FSU Department of Oceanography
Newsletter
No. 26 Spring/Summer 2004
Dr. Jeff Chanton Influences Many Students' Lives
A man of numerous interests, Dr. Jeff Chanton can often be found working on a variety of projects, many of which involve protecting our environment. He has a favorite saying, "Oceanographers do what environmental scientists can't," and he lives by those words.
His students are as varied as his interests are but they have one thing in common, a respect and fondness for their advisor. They appreciate his willingness to work with a student so they can pursue their ongoing careers or internships as they work towards their masters or Ph.D. degrees, giving the students practical experience in the field before they graduate.
Laura Lapham worked for Chanton when she was an undergraduate student at FSU. She is now working on her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Chanton is serving as her co-advisor. Her major advisor at UNC is Dr. Chris Martens, a 1972 Ph.D. graduate of our department and Chanton's former advisor. Laura has been working with Chanton and other scientists in studying deep-sea gas hydrates. The scientists used a manned submarine to gather samples of hydrates and pore water samples from sediments surrounding gas hydrates in order to investigate the processes controlling hydrate formation and decomposition. Hydrates-called burning ice-are methane ice formations found on the sea floor. They are being studied as an alternative energy source.
Gas hydrate burning.
Margaret Murray, co-advised by Dr. Bill Burnett, is working on her Ph.D. while she is pursuing a career at the Department of Environmental Protection in Watershed Monitoring. Margaret's project involves submarine groundwater discharge in Sarasota Bay. She is collecting samples around the bay and analyzing them for radon, radium, and methane. Elevated radon levels suggest areas of higher groundwater flow. Kelly Peeler is also using Sarasota Bay for her master's thesis which involves finding a way to use caffeine as an anthropogenic tracer in coastal areas. Kelly says, "Jeff is a great advisor. He is supportive and encouraging not only in academics but also personally. He takes the time to get to know us."
Jim Prater is working towards his Ph.D. and studying carbon-exchange in forests. This summer, Jim will be interning at the Office of Naval Research. He is grateful that Chanton is allowing him to participate in this internship. "Jeff puts his students first and really helps you out," Jim says. "He works with students on their goals and treats them as individuals."
Two new students have joined the Chanton group. Linda Fitzhugh, co-advised by Dr. Richard Iverson, is studying the decline of the sea grass population in the estuaries and bays around Panama City. She is an assistant professor of biology at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City. Jill Flieger has moved to Tallahassee from Alberta, Canada to study the use of bio-covers to reduce methane emissions from landfills.
Recently, three of Chanton's students successfully defended their projects. Chad Hanson's M.S. thesis focused on using fish otoliths (ear drums) to assess dietary histories in fish in order to see how diet affects carbon stable isotopic composition of the fish otoliths. He did this while working as a fisheries biologist for the FL Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Dana Fields is currently a science teacher in the International Baccalaureate program at Rickards High School. For her master's degree, she studied methane cycling in northern wetlands. She will also be helping with the landfill project this summer. Carl Childs, co-advised by Dr. Lita Proctor, studied the nitrogen cycle in Apalachicola Bay for his Ph.D. project. He is now working for NOAA in Washington, DC.
Chanton's students and their projects reveal the diversity of his research interests. Although his students are a diverse group, they all agree on one thing-Chanton has a profound influence on his students' lives.
Dr. Jeff Chanton
Staff
Ryan Carlyle - Computer Specialist
Can't get your email to work? Has your computer started making strange noises or decided to freeze? Having trouble deciding which scanner would be the best one for you? For these or any other computer related problems or questions, Ryan Carlyle is the go-to guy.
Ryan started working for the Department of Oceanography as the Systems Administrator last August and he hit the ground running. In his first six months, the department has seen a new web and mail server, a firewall, and new networking equipment. And he's just getting started. Ryan is currently working on a centralized file services and backup system, creating a ticket system for tracking user problems and requests, and a support section for the department website.
Ryan also works for WVFS, the college radio station and owns a computer business that provides infrastructure design and maintenance for clients. The company is in the beginning stages but Ryan and his co-owners have big plans for growth in the future.
After graduating from FSU with a BS in Communications, Ryan was undecided as to what he wanted to do for a living. He says, "I got into computers because it was my hobby and it was something I enjoyed. I want to enjoy my job and I do."
