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"Witness to an Antarctic Meltdown - Scientists Trek to Collapsing Glaciers to Assess Antarctica’s Meltdown and Sea-Level Rise," an article that appeared in the Scientific American’s July issue, focused on research performed during the 2010 LARISSA (LARsen Ice Shelf System, Antarctica) expedition for which Hamilton Geosciences Professor Eugene Domack served as Principal Investigator. Writer Douglas Fox, who accompanied the 30 scientists on the two-month expedition, described the researchers’ efforts to determine how fast the continent is melting and what that might mean for sea-level rise.

Eugene Domack, the Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences, has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant of $182,453 for the project “Continuation of the LARISSA Continuous GPS Network in View of Observed Dynamic Response to Antarctic Peninsula Ice Mass Balance and Required Geologic Constraints.”  The award is effective July 1, 2012 and expires June 30, 2017.

The Antarctic Sun, a publication of the U.S. Antarctic Program, featured research performed by Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, and Associate Professor of Biology Michael McCormick as part of the LARISSA (LARsen Ice Shelf System Research, Antarctica) Project.  Domack is the principal investigator on the LARISSA program and, while at Hamilton, has conducted marine geology expeditions to Antarctica for the last 25 years.

Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Professor of Environmental Studies, attended a planning meeting for the Araon cruise on May 21-24.  The LARISSA Antarctic team will participate in the Araon cruise during the next Antarctic season with 20 Korean marine scientists. Hamilton students will also be aboard the RVIB Araon, the new Korean research icebreaker.

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.

Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, was recently elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).  He was honored at the AGU’s fall meeting in San Francisco, Dec. 5-9.

Ian Howat ’99 was among four scientists named by President Obama to receive the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). He received the award in a ceremony on Oct. 14 in Washington.

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. 

Theresa Allinger ’11, a geosciences major, presented a poster on her senior thesis research “Antarctic Deep Sea Corals as Paleoceanographic Proxies for Warm Water Upwelling” at the recent International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences held at the University of Edinburgh. Her participation was supported by the J. W. Johnson Family Professorship stipend and the National Science Foundation through Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences.