FSU Department of Oceanography
Newsletter
No. 32 Spring/Summer 2007
Inside this issue:
Red Tide in the Big Bend: Why does it Happen & Where does it come from?
Staff: Sarah Scheibe "Assistant Computer Guru"
Around the OSB
Professional Activities
Travel
Alumni
Degrees Conferred
Honors
A View from the Bridge Peering Over the Chair's Desk
Red Tide in the Big Bend: Why does it Happen & Where does it come from?
The stench of the beach is overwhelming. Dead fish lay floating in the water, while fish carcasses rot on the beach. Red tide has come to North Florida waters and wreaked havoc on the tourism industry as well as the oyster harvest in Apalachicola Bay.
Why does this happen and were does red tide come from? That's what Professor Allan Clarke and Graduate Student Dan Carlson, their curiosity peaked, wanted to know.
Many theories exist regarding the cause of red tide, but none are definitive. In the Gulf of Mexico, the majority of red tides originate between Sanibel Island and Clearwater during the summer months. Although detailed measurements have been taken in southern Florida, consistent long-term measurements have not been made in the northern Gulf.
Coast Guard to the Rescue
While attending Oceans Day at the Florida Capitol in April 2006, Rich Rasmussen with the Coast Guard Auxiliary stopped by the FSU Oceanography display booth. He struck up a conversation with Carlson, learning about his quest to find funding for his master's thesis to measure red tide in North Florida. Rasmussen offered the Coast Guard Auxiliary's services in collecting samples for Carlson's project - for free.
This support was a key selling point for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FFWRI) who, after reviewing Clarke's Big Bend red tide proposal, funded the project. With the help of six local Coast Guard Auxiliary flotillas, members of the FSU Department of Oceanography have sampled the ocean for Karenia brevis, the red tide organism, monthly since November 2006. Sampling by the CGA dramatically increases the data coverage and is essential for early detection of a red tide bloom.
What They've Learned
By using satellite data, Clarke and Carlson calculated the speed of a northward current during the summer months and found that it was indeed plausible for red tide to travel the long distance to the Big Bend from South Florida.
Red tide doesn't occur regularly in North Florida. While a major red tide occurred in 2005, red tide was minimal in 2006. What Clarke and Carlson found is that the hurricanes of 2005 enhanced the northward winds and currents thus bringing red tide to the Big Bend while in 2006, Florida didn't experience any hurricanes. With no big storms in the Gulf of Mexico, red tide didn't have that extra push to make it all the way up the coast.
Dan's masters thesis is now completed, and he will spend the next six months with Hezi Gildor at t he Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. They will be doing similar work in the Gulf of Eilat. After that, he'll be back at FSU to work on his Ph.D. "We have a lot of information to process," says Clarke, "Dan will have plenty to use for his PhD."
Research Group
Also working on the project are Scholar Scientist Mike Sullivan and Coordinator and Safety Officer Mike Lavender with the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab as well as Peter Lazarevich and Eric Howarth with the Department of Oceanography's own Current Meter Facility. Students Rick Peterson, Jimmy Nelson, Allison Byrd, Mona Behl, and Otmar Olsina have contributed to the project. Dr. Cindy Heil and Merry-Beth Neely, with FFWRI, have also been very supportive. For more information on this project, visit www.redtide.ocean.fsu.edu.
Dan Carlson and Rick Peterson with help from Mike Sullivan on the RV Seminole out of the FSU Coastal & Marine Lab get ready for their dive to place current meters in the waters near K-Tower in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.
Staff
Sarah Scheibe "Assistant Computer Guru"
Computer Systems Assistant Sarah Scheibe has been working for the Department of Oceanography since May 2005. Although she works part-time for oceanography, she says that she also has two full-time jobs-school and her boyfriend, Daniel.
As the assistant computer guru, Sarah says that the biggest part of her job is, "a little bit of everything," while her biggest challenge is "keeping everyone's computer updated."
A gadget person from an early age, Sarah enjoys learning how things work. She credits her dad with encouraging her love of taking things apart and first became interested in computers when he bought her one as a teenager. "It was really old and had Windows 98 on it," she says, "it had some serious problems, so I wanted to see if I could fix it."
Sarah is a senior at FSU majoring in (what else) computer science, although she doesn't plan to graduate until next fall. "I'm a little behind in my courses because in the beginning, I took classes in everything but computer science," says Sarah. "I'm interested in a lot of different subjects- philosophy, ancient mythology, history, English-but my dream when I first arrived at FSU was to major in music."
Yes, that's right. We have another talented musician in the department. Sarah comes from a musical family and has played the flute since the sixth grade, making first chair in her school band. She also played in the Jacksonville Youth Orchestra but unfortunately doesn't have the time to play anymore.
