A recent study describes the discovery of a new photochemical process that generates the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) in aquatic ecosystems. Without the help of the usual microorganisms that are known to produce N2O, this abiotic mechanism, termed “photochemodenitrification,” occurs in both fresh and marine surface waters and is driven by sunlight in the presence of inorganic nitrogen. Elizabeth Leon-Palmero, a postdoctoral fellow in the The Ward Lab at the Department of Geosciences, is lead author on the paper, which has just been published in the journal Science.
Princeton’s department of geosciences recently hosted the eighth International Conference on Nitrification and Related Processes (ICoN8). The five-day event, held from July 30 to August 3 of this year, brought together scientists and researchers from all over the world to discuss and share current research on nitrification and related processes in the nitrogen cycle.
When oceanographer Bess Ward was granted research time aboard the R/V Sally Ride during the middle of the spring semester, she had to figure out how to teach GEO 428, “Biological Oceanography,” from the Pacific Ocean. She created a teaching schedule that used student presentations, a series of guest lecturers, and her first teaching assistant…
On two ~25 day long, trans-Atlantic cruises, members of the Ward Lab ventured to the subarctic ocean. In collaboration with the Sigman Lab (Princeton University) they studied the contribution of pico- to meso-sized plankton to the cycling of carbon and nitrogen. These late summer (2013) and spring (2014) subarctic North Atlantic cruises followed-up the cruises in the western subtropical gyre (Sargasso Sea) and provided the opportunity to compare the roles of plankton functional groups between tw
"THE ADVENTURES OF A SCIENCE TEACHER AT SEA" Over the next two months, Ms. B, a high school chemistry teacher will be blogging about her experiences as she joins Princeton University’s North Atlantic Research Expedition. The topics will discuss: life as a scientist on board the vessel, the science of what they are studying, the daily activities in a science lab, how to run experiments, and anything else that Ms. B finds informative, interesting, or just plain awesome.
Bess Ward and her group from Princeton University, joined by Malcolm Woodward from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, are embarked on a 25 day cruise in the subarctic North Atlantic as part of an NSF funded project “Dimensions of Biodiversity: Functional Diversity of Marine Eukaryotic Phytoplankton” (Ward and Sigman PIs).
Geosciences chair Bess Ward, her research group, and other scientists on board the research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer cast their final farewell blog. The research cruise was on a 5-week mission to measure various aspects of the nitrogen cycle off the coasts of Peru and Chile. Some crew members have unprecedentedly been able to remotely blog from the ship. They expected it to take over a year to compile and analyze all the data collected.
Geosciences chair Bess Ward and her research group continue to write and upload images from their real-time logs from the RV Nathaniel B. Palmer research ship.
The ETSP2013 Cruise is a research expedition to the Eastern Tropical North Pacific aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer ice-capable research ship that is occurring from June 23 – July 28, 2013.