Wilmost will present her preliminary research results on the resettlement of ex-combatants in El Salvador's lower Lempa River at the Association of Geographers conference in Los Angeles, Calif.
Amaya will intern with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Labratory this winter. The program involves a research cruise on the USS Ron Brown that will travel from Charleston, S.C., to Puerto Rico. Amaya is studying to be a physical oceanographer.
Presentations at AGU
The College of Geosciences was well represented at the 45th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Dec. 3-7, in San Francisco. More than 20,000 geoscientists attended.
Students and professors involved in the Costa Rica REU program, directed by Dr. Chris Houser (GEOG), and professors conducting research on the cloud forest:
REU students presented on the following topics: climatology (Natalie Teale), ecohydrology (Esther Buckwalther, Nathan Tourtellotte, Gracie Orozco) and soils (Jordan Burns, Rachel Oien) of the Soltis Center for Research and Education. Copies of their posters will be made available through the REU website.
"Exploratory Water Budget Analysis of A Transitional Premontane Cloud Forest in Costa Rica Through Undergraduate Research," Ryan Arnott (ATMO graduate student) and Chris Houser (GEOG), Sarah D. Brooks (ATMO), Oliver W. Frauenfeld (GEOG), Steven M. Quiring (GEOG), Anita D. Rapp (ATMO), E. Brendan Roark (GEOG), and Alfredo Delgado and Jason P. Ackerson, Soil and Crop Sciences, and REU students
"Microscale Throughfall and Precipitation Heterogeneity in a Transitional Cloud Forest," Steven M. Quiring (GEOG), Oliver W. Frauenfeld (GEOG), E. Brendan Roark (GEOG), Anita D. Rapp (ATMO)
ATMO group
"On Precipitation in the Southeastern Pacific Marine Subsidence Region," Anita D. Rapp, Matthew Lebsock, Tristan L'Ecuyer
"Radar Observations of MJO/Wave Interactions Durin DYNAMO/ CINDY2011/AMIE," Amanda M. DePasquale, Courtney Schumacher, Anita D. Rapp
OCNG and GEPL group, including Dr. Debbie Thomas' students
"Reconstruction of South Pacific Dust Accumulation during the Early Paleogene Greenhouse," Dillon Amaya (MET/OCNG student), and Debbie Thomas (OCNG/GEPL), Franco Marcantonio (GEPL), Robert Korty (ATMO), Matthew Huber, Gisela Winckler, and Carlos Alvarez Zarikian (IODP)
"The Paleogene record of South Pacific Deep Water: Nd isotopes from IODP Site U1370," Amelie Berger (ENGS/OCNG student), and Debbie Thomas and Carlos Alvarez Zarikian
"Seawater Osmium Isotope Records from Pacific ODP and IODP Sites: refining the Paleogene curve and dating red-clay sequences," Zach Rolewicz (ENGS/OCNG student) and Debbie Thomas and Franco Marcantonio
"The Late Paleogene Evolution of Southern Ocean Deep-water Formation: the Onset of Global Thermohaline Circulation," Debbie Thomas, Robert Korty, Matthew Huber, and Mitch Lyle (OCNG)
"Carbonyl sulfide hydrolysis in polar ice cores and the feasibility of recovering a paleoatmospheric history," Melinda R. Nicewonger (MET student), Kamil M. Aydin, Eric S. Saltzman, Tyler J. Fudge, Edwin D. Waddington, Kristal R. Verhulst
Dr. Kate Miller and colleagues presented "Crustal structure across the Bighorn Mountains, northern Wyoming: Insights into lithospheric evolution from the NSF-EarthScope Bighorn Project," Lindsay L. Worthington and Kate C. Miller (GEPL), Eric A. Erslev, William L. Yeck, Anne F. Sheehan.