Sarah's other love is running. She runs every day for long distances and has run in a couple of half-marathons.
Sarah Scheibe
Around the OSB
Congratulations
The 2006 Outstanding Graduate Students were honored at the holiday party in December. They are: Linda Sedlacek in Biological, Rick Peterson in Chemical, and Marcelo Dottori in Physical Oceanography.
O'Brien Retires
Professor James J. O'Brien has officially retired after almost 40 years at FSU. He is now Professor Emeritus of Oceanography and Meteorology and continues his research part-time at the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) which he founded in 1996.
Burnett Appointed
Professor Bill Burnett has been appointed as a Part-time Administrative Judge by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This will involve serving on panels to make decisions involving storage of nuclear waste and licensing of nuclear power.
Students Hold Symposium
In October, the Thalassic Society held its first student symposium at the FSU Union with the aim of bringing together the three disciplines of oceanography: biological, chemical, and physical. Fifteen students presented a mixture of completed and ongoing research to an audience of students and professors, while others created posters to share during lunch and breaks.
Chanton to Measure Carbon Stores in Peatlands
Professor Jeff Chanton and William T. Cooper, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, will study the carbon balance in Minnesota's peatlands-a possible indicator of climate changes brought on by global warming. "Peatlands represent one of the largest carbon stores on the planet," Chanton said. "We want to know if this landform is still actively growing and absorbing carbon or if climatic conditions have been altered to the point where the mass is wasting away and decomposing. Peatland decomposition will result in both carbon dioxide and methane being released into the atmosphere and will serve as a positive feedback to enhance further climate change." (For more on this story, visit www.fsu.edu/news/2007/02/14/climate.change/.)
Kostka Studies 'Hidden Heros'
Professor Joel Kostka and his research team will study 'hidden-hero' microbes in soil and water to help clean toxic sites. FSU researchers will be testing a natural method called bioremediation-the stimulation of naturally occurring microbes that Kostka calls "hidden heroes"-to promote bacterial growth in the soil subsurface that scrubs it of potentially deadly radioactive metal. (For more on this story, visit www.fsu.edu/news/2007/01/25/hidden.microbes/.)
Professional Activities
New Grants
Eric Chassignet
NOAA
$520,000 (2006-2011)
"Northern Gulf of Mexico Cooperative Institute"
Markus Huettel
FSU Planning Grant
$12,000 (2006-2007)
"Development of a project addressing dissolved organic matter in coastal sediments"
Joel Kostka
Department of Energy, ERSP Program
$15,000,000 (2007-2012)
"Multiscale investigations on the rates and mechanisms of targeted immobilization and natural
attenuation of metal, radionuclide, and co-contaminants in the subsurface"
Department of Energy, ERSP Program
$1,794,082 (2007-2010)
"Structure and function of subsurface microbial communities affecting radionuclide transport
and bioimmobilization"
William Landing
NSF
$391,710 (2007-2009)
"Collaborative research: Global ocean survey of dissolved and particulate iron and aluminum
and aerosol iron and aluminum solubility supporting the CLIVAR Repeat Hydrography Project"
Douglas Nowacek
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Manatee Avoidance Technology Program
$149,654 (2006-2009)
"Use of a multi-sensor tag to investigate the circumstances surrounding manatee vessel
interactions"
Protect Wild Dolphins, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute
$70,541 (2006-2007)
"'Pod-track' - Design and testing of shallow water acoustic detection, localization and
tracking of coastal bottlenose dolphins"
David Thistle and Chris Koenig
NOAA, FSU Gulf of Mexico Institute
$18,883 (2007-2008)
"The success of early juvenile gag as influenced by climatic-induced variability in their prey"
a subproject in The Florida State University Contribution to the Northern Gulf of Mexico Cooperative
Institute"
Invited Presentations
William Burnett
"Significance of groundwater discharge and its measurement via natural radon"
Keynote speaker, Symposium on seawater-groundwater interactions, Kumamoto, Japan
December 2006
"Measurement of groundwater discharge in an area near the Yellow River via radon and radium
isotopes"
International Yellow River Symposium, Kyoto, Japan
February, 2007
Burnett's Student: Rick Peterson
"Mixing of Yellow River water with Bohai Sea Water"
International Yellow River Symposium, Kyoto, Japan
February, 2007
Thorsten Dittmar
"Pristine mangrove forests can be a significant source of nutrients and dissolved organic
matter to the ocean"
Jawahrlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
February 14, 2007
"Marine dissolved organic matter: A big unknown in the global carbon cycle"
Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
October 24, 2007
Markus Huettel
"Production and consumption in sublittoral marine sands
affected by flow"
University of Texas, College Station
February 26, 2007
Joel Kostka
"Water wars and nutrient cycling in coastal ecosystems of North Florida, U.S.A."