Ryan's main job responsibilities are to update the department's computer system and take care of its computing resources. He's also willing to answer any computer questions. "I might not have the answer right away," he says, "but I'll get it for you, if I can." The best way to communicate with Ryan is through email, carlyle@ocean.fsu.edu, although you might find him sitting in the dark in his office working on a computer project or proposal.
He enjoys learning and says one of his favorite current projects is restoring an old jeep. He also loves any and all sports and is on the computer as often as possible.
Ryan Carlyle
Other News
Dr. Thorsten Dittmar Joins the Faculty
When it comes to the dynamics of dissolved organic matter in the ocean, little is known. Oh, we know how much is out there but we don't know where it comes from and why it's still here. (It can stay around for thousands of years.) This intrigued Assistant Professor Dr. Thorsten Dittmar and he decided to study this phenomenon. Dittmar traveled to Brazil for his thesis and postdoc research to study the mangroves and their contribution to the amount of dissolved organic matter in our oceans. Mangroves are their own ecosystem with the forests growing in muddy coastal areas with tidal ranges of up to five meters. Due mainly to these tides, 50% of the primary product (leaves, dead branches, dead trees, etc.) from the mangroves is washed into the ocean.
Dittmar plans to continue his research with the mangroves, expanding it to include the salt marshes of Florida. He has been working on developing new methods of analyzing dissolved organic matter while he moved on to study the Arctic Ocean for his postdoc. Dittmar is very excited about participating in a two-month cruise to Antarctica this fall to study the organic matter created by algae in this region. As he explains it, the Antarctic Shelf is one of two places in the world where surface water flows down to the bottom of the deep sea (the other is the Greenland Sea) creating one of the motors for ocean circulation. He will sample the ice and water from the surface on down to the deep sea chemically testing his samples to follow the path of the organic matter, hopefully proving his theory that most of the dissolved organic matter in the deep ocean comes from this circulation.
The Department of Oceanography is proud to welcome Dittmar to the faculty and he is happy to be here. He says, "I chose to come here because the department is very attractive. It is a nice size and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is unique. It is the ultimate analytical research facility in the field." Dittmar is married to Conceicao who he met while studying in Brazil.
Dr. Thorsten Dittmar
In the mangroves, the tidal range is up to 5 meters. Inflow is slow but outflow is
fast and you need to know your sandbanks well as Dittmar discovered.
Travel
G'day mate! Last fall I (Peter Lazarevich) took part in a science voyage aboard the RSV Aurora Australis. The round-triper out of Hobart, Australia, took us within 3 miles of the Antarctic continent! Here's a photo of me (Right) with the Australian station of Casey in the background (the red building is as long as two football fields).
The purpose of my trip was to deploy equipment in the ocean that would test how far certain sounds can be heard underwater. A "sound-source" (see photo-left) was deployed at a fixed site and listening-floats were released away from the source. The floats drift away from the source and tell us how far we can hear the source. Eventually, Dr. Kevin Speer and I would like to deploy a network of these sound-sources in order to measure the circulation of the Southern Ocean.
These penguins seem to be patiently waiting their turn to be measured but, in reality, they were just trying to figure out what these strange two-legged creatures were doing in their territory. (During the cruise, the scientists would ground the ship in thick ice so they could go out on the ice and take measurements.)
Left: Dr. Joel Kostka and Dr. Kirsten Kuesel, of the University of Bayreuth, take a break from sampling cores and water samples from the lake at pH 2 in the Lausitz mining area of Germany. Dr. Kostka was sampling acidic coal mining lakes in the former East Germany to study ways that iron bacteria can be used to clean up these contaminated environments.
Bill Burnett, Ricky Peterson and scientists from around the world traveled to Ubatuba, Brazil in November 2003 to participate in an international intercomparison of assessment techniques for submarine groundwater discharge. Right: Ricky Peterson (FSU), Eliane Valentim Honorato, and Patrícia Brandão da Silveira (Recife, Brazil) on board the R/V "Neno" off Ubatuba, Brazil.
The environment around Ubatuba consists of steep topography of fractured crystalline rocks and high rainfall - factors that lead to high submarine discharges of groundwater.
Bill Burnett and Henrietta Dulaiova joined a group of scientists from Japan and Thailand to study the flow of nutrients, mixing processes, and submarine groundwater discharge in the Chao Phraya river/estuary and Upper Gulf of Thailand. The FSU team used a combination of continuous radon surveys and radium isotope measurements to assist in the evaluation of those parameters.
Left: A temple on the Chao Phraya River, just south of Bangkok, Thailand.
