On Thursday, April 11, 18 members of the LARISSA (Larsen Ice Shelf System Antarctica) science team and 26 additional scientists from the Korean Polar Research Institute sailed from  Chile toward the Antarctic Peninsula on the Korean Icebreaker Research Vessel ARAON. Among the LARISSA researchers are Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professorship of Environmental Studies, and his former advisee, alumnus Andrew Christ ’11, who is providing continuing information and images throughout the expedition via a blog on the LARISSA site.

Research conducted on a 57-day expedition along the Antarctic Peninsula in 2010 led by Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, was the focus of a Dec. 12 article in the journal Nature. “Polar research: Trouble bares its claws” provided an overview of the changing ecological balance in the waters off Antarctica due to warming waters, highlighting Domack’s measurement of temperature changes during the last three decades.

Eugene Domack, The J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences at Hamilton, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

Hamilton students are now pursuing their studies on all seven continents. On Oct. 10, Chief Scientist Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professorship of Environmental Studies, began an 18-day cruise to Antarctica along with two Hamilton students and two alumni. Students are writing blog updates about their trip each day.

National Public Radio science reporter Richard Harris interviewed Eugene Domack, the Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, for a segment on All Things Considered on Aug. 22 titled “Humans’ Role In Antarctic Ice Melt Is Unclear.”  Domack’s research, published in the journal Nature in 2005, provided evidence that the break-up of Antarctica’s Larsen B ice shelf was caused by a combination of long-term thinning over thousands of years and short term cumulative increases in surface air temperature that have exceeded the natural variation of regional climate during the Holocene period.

A review of the research conducted in the last decade by Eugene Domack, the Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, comprises a notable portion of Antarctica, An Intimate Portrait of the World’s Most Mysterious Continent, published recently by Bloombury Press, UK. The book was written by Gabrielle Walker, a consultant to New Scientist and a regular BBC contributor who has taught at both Princeton and Cambridge Universities. She has been on five Antarctic assignments for Nature magazine and the BBC.

Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack presented “LARISSA: LARsen Ice Shelf System, Antarctica; an Interdisciplinary/International Observing and Monitoring Study of a Critical Antarctic Region” on July 19 at the SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) and Open Science Conference in Portland, Ore.

Eugene Domack, the Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant of $182,453 for the project “Continuation of the LARISSA Continuous GPS Network in View of Observed Dynamic Response to Antarctic Peninsula Ice Mass Balance and Required Geologic Constraints.”  The award is effective July 1, 2012 and expires June 30, 2017.

The Sedimentology Lab in the Taylor Science Center is busy this summer with eight summer students who are doing research on various aspects of Antarctica sediments as well as the geographically-closer Oneida Lake. 

The Antarctic Sun, a publication of the U.S. Antarctic Program, featured research performed by Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, and Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick as part of the LARISSA (LARsen Ice Shelf System Research, Antarctica) Project.  Domack is the principal investigator on the LARISSA program and, while at Hamilton, has conducted marine geology expeditions to Antarctica for the last 25 years.