Conferencia sobre la plataforma de hielo Larsen

Conferencia “LARISSA, the LARsen Ice Shelf System: integrating biology, geology and glaciology to understand abrupt environmental changes in coastal Antarctica”.

El Austral Summer Institute XIII (ASI XIII), organizado por el Departamento de Oceanografía y el Centro COPAS Sur-Austral de la UdeC, anuncia la conferencia “LARISSA, the LARsen Ice Shelf System: integrating biology, geology and glaciology to understand abrupt environmental changes in coastal Antarctica".

La charla será dictada por la Dra. María Vernet de Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Estados Unidos y se realizará el miércoles 16 de enero de 2013, a las 15:00 horas, en la Sala 205, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Oceanográficas.

Se invita a académicos, investigadores y estudiantes de pre y post grado de las áreas afines.

ABSTRACT: A profound transformation in ecosystem structure and function is occurring in coastal waters of the western Weddell Sea. This transformation is yielding a redistribution of energy flow between chemical-based and light-based biological production, and causing the rapid demise of the extraordinary deep ecosystem discovered beneath the ice shelf (cold seep). An integrated, multi-disciplinary program is addressing these rapid and fundamental changes occurring in the Antarctic Peninsula region as a consequence of the abrupt collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in the fall of 2002: the LARISSA project. Results to date show that previously dark, oligotrophic waters of the Larsen embayments now support a thriving light-based phytoplankton community, with production rates and phytoplankton composition similar to other productive areas of the Weddell Sea. This production is sinking and accumulates in sediments, providing food for the establishment of new benthic communities. The development of a new paleoproductivity index in marine sediments links ocean productivity measured as DMSP (dimethyl sulfonopropionate) and MSA (methyl sulfonic acid) measured in ice cores, within time scales of thousand of years. The interdisciplinary research has provided a rich environment to develop new techniques and a more comprehensive way of establishing energy flow in coastal Antarctic environments.

Website: http://www.hamilton.edu/news/exp/LARISSA/