MESSAGES FROM THE FACULTY
The two years since the last news letter have been really busy, as with the other department members. We all seem to have developed so many outside contacts and professional opportunities. The Antarctic cruises for undergraduate research are no longer funded by NSF, but we are working on numerous publications based on the 1990 and 1992 Polar Duke cruises. The Ocean Drilling Program is also considering a site proposal for a hole in the Palmer Deep, based in-part on our bathymetric mapping, coring and Huntec seismic profiling efforts. Venice, Italy has become a new focus of research as I have been helping Albert Ammerman, an archaeologist, find sites of the earliest inhabitants of that famous sinking city. The estuarine silt deposits of the lagoon and the underlying river floodplain deposits have been incisized by the meandering and shifting tidal channels thus destroying some early habitation sites. We are starting to map out such events using a combination of coring and seismic reflection for mapping. This basic model of estuarine evolution is helping the Italians see their city and its archaeology in a whole new way. The food, wine, and culture are a lot of fun as well. Multiple grants from both the Colgate Research Council and the Delmas Foundation have funded most of this work. It also inspired an NSF-ARI grant to purchase easily portable side-scan-sonar and seismic-reflection equipment, now housed at Hobart Wm. Smith Colleges. This will help in the Venice work and in our Lake Ontario coastal erosion and sedimentation studies with Paul Pinet. Summer research students have been joined by students monitoring the importance of beach ice formation and ice rafting transport for the last three years. Only one student has fallen in and he was pulled out before he froze or even went into shock.
Otherwise the teaching of Oceanography, Marine Geology and GNED 300 - Global Change has continued in a series of ever evolving formats. Administration of Tier III and its new Liberal Arts CORE curriculum (GNED replacement), including particularly the new Scientific Perspective courses, has been demanding because of the thirty plus faculty involved in designing this new series of offerings.
Family is fine, with Hannah using her Architecture degree for part-time free-lance design consulting when not distracted by visits to our first grandchild (Sarah of Sasha and Dave Dohan in Hanover, NH) or Aaron at Georgia Tech, in the Computer Sciences - Masters program.