Polar Research

The Arctic and Antarctica Sources

The International Polar Year, organized through the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organization, extends from March 2007 to March 2009 to encompass to full annual cycles for the Earth’s polar regions. A number of Oregon State University faculty members have expertise in the Arctic or Antarctic regions, and may be able to provide new perspectives for journalists.

For additional help, please contact Mark Floyd at OSU’s News and Communication Services, 541-737-0788, or Mark.Floyd@oregonstate.edu.

• Ed Brook, Associate Professor, Geosciences (541-737-8197). Brook is a paleoclimatologist and one of the leading experts in the world on the study of trace gases in ancient ice cores from the Arctic or Antarctic, learning about the forces that shaped climate hundreds of thousands of years ago, and what those changes can tell us about the risks Earth faces from global warming. He is co-chair of the International Partnership in Ice Core Science, a 19-nation group that is collaborating to study, among other work, some of the oldest ice ever preserved under the frozen wastes of Antarctica. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Nov05/icecores.htm
• Zanna Chase, Assistant Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-5192). Chase is a chemical oceanographer interested in the role of iron in regulating marine productivity. She participated in an iron fertilization experiment in the Southern Ocean, and has studied marine sediment cores to look at the link between the iron supply and marine productivity since the last ice age.
• Lorenzo Ciannelli, Assistant Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-3142). Ciannelli’s research interests focus on fisheries oceanography and marine ecosystem ecology, especially the early life stages of fish, including egg, larval and juvenile survival. Among his current projects are studies linking halibut spawning and nursery locations in the southeast Bering Sea; responses of Pacific cod to climate-related changes in the eastern Bering Sea; and walleye Pollock spawning behavior in the Gulf of Alaska.
• Robert Collier, Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-4367). Collier is a coordinator with the North Pole Environmental Observatory, an Arctic scientific project since 2000 that is part of the National Science Foundation’s Arctic Observing Network. He and his colleagues will visit the Arctic in spring of 2007 and 2008 to conduct large-scale air surveys of the Arctic Ocean to observe changes in ocean and sea ice that may provide clues to climate change severity and provide additional data on seasonal variability of ice.
• Robert Dziak, Associate Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Hatfield Marine Science Center (541-867-0270). Dziak is an expert in plate tectonics and seafloor spreading and specializes in the use of hydrophones to “listen” for undersea earthquakes. He and his colleagues use both U.S. Navy hydrophone arrays and autonomous hydrophones developed at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, which were deployed off Antarctica in 2005 and 2006. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2007/Mar07/antarctic.html
• Kelly Falkner, Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (703-292-7450). Falkner is on an assignment from OSU to the National Science Foundation, where she is interim director for NSF’s Antarctic Ocean and Climate Science program, coinciding with the International Polar Year. Her research interests focus on chemical isotope signatures of rivers, lakes and sea water, which she applies to the understanding of Arctic circulation and its variability. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Oct05/changingarctic.htm
• Markus Horning, Assistant Professor, Fisheries and Wildlife, Hatfield Marine Science Center (541-867-0270). Horning is a pinniped ecologist for OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute, located at the university’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore. He specializes in the studies of seals and sea lions, and in 2006 conducted a major study on aging in Weddell seals in Antarctica. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2007/Jan07/weddell.html
• Bruce Mate, Professor, Fisheries and Wildlife, Hatfield Marine Science Center (541-867-0202). Mate is the director of the Marine Mammal Institute at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, and one of the world’s foremost experts in the use of satellites to track endangered and threatened whale species. Among the whales he has studied are Arctic bowheads and right whales in the Bering Sea and Bay of Fundy. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2006/Aug06/marinemammal.html
• Alan Mix, Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-5212). Mix studies climate change from both a marine and terrestrial perspective. The director of OSU’s Stable Isotope Laboratory, he has conducted research in Alaska to determine the scope and natural variability of climate change and its impact on glaciers. Mix also is studying climate change by examining chemical signatures in terrestrial caves from California to Canada.
• Andreas Schmittner, Assistant Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-9952). Schmittner studies interactions between different components of climate systems, including the ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere and biosphere, with an emphasis on rapid climate change associated with changes in the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation – and possible impacts from melting polar ice. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Apr05/plankton.htm
• Adam Schultz, Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-9832, or 703-292-7597). Schultz is on assignment to the National Science Foundation, where he is program director for Marine Geology and Geophysics, and oversees the Ridge 2000 Program. He is an expert in the physical, chemical and geo-microbiological influences on seafloor hydrothermal processes, marine and terrestrial geophysics, and long-term ocean observations. He was lead investigator on an Office of Naval Research program to study seismic and acoustic noise sources in the deep Arctic beneath sea ice in the early 1990s During a 2005 cruise, he and his colleagues discovered the northernmost hydrothermal vents ever found – along the Mohns Ridge in the Arctic Ocean north of Iceland. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Aug05/arcticvents.htm
• Joseph Stoner, Assistant Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-9002). Stoner focuses his research on paleomagnetics, and his studies suggest that after 400 years of relative stability, Earth’s North Magnetic Pole has moved nearly 1,100 kilometers out into the Arctic Ocean during the last century. At its present rate, it could move from northern Canada to Siberia in 50 years – in which case Alaska could lose one of its most stunning natural phenomena, the Northern Lights. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Dec05/magneticnorth.htm
• Peter Strutton, Assistant Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-2065). Strutton specializes in the study of phytoplankton productivity, specifically the relationship between ocean physics and chemistry with biological processes. He has studied primary productivity in the Labrador Sea abutting the Arctic Ocean, and in Antarctica. One of his studies explored deliberate iron fertilization in the Southern Ocean. He also studies harmful algal blooms. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Sep05/algalblooms.htm
• Marta Torres, Associate Professor, Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences (541-737-2902). A marine geochemist, Torres has been active in the study of gas hydrate formation in the Pacific and Indian oceans, as well as in the permafrost regions of the north slope of Alaska. She also has been involved in documenting long-term changes in the salinity of the Arctic Ocean by measuring the isotopic chemistry of clam shells. Link: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2006/Oct06/methane.html
• Ted Vinson, Professor, Geotechnical Engineering (541-737-3494). Vinson is an expert in cold regions engineering and carbon cycling in the terrestrial environment. He has studied low temperature cracking of asphalt pavements, frost heave prediction, engineering problems in cold regions, and terrestrial carbon cycling and sequestration potential in the former Soviet Union.