If I am going to purport to be able to answer questions about water and its chemistry that I might be asked, I should have to give you something of my qualifications to use of the word chemist to describe my education and experiences.
I have a B.S. in Chemistry degree from Lafayette College (class of 1971), and my major professional experience has been in water chemistry. Most recently I have over 5 years experience in trace metal analysis by use of atomic absorption spectroscopy.
Above you will see the first 2 terms you are likely to ask me to explain, so here goes. Trace metal refers to the concentraton of a metal in the ppm (parts per million) or ppb (parts per billion) range. To explain the term ppm think of a milliliter as 1,000,000 microliters and one gram as 1,000,000 micrograms. A concentration of 20 ppm iron (Fe) in a typical acid mine drainage in northeast Pennsylvania would mean that for every milliliter of tested water, there would be 20 micrograms of iron. Parts per billion (ppb) are 1/1000 of a part per million.
Atomic absorption can be difficult to understand, but it generally involves passing a narrow wavelength of light through a test solution being aspirated (sucked) into an acetylene flame. The behavior of the light after it passes through the flame determines the concentration of the metal being tested for.
I will add topics from time to time, but if you have a question you would like answered, drop me an email.