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Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
As the human population continues to expand, to approach ten billion, there will be an increasing demand upon all Earths resources. Of particular importance will be resources related to energy, soil and water, all of which involve geofluids. Problems associated with waste disposal also involve systems for protecting near-surface water quality. There is an urgent need to quantify the fluid inventory and fluid dynamics of the near surface, while understanding volatiles and their deep recycling is fundamental to our understanding of the major dynamic processes of the Earth.