Oceanographers presented "A numerical investigation of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya freshwater transport filling and flushing times on the Texas-Louisiana shelf," Xiaoqian (Michael) Zhang, Robert D. Hetland, Martinho Marta-Almeida and Steven F. DiMarco (OCNG)
Sessions by Dr. William Sager (OCNG) and his student Jinchang Zhang
William W. Sager, Jonathan M Bull, Kolluru Sree Krishna, "Active Faulting in the Ninetyeast Ridge and Implications for Diffuse Boundaries of the Indo-Australian Plate Plate"
Jinchang Zhang, William W. Sager, Jun Korenaga, "Shatsky Rise Oceanic Plateau Structure from 2D Multichannel Seismic Reflection Profiles and Implications for Oceanic Plateau Evolution"
Takashi Sano, William W. Sager, Joerg Geldmacher (IODP) Anthony A P Koppers, Ken Heydolph, Renat Almeev, Takeshi Hanyu, Adelie Delacour, "What we have learned about Shatsky Rise Oceanic Plateau from IODP Expedition 324"
Maurice Tivey, Masako Tominaga, William W. Sager, "The last frontier? High-resolution, near-bottom measurements of the Hawaiian Jurassic magnetic anomaly sequence"
Adrienne J. Oakley, Nicholas Jame Mathews, Masako Tominaga, Maurice Tivey, William W. Sager, Daniel Lizarralde, "New seamounts and broad seafloor depressions revealed in shipboard geophysical data from the Early Cretaceous - Middle Jurassic seafloor, Central-Western Pacific"
Michael T Chandler, Paul Wessel, Brian Taylor, William W. Sager, "Reassembling the Ontong Java-Manihiki-Hikurangi large igneous province: Insights and challenges"
Drs. Oliver Frauenfeld and Brendan Roark (GEOG) and five students from the Climate Science Lab presented the following at AGU. Photos can be found on the labs' Facebook page.
"Simulation of Soil Temperature Distribution in Russia Based on the VIC Land Surface Model," Liang Chen, Oliver W. Frauenfeld, and Tingjun Zhang
"Season Rainfall Variability and its Impact on Vegetation Dynamics in the Southwestern United States: An outlook on future water budget issues," Dagbegnon C. Sohoulande, Vijay P. Singh, and Oliver W. Frauenfeld
"Validating Annual Growth Bands of Deep Sea Corals from the Gulf of Mexico and Southeastern United States, Leslye M. Mohon, E. Brendan Roark, Renald N. Guillemette, Nancy Prouty, and Steve Ross
"Increased Accuracy in Statistical Seasonal Hurricane Forecasting, Roshanak Nateghi, Steven M. Quiring and Seth D. Guikema"
"Terrestrial Arctic Amplification Due to Changes in the Eurasian Soil Thermal Regime," Oliver W. Frauenfeld, Liang Chen, and Tingjun Zhang
"The Change of the North American Monsoon Seasonal Precipitation in the CCSMv.4 under IPCC CO2 Emission Scenarios," Manuel Hernandez, Joseph J. Tribbia, and Julie Caron
"Evaluation of Soil Moisture Simulations Using In Situ Data from
Iowa, 1954 to 1990," Shanshui Yuan and Steven M. Quiring
"Gulf of Alaska and California bamboo corals: Ba/Ca and Sr/Ca records," Wilson Sauthoff, Michele LaVigne, Tessa M. Hill, E. Brendan Roark, Robert B. Dunbar, Thomas P. Guilderson, and Howard J. Spero
"The North American Soil Moisture Database," Trent Ford and Steven Quiring
Dr. Heath Mills (OCNG) was part of a poster session on the subsurface biosphere. Also presenting was former student Dr. Brandi Reese
Reese, B.K., M. Ariza, C. St. Peter, C. Hoffman, K. Edwards and H.J. Mills, "Re-Defining the Subsurface Biosphere: Characterization of Fungal Populations from Energy Limited Deep Marine Subsurface Sediments."
