Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
Increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to more dissolved CO2 in the world's oceans. In turn this will increase the hydrogen ion concentration in seawater, and lower pH from pre-industrial levels (8.179) to present day levels (8.104) in a process known as "ocean acidification". Note that even projected pH levels of 7.824 in 2050 are still above neutral. Regardless, many scientists are concerned that calcifying marine organisms like corals, mollusks, echinoderms and coccolithophores will be vulnerable to dissolution under the projected 'less alkaline' regime.
A new study published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, and Geosystems (G Cubed) by French researchers Luc Beaufort, Ian Probert, and Noelle Bouchet uses a new method to estimate the effect of dissolution on calcium carbonate plates (coccoliths) secreted by Emiliana huxleyi coccolithophores. E. huxleyi is a cosmopolitan single celled algae responsible for a good deal of global primary production. The researchers conducted two acidification experiments, using cultured and fossil coccoliths.The results indicate that acidification does not change significantly the weight and size of coccoliths.
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