Department of Geology and Planetary Science Celebrating Accomplishments in Paleoclimateology, Volcanology and Seismology
As the fall semester moves rapidly towards mid-terms, the Department of Geology and Planetary Science is off to a positive start and is celebrating six significant National Science Foundation grants and the opening of a new three component seismograph.
Paleoclimatology professor Mark Abbott has been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) grants totaling more than $640,000 for three projects: “Nonlinearities in the Arctic Climate System During the Holocene”; “Spatial and Temporal patterns of Drought in Western North America During the Holocene,” and “The Holocene Paleomagnetic Record of the Arctic.”
Emily Elliott received Early Career Investigator support from NSF along with co-investigators Mark Abbott, Daniel Bain and Michael Rosenmeier. The title of the project is "Development of a Regional Stable Isotope Laboratory for Earth Science Research" and will explore a broad range of socially-relevant environmental issues including atmospheric pollution and associated impacts, the impact of human populations on hydrologic systems and climate change.
Emily Elliott is also launching a project funded by the National Science Foundation entitled "A new tool for assessing nitrogen saturation status in forests-mass-dependent D170 of nitrate." The project will establish the use of a mass-independent tracer of atmospheric nitrate as an empirical tool for quantifying export of atmospheric nitrate from forested watersheds and for assessing the nitrogen saturation status of watersheds lacking long-term water quality data.
Volcanology professor Ian Skilling was awarded a three-year, $305,000 NSF petrology and geochemistry program grant for a project entitled “Building Ice-Age Dyngjufjoll (Askja): Processes, Products and Environments.” The project is a detailed study of the history of volcano-ice interaction at Askja, an Icelandic volcano.
This sedimentology, volcanology, geochemistry and geochronology study involves collaboration with scientists from Iceland and the United Kingdom to reconstruct the interaction of the volcano with the surrounding ice during the Pleistocene and to record how such a volcano preserves evidence of ice presence and ice thickness.
In addition to the paleoclimate aspect of the project, another truly exciting aspect of this project is it also has direct applicability to understand the interaction of large basaltic shield volcanoes and the cryosphere on Mars.
After running a less advanced seismic station for a few years at Pitt in the SRCC building, a new three component seismograph was installed at the Allegheny Observatory. The seismograph, which went into use in September, is maintained by the Department of Geology and Planetary Science in cooperation with the Pennsylvania State University.