Hansewissenschafts Kolleg, Delmenhorst, Germany
October 2006
"Linking the structure and function of subsurface microbial communities for the assessment of
bioremediation potential at the Oak Ridge Field Research Center"
U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Remediation Sciences Program Fall Principal
Investigator Meeting, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
October 2006
"The microbiology of marine permeable sediments: Who's cycling carbon and nitrogen?"
Institut für Chemie und Biologie des Meeres (ICBM) Carl von Ossietzky Universität
Oldenburg, Germany
February, 2007
Publications
Burnett, W.C., G. Wattayakorn, M. Taniguchi, H. Dulaiova, P. Sojisuporn, S. Rungsupa, and T. Ishitobi, 2007. Groundwater-derived nutrient inputs to the Upper Gulf of Thailand. Continental Shelf Research, 27(2), 176-190.
Dimova, N., W.C. Burnett, E.P. Horwitz, and D.L. Smith, 2007. Automated measurement of 224Ra and 226Ra in water. Applied Radiation and Isotopes, 65, 428-434.
Swarzenski, P.W., W.C. Burnett, W.J. Greenwood, B. Herut, R. Peterson, N. Dimova, Y. Shalem, Y. Yechieli, and Y. Weinstein, 2006. Combined time-series resistivity and geochemical tracer techniques to examine submarine groundwater discharge at Dor Beach, Israel. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L24405, doi:10.1029/2006GL028282.
Koch, B.P., T. Dittmar, M. Witt, and G. Kattner, 2007. Fundamentals of molecular formula assignment to ultrahigh resolution mass data of natural organic matter. Analytical Chemistry, 79, 1758-1763.
Precht, E., F. Janssen, and M. Huettel, 2006. Near-bottom performance of the Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV), Aquatic Ecology, 10.1007/s10452-00408059-y.
Werner U., M. Billerbeck, L. Polerecky, U. Franke, M. Huettel, J.E.E. van Beusekom, and D. de Beer, 2006. Spatial and temporal pattern of mineralization rates and oxygen distribution in a permeable intertidal sandflat (Sylt, Germany). Limnology and Oceanography, 51, 2549-2563.
Stucki, J.W., K. Lee, B.A. Goodman, and J.E. Kostka, 2007. Effects of in situ biostimulation on iron mineral speciation in a sub-surface soil. Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta, 71, 835-843.
Akob, D.M., H.J. Mills, and J.E. Kostka, 2007. Metabolically-active microbial communities in uranium-contaminated subsurface sediments. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 59, 95-107.
Edwards, L., K. Kuesel, H. Drake, and J.E. Kostka, 2007. Electron flow in acidic subsurface sediments cocontaminated with nitrate and uranium. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 71, 643-654.
Remage-Healey, L., D.P., Nowacek, and A.H. Bass, 2006. Dolphin foraging sounds suppress calling and elevate stress hormone levels in a prey species, the Gulf toadfish. Journal of Experimental Biology, 209, 4444-4451.
Travel
Associate Professor Joel Kostka on a research cruise in October on board the
Dutch research vessel Spes Mea. The cruise was sponsored by the Max Planck Insitute for Marine
Microbiology, where he is a visiting scientist. They traveled along the coast of the Wadden Sea
from the Netherlands to Germany.
The ship (right) is special in that it is a sailing ship with a flat bottom that can sit on the tidal flat (without water) at low tide. They were studying nitrogen cycling in permeable marine sands. In other words, how can these sands help to keep coastal waters clean by removing excess nutrients?
Professor David Thistle standing in front of the remotely-operated vehicle Tiburon of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute during his cruise in October. He used this vehicle for sampling sediments in the deep sea during studies of the effects of carbon dioxide sequestration on deep-sea animals.
Professor Bill Burnett and Graduate Student Isaac Santos joined several Brazilian scientists (led by Professor Felipe Niencheski) for a study concerning the effects of intensive rice irrigation on the water quality of Mangueira Lagoon located in Rio Grande, Brazil. This fieldwork in January 2007 (rice production period) was a follow-up to prior results collected by Isaac, Richard Peterson, and the Brazilian scientists during the non-producing period in August 2006. The water level and radon levels were found to have dropped dramatically as a result of the intensive irrigation.
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Above Left: Isaac Santos takes a measurement from a monitor well in a rice plantation adjacent to Mangueira Lagoon, Brazil.
Above Right: Isaac Santos prepares a radon system for making measurements in Mangueira Lagoon.
