Announcements

11/29/2023 — Listen to the Tales from the Deep: Stories of Scientific Ocean Drilling Podcast

 

bforams@mikrotax is Live! — Dr. Burkett and her students have been involved in the creation of an online database for benthic foraminifera identification. Check out this amazing tool here and email Dr. B if you are interested in getting involved!

 

Ford and Burkett and FORAM2023 — Trenity Ford, Ph.D. student, and Dr. Burkett bpth presented at the FORAMS2023 meeting in Perugia, Italy this summer.

 

GSA Southcentral at OSU in 2023 — Three undergrads took home Outstanding Student Presentation awards! Check out the NINE abstracts and award winners below: 

• Outstanding Undergraduate Student Poster—2nd Place-Jessica Whitesell. Jessica presented her work on mutated foraminifera of the Puget Sound where she is using MicroCT scans and dragonfly to determine the percentage of the shells with and without mutations.
• TechFest Undergraduate Award Winners—2nd Place- Amanda Harding. Amanda presented her work on a virtual reality space to illustrate the dimensions and extent of our own solar system. We hope to make this amazing tool part of a mixed reality lessons available in instruction at the Boone Pickens School of Geology. 3rd Place- Joshua Deen. Josh has become proficient in a group of benthic foraminifera which disappeared in the most recent extinction event (the Stilostomellas between 0.75-1mya). He has been conducting work on equatorial samples from off the west of Costa Rica which is an area under documented with respect to this global event. Josh is hoping to continue his work on this project during his masters. 
• The Burkett Micropaleo Lab—Overall, we had nine presentations at GSA Southcentral with 8 of them as student presentations. For many of our students this was their first meeting and presentation. I am so proud of the efforts and outcomes our lab group had. I will gladly take them to any meeting in the future! Go Pokes!

Student at Sea — Ph.D. Candidate, Trenity Ford, will be at sea for 14 days! Follow his journey.

• Weeks at Sea! — Trenity has been invited to sail on an expedition to recover and deploy instrumentation aboard the R/V Thompson. This blog is intended to record his experiences and perceptions while away. Although this is not his first time at sea, it will be his longest. The cruise will be split up into two separate legs one from September 21st to 28th. On the 29th he may be able to have a chance to try out his land legs, but then by the 30th he will be back at sea until the 6th of October! We are wishing him all the best. Follow along here to experience his journey along with him! The R/V Thompson is operated by the University of Washington. Click the link to visit the website and learn more about it! 
• 09/21/2022 — Day 0 Newport, OR — Hello from Newport, Oregon the staging location for the OOI (Ocean Observatories Initiative) Endurance 17 expedition. The weather was beautiful for a full day of loading instrumentation and material onto the R/V Thomas G. Thompson. Work began at 8am this morning after an hour-long drive through the scenic hills of eastern Oregon from Corvallis (the home of Oregon State University). While the ships crew took deliveries of foodstuffs and other materials required for two-week voyage, the OOI team and marine technicians worked to lift the moorings and other heavy material onto the deck of the ship by crane. By mid afternoon (and after a delicious lunch prepared by the ship’s cooks) the ship had been fully loaded with all of the moorings, gliders, buoys, and other equipment needed for the cruise. And don’t worry, I will give more detail about the scientific equipment in upcoming posts. The plan for this cruise is different from what has been used in previous Endurance cruises. Previous trips have required three legs, meaning the ship had to return to port twice during the expedition to drop off and pick up new equipment before returning to sea. On this trip, the Thompson will only return to port once during the two-week cruise. As a result of this new plan of operations, the deck of the ship was very heavily loaded with equipment, all lashed down and secured to the deck. Over the next week, all this equipment will be deployed at locations along the Washington-Oregon coast before the R/V Thompson returns to Newport to drop off recovered equipment and pick up the second batch of material to be deployed. Tomorrow brings the beginning of our voyage and our first deployments (gliders!). We will say goodbye to Newport and begin our work maintaining the OOI Endurance array. Until then, calm seas and good science!
• Read more about the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI)
• Read more about the Coastal Endurance Array
• Read more about the R/V Thomas G Thompson

Research on Tap — Dr. B will be participating Research on Tap at the Iron Munk Brewery in October. If you want to attend check this page for updates.

 

MARSSAM PI Cruise — Dr. Burkett recently returned from the MARSSAM PI Training cruise. If you want to see what the expedition was all about check out the blog here.

 

Alvin Cruise — What a busy summer! In addition to the normal travel with family, Dr. B went on an expedition verifying the scientific abilities of the deep-sea submersible ALVIN in the Puerto Rico Trench. Check out the blog about these adventures here.

 

September 15th Seminar — Dr. Ashley Burkett will be presenting at the Boone Pickens School of Geology Seminar on September 15th from 1:30-2:45 in NRC207. Please feel free to attend there or on Zoom!