National Science Foundation

The contribution of coastal margins to regional and global carbon budgets is not well understood, largely due to limited information about the magnitude, spatial distribution, and interannual variability of carbon sources and sinks in coastal waters.

--- This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2011, Intersections of Biology with Mathematical and Physical Sciences. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow at the intersection of biology with mathematics and geochemistry. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Kerri Crawford is "Plant diversity and soil development in a primary successional ecosystem." The host institutions for this fellowship are the Washington University in St.

The University of Minnesota has been granted an NSF award to support the continuation of the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site for geosciences in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since 1998, the 10 week UMN summer intern program in the Dept. of Geology and Geophysics has focused on research concerning geological fluids from surface and near-surface systems to the mantle to the core. Fourteen undergraduate students from diverse background will be recruited nationally each year. The students will investigate topics with the common theme of fluids in the Earth.

Title: Collaborative Research: Chronology and Paleoecology of late Quaternary Proboscidean Extinctions in the Great Lakes Region (USA) Chris Widga1, Stacey Lengyel1, Greg Hodgins2, Jeff Saunders1, J. Douglas Walker3 1. Landscape History Program, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL 2. University of Arizona-NSF AMS Facility, Tucson, AZ 3. Department of Geology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS The factors underlying the extinction of 35 genera of North American mammals during the terminal Pleistocene have incited lively debate for over a century.

Title: Collaborative Research: Chronology and Paleoecology of late Quaternary Proboscidean Extinctions in the Great Lakes Region (USA) Chris Widga1, Stacey Lengyel1, Greg Hodgins2, Jeff Saunders1, J. Douglas Walker3 1. Landscape History Program, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL 2. University of Arizona-NSF AMS Facility, Tucson, AZ 3. Department of Geology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS The factors underlying the extinction of 35 genera of North American mammals during the terminal Pleistocene have incited lively debate for over a century.

Title: Collaborative Research: Chronology and Paleoecology of late Quaternary Proboscidean Extinctions in the Great Lakes Region (USA) Chris Widga1, Stacey Lengyel1, Greg Hodgins2, Jeff Saunders1, J. Douglas Walker3 1. Landscape History Program, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL 2. University of Arizona-NSF AMS Facility, Tucson, AZ 3. Department of Geology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS The factors underlying the extinction of 35 genera of North American mammals during the terminal Pleistocene have incited lively debate for over a century.

The conceptual model for Earth's magnetic field is that of a dipole (i.e. bar magnet) positioned at Earth's center and aligned with the rotational axis of the Earth. This allows us to predict the direction of the magnetic field at any location on Earth?s surface using the fundamental equations of a dipole field. The geomagnetic field periodically reverses (i.e. a magnetic compass which points north will now point south and vice versa) and these reversals are symmetrical (i.e. the normal and reversed field directions are exactly anti-parallel).

Lake-effect snowstorms are a key source of wintertime precipitation and high-impact weather over the Great Lakes region. These storms typically evince one of two contrasting morphologies: Wind-parallel roll circulations in which elongated precipitation features are preferentially oriented along the prevailing low-level flow (and accompanying vertical wind shear), versus long lake-axis parallel (LLAP) precipitation bands that are typically more intense with a preferred mid-lake location. LLAP-type storms are more common over the Eastern Great Lakes (viz.