Journey to the Ocean Floor
Narragansett, R.I. — March 12, 2002 — The public is invited to attend a free Science for Breakfast Lecture, sponsored by Friends of Oceanography, to be held on Thursday, March 21, at 9 a.m. in the Coastal Institute Building on the URI Bay Campus. The lecture is part of a series featuring the research of URI Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) students.
The March 21 lecture, “Volcanoes, Worms, and Rocks: What IS on the Seafloor?” will be presented by geological oceanography graduate student Kelly O’Connell of Narragansett.
O’Connell will talk about the great diversity found on the seafloor. Around 70% of the Earth is covered by the oceans and yet it is the most unexplored place on Earth. Over the past few decades scientist have developed more and more ways to sample or see the processes that create and destroy the seafloor. She will discuss the ways that scientists can do this and what they discover as a result.
A native of Maryland, O’Connell received a B.S. in geology from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Under the guidance of her major professor, Dr. Steven Carey, she studies the changes in seafloor depths before and after the 1883 eruption that destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatau. She is working on her master’s thesis entitled “Subaqueous Pyroclastic Flow: Deposits from the 1883 Eruption of Krakatau Volcano, Sunda Straits, Indonesia.”
The lecture is free and open to the public. Coffee and muffins will be served. For more information, call Friends of Oceanography at (401) 874-6642.
Friends of Oceanography is a community-based membership organization established in 1986 to support the educational and public programs of the URI Graduate School of Oceanography. Friends provides financial support of fellowships for GSO students, and other research, education, and outreach activities. The organization also helps sponsor a variety of special events such as oceanography lecture series, open houses at the Bay Campus, The JASON Project, and the National Ocean Sciences Bowl.
Contact: Lisa Cugini, (401) 874-6642, lcugini@gso.uri.edu