Right: Divers working on deployed seepage meters in a coastal environment in the town of Sriracha on the eastern Gulf of Thailand.
Degrees Conferred
Completed requirements for Ph.D.
Fall 2003
Alvaro Montenegro-Neto,
"Annual to Interannual Barotropic Variability in the Atlantic Western Boundry"
(WEATHERLY)
Spring 2004
Paulo Barrocas,
"Assessment of Mercury (II) Species Bioavailability to Bacteria Using a Bioluminescent
Biosensor"
(LANDING)
Carl Childs,
"A Spatial and Temporal Assessment of Factors Controlling Denitrification in
Coastal and Continental Shelf Sediments of the Gulf of Mexico"
(PROCTOR/CHANTON)
Erik Kvaleberg,
"Generation of Cold Core Filaments and Eddies through Baroclinic Instability on a
Continental Shelf"
(O'Brien)
Completed requirements for Masters
Spring 2004
Chad Hanson,
"The Influence of Diet on Stable Carbon Isotope Composition in Otoliths of Juvenile Red
Drum"
(CHANTON)
Alumni News
Where Are You Now?
What have you been doing? Where are you working? We'd like to know. If you are an alumni, please send us any information you'd like to share. We want to keep up with you and see how well you're doing. Email: smith@ocean.fsu.edu or mail to:
FSU, Dept. of Oceanography
Attn: Newsletter Editor
OSB, Call Street
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4320
Professional Activities
New Grants
Dr. William Burnett
National Science Foundation
$218,169 2004-2005
"Are Groundwater Inputs into River-Dominated Margins Important?"
Civilian Research & Development Foundation
$35,000 ($7,000 U.S. share) 2004-2005
"Investigation of Radium and Other Naturally Occurring Radionuclides in Oil Field Lakes of
Azerbaijan"
Dr. William Landing, Dr. Richard Iverson, and Dr. Joel Kostka
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
$74,700 2002 - 2005
"Apalachicola NERRS Nutrient Project"
Dr. William Landing
Florida State University, Council for Research and Creativity
$24,943 2004-2005
"A workshop and seminar series sup-porting the FSU Interdisciplinary Pro-gram in Biogeochemical
Dynamics"
Dr. Douglas Nowacek
NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service
$254,773 2003-2004
"Why do North Atlantic right whales fail to avoid ships? Evaluating ship sound energy that
reaches whales and testing mitigation measures with controlled exposure experiments"
Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund
$20,000 2003-2004
"Locating rehabilitated manatees with remote acoustic buoys"
National Marine Fisheries Service, Right Whale Grants Program
$84,967 2003-2004
"Do right whales respond physiologically to vessels? Development of the Thermal-DTAG"
Invited Presentations
Dr. Markus Huettel
"The coastal biocatalytical sand filter"
University of South Carolina
February 2004
Dr. Joel Kostka
"Interactions between redox-active microorganisms and minerals in soils and sediments: do we
know the mechanisms?"
Plenary address, Bouyoucos Conference, Soil Science Society of America, San Antonio, TX
January 2004
"Coupling of the Fe-S-N cycles to macrobenthic activity in saltmarsh sediments"
Ecology Seminar Series, Scripps Insti-tution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
January 2004
Dr. Douglas Nowacek
"North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) ignore ships but respond to alerting stimuli"
Annual meeting of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, Newport, RI
October 2003
and
Hawaiian islands humpback whale National Marine Sanctuary, Vessel collision avoidance workshop, Wailea, Maui, Hawaii
September 2003
Publications
Burnett, W.C., J.E. Cable, and D.R. Corbett, 2003. Radon tracing of submarine groundwater discharge in coastal environments. In: Land and Marine Hydrogeology (eds., M. Taniguchi, K. Wang, and T. Gamo), Elsevier Publications, 25-43.
Burnett, W.C., H. Bokuniewicz, M. Huettel, W.S. Moore, and M. Taniguchi, 2003. Groundwater and porewater inputs to the coastal zone. Biogeochemistry, 66, 3-33.
Lambert, M.J., and W.C. Burnett, 2003. Submarine groundwater discharge estimates at a Florida coastal site based on continuous radon measurements. Biogeochemistry, 66, 55-73.
Huettel, M, Hans Røy, E. Precht, and S. Ehrenhauss, 2003. Hydrodynamical impact on biogeochemical processes in aquatic sediments. Hydrobiologia, 494, 231-236.
