News
February 2022: The ChemOce Lab Presents at 2022 Ocean Sciences Meeting
Graduate students Marine Lebrec, Jessica Metter, and Erick Partida will be presenting their MLML thesis research at the 2022 Ocean Sciences Meeting, being held virtually on 24 February - 4 March 2022. Marine Lebrec will present her work on measuring nutrients using programmable Flow Injection analysis, while Jessica Metter will share results on quantifying bromoform emissions from seaweeds, and Erick Partida will present his research on measuring aluminium using new microfluidic methods. This conference will serve as an opportunity to showcase the variety of projects being undertaken by the MLML Chemical Oceanography lab!
November 2021: Measuring Phosphate in Monterey Bay
Max Grand and Marine Lebrec recently sailed aboard the R/V Martin where they successfully ran underway surface phosphate samples in Monterey Bay using programmable Flow Injection (pFI) analysis. These continuous measurements were taken from station M1 located at the edge of Monterey Bay all the way to Moss Landing Harbor. Max and Marine also collected seawater samples from a deep 1000m CTD cast at the offshore M1 station, which allowed them to characterize phosphate concentrations throughout the water column. This cruise served as validation that phosphate analysis using their miniaturized nutrient analyzer (pFI) can be run in-situ on a ship.
October 2021: Field Work on Santa Catalina Island
Jessica Metter recently went to USC’s Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island to collect seaweeds from the genus Asparagopsis, which are the leading candidates for enteric methane reduction in cattle. After collecting the seaweed, Jessica conducted experiments at the Wrigley Marine Science Center to measure the bromocarbon production rate of Asparagopsis using bottle incubations. This data will be used as part of a larger data set to estimate the amount of bromocarbons released to the atmosphere by current and future seaweed aquaculture in California and beyond.
International Nutrient Inter-Comparison Voyage
Chemical oceanography lab PI Max Grand and graduate student Marine Lebrec will take part in the International Nutrient Inter-comparison Voyage departing Hobart in spring 2023. The purpose of this cruise will be for Max and Marine to analyze nutrient samples (phosphate, silicate) in the Southern Ocean using their newly developed methods using programmable Flow Injection (pFI) analysis. They will be able to compare these methods to different shipboard methodologies with the aim of reducing error between different international laboratories.
