Hatfield Marine Science Center Newsletter

November 1999 Pam Rogers, Editor

The short black lines mark the radial and circumfrencial fissures.

Galapagos Volcanoes May Hold Martian Secrets

Bill Chadwick of the NOAA Hydrothermal Vents Group is co-PI on a National Science Foundation funded three-year project to study a distinctive aspect of volcanoes in the Galapagos Islands. Although not directly related to his NOAA research, this is a follow-up of one of his earlier research efforts.

The volcanoes in the Galapagos Islands are significantly different from the better studied volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands, but may be more similar to volcanoes on Mars. As the Fernandina Volcano diagram illustrates, the eruptive fissures both radiate out from the mouth of the volcano, as they do in Hawaiian shield volcanoes, and go tangentially alongside the mouth, unlike them. Hawaiian shield volcanoes have very gentle slopes, with profiles like a warrior's shield, hence the name. Intrusions of new lava "shoulder" aside the old at a rate of up to ten centimeters a year. The Galapagos volcano profile is more like a bell curve that is flattened on the top. This "hump" profile matches the volcanic forms on Mars and other planets and Chadwick believes this is due to the distinctive

fissure pattern.

To study how the Galapagos volcanoes behave and change shape, Bill will be installing a GPS and gravity monitoring network at two Galapagos volcanoes. GPS instruments will detect ground movements as small as a few millimeters. The gravity meters, based around a super-sensitive spring, pick up the tiny differences in gravity caused by areas of different density underground. (The meters are often used to detect ore deposits, which are denser than the surrounding rock.) They will be used to look for subsurface magma movements.

Although working on Fernandina is tough, since it is desolate with no water and no human inhabitants, it beats the working conditions on Mars!

New 500-Gallon Aquarium Tank Features New Interactive Technology

People love to look at aquariums with fish actively swimming. But the same people loathe reading written copy that identifies the fish and describes why they're used in research. As part of the Coastal Ecosystem Learning Center project, NOAA and OSU are cooperating to create an interactive aquarium that combines the attractive power of a living aquarium with the educational potential of computer-mediated video.

The newest aquarium in HMSC's Visitor Center is over 500 gallons, equipped with a semi-closed circulation system, a fluidized-bed filter and protein skimmer to maintain pristine water quality year-round. Its first tenants are adult sablefish complete with PIT tags. PIT tags are devices that have been used by researchers to identify and track fish in population studies. The visitor will scan an individual fish as it approaches the front of the aquarium. When scanned with a radio wave, the PIT tag creates through an inductive process a characteristic frequency. We will be using this signal to cue a computer to display a specific video program. These 90-second videos highlight different aspects of NOAA's research into sablefish life history and population dynamics.

Sablefish swimming in the crystal clear water of the NMFS tank.

Once this system is in place and tested, we will be able to change both the fish and the videos to reflect the most recent research developments. As an added educational benefit, the digitized videos can be made accessible through the World Wide Web.

You are invited to come "out front" and experience the HMSC Visitors Center. Winter hours are 10:00 ­4:00; Thursday through Monday.

Charitable Fund Drive Ends November 19

The HMSC Coordinators, Terri Nogler and Melody Pfister (7-0203) for the CFD want to remind you that you have until November 19 to return your contribution to them. The Charitable Fund Drive is an annual, combined giving campaign tailored to meet the needs and wishes of employees of the State of Oregon.

Do you want to contribute to your local United Way? You can do it through the CFD. Are you interested in environmental causes? You can give money to any of 28 environmental non-profit groups through the CFD. Do you want to help support children's or health issues? You can support any of the groups listed in the CFD brochure in any proportion you choose.

You can make your donation with cash or a check or a credit card. Or is it easier for you to have your contribution deducted from your paychecks? Many employees find the CFD's payroll deduction method easiest and most satisfying, because a small amount taken out of each check adds up to a substantial gift over the course of a year.

Oregon's CFD was implemented in 1989 as a way to offer access to this wide range of charities in an easy, once-a-year campaign that gives state employees precise control over where their contributions are spent.

Dan Bottom Joins NMFS Northwest

After 22 years at Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), Dan Bottom has joined the Fisheries Ecology Division of NMFS Northwest. He will be working on developing a salmon estuarine research program for the Northwest Region. He brings varied experience to this role, as he has studied salmon life history in the Columbia estuary with BPA, and with Sea Grant on the Salmon River estuary, studying the effects of salt marsh restoration. He will be looking for holes in estuarine research data and determining specific hypotheses to test. Estuaries have long been the foster child of salmon research, but now estuarine research is being driven by the push for salmon restoration.

Dan earned his B.S. in Botany from Duke University and his Master's in Marine Science from the University of Delaware. Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, Dan spent one summer at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, and promptly fell in love with Oregon. When a job opened up with ODFW in Corvallis, he signed up.

Dan and his wife Pam live in Philomath with their two children, Emily (16) and Andy (13). He plays the guitar and used to perform as a folk singer. He makes wine, reads, hikes and runs.

Personnel Notes

Congratulations to the parents of our newest arrival at the HMSC! Ted DeWitt and Sharon Nieukirk welcomed Natalie Anna on Saturday, October 23. She weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and stretched 20 inches long.

Talk and Book Signing

The Amber Forest by George & Roberta Poinar

The Hatfield Marine Science Bookstore is hosting a discussion and book signing Saturday, November 13 at 2:00 p.m.

The Amber Forest, a Reconstruction of a Vanished World by George & Roberta Poinar is a fascinating book with broad appeal for anyone interested in amber, insects or prehistoric life.

George Poinar, is Professor Emeritus of Entomology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently on the faculty at Oregon State University, where he conducts research on amber deposits and biological inclusion in amber. His wife, Roberta, is an electron microscopist with experience in entomology and amber research.

The Poinars led the international research effort to extract DNA from insects encased in amber, a central idea used in the film Jurassic Park. In the movie, scientists extracted dinosaur blood from mosquitoes that had been preserved for millions of years in amber and used the blood's DNA to revive the creatures. The Poinars use the amber to reconstruct an entire ecosystem in the Dominican Republic from the specimens collected. The specimens include: beetles, wasps, ants, bees, small vertebrates such as frogs, lizards and birds that were trapped in resin from the forest's algarrobo trees. They are preserved in exquisite detail, since amber­hardened tree resin preserves plant and insect specimens without squashing them or ruining their natural color and posture.

The book features over 150 beautiful photographs of animals stuck in their elegant beads of amber and we are delighted to be able to see some of them firsthand. The Poinars will also test your amber for authenticity if you would like to bring it with you.

They will discuss the evidence provided by the many fossilized objects to piece together a picture of this 15-45 million-year-old forest. By examining these plants and animals and comparing them to related forms that exist today, the authors have shed new light on the behavior of these organisms, the environment and climate in which they lived, and why some forms became extinct. Bring your kids, your amber, and your imagination, and learn about a remarkable vanished world.

The Amber Forest can be purchased at the Hatfield Marine Science Center Bookstore. Pre-event purchases will receive a 10% discount and preferred seating. There is no charge to attend the talk, however, only books purchased at HMSC Bookstore will be signed. For more information, contact Linda VanderBurgh at the HMSC Bookstore. 867-0126

Current Issues for Marine Libraries by Janet Webster, Guin Librarian

I recently returned from the annual conference of IAMSLIC, the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers, held in Woods Hole. Here are a few of the hot topics and interesting tidbits I picked up.

Electronic Journals and Publications:

"And not or" is probably the best phrase to summarize where we currently are with electronic journals. Libraries are struggling to collect both print and electronic formats, but the expense is becoming astronomical. Publishers are still primarily in the mode of producing a print version and the converting to digital. The trend towards just digital is getting stronger. With that growth, libraries share concern over long-term archiving of journal literature, lending electronic articles, printing demands on local systems, pricing, and licensing and copyright.

Elsevier (sometimes referred to as The Evil Empire) is a leading publisher of oceanographic and marine literature. As a company, it is continuing to develop new products which make it much easier for the user to search across its journals and pull up full text. Of course, this comes at a price for the institutions providing this service. For a demonstration of the product, check out this website - http://www.sciencedirect.com .

One positive note on ejournals was voiced by the staff of the Scripps Library. A snapshot survey conducted this summer compared the receipt of print journals with their electronic counterparts. For 35% of the print issues received, there already was one more recent electronic issue available. The same issue was available electronically for 49% of the print issues. Only 16% of the titles has electronic issues that lagged the print.

Data and Metadata:

The growth of team-based science encourages sharing of scientific data. Consequently, more people need to be fluent in the creation of metadata. Librarians can have a role in helping people create metadata and in facilitating access to data. Anne Ball, NOAA's Coastal Services Center, gave an overview of the role and elements of metadata. Jerry Melillo, MBL's Ecosystems Center, discussed the importance of sharing data and observations in resolving global environmental issues.

Interesting Resources:

For those doing molecular and genetic work, check out the National Center for Biotechnology Information - http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ . It provides a gateway for searching publicly available DNA and protein sequences, Medline, and other related databases.

NASA's Global Change Master Directory, http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ , is a"comprehensive directory of descriptions of data sets of relevance to global change research." While the comprehensive piece is still being worked on, the site does help you locate datasets that may be useful in environmental research.

If you are trying to locate a Canadian document on fisheries or oceanography topics, try WAVES, http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca . This is a catalogue of all the libraries of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The Bridge, Http://www.marine-ed.org , is an ocean sciences education resource center maintained at the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences. It's a good spot to point elementary students (and their parents), teachers and the public for information, resources, contacts, and discussion.