sediments
Think global, act local: how lake microbes respond to their environments
How do microbes in lake sediments respond to small and large scale influences, and what does it have to do with climate change? Nyla HusainI’m a PhD student at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. I use a small-scale computer model to study how physical features like surface waves at the air-sea […]
Gassing Earth Out of the Ice Age: the North Pacific
Enhanced upwelling and CO2 degassing from the North Pacific during a warm climate event 14,000 years ago may have helped keep atmospheric CO2 levels high enough to propel the Earth out of the last ice age. Zoe GentesZoe has an M.S. in Oceanography and a B.S. in Geologic Oceanography from URI, with a minor in […]
The Once and Future Ocean
A newly collected sediment core from the Labrador Current gave Dr. Harunur Rashid a glimpse of the ancient ocean. What he saw might help inform our predictions of the future climate. Eric OrensteinEric is a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. His research in the Jaffe Laboratory for Underwater Imaging focuses on developing […]
Oil Spill Snorkels: Eating oil, breathing electrons, saving the world?
Oil spills are not great for the environment, but some bacteria thrive on eating oil. Scientists have been researching ways to use these natural oil degrading bacteria to clean up oil contaminated areas. A group in Italy adapted graphite rods to encourage marine mud bacteria to degrade oil more quickly. They call this the “Oil […]
Under the Sea(floor): Ocean Drilling and Scientific Discovery
Deep, dark, and mysterious, the ocean seafloor contains clues and records of past life and climates on earth. Understanding the subseafloor is critical to understanding our planet. But how do we reach these muds and rocks that lie beneath? Here we explore the history of subseafloor exploration, and find out about some of the technologies […]
Suffocating crabs and a one-way street for carbon
Seafloor life is in danger of running out of oxygen as the ocean warms, but this may actually help to mitigate climate change. Michael GrawI’m a 5th year PhD student at Oregon State University researching the microbial ecology of marine sediments – why do we find microbes where they are in the seafloor, and what […]
Mountains vs. Climate, Recorded in Marine Sediment
Mountain ranges can actively evolve with Earth’s climate. A new study of the St. Elias Range in coastal Alaska demonstrates how dynamic and coupled our planet’s crust is to climate, and how we can investigate past erosion through marine sediments. Zoe GentesZoe has an M.S. in Oceanography and a B.S. in Geologic Oceanography from URI, […]
Seagrass, Disturbance, and the Blue Carbon Cycle
Seagrass beds bury carbon incredibly well! What happens to that carbon when you uproot, plow through, or otherwise disturb seagrasses? Does that carbon get released again? And how long does it take to capture that much carbon again once the seagrass grows back? All great questions with answers in today’s oceanbites! Rebecca FlynnI am a […]
The Down, Up, and Down Again of Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay region is a densely populated area, and also experiences more rapid sea level rise than anywhere else along the North American Atlantic Coast. Why? Scientists look to the lithosphere for answers, finding that the subsidence of an ancient lithospheric bulge may be partially to blame, and will continue for millennia. Zoe GentesZoe […]
Climate Transgressions and Barrier Islands
Barrier Islands support local economies, residents, tourism, fragile environments, and sometimes valuable resources. Yet, they are extremely susceptible to storms and sea level change. A new study examines the past 12,000 years in sediments to try to understand how these coastal landforms may be affected in the future. Zoe GentesZoe has an M.S. in Oceanography […]
Balancing Act: Marine Sediments Reveal Past Carbon Cycle Fluxes
Researchers conducted a study that looks at marine sediment records to investigate sediment weathering patterns over long-term climate cycles. Somewhat surprisingly, it appears the Earth may have a mechanism for balancing variations in weathering during these glacial-interglacial cycles and mediating carbon cycle fluxes. Zoe GentesZoe has an M.S. in Oceanography and a B.S. in Geologic […]
Out of sight, out of mind: The effect of gas & oil spills on deep-sea communities
When undersea wells blowout, toxic concentrations of hydrocarbons can be rapidly released into the environment. The media presents these blowouts with dramatic images of flora and fauna covered in black tar along coastlines and on the sea surface. What are rarely shown in glossy photographs, however, are the consequences to the unseen deep-sea. Sarah FullerWith […]
Fight of the Century: CO2 vs. Calcifying Phytoplankton
From the very first sentence of the abstract, these scientists make clear they are not messing around, “Ocean acidification is a result of the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere into the ocean and has been identified as a major environmental and economic threat.” In other words, humans are causing ocean acidification and the […]
A sticky situation: Old black carbon and sinking particulate organic carbon
The attachment of aged dissolved black carbon to sinking particles may be an important process for transporting organic carbon to deep marine sediments. Kari St.LaurentI received a Ph.D. in oceanography in 2014 from the Graduate School of Oceanography (URI) and am finishing up a post-doc at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (Horn […]
Sticking to it – Sediments act as a “sink” for pollution
POPs, or persistent organic pollutants, are manmade chemicals that don’t break down in the environment and are found nearly everywhere around the planet. In this study, scientists traveled to central Chile to look at a couple of different POPs accumulating in sediments from an estuary. Erin MarkhamErin received her B.S. in Environmental Science from the […]
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