#17 Wednesday, March 12th, 2008: Long Term Ecological Research

• LONGEST BLOG EVER
  
• Sarah Fortner
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• PhD student in environmental geochemistry.
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• Always loved science and likes being around scientists.
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• When she first came to Ohio State she knew she wanted to go to Antarctica. Asked people at Byrd and coordinated with Director Berry Lyons. Sarah loved glaciers and Lyons worked with glacial stream chemistry.
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• Lived on ice between Antarctica and Alaska for a year.
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• A) Snow
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• Looks at metal concentrations
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• Metal concentrations are prevalent.
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• Metal can be remobilized by winds
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• Non particulating suit : protects from metals
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• B) Using the “clean suit” she follows these steps:
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• Dig snow pit
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• Clean with acid cleaning device
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• Then take clean samples
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• Stream metals are cleaned in three different acids. Hcl at 10% v/v acid. Trace metal grade one which reports contamination, nitric acid at 10% v/v and optima acid ultimate trace metal grade and v/v 1%.
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• C) Uses filter towers and eventually syringes. Syringes are more affordable, smaller and there are less chances of contamination. Bottles are occasionally used to carry the water. Inductively coupled mass spectrometer measures low concentration parts per trillion.
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• D) Went to the Dry Valleys two times for one month each. Went to the Great Basin for a week and took two trips a few days each to Mount Hood.
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• 5) Antarctica is like being on Mars. No vascular plants and exposed rocks in the Dry Valley.
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• The Dry Valleys are more protected
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• East Antarctic ice sheet covered the Dry Valleys
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• Learned about how scientists are interconnected and learned the importance of it.
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• 6) They want to learn how environments are changing over time and space: geochemistry, animals and precipitation.
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• That way you can look back on old data and have new understandings
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• LTER try to make it understandable for the general public
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• 7) A lot of lab work but works on computer
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• In the lab and find a month to 2 months
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• Does outreach
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• Taught 4-5 graders last year (not through LTER)
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• 9) Solid math and science
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• General science, ecosystem, paleoclimatology, hydrology, geochemistry and geomorphology.
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• As a undergrad Sarah needed to take a lot of physics.
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• Works with biologists on the field
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• LTER started in 1993
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• Sarah started in 2000
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• Seven people are in LTER
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• LTER is the geochemistry of streams
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• LTER works with all MCM groups
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• Berry stepped down from being the director and principal investigator
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• There are 26 LTER sites. Two are in the Antarctica and the rest is mostly in the United States.
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• LTER is the coldest and driest of all MCM sites. Average temperature is
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• -17 degrees Celsius
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• Kathy Welch
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• 1) Masters in earth science
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• 2) Enjoyed learning about the natural world. Areas that Kathy is interested in is engineering, oceanography, glaciology and hydrology.
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• 3) Berry was Kathy’s undergraduate advisor at the University of New Hampshire and he told her about LTER.
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• Worked with ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica.
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• Worked in Antarctica four months a year at the Caray Lab
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• Caray is the main laboratory at MCM to conduct research
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• A) Water samples from streams and lakes.
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• B) Easy to collect.
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• Dry Valley lakes are very salty
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• 5) Worked with Berry and LTER since 1993
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• Long term monitoring study to collect long term data sets.
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• Has spent a accumulative of 60 months in Antarctica
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• Did her thesis on two snow pits in the Asgard region.
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• The major finding of her research was that the environment was incredibly sensitive to subtle climate changes
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• Lakes are terminal in the dry valleys
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• Warm days in the Summer mean glacial melt meaning rise in levels at lakes.
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• There is a stationary camp by a terminal lake and could be effected by glacial melt.
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• Lake bonnie in the Dry Valleys has had a significant rise.
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• Organisms that are residing in the lakes are microbial, for example bacteria and phytoplankton.
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• 8) Works mostly on computers. Spends 1 month of the year doing field work and 3-4 months working in the lab.
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• 9) Math and science in high school. Calculus, physics and chemistry.
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• Polar areas are really sensitive because of the physical state of water.
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• Glaciers in the Dry Valleys are not in equilibrium state.
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• LTER studies the Dry Valley because it has a simple environment but is extreme when compared to other ecosystems.
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• The Dry Valleys are a Polar desert
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• Chris Gardner
• 1) Undergraduate in geology and a masters in geological sciences.
• 2) Interested in environmental sciences and how people effect the environment and vice versa. Chris also likes to travel.
• 3) Berry Lyons was on his masters committee and offered him a job.
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• A) Does analytical chemistry
• Lakes
• Ice covered lakes
• Glacial run off
• Carbon run off in soils
• B) Chris does not personally collect the samples. That is what Sarah does.
• E) At MCM, Taylor valley
• Which is the primary site
• Acts as a technician
• Oversee the management of computers
• Thirty people go to Antarctica each season
• Stores all the data from expeditions and makes it accessible online
• Works on computers when in Columbus
• Spent 2 months in Antarctica
• For programming he uses ORACLE which is the biggest relational database.
• The BPRC website uses the program UNIX
• Apache and Java is also used.
• Berry does geochemistry in Panama
• There are mandates to have all LTER’s research to be made available to the public.
• Long term project funded by the National Science Foundation
• Chris does information management