Tags: Earth

undersea photo of burrowing activity on sea floor
Burrowing animals control carbon cycling on the sea floor

Researchers from ETH Zurich and UGA show that the activity of burrowing worms, clams, and shrimp are the most important driver of the community structure of microorganisms in the Earth's biggest carbon sink: continental shelf sediments. The results were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Sediments underlying the world’s oceans and shelf seas cover >70% of the Earth’s surface area. These…

black and white photo of volcanic eruption
40-years since the Mt. St. Helen's eruption

Earlier this week, May 18 marked the anniversary of an epic geological event: the eruption of the Mt. St. Helen's volcano in 1980. Mattia Pistone, assistant professor in the department of geology, offered an assessment of the scientific effort in the 40 years since the eruption: After 40 years since the eruption of Mt St Helens of May 18, 1980, volcanologists strive to forecast the likelihood, magnitude, and style of…

photo of woman with book
2020 Virtual CURO Symposium

UGA undergraduates, including hundreds of Franklin College majors, shared their research endeavors in a new way this spring during the 2020 Virtual CURO Symposium held April 21-24: After mentoring from faculty members across various UGA colleges, students shared a total of 580 posters and oral presentations using UGA’s eLearning Commons. Student presenters, faculty members and anyone who requested access were able to…

photo of five people with sensor gear on boat, ocean in background, day
New undergraduate major in Ocean Science

The Department of Marine Sciences announces a new University of Georgia undergraduate major, available to UGA students beginning in fall 2020, the bachelor of science in Ocean Science. The Ocean Science B.S. program provides undergraduates with the opportunity to study marine systems from an interdisciplinary perspective, and will prepare students for careers in Marine Sciences and other environmental fields. OCEAN SCIENCE MAJOR Overview The…

photo of woman outdoors on bridge over highway
Angela Tsao named 2020 Udall Scholar

UGA junior Angela Tsao is working to advance research at the intersection of computer science and sustainability, and her focus has earned her national recognition as a 2020 Udall Scholar: She was one of 55 undergraduates selected from across the nation and U.S. territories for the scholarship, which is awarded to sophomores and juniors on the basis of their commitment to careers in the environment, Native health care or Tribal…

image of historic shell concrete
Archaeologists verify Florida’s Mound Key as site of elusive Spanish fort

Archaeologists from UGA and the Florida Museum of Natural History have discovered the location of Fort San Antón de Carlos, home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. The Spanish fort was built in 1566 in the capital of the Calusa, the most powerful Native American tribe in the region, on present-day Mound Key in the center of Estero Bay on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Archaeologists and historians have long suspected…

photo graphic of globe model in two hands
50th Anniversary Earth Day

The University of Georgia’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day 2020 will be held online. Most notably, the UGA Earth (Art) Day Challenge, open to the university and Athens community, to create an online exhibition of creative works expressing how participants are connecting with and appreciating the Earth, people or other living creatures during this time of uncertainty, and how this can inspire an even better future. The…

illustration of people fishing with a large net
Calusa stored fish in 16th-century 'watercourts'

New research from anthropology professor Victor Thompson sheds light on innovative hunter-gatherer practices in early Florida: [The] Calusa ruled South Florida for centuries, wielding military power, trading and collecting tribute along routes that sprawled hundreds of miles, creating shell islands, erecting enormous buildings and dredging canals wider than some highways. Unlike the Aztecs, Maya and Inca, who built their empires…

photo of motorcycle driving on a road with monkeys on the sides of the road
Feeding wildlife can disrupt the social lives of animal communities

New research from UGA Anthropology has found that the practice of feeding wildlife could be more detrimental to animals than previously thought. In a paper published recently in Nature Scientific Reports, researchers found that feeding wildlife can disrupt the social lives of animal communities, which they discovered by observing and documenting the behavior of moor macaque monkeys along a wooded roadway on the island of Sulawesi in eastern…

photo of buildings with budding tree in foreground
The future of Science Hill

Modernization and expansion to continue to fulfill the university's teaching and research missions, a critical part of campus will become the focus of renovations in the near future: “To remain one of the nation’s top research universities, the University of Georgia must maximize its available facilities devoted to scientific inquiry,” said President Jere W. Morehead. “Our comprehensive plan combines new and renovated research facilities to…

photo of three people in laboratory, with white lab coats
Westpheling named Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar

Janet Westpheling, professor of genetics in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of genetics, has been selected for the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program. Since 1956, the program has been offering undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. Westpheling teaches undergraduate and graduate classes in genetics and trains undergraduates, graduate students and…

photo of a flock of birds
State of the Art Symposium on Collective Behavior March 20