Rasheed, M., C. Wild, U. Franke, and M. Huettel, 2004. Benthic photosynthesis and oxygen consumption in permeable carbonate sediments at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 59, 139-150.
Wild, C., M. Huettel, A. Klueter, S.G. Kremb, M.Y.M. Rasheed, and B.B. Jørgensen, 2004. Coral mucus functions as energy carrier and particle trap in the reef ecosystem. Nature, 428, 66-70.
L. Petrie, N.N. North, S.L. Dollhopf, D.L. Balkwill, and J.E. Kostka, 2003. Enumeration and characterization of iron(III)-reducing microbial communities from acidic subsurface sediments contaminated with uranium (VI). Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 69, 7467-7479.
Nowacek, D., M.P. Johnson, and P.L. Tyack, 2004. North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) ignore ships but respond to alerting stimuli. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, 271, 227-231.
Nowacek, D.P., B.M. Casper, R.S. Wells, S.M. Nowacek, and D.A. Mann, 2003. Intraspecific and geographic variation of West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus spp.) vocalizations. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 114(1), 66-69.
Stern, M.E., 2003. Initiation of doubly diffusive convection in a stable halocline. J. Mar. Res., 61, 211-233.
Thistle, D., 2003. On the utility of metazoan meiofauna for studying the soft-bottom deep sea. Vie et Milieu, 53, 97-101.
Thistle, D., and L. Sedlacek, 2004. Can emergent and nonemergent species of harpacticoid copepods be recognized morphologically? Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser., 266, 195-200.
Vopel, K., D. Thistle, and R. Rosenberg, 2003. Effect of the brittle star Amphiura filiformis (Amphiuridae, Echinodermata) on oxygen flux onto the sediment. Limnology and Oceanography, 48, 2034-2045.
Honors
Dr. Nancy Marcus 557
Was named a 2004 Association for Women in
Science Fellow at the AWIS annual meeting 558 held in Seattle, WA on February 15th.
Dr. Georges Weatherly
Received a Nova Southeastern University 2003 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award
from the Oceanographic Center at a Celebration of Excellence event held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on
January 29th.
Around the OSB
Service
Dr. Wilton Sturges has been asked by the U.S. Minerals Management Service to serve on an Advisory Board for a new program, the Northwest Gulf Study of Deepwater Currents. This is a 3-year appointment.
The Department of Energy has recently named Dr. Joel Kostka as the Chair for the Working Group on Microbial Community Analysis in the Natural and Accelerated Bioremedia-tion Research Program.
Sabbatical Awarded
Dr. David Thistle was awarded a sabbatical for the spring semester of 2005. He will spend the first half at the Observatoire Oceanologique in Villefranche-sur-Mer France and the second half in the Le départment Environnement Profond, IFREMER, Plouzané, France.
View From the Bridge
Greetings,
Can it only be seven months since becoming Chair?! It has been a whirlwind, which I am told gets better. Where shall I start? I am happy to offer my congratulations to Dr. Kevin Speer and Dr. Joel Kostka. Both were recently awarded tenure effective in the Fall 2004. Next, I want to officially welcome our newest professor, Dr. Thorsten Dittmar who joined us in January 2004. Dr. Dittmar is a chemical oceanographer who has done extensive work on the dynamics of dissolved organic matter in the ocean. His work has taken him from Brazil to the Arctic and he has plans to visit the Antarctic region this fall. In January we bid farewell to Dave Hunley who helped start the Current Meter Facility and ended up working for the Department for 25 years. I hope Dave is enjoying his retirement. Ryan Carlyle our new computer specialist has been hard at work since joining us this past summer. Early on he convinced me that our computer infrastructure was badly in need of modernization. My requests to the Dean for funds to accomplish this upgrade were successful and page 2 highlights some of the changes that we have made. In December 2003 Markus Huettel, Flip Froelich and I visited the Naval Surface Warfare Center and Coastal Operations Institute in Panama City, FL to explore potential areas of collaborative research. We reciprocated in March 2004 by hosting a delegation from the center here at FSU. Room 433 in the OSB was packed to capacity for most of the day as researchers from both institutions discussed their programs of study. It was apparent that there were numerous areas of mutual interest such as using acoustic technology for understanding physical and biological ocean processes and phenomena, the development of instrumentation for measuring and monitoring chemicals in seawater, and understanding flow at a range of scales.
Lastly I want to thank our alumni and other friends of the Department of Oceanography. Contributions received from individuals over the last several months are helping us recruit the very best graduate students and provide a stimulating atmosphere to conduct research.
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