Graduate Student Cliff Buck is on the RV Roger Revelle (Scripps ship) on a cruise from Antarctica to Perth, Australia. Cliff left FSU on January 29 and got back in late March. The cruise is called the "I8S" cruise (for Indian Ocean, section 8 - from the old WOCE program, southern leg), and is part of the CLIVAR-CO2 Repeat Hydrography Program that is going back over old WOCE ocean sections after 10-15 years to look at changes in the amount of dissolved anthropogenic CO2. The research is funded by NSF to collect aerosol samples to measure the solubility of aerosol Al and Fe. They also are collecting dissolved Al and Fe profiles every 1 degree of latitude as the ship heads north.
Alumni News
Huan Meng - NOAA Scientist
By Huan Meng
I graduated from FSU in the fall of 1993 and went to Colorado State University to work on a Ph.D. in hydrology. I took a job with QSS Group, Inc. in 1999 to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I was a member of the Microwave Surface and Precipitation Products System (MSPPS) team. My job was to develop, calibrate, and validate hydrological product algorithms using satellite microwave remote sensing data. I was also the lead designer and developer of the MSPPS near-real-time production software system.
I received a Ph.D. in April 2004. In August 2006, I went to work for the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) of NOAA. Besides keeping my role in the MSPPS project, my responsibilities at the current job also include developing and adopting a regional hydrological and water quality model as a component of a comprehensive ecosystem model for the Chesapeake Bay area.
On the family front, I married Douglas Harley in 1998 in Estes Park, Colorado. We had our son, Taliesin, in 2002 and live in Burke, Virginia.
Degrees Conferred
Completed requirements for Ph.D.
Fall 2006
Cathrine Sandal
"A New Dynamical Explanation for the Abrupt Temperature Rise in
the Beginning of the Holocene"
(NOF)
Cristopher Oppert
"Effect of Diet and Low Dissolved Oxygen on Some Life History
Parameters of Acartia Tonsa (Copepoda: Calanoida)"
(MARCUS)
Completed requirements for Masters
Fall 2006
Jorge Lopez
"Characterization of Preconditioning for Ocean Deep Convection in the
Sea of Japan"
(CLAYSON)
Completed requirements for Masters in Aquatic Environmental Science
Brandon Bottomley
John Hallas
Honors
Ahlfeld Receives Avent Medal
Dr. Thomas Ahlfeld (MS 1972, PhD 1977) is the third recipient of the Robert Avent Medal from the George Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability. He was honored for his over 30 years of work in marine environmental research with an emphasis on benthic ecology and monitoring the biological effects of offshore oil and gas development. Ahlfeld is currently a biological oceanographer with the Minerals Management Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The Robert Avent Medal is named for one of our own-Dr. Robert Avant (PhD 1973) who had a long and storied career in biological oceanography. After his passing in 2003 and in recognition of his significant contributions to the understanding of deep-sea corals, the organizers of the Third International Deep-Sea Coral Symposium (Miami, FL, December 2005) dedicated the symposium to Bob's accomplishments. At that meeting, the first GIBS Avent Medal was awarded.
Ahlfeld says, "Recognition by your peers is an especially high honor, and I am most proud to be the 2007 recipient of the Dr. Robert Avent Medal. It has extra meaning to me since I knew Bob as a fellow graduate student, co-worker at MMS, and most of all as a friend."
A View from Peering Over the Chair's Desk
Al Capone once said "You can get pretty far with a kind word, but you can get farther with a kind word and a gun." I don't know why this comes to mind, ...no wait, it has to do with the newsletter. It goes something like this. The other day, Ms. Smith very professionally asked me for my newsletter article. And, being impressed, I thought I'd respond professionally by getting her my letter, but as I thought about how little I have to say, it occurred to me my time might be better spent at Bullwinkle's Beer Garden. So, donning my OSU football hat, I went whistling down the corridor minding my own business when, whammo, Ms. Smith tripped me as I passed her door. I looked up at her and she smiled that great cloying smile of hers at me and said, "Please, sir, if you would be so kind as to attend to your newsletter article first." And as she stood there patting her cattle prod on the palm of her hand, I got to thinking it sounded like a pretty good idea.
When you sit in this chair, you get some interesting mail and it occurred to me that you might like to see the kind of things the general public sends to the likes of me. Hence, I thought I would share this little missive with you:
Dear Mr. Chair:
You make me sick. I don't know what rock you crawled out from under, but wherever it is/was, I wish you'd go back there. The sooner you're fired, the better for all concerned.
Love, Mom
That's about it from here. Back to you, Ms. Smith and you can put the cattle prod down now.
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