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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.

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.

Drew Christ '11 recently discussed the results of his senior thesis at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  His short talk was related to the annual data meeting of the LARISSA working group. One of the highlights of the discussion was the recognition that Christ’s work has defined for the first time the precise chronology for glacial advance during the Little Ice Age in glaciers of the Graham Land coast, Antarctic Peninsula, which took place between AD 1110 and AD 1690.

“Retreat of the East Antarctic ice sheet during the last glacial termination,” a paper authored by Joel W. Johnson Family Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack along with 11 co-authors, was published on Nature Geoscience’s website on Jan. 16. The paper will appear in print in the near future. Other co-authors include Caroline Lavoie, who recently completed postdoctoral research at Hamilton.

Hamilton seniors Drew Christ and Theresa Allinger attended the Fall 2010 American Geophysical Union Meeting in December in San Francisco and presented posters highlighting their research.