Rocking the Lab Coats!

This past Thursday and Friday we visited our collaborators at the U.S. Geological Survey, St Petersburg Coastal & Marine Science Center in St. Petersburg, FL. I received ICP-OES (Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectromemtry) training while running samples for my dissertation project. We have heard many comments in the past that women cannot be scientists, even by little girls. ICP training was attended by only women! There are strong females in the sciences and we are going to rock our lab coats!

Why do we use an ICP-OES? We use the equipment to determine the ratio of strontium-to-calcium in the coral skeleton which can tell us past sea surface temperatures. My dissertation project will reconstruct 220 years of sea surface temperatures in Veracruz, Mexico using Montastraea faveolata (star coral) coral colonies.

In other new we have a new Phd student in the lab! We welcome Gil Ouellette to our lovely lab group.