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What does one pack for a trip to an Antarctic island?  Items not found on a typical packing checklist, as some Hamilton students learned this week when they prepared for an expedition to Robertson Island.  It’s week two of the Antarctica 2012 research expedition, aboard the ship Nathaniel B. Palmer for Natalie Elking ’12, Manique Talaia-Murray ’12, Andrew Seraichick ’13, Elizabeth Bucceri ’11 and Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick. 

An international team of scientists - including Associate Professor of Biology Mike McCormick, alumna Elizabeth Bucceri ’11 and students Natalie Elking ’12, Manique Talaia-Murray ’12 and Andrew Seraichick ’13 - have embarked on the third cruise of the LARISSA program aboard the U.S. Antarctic Program ship Nathaniel B. Palmer.

The world is definitely warming, and it is directly due to factors that human beings have caused—these are two things that Dr. Richard Alley is certain of, and the premises on which he based his Oct. 20 lecture in the Taylor Science Center. Alley, a glaciologist and member of the UN climate change committee that was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize,  spoke on present state and future implications of sea-level rise due to a warming planet.

A paper co-authored by Geosciences Professor Eugene Domack that demonstrates how rising temperatures in the Antarctic margin have allowed an invasive species to decimate the existing marine life was published on Sept. 7 in the British journal  Proceedings B, the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal.

Geoscience students Natalie Elking ’12 and Manique Talaia-Murray ’12 conducted summer research related to sediment cores from Antarctica.  Elking is working on the organic geochemistry (carbon and nitrogen isotopes) of sub ice shelf sediments and Talaia-Murray is conducting a radiocarbon dating project using microfossils. 

Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, presented A Chemotrophic Ecosystem beneath an Antarctic Ice Shelf: Discovery and Demise following Ice Shelf Collapse to a team of scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) on Thursday, Feb. 24.  In the evening, Domack presented a public lecture titled Earth's Dynamic Climate Part 1:Icehouse to Greenhouse Transitions in Earth History: Lessons from Deep Time to Recent for the public as part of the LPI Lecture Series titled Cosmic Explorations.

The journal Nature published a paper on Feb. 9 co-authored by Eugene Domack, the J. W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies; alumna Amelia Shevenell ’96, his former student who is now a lecturer at the University College London; Anitra Ingalls, University of Washington professor; and C. Kelly, a University of Washington graduate. Titled “Holocene Southern Ocean surface temperature variability west of the Antarctic Peninsula,” the paper is also featured in the journal’s News and Views section which highlights papers of special note.

“Retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination,” a paper authored by Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack along with 11 co-authors, was published on Nature Geoscience’s website on Jan. 16. The paper will appear in print in the near future. Other co-authors include Caroline Lavoie, who recently completed postdoctoral research at Hamilton.

Geosciences major Theresa Allinger ’11 recently traveled to Spain to sample corals collected from the Weddell Sea for geochemical analysis.

Eugene Domack, the Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, has been named to the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) Polar Research Vessel Committee, which will plan the progress for a new Polar Research Vessel (PRV) for the U.S. Antarctic Program.