox conditions, indicate two major flooding events of the carbonate shelf and substantial changes in fault-controlled paleobathymetry and sediment provenance.

Water repellency is a property with critical implications on soil erosion, and very sensitive to change after wildfires. This research analyzed the physical (water repellency, granulometry, color) and chemical (pH and organic matter) properties of pre- and post- fire soils, as well as soils heated under controlled laboratory conditions. This allowed us to characterize the changes in hydrophobicity that occur with increasing temperature and determine their causes and the soil temperature during the fire event.