North Pond Expedition Blog
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Biological Systems and Agricultural Engineering Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Ocean Engineering |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Community - Blog |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Katrina Edwards ( |
| Description: | Ocean Adventure Blog by Katrina Edwards, geobiologist. "What's it like on the Atlantic in winter? How hard is it to get supplies on board during a national strike? Why go to all this trouble for a bunch of microbes? Find out from Katrina Edwards, geobiologist on the North Pond Expedition and scholar of the "intraterrestrials" in Earth's crust, on her blog at www.usc.edu/northpondexpedition. Join expedition on its route to North Pond, a deep-sea trove of microbial life." From the press release: "Edwards and other marine scientists led by Heiner Villinger of the University of Bremen are about to take a three-week cruise to the middle of nowhere –- specifically, a point about 20 degrees north and three miles above a sediment-filled hollow on the sea floor known as North Pond. There they plan to drill into the sea floor. Why? We’ll let Edwards explain in her posts. But expect musings about life in unlikely places, such as the basaltic rock that makes up the crust. “That’s where my heart lies: what’s going on with the basalt,” she said. Edwards already showed in a Nature paper in 2008 that the sea floor is incredibly rich in bacteria. Just as microbes help turn rock into fertile soil, it appears that sea floor bacteria may break down the crust. For now, Edwards is busy packing and trying not to think about bad weather. “It just depends on the storm tracks and I’ve been avoiding looking at that because there’s nothing I can do about it and I do get sick,” she said. The German research vessel RV Maria S. Merian was to set off Feb. 16 from Martinique, but a national strike delayed the scheduled departure until Feb.18. The vessel will be carrying 22 scientists, among them Edwards’ colleague Wiebke Ziebis and postdoctoral researcher Nina Knab, as well as researchers from the University of Bremen, the Max Planck Institute, the University of North Carolina and Oregon State University." Image caption: Katrina Edwards (USC), Jennifer Biddle and Jess Murati at launch |
| Rating: |
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| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | ocean research ocean microbes Atlantic seabed |
| Usage Tip | |
| Related ABET Criteria: |
(b) Design and conduct experiments, analyze and interpret data |
| Use of Resource: |
Could be used in ocean engineering or marine engineering class to follow a real example of scientific research and data collection. "Aboard the German research vessel RV Maria S. Merian, Katrina Edwards of the USC College and an international team of marine scientists undertake a three-week ocean expedition to a point about 20 degrees north and three miles above a lake of sediment on the sea floor known as North Pond. Their goal: To drill for microbial life." |
| Difficulty: |
Easy |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 2009 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://northpondexpedition.usc.edu/ |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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