During their time at the IODP’s Science Steering and Evaluation Panel Meeting (SSEP) held May 29 through June 1, 2006 in Potsdam, Germany, the MS PHD’S students wrote daily blog entries about what they were doing, seeing and learning. Following are their entries…

Held in March 2006, the Caribbean Gateway Workshop, entitled “Interaction of Neogene Tectonics, Stratigraphy and Ocean Circulation in the Southeastern Caribbean,” was developed to discuss and plan potential scientific ocean drilling in the Caribbean Sea and its approaches.

The NCSE is an annual meeting of the 150 top science teacher delegates in the United States, hosted by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). The Congress meets to discuss and make recommendations on a broad range of issues that affect science education in the United States and are of interest the the NSTA.

Newly published research results provide evidence that global climate change may have quickly disrupted ocean processes and lead to drastic shifts in environments around the world.

VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada – An international team of scientists supported by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) has completed a unique research expedition aimed at recovering samples of gas hydrate, an ice-like substance hidden beneath the seafloor off Canada’s western coast.

SAINT PAUL, MN – Dr. Jonathan Rice is a high school science teacher from Chester, VT who in 2004 had a first-hand experience as a Teacher at Sea onboard an international scientific expedition that is part of an oceanographic and undersea geologic research program that has transformed what we know about our planet.

The Bering Strait, Rapid Climate Change, and Land Bridge Paleoecology” was a USSSP-sponsored workshop held in June 2005 to discuss potential scientific ocean drilling in the Bering Sea Shelf basins. The purpose of the interdisciplinary workshop is to formulate key scientific questions, identify relevant drilling sites, discuss drilling platform options, and to begin coordinating subsequent geophysical surveys, proposals, and multi-proxy analyses.

New evidence has been found linking underwater catastrophic sand avalanches to rapid sea-level changes in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, according to marine geologists affiliated with the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP).

Research on cores recovered by the Ocean Drilling Program show that the activity of microbial life beneath the seafloor is far more diverse than expected, scientists report in the December 24 issue of Science.

Washington, DC – The Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), seeking to fulfill its educational outreach capability, hired Leslie Wynn Peart to fill the position of Education Coordinator this week. Peart, formerly of the renowned John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, plans to expand JOI’s educational outreach program.

What will some 4,000 of the smartest dressed elephant seals, tuna fish, albatrosses, leatherback sea turtles, great white sharks, and other pelagic megafauna in the Pacific all be wearing in the coming seasons? How about the latest in microprocessor-based electronic tags, some no bigger than oversized cufflinks?