From the coordinated blinking of fireflies to the synchronized movement of flocks of birds or schools of fish and even the exploration pattern of roots in the soil, collective behavior characters all domains of biology – animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and viruses. The University of Georgia Institute of Bioinformatics presents the State of the Art Symposium on Collective Behavior Friday, March 20, 2020 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Masters Hall…

satellite photo of Gulf of Mexico, with red spill outline
Noted and quoted, February 2020

Critical views, insights, commentary, and explanation from Franklin College faculty over the month of February. A sample: Column: If you drink milk, thank Big Government, Stephen Mihm, associate professor of history writing in his regular column at Bloomberg February: The cruelest month, Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor Marshall Shepherd in the Eau Claire (WI) Leader-Telegram Clay — incredibly…

map with river highlighted in green with depth indicators
Mapping important fish habitats along the Georgia coast

Beyond the barrier islands of coastal Georgia, the continental shelf extends gradually eastward for almost 80 miles to the Gulf Stream. This broad, sandy shelf largely does not provide the firm foundation needed for the development of reef communities to support recreational and commercial fish species including grouper, snapper, black sea bass and amberjack. “Natural and artificial reef habitats are important to Georgia fisheries because…

photo of students at a classroom table
Class redesign increases student success in math

A significant redesign of two foundational UGA mathematics courses has led to remarkable gains in student success, including an increase from 65% to 85% of students who pass precalculus: While the DFW (grade of D, grade of F or Withdrawal) rate for students taking precalculus averages 27% nationally, according to the Mathematical Association of America, the DFW rate at UGA has dropped from 35% six years ago to approximately 15% last fall.…

photo of woman with artwork
Capturing Science Contest 2020

UGA Libraries’ competition encourages (and rewards!) creativity to help communicate ideas in any format students might imagine: When most people think of climate science, their only visual reference is a disaster movie. But Alison Banks knows that things are more complicated. As she modeled scenarios in her work as a master’s student in geography, Banks was inspired to create her own representation of the possibilities. With an…

photo of man with student son rooftop weather station
Shepherd wins AAAS science engagement award

J. Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist whose diverse communication efforts engage a wide audience on weather, climate, and the relationship between science and society, will receive the 2020 Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science: As the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor and director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of…

photo of people on a dock near water, woman at center
Cooperation and control in ocean microbial communities

The volume of the world’s oceans defines the gigantic scale on Earth – 300 million cubic miles, and an average depth of 12,000 feet. Of all the activity taking place there at every moment, any one part can be difficult to understand, making predictions difficult if not impossible. But scientists are starting to figure out some of its most complex processes. The concentration of bacteria around phytoplankton, for example, and how these…

graphic with colorfully drawn birds and paper
Noted and Quoted, January 2020

Franklin faculty provided expert commentary and analysis as well as important new research in a strong start to 2020. Here are a few of the top stories so far this year: Voting rights restoration gives felons a voice in more states – associate professor sociology Sarah Shannon quoted by PEW,  St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Crime Report, KyForward Five social media posts about weather that need to go…

group photo of people outside daytime, four sitting, eight standing
Franklin faculty lead UGA project to transform STEM education

Funded by a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the Department and Leadership Teams for Action program, or DeLTA, will engage more than 100 University of Georgia faculty across multiple departments to transform STEM education at institutions of higher education nationwide. Principal investigator Paula Lemons, an associate professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology, explained that she and her colleagues…

photo of woman, indoors
Inaugural Chhabra-Landau Lecture features materials science engineer Sharon Glotzer

The Center for Simulational Physics presents the inaugural Chhabra-Landau lecture on Thursday Jan. 9, 2020 at 3:30 p.m. in room 202 of the Physics building. The speaker is Sharon Glotzer, the Anthony C. Lembke Department Chair of Chemical Engineering, the John Werner Cahn Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and the Stuart W. Churchill Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where she is also…

photo mosaic image of building, sky and trees
Happy Holidays!

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences wishes you all the best for the holidays and in the new year 2020! University of Georgia offices will be closed beginning December 25 and re-open January 2, 2020.

photo of campus quad in waning daylight
2019 in Review

The many great Franklin College stories of 2019 create a vibrant image of ongoing excellence at every level. Our faculty, students and staff are leading the University of Georgia in its most dynamic era yet. From TED Fellows to Guggenheim Fellowships, imaginative research and teaching draw out the best in our students. Our colleagues provided elegant expression to the fire at Notre Dame de Paris and the death of Toni Morrison,…

photo of indoor commencement ceremony celebration, with streamers
Fall Commencement 2019

The University of Georgia will welcome its newest alumni Dec. 13 as 1,799 undergraduates and 1,263 graduate students—a total of 3,062—have met requirements to walk in the university’s fall Commencement ceremonies. The undergraduate Commencement ceremony is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in Stegeman Coliseum, and tickets are required. The graduate ceremony does not require tickets and will follow at 2:30 p.m. Regent Kessel D. Stelling Jