Notes from the Field

Sophie Benaroya is an undergraduate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and a Rutgers Honors College senior at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.  Her recent work at the Lunar and Planetary Institute of NASA can be found here

Returning from JOIDES Resolution Expedition 379T, the science team has sought to study the oceanographic and hydrologic history of the northern margin of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the South American continent. The aim was to collect six 100 meters long sediment cores from ocean water depths of 829-3858 m near the Chilean margin (36-46°S) to understand variability of the Patagonian icefields. The next step in the research will be to evaluate rapid (100 to 1000 year) changes in ocean water chemistry, composition, and temperature that will not only help reconstruct climate over the last 200,000 years but also inform us about how Earth will respond to a warmer than present climate. Rutgers postdoc Samantha Bova and professor Yair Rosenthal served as co-chief scientists, and were joined by Hailey Riechelson (graduate student, Rutgers), Mark Yu (graduate student, Rutgers), Vincent Clementi (graduate student, Rutgers), Anya Hess (graduate student, Rutgers), Stanley Ko (graduate student, Rutgers), William Biggs (undergraduate student, Rutgers), and Jim Wright (professor, Rutgers). More info at:
https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/rosenthal/jr100 
https://marine.rutgers.edu/main/rosenthal/jr100/coring-plan 

NASA has offered Professor Juliane Gross an 18 month IPA (Intergovernmental Personnel Act) position to help open the Apollo Moon samples that were sealed 50 years ago. She will be the new "Deputy Apollo Sample Curator" at NASA JSC in Houston and will work in curation next to Dr. Ryan Zeigler (Apollo Sample Curator and the Branch Chief of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office) to oversee the preparations to open the samples and assist in the preliminarily examination, as well as assist in the curation of all other Apollo samples. As well as working in the Apollo lab, Professor Gross will be conducting experiments at NASA JSC, which also will allow Rutgers students a prestigious opportunity to help conduct research a NASA facility. Additionally, Professor Gross recently was interviewed for the special "50 years ago - One Giant Leap" magazine, jointly published by National Geographic and USA Today. In the article "Rocks unlocked", she is quoted together with NASA civil servant Sarah Noble about the importance of the samples collected during the Apollo mission and how study of lunar basalt rocks can help understand the origins of Earth. For further reading, check out his link: http://ee.usatoday.com/emag/Default.aspx?href=USAM/2019/07/01

How did life commence on the early Earth, and where else might it have developed in our universe? These are the fundamental questions being addressed by a team of researchers spanning the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and others here at Rutgers University. The science team, entitled "ENIGMA" for Evolution of Nanomachines in Geospheres and Microbial Ancestors is exploring these questions with support from a highly competitive ~$6M grant from the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

ENIGMA is led by Principal Investigator Professor Paul Falkowski, and EPS Professors Nathan Yee and Juliane Gross are Co-Investigators.

This NAI team will explore catalysis of electron transfer reactions by prebiotic peptides to microbial ancestral enzymes to modern nanomachines, integrated over four and a half billion years of Earth’s changing geosphere. Theme 1 focuses on the synthesis and function of the earliest peptides capable of moving electrons on Earth and other planetary bodies. Theme 2 focuses on the evolutionary history of “motifs” in extant protein structures. Theme 3 focuses on how proteins and the geosphere co-evolved through geologic time.

For more information and to learn about opportunities to get involved, check out the ENIGMA webpage at https://enigma.rutgers.edu/

Congratulations to EPS Assistant Research Professor Jiacan Yuan on her new publication "Response of subtropical stationary waves and hydrological extremes to climate warming in boreal summer" in the Journal of Climate. Yuan and coauthors (including Professor and Director of EOAS Robert Kopp) studied subtropical stationary waves in northern summers using CMIP5 climate models in various climate scenarios. These waves consist of high pressure systems over the North Atlantic and North Pacific which lead to more dry weather, and low pressure systems over Eurasia and North America that lead to more wet weather. The study suggests that the intensity of subtropical stationary waves increases in response to global warming. The intensification will partially explain the increase in heavy rainfalls over south and Southeast Asia, and extremely dry weathers over United States and Mexico in projections of future climate.

Click here to learn more:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-10/ru-mwa100318.php

Recently published in JGR-Planets is a new joint University of California, Berkeley (Dr. Doug Hemingway) and Rutgers University (Prof. Sonia Tikoo) study that explores the origins of lunar swirls. Lunar swirls are enigmatic bright and dark patterns on the lunar surface that that resemble clouds or squiggles. The geometry of the optical anomalies associated with swirls resemble the predicted morphologies of magnetic field lines emanating from a subsurface geological source body. Indeed, most swirls are also co-located with strong localized magnetic fields within the lunar crust, suggesting that the magnetic fields play a role in producing the swirl markings, either by solar wind standoff or electromagnetic sorting of fine grains within the lunar regolith. In their paper, Hemingway and Tikoo describe how the magnetic sources of lunar swirl source bodies should ideally be narrow and shallow - a morphology consistent with magmatic dikes or buried lava tubes in the lunar subsurface.

To learn more, read the full Rutgers Today story here.

EPS Professor Robert Kopp (http://www.bobkopp.net/) was a lead author of volume 1 of the Fourth US National Climate Assessment (https://science2017.globalchange.gov/), which was released in 2017 and focused on the physical science of climate change. Volume 2 of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/), focused on human and ecological impacts of and responses to climate change, was released in November 2018, on the Friday following Thanksgiving. Bob was interviewed by many outlets following the second volume’s release, including by WHYY’s Radio Times and WNYC’s Science Friday. He was also profiled in a column in E&E News.

Our very own Dr. Lauren Neitzke Adamo has been selected for a PolarTREC Expedition to the Swiss Alps to study the sliding rate of glaciers!

PolarTREC (Teachers and Researchers Exploring and Collaborating) is a program that selects formal and informal educators to spend 3 to 6 weeks participating in hands-on research in the Arctic and Antarctic with the goal of increasing interest and awareness of polar science. The program, funded by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), began about 10 years ago and has already provided more than 150 teachers with hands-on field research experience.

Read more: Adamo embarks on PolarTREC in the Alps

Welcome Aboard the Research Vessel Atlantis, Cruise AT40-03

Welcome the not-so-regular daily blog we're keeping aboard the R/V Atlantis. "We" are 19 members of a science and technical team contributing to a research cruise that's the prelim to drilling by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP). Images of seafloor topography and sub-seafloor layering we collect will enable us to choose sites to be drilled by the IODP, using the D/V JOIDES Resolution 2 to 3 years from now. That effort will recover records of Earth history that can be acquired in no other way than by putting out to sea and drilling hundreds of meters into the seafloor at key locations. We expect the sediments brought up from the depths will reveal ocean-atmosphere-biosphere interaction spanning the last 70 million years. The goal will be to improve knowledge of past climate variations and the factors that regulate the flow of deep ocean water that begins in the North Atlantic and circles the globe.

Atlantis Image Courtesy of WHOI

Read more: Rutgers faculty and students on the R/V Atlantis research cruise

Congratulations to Emeritus Professor Richard Olsson and co-authors on their recent book, Atlas of Oligocene Planktonic Foraminifera!  This is the third book in a larger series, and follows atlases on the Paleocene (by Olsson and others, 1999) and the Eocene. This Special Publication provides updates the taxonomy, paleoecology, phylogeny, and biostratigraphy of the diverse groups of Oligocene planktonic foraminifera, and will serve as an invaluable guide for paleontologists focusing on this epoch in Earth history.