The 2016 class of Coastal IRES is currently deep in work planning for our upcoming expedition to Eilat! There are three student participants this year, including oceanographers Michele Markowitz and Karen Petersen and paleontologist Dan Killam. We have diverse fields of study but are united by an interest in dynamics influencing the environment of the Israeli coast. Michele is investigating the influence of dust deposition on the efficiency of the biological pump, a mechanism which is an important control on deep ocean storage for the global carbon cycle. Karen is monitoring how brine discharge sourced from Israeli desalination plants affects the local phytoplankton and coral ecology of the region. Dan is researching how the giant clams vary in growth rate and metabolic health between ancient and modern times, and whether pollution depresses their growth rates.
Each project is described in more detail on the "Research Participants" page, and we will each be contributing a post outlining what we intend to achieve during our fieldwork this summer. We will also be narrating our experiences with day-to-day data collection, analysis and our general experience in the country of Israel. Our journey begins July 1st. Stay tuned!
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