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October 31,
2002
Highlights
- Susan Ford is serving on a National Academy of Sciences Committee
on the Introduction of a Non-native Oyster into Chesapeake Bay.
- At the 23rd International Ornithological Congress in Beijing,
China, Joanna Burger was elected to the prestigious
"Committee of 100," which includes the leading ornithologists
from around the World. The next IOC will be in Hamburg,
Germany in 2006.
- Science News interviewed the COOL room on Friday (10/11/2002)
on the future of coastal ocean observatories.
- Oscar Schofield, John Kerfoot, and Joe Gryzmski conducted a
cruise off the coast of California to collect deepsea benthic
animals that contain plastids as part of a Nasa Exobiology grant.
- The COOL group assisted in a series of hyperspectral remote
sensing projects being conducted in Monterey Bay and San Luis
Obispo (California).
- We are sad to announce Mike Crowley has been lured away by SeaSpace
Inc. and will be leaving IMCS. Mike has been a central component
to the COOL group, his presence can never be replaced.
- Peter Rona, Karen Bemis and their research group have a front
page article in the October 29th issue of Eos, "Acoustics Advances
Study of Seafloor Hydrothermal Flow," describing their work in
acoustically imaging black smoker plumes and diffuse flow and
using the images to determine the role of these flow regimes in
dispersing heat, chemicals, and biological material into the ocean.
- Michael Gochfeld, MD, PhD, was interviewed for a USA Today cover
story on methylmercury and balancing the benefits and risks of
eating fish.
- Peter Rona was appointed to the Organizing Committee of the
international conference, "Mineral of the Ocean-Integrated Strategies,"
sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences to be convened 24-30
April 2004 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Meetings Attended
- Peter Rona presented an invited lecture, "The New View of Marine
Minerals," at the New York Academy of Sciences, Geological Sciences
Section, on the evening of October 7th.
- Peter Rona and Michael DeLuca co-organized and co-convened with
the New Jersey Technology Council, a "Harbor Technologies Forum,"
which brought some 25 representatives from marine industries to
IMCS on October 10th to build on IMCS expertise to develop Rutgers-industry
partnerships to plan, produce, and implement an environmental
observation system for the New York-New Jersey Harbor.
- Professor Michael Gochfeld (Environmental and Community Medicine)
was an invited speaker at the Environmental Protection Agency's
conference on "Methylmercury Poisoning" in Burlington, VT, Oct.
20, 2002. He presented "Cases of Methylmercury poisoning
and non-poisoning in high end fish eaters."
- Michael Gochfeld, MD was invited to a meeting of Hoboken firefighters
to discuss the exposure consequences and health effects of the
highly reactive chlorosulfonic acid which escaped from a Hoboken
plant in early October.
- Peter Rona participated in filming of a sequence in Spain, October
2-5, for the IMAX movie, "Volcanoes of the Abyss" (in preparation),
which links an ancient benthic invertebrate fossil line thought
to be extinct to an apparent living representative that he discovered
on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
- Sybil Seitzinger attended the SCOPE Element Interactions Workshop
held in Prague, Czech Republic Oct. 5-11, where she chaired a
workgroup "Potential for deliberate management of element interactions
to address major environmental issues." (SCOPE = Scientific
Committee on Problems in the Environment)
- Sybil Seitzinger participated in the joint European Union-US
Workshop on Harmful Algal Blooms September 4-9 in Trieste, Italy.
This was one of a series of workshops that the EU and NSF are
sponsoring to explore potential areas for joint EU and US funding
of research projects.
- Peter Rona organized, co-chaired, and presented the keynote
paper in a special session on the subject of, "The Changing Vision
of Marine Minerals," at the Geological Society of America Annual
Meeting in Denver on 30 October.
Publications
- Lowell, R.P., and P.A. Rona, Seafloor hydrothermal systems driven
by the serpentinization of peridotite, Geophys. Res. Lett. 29(11),
10.1029/2001GL014411, 2002.
- Rona, P.A., D.R. Jackson, K.G. Bemis, C.D. Jones, K. Mitsuzawa,
D.R. Palmer, and D. Silver, Acoustics advances study of
sea floor hydrothermal flow, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical
Union, 83(44), 467 ff., 29 October 2002.
Congratulations
- Amber Paschal entered a poster in the Kimmel Cancer Center 2nd
Annual Undergraduate Poster Competition at the Kimmel Cancer Center
(associated with Thomas Jefferson University) in Philadelphia.
The competition is intended for students in chemistry, biology
and related fields who are working on biomedical research projects.
Amber's project (not exactly bioMEDICAL... but rather analytical
chemistry) involved the use of the EcoLAB nutrient autoanalyzer
as a real time nutrient mapping device in the Mississippi River.
Amber won the grand prize which included a cash prize of $1000.00
!!! She is currently working with Jim Ammerman and Mike
Kennish, and they are preparing to deploy the instrument at Tuckerton.
- Anthea Aikens, Jim Ammerman's RISE student last year (summer
2001) also won a national poster competition with her work in
the Mississippi River Plume with Jason Sylvan and Jim.
- Congratulations to Hongguang Ma and Jun Hong on the birth of
their second child, a beautiful baby girl Kaitlyn on October 30,
2002!
Let's Welcome
- Tara Shulka is a new research assistant in Sybil Seitzinger's
group.
- Thibault de Garidell, a new post-doc with Yair Rosenthal, defended
his Ph.D. this summer in the Aix-Marseille University (France).
He worked on the late quaternary paleoceanography of the western
pacific warm pool, at millenial and Milankovitch time-scales.
To quantify past oceanic changes, he used oceanic proxies such
as planktonic foraminifera and coccoliths transfer functions,
light stable isotopes and morphometry of foraminifera. His research
here will focus on the use of trace metals in coccoliths and foraminifera
to reconstruct the late quaternary equatorial paleoceanography."
(Room 114A, ext. 2-6555 x372).
- Dan Tchernov, a new post-doc with Paul Falkowski, completed
his Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His studies
concentrated on phytoplankton bioenergetics, and inorganic carbon
utilization. His current interests are:
1. Hermatypic corals responses to stress conditions on the mechanistic
level.
a.What are the physiological triggers in the symbiotic
algae that provoke bleaching?
b.Does the accumulation of reactive oxygen species lead
to programmed cell death (PCD) in corals?
2. What is the frequency of coral bleaching events during the
last 150 years, and on a larger time scale?
3. Is this an invariable selection mechanism or a disturbance
caused by anthropogenic related affects?
- Doriane Delanghe is a new post-doc who just arrived from Paris.
She finished her Ph.D. in Aix en Provence on studies of coral
reef using U-Th TIMS datation at CEREGE under the supervision
of Edouard Bard and Bruno Hamelin. Doriane studied sea-level variation
for the last 14,000 years from long continuous cores drilled in
the barrier reef of Papeete, Tahiti. She did TIMS dating, 2 and
3D modelisation of the reef growth. Doriane will be working
here with Rob Sherrell on Nd and RRE`s elements in metalliferous
carbonates. (Room 205E, ext. 2-6555 x243)
- On October 1, Katja FennelI started as Assistant Research Professor
in the Ocean Modeling Group with Dale Haidvogel. Prior to coming
to IMCS, Katja was a Post-Doc at the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Sciences at Oregon State University. She is interested in coupled
physical-biological modeling. In 1998 she completed her Ph.D.
in Marine Biology in Germany. (Room 214B, ext. 2-6555
x254)
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