Our team spent most of Friday on the Arctic sea ice, drilling and sampling ice cores at our main field site. For each core collected, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientists Andy Juhl and Craig Aumack take a number of different physical, chemical and biological measurements
Fieldwork is exciting and inspiring, leading scientists to new ideas, places and observations about how the world works. Spring on Alaska’s North Slope provides an especially productive environment for fieldwork. When the sun never sets, it’s easy to linger in the field and the lab long into the well-lit night.
Are you interested in cultivating the skills necessary to implement environmental change? Do you want to learn more about conservation and environmental sustainability, including ecosystem services and function?
A golf-ball-sized rhinoceros beetle flies through the open-air pavilion and lands on my table. I look up from my notes, an attempt at reworking my African wild dog study methods, and realize I haven’t seen one of these mighty beasts since my junior year in South Africa. The beetle is a welcome companion on this quiet, star-studded night in Jordan’s Ajloun Forest Reserve. Creature comforts: another perspective shift made possible by the Columbia Global Centers.
SEE-U Dominican Republic provides students with many enriching opportunities to engage in fieldwork and study biodiversity and ecosystems in their natural environments.
The SEE-U Puerto Rico course provides students with a total immersion experience into the ecology and dynamics of a fragile and threatened environmental system.
Summer 2012 applications for the Student Ecosystem Experiences for Undergraduate program are now being accepted. Undergraduate students of all majors can apply for the opportunity to conduct field work and study unique ecosystems abroad.
No, of course not. Do not suggest anything like that to Alaskans, or Europeans where hundreds have died, or Inner Mongolians, or Koreans. But, turning the clock back to December and January for the New York City region, it was not apparent that winter would arrive as it ‘normally’ does. Yes, we have had significant [...]
Recently ranked highest in biological diversity and as one of the “last great places on Earth”, the Shawangunk Mountains are being actively reintroduced to forest fires in an attempt to preserve biodiversity.
A new study reveals that new microbes supplant the active hydrothermal vent’s microbes after the site ceases to produce thermal energy. Though more research is necessary to fully understand the regeneration process in the dormant hydrothermal vents, the study provides an additional platform for ecologists to explore how ecosystems recover from natural unbalances and how species adapt to severe changes in temperature, acidity, and chemical composition.
State of the Planet is a forum for discussion on varying viewpoints. The opinions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Earth Institute or Columbia University.