Dr. Eric Riggs (GEPL and Dean's Office) made the following presentations:
Riggs, E.M. and J.S. Herrera, "Gestures and metaphors as indicators of conceptual understanding of sedimentary systems."
Riggs, E.M., "Texas A&M Geosciences and the growing importance of transfer students."
Dr. Chris Houser (GEOG) presented on outcomes of the REU program in a geo-education session. He also made a presentation on his own research related to the video analysis of aeolian streamers in northeast Brazil. Also presenting from the Coastal Geomorphology group were Bradley Weymer, Patrick Barrinneau, Mallorie Jewell and Ryan Arnott.
Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon (ATMO) blogged from AGU in his Climate Abyss column. He also gave an invited oral presentation, "Improving Climate Literacy: A State Climatologist's Perspective," in the session on Climate Literacy titled
In the session on Advanced Drought Monitoring and Prediction With Applications to Decision Making, Nielsen-Gammon presented "A High-Resolution Drought Monitoring Prototype Tool for the United States."
Dr. Oliver Frauenfeld (GEOG) organized and attended the annual meeting of the U.S. Permafrost Association during AGU.
Dr. Matthew Howard presented "The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative: Building a Big-Data System," M.K. Howard, F.C. Gayanilo and J.C. Gibeaut (both TAMU-CC) at the Informatics session.
Howard also attended the Marine Metadata Interoperability Steering Team meeting at AGU.
Media at AGU
AGU's online publication Blogosphere featured Dr. Oliver Frauenfeld's presentation on the effect of thawing Arctic soils in Eurasia on regional atmospheric patterns and global climate.
Dr. Heath Mills' research presented at AGU was featured in Nature, the New Scientist and on NSF's science news site, Science 360.
Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), represented the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative's (GoMRI) Gulf Integrated Spill Research Consortium (GISR) along with Dr. Scott Socolofsky (TAMU Civil Engineering) at the Subsea Blowout Modeling Workshop 27-28 November at the University of Berkeley. Howard conveyed standards and best practices for exchanging model output for the GoMRI sponsored work.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Dr. Anthony Filippi (GEOG) was invited to participate in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Expert Meeting: "Role of Remote Sensing (RS) in Forest and National GHG Emission Inventories," IPCC, Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, Hayama, Japan, Oct. 23-25. His participation was supported by the Subcommittee on Global Change Research of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR), National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)/U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), and the Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).
Dr. Chris Houser (GEOG) was interviewed by NPR Nov. 30 regarding how dunes develop and recover after storms, specifically how developers along the barrier islands of New York and New Jersey should plan for changes in dune lines to ensure island resiliency.
Chris Houser (GEOG), Christian Brannstrom (GEOG) and graduate students Anna Santos, Heather Lee and Sarah Trimble contributed their research on beach user perception of rip currents to upcoming episodes of Science and the Sea. Their research will also be the focus of a story in the upcoming issue of Texas Shores, where the graduate students will also be featured in a sidebar story. Their interview on this research will air sometime around christmas.
Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), represented the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative's (GoMRI) Gulf Integrated Spill Research Consortium (GISR) along with Dr. Scott Socolofsky (TAMU Civil Engineering) at the Subsea Blowout Modeling Workshop 27-28 November at the University of Berkeley. Howard conveyed standards and best practices for exchanging model output for the GoMRI sponsored work.
Dr. Matthew Howard (OCNG), as a member of the Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) Advisory Team, reviewed the NSF-sponsored R2R project at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) at Columbia University in New York on 17-18 December. The R2R project ensures data from built-in underway sensor systems installed in UNOLS vessels are quality-controlled and curated.
PUBLICATIONS
Zhang, X., R. D. Hetland, Martinho Marta-Almeida and S. F. DiMarco, 2012: A numerical investigation of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya freshwater transport, filling and flushing times on the Texas-Louisiana shelf. Journal of Geophysical Research - Oceans, 117, C11009, doi:10.1029/2012JC008108.