Lamont Weekly Report, September 19, 2014

The Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles were the first teams in Major League Baseball to clinch their divisions this week, leading the media to begin writing about the possibility of a Beltway World Series. In the last 25 years only two series have featured opposing teams located more closely to each other, and in one of those the third game was delayed for 10 days by one of the largest California earthquakes of the last half century.

 
    The Biology and Paleo Environment Division welcomed two visitors this week. On sabbatical from his faculty position at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Jim Leichter will be a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at Lamont through the spring semester. A biological oceanographer who works on physical/biological interactions and benthic ecology (http://scrippsscholars.ucsd.edu/jleichter), Jim will be working here with Andy Juhl. Maara Packalen, a graduate student in paleoclimatology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto, will be visiting Lamont as a part-time Staff Associate. Maara will be working with Dorothy Peteet.
 
    On Tuesday morning the R/V Langseth sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, to begin the Eastern North American Margin (ENAM) community seismic experiment of the GeoPRISMS Program (http://www.geoprisms.org/enam.html). The ship is operating an 8-km streamer and is imaging the record of continental rifting, syn-rift magmatism, and post-rift sedimentation along the Atlantic margin of the Carolinas. Donna Shillington serves as Chief Scientist, and Ann Bécel is another lead participant from LDEO. Land-based passive seismometers have been deployed by others, including Jim Gaherty, and the R/V Endeavor is onsite for this two-ship operation to deploy and recover ocean-bottom seismometers. More than 5300 km of survey lines are planned over the 5-week cruise. An ENAM blog has frequent reports from the scientific parties on both ships (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/blogs/enam-seismic-experiment).
 
    Yesterday and today I am at the University of Minnesota to give a seminar and visit with faculty and students in their Department of Earth Sciences. Conversations with Calvin Alexander, Max Bezada, Larry Edwards, Josh Feinberg, Marc Hirschmann, Peter Hudleston, Emi Ito, David Kohlstedt, Chris Paola, Donna Whitney, and several of their students and postdoctoral scientists have reminded me of the many strengths of this department.
 
    Next week is Climate Week in New York City (http://www.climateweeknyc.org/), and Lamont scientists are much in evidence. Newly posted on The Lamont Log is a video filmed by Billy D’Andrea of young climate scientists responding to the question “What do you wish everyone to know about climate change?” (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/what-everyone-should-know-about-climate-change). The interviews were conducted during DISertations initiative for the advancement of Climate Change ReSearch (DISCCRS) symposium, held in Colorado Springs last fall. Peter deMenocal is scheduled to be interviewed on climate issues on public radio’s Science Friday this afternoon.
 
    A new series of public programs on climate change has been organized by Rebecca Fowler, Francesco Fiondella, and colleagues at the International Center of Photography to bring scientists from Lamont, IRI, and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies for a series of talks and panel events at the ICP (1133 Avenue of the Americas). These events will begin during Climate Week and continue through mid-December in conjunction with the first U.S. exhibition of the latest work of environmental photographer Sebastião Salgado, Genesis. Lamont participants include Robin Bell, Billy D'Andrea, Peter deMenocal, Klaus Jacob, Art Lerner-Lam, and Trevor Williams. Peter will launch the series (and ICP's Climate Week festivities) with a talk on “What is climate science?” at the ICP next Monday afternoon (http://www.icp.org/events/2014/september/22/what-climate-science-peter-demenocal). A full list of programs is on the ICP website (http://www.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/icp-talks). Not only are the Friday evening events an opportunity to hear from colleagues, but attendees also gain free entry to the Salgado exhibit.
 
    As the date of Lamont’s Open House (11 October) approaches, the foreshadows deepen around us. From the new sign at the entry to the campus to the opening banner on our home web page, reminders abound. A Kim Martineau photo essay includes memorable images from past open houses as well as descriptions of some of the attractions expected this year (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news-events/photo-essay-open-house-lamont-doherty). A story this weekend in The (Rockland) Journal News lists our Open House on a “fall bucket list” of 38 “don’t miss things to do” in the area (http://www.lohud.com/story/life/2014/09/12/fall-bucket-list/15518529/).
 
    Sharing space this week on The Lamont Log (http://lamontlog.tumblr.com/) with an Open House preview and a link to Billy’s video is the first in a series of videos of Dave Walker’s famous tours of the geological highlights of Columbia’s Morningside Campus. The first installment features Dave in the Burden Room in Low Library, where the fireplace is constructed from a dark rock filled with fossils that recorded daily and annual changes in light and darkness during the Devonian period some 400 million yeas ago when there were 415 days per year, before the tidal recession of the Moon slowed the Earth’s spin to its modern value.
 
    On Friday next week, following the Earth Science Colloquium, there will be an informal dedication of a new Diebold bench. Long-time Lamonter John Diebold passed away in July 2010, and a bench crafted in his memory had been dedicated in 2011 and placed on the Piermont Pier, until it was washed ashore and heavily damaged during Superstorm Sandy. The new bench, built by John’s stepbrother and artist/sculptor John Corcoran, will be installed on a spot overlooking the Hudson River between the Monell and Oceanography buildings. A special “TGIF” event, weather permitting, will follow the re-dedication ceremony, with music by John’s former group, the American Standard String Band.
 
    In the meantime, our own Joaquim Goes will be giving today’s Colloquium, on the topic of “Shrinking snow caps, rising tides, and a sea of change” (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/files/uploaded/image/file/Joaquim%20Goes_1pdf.pdf). May a rising tide of campus support carry you to the lecture.
 
                                                                                           Sean