The University of South Florida, Eckerd College, Florida Institute of Oceanography, Hamburg University of Technology, Mote Marine Laboratory, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, University of Calgary, University of Miami, University of South Alabama, University of West Florida, Wageningen University

September 2014 Newsletter
In This Issue
Contact Us
Adminstrative
Students
Research/Publications
Education and Outreach
GoMRI
Related/Coming Up
Quick Links


On the Web:



Contact List

 

  Director

Steven Murawski

 

Chief Scientist

David Hollander

 

Center Coordinator

Sherryl Gilbert

 

Cruise Coordinator

Nancy Thompson

 

Data Manager

Todd Chavez

 

Education and Outreach

Teresa Greely

Liesl Hotaling

Hello C-IMAGE Members,

Happy Labor Day from your C-IMAGE Team!


Administrative .....

 

Conference Calls

C-IMAGE scientists managed to find time to connect with each other on our consortium wide conference call on July 15th.  Dr.'s Claire Paris, David Lindo, and Zachary Aman gave us an update of ongoing research in our Task 1 Group: Near and Far Field Modeling.  Call notes and the associated presentation are both available on the private section of our website to protect IP until publication.  C-IMAGE members are welcome to view and download them. Please contact Sherryl Gilbert if you have any questions about access.

 

Our next call on High Pressure Experimental Research will be the week of September 15-19.  Please fill in the Doodle Poll in the following link to indicate your free time.


 

http://doodle.com/ixvgtf2yfakp5nca
 

C-IMAGE Leadership spoke with other GoMRI-funded researchers on July 11th during the GoMRI Consortia PI call. Notes from these calls are also available in the password protected area of our website.

 

Carryover/Continuation Requests

Thank you for providing us with an estimate of unspent/unobligated funds as of December 2014.  This information was used to generate a formal request to GoMRI for carryforward and continuation into 2015.  This request was submitted and we will confirm approval in late October.

Highlight on Students/Post-docs

 

GoMRI Scholars Program

In July we reported on Susan Snyder's profile on the GoMRI website.  This month we highlight Kait Frasier's interview. Kait is a PhD student at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD. 

  
Kait's journey into dolphin research came as a pleasant surprise. Despite initially wanting to study deep sea worms, she interned with Dr. John Hildebrand in the underwater bioacoustics lab, using sound to locate whales and dolphins. Being a Biology major, she felt "this was way over my head," but needing a job, she stuck with it. She thought that working with dolphins would be "a touchy-feely sort of science." However, Kait soon discovered that the science was surprisingly heavily rooted in physics, math, and computing; so, she took more classes and learned programming.

Learn more about Ms. Frasier's research here

  

Student of the Month for August, Emily Chancellor
Ms. Emily Chancellor was selected as C-IMAGE's Student of the Month for August.
Emily is a MS student working on larval fish exposure to oil in the Gulf of Mexico.  She is a student of Steve Murawski's out of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida.  She was asked two questions about her research and daily activities.
     
Read her answers in our Student of the Month blog!



If you want to be the subject of next month's blog, just drop me a line.
Research/Publications

 

Plankton/Trophic Studies
C-IMAGE co-PI Kendra Daly's
research team traveled to the Northern Gulf of Mexico to look at changing phytoplankton and zooplankton abundances in the water
column using "bongo" nets and SIPPER, an underwater imaging system.  

The Mud and Blood of 2014
     
The Murawski/Hollander team embarked on the Mud and Blood cruise of 2014 August 13-29, our last of the project.  Members of the documentary team Screenscope, Inc. came aboard the ship and collected footage and interviews for a GoMRI-funded documentary to come out next year. 
Science party for Leg 1 of Mud and Blood 2014.

In The Literature
Earlier this year, we reported a publication resulting from collaborations between our modeling group at the University of Miami and the high pressure experiments ongoing at the Technical University of Hamburg.  This study was featured on the GoMRI home page, "Simulating the effects of droplet size, high pressure biodegradation, and variable flow rate on the subsea evolution of deep plumes from the Macondo blowout."
 
The C-IMAGE study on skin lesions and PAH concentrations in Gulf fishes following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has received a lot of attention in the last few weeks.  The study has made the TOP 5 DOWNLOADED OF ALL TIME for the Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.  It has also been featured on the GoMRI page, USF home page, Physics.org, Huffington Post, our local news affiliate Baynews9, the Ocean Conservancy Blog, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. This thing's got legs!! (or fins...)

 

For more publication links, please  visit our website.  If we're missing any, please contact us.


 

We received word that two publications out of the Hamburg University of Technology were accepted and are in press.  We will pass along the links when they come out. Congratulations!!!


 

Collaborations

As C-IMAGE finds itself the midst of its 3rd and final year (while keeping hopes up for future opportunities), the Task Leads show no signs of slowing down.  Task 3 science staff from The University of Calgary and Pennsylvania Sate University will be visiting USF's Paleo Lab to gather sediment samples just collected on the Mud and Blood 2014 cruise.


 
C-IMAGE Chief Science Office David Hollander will be making a "mini" site visit to Wageningen University where he will be presenting updates on C-IMAGE research and making plans to wrap up the toxicology studies.

  

We will keep you posted on the outcomes of these meetings/collaborations.

Education and Outreach.....

 

Teacher At Sea

Our last Teacher At Sea for 2014 was Susan Cullum, a biology, marine and physical science teacher from Wesley Chapel High School in Pasco County, Florida. Susan was aboard the FIO operated RV Weatherbird from August 6-12 that traveled to the northern Gulf of Mexico to study trophic level impacts from the DWH oil spill.


 

Check out her blog!

 

http://adventuresatsea.blog.usf.edu

 

Slide Show from Mind Open Media

Our post-doc Patrick Schwing was the subject of our latest audio slideshow from Mind Open Media.  Dr. Schwing is a master of many things from benthic impact studies to beer brewing and drumming!  David Levin put this great piece together, somehow relating these topics into an interesting seamless narrative of "The Art of Experimentation."

From GoMRI....  
 
The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference, 2015
 
Mark your calendars!  Registration is open to attend the GoMRI Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference.  We hope to see you all there!  February 16-19 in Houston, Texas at the Westin Galleria.  
   

GoMRI Webinars

In August, Dr.'s Steven Murawski and Will Patterson gave a GoMRI Webinar entitled "DWH Impacts on Fish, Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems - An Evolving Picture."  

All of the GoMRI research webinars are now posted and available online:

http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/gomri-webinar-user-agreement-form/ 

 

Dr. Joe Katz, DROPPS: Effects of Dispersants on the Dynamics of Crude Oil Droplets

Dr. Jeff Chanton, ECOGIG and Deep-C: Tracers in the Gulf


 

Please note that these webinars are designed to designed to inform GoMRI researchers of the various research efforts taking place within the GoMRI community. Please do share this information with your GoMRI colleagues but please do not distribute this information outside of the GoMRI network. 

Upcoming Events of Interest....
 
SeaGrant week is coming up September 7-12 in Clearwater, Florida.  In addition to regular business meetings of the Sea Grant Association and the various network committees and groups, they developed a meeting process that allows you to learn innovative approaches to a variety of issues, from fund raising and program marketing to writing impacts and working with Congress.

Each Gulf of Mexico Sea Grant program has hired an oil spill science extension specialist as part of a $1.5-million program funded through the GoMRI. The four extension specialists will work as a team to create education programs to share GoMRI-funded oil spill research results with groups who depend on a healthy Gulf of Mexico for their livelihoods.  

We would like to announce that our Florida Sea Grant specialist is Dr. Monica Wilson.  Dr. Wilson will work with the GoMRI Outreach team to transfer information between GoMRI oil scientists and coastal stakeholders. Welcome aboard, Monica!




 
The Florida Institute of Oceanography is hosting a Media Day on October 1, 2014 on the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida.  The purpose of this event is to inform the community of FIO's role in conducting oceanographic research in the Gulf and to highlight the Institute's capabilities.  The Deep-C and CARTHE consortia will team up with C-IMAGE during the event to talk about GoMRI research.

November 3-9, 2014
Every two years ocean leaders, filmmakers, photographers, scientists, explorers, entertainment executives - and the general public-- gather in Tampa Bay/ St. Petersburg, FL at BLUE to honor the best in ocean filmmaking, to learn more about the issues facing our oceans, and to collaborate on improving the future of our oceans and humanity. The seven-day event is charged with energy as these diverse groups of people share knowledge and ideas with each other and with the general public. For more information, please visit:


Join host Guy Harvey for the second Fisheries Symposium at the University of South Florida - St. Petersburg campus, November 13-15, 2014. The Symposium will include two days of presentations, panel discussions and featuring the latest research and issues facing marine fisheries from the leaders in marine research, conservation, policy and user groups. Saturday, November 15 will feature the Guy Harvey Fisheries Festival, a fun-filled educational event showcasing the work being done by local organizations helping to conserve our marine resources and a "Green Gourmet", featuring samples of sustainable seafood recipes prepared by local chefs.

During the symposium, C-IMAGE scientists and Teacher at Sea Alumni will broadcast from the Weatherbird to meeting attendees, demonstrating the vessels ability for ship to shore teaching on future expeditions.



The next All Hands Meeting will be joined with the 2015 GoMRI Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference as in previous years. The meeting will be Friday, February 20, 2015 immediately following the GoMRI Conference.
Sincerely,

Your C-IMAGE Administrative Team