Monthly Archives: November 2015

Are You Listening? For Whale’s Sake, Keep it Down!

Our guest tomorrow night, Selene Fregosi PhD student in Fisheries and Wildlife, investigates noises produced by marine mammals and in particular, whales. Selene employs an under water microphone to record the bioacoustics produced by marine mammals over large spatial and temporal scales. Attached to remote controlled marine gliders, these microphones can record bioacoustics of marine mammals, some of which produce sounds of inaudible frequencies. Marine gliders limit the time and expense of whale monitoring from the deck of a marine vessel. This cost effective alternative allows Selene to collect oceanographic measurements like temperature and salinity and her audio recordings remotely through satellite transmitted programing. Selene’s explorations through her project will provide information about the effectiveness of this technology for future research with marine mammals.

Selene getting the glider ready.

Selene getting the glider ready with the help of Alex Turpin.

In addition to the practical aspects of this research, Selene is interested in how noise pollution from ships, submarines, and other vessels affects the behavior of charismatic mega fauna. By examining the sound spectra of an audio recording, Selene can identify each species by their characteristic sound patterns. After deciphering bioacoustics obtained from the microphoned-gliders, Selene can understand whale behavior during different times of year or different locations around the world. In fact, some of Selene’s recordings are the first ever to record whale behavior and movement off the coast of Guam!

Characteristic sound pattern of a beaked whale.

Characteristic sound pattern of a beaked whale.

Selene hopes that in the future, her work will aid the conservation of whales and other marine mammals. Deciphering bioacoustics can allow for the identification of when and where specific species are breeding, and conservationists can then work to reduce noise pollution. As our oceans become noisier from human activities, Selene’s research could provide accurate and specific information to limit disruption of crucial population maintenance and growth.

Learn more about Selene’s and other interesting research from the Klinck lab at OSU by visiting their blog.

Join us Sunday, November 22 at 7 pm to hear more about Selene’s research and her unique journey to graduate school. Tune in to KBVR Corvallis 88.7 FM or stream the show live!

From the River to the Sea: Rare metal cycles and the Circle of Life

Sometime around 3.4 billion years ago, the planet earth was covered in an atmosphere of nitrogen and carbon dioxide poisonous to life as we know it today. Then something changed. Tiny photosynthetic organisms called cyanobacteria started converting carbon dioxide to oxygen, and over billions of years seaweed, kelp, and finally terrestrial plants with roots systems covered the globe, making  the entire history of animal life of Earth possible. We know this because a rare metal called molybdenum, found in ocean floor sediment cores, can be measured to show when the atmosphere changed.

Or maybe not. Maybe we’re wrong about all of that. Who can say? Here to challenge the accepted timeline of life as we know it is Elizabeth King. This Sunday Liz will walk us through a comparative study she has been working on in Oregon and the Big Island, Hawaii, underneath Dr. Julie Pett-Ridge. A Graduate student in Ocean Ecology and Biogeochemistry (CEOAS), and working with the Crop and Soil Science deparment through her advisor, Dr. Pett-Ridge, Liz hopes to uncover the truth about molybdenum. Showing that this metal travels from rivers to the ocean and back through precipitation in a cycle that is dependent on the soil and weathering processes in these different volcanic regions, Liz argues that scientists haven’t been seeing the big picture of molybdenum’s environmental history.

Liz at a sampling location

Liz at a sampling location

Molybdenum is increasingly recognized as an important agricultural nutrient, and understanding how it travels through the soil, streams, and waters of the Pacific Northwest and the world is highly valuable in keeping our land fertile and productive. To learn more, tune in Sunday night at 88.7 FM Pacific time, or steam the show live!

Liz at the mouth of a river she studies on the Big Island, Hawaii.

Liz at the mouth of a river she studies on the Big Island, Hawaii.

The Winds of Mars

False-color image of channel-confined TARs in the Amenthes Rupes Region, Mars (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

False-color image of channel-confined TARs in the Amenthes Rupes Region, Mars (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

On our own world, dust storms can carry sands from the Sahara around the globe.On Mars, immense dust storms worthy of a Mad Max reference and formations called Transverse Aeolian Ridges up to a meter tall are common sights. Unlike Earth, where we constantly see geoactive forces like water, ice, and volcanic activity changing the landscape around us, the only force we can see actively changing the landscape of Mars is the wind. With desertification increasing on our own planet dune fields in many locations are moving into existing agricultural areas. Might we eventually be living on a world where the impact of wind on the land is as great as it is on Mars? Can the windswept world of Mars tell us what life will be like someday here on Earth?

Gravel ripple wind-formed bedforms in Puna de Atacama, Argentina (de Silva et al., 2013)

Gravel ripple wind-formed bedforms in Puna de Atacama, Argentina (de Silva et al., 2013)

Rover image of Transverse Aeolian Ridges (TARs) in Endurance Crater, Mars (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

Rover image of Transverse Aeolian Ridges (TARs) in Endurance Crater, Mars (NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michelle Neely, a master’s student in Geology and Geophysics studying under Shan de Silva, is investigating just that. By studying wind shaped formations called symetrical bed forms in the high desert of Argentina, which are the Earth’s closest analog to the ridges formed by the winds of Mars, Michelle hopes to learn how wind processes work on both worlds. If terrestrial desertification leaves our Blue Planet looking a lot more like the Red Planet, this research will prove invaluable.

For more on the geological history of Mars and our own future, tune in to 88.7 FM Sunday November 8th at 7pm PST or stream live to find out!