Friday, November 16, 2012
The History of the Black Sea Revealed in its Sediments
Dynamics of Eurasian sea will be discussed at Tsaihwa J. Chow Distinguished Lecture in Ocean Chemistry
Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego
Until about 5,000 years ago, the Black Sea was a brackish lake cut off from world oceans until sea-level rise fed by melting glaciers connected it with the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. A record of that history exists in its seafloor sediments and even in its present-day waters.
Hans-Jürgen Brumsack
Hans-Jürgen Brumsack, a professor at University of Oldenburg in Germany and a former postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, will share his account of this history Monday, Nov. 19 when he delivers the Tsaihwa J. Chow Distinguished Lecture in Ocean Chemistry for 2012. He will present "Trace metal geochemistry of modern anoxic sediments: The Black Sea example" at 3 p.m. in Sumner Auditorium on the Scripps Oceanography campus, 8602 La Jolla Shores Drive in La Jolla, Calif. (Sumner Auditorium is one-half block north of El Paseo Grande).
The lecture is free and open to the public.
The Black Sea is distinguished by euxinic (depleted in dissolved oxygen; enriched in hydrogen sulfide) deep waters, which are delivered from the relatively salty Mediterranean. In his research, Brumsack has developed a geochemical record combining multiple sediment cores collected from the Black Sea to generate a single composite geochemical core log. His analysis of trace elements, iron, and other sediment components led to the creation of a reference archive to help understand exchanges between the Black Sea and neighboring seas and the paleoenvironmental evolution of its basin.
The lecture is named for Dr. Tsaihwa J. Chow, a geochemist with a long association with Scripps who died in 2006.
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About Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego, is one of the oldest, largest and most important centers for global science research and education in the world. Now in its second century of discovery, the scientific scope of the institution has grown to include biological, physical, chemical, geological, geophysical and atmospheric studies of the earth as a system. Hundreds of research programs covering a wide range of scientific areas are under way today in 65 countries. The institution has a staff of about 1,400, and annual expenditures of approximately $170 million from federal, state and private sources. Scripps operates robotic networks, and one of the largest U.S. academic fleets with four oceanographic research ships and one research platform for worldwide exploration.
Birch Aquarium at Scripps serves as the interpretive center of the institution and showcases Scripps research and a diverse array of marine life through exhibits and programming for more than 415,000 visitors each year.
Learn more at scripps.ucsd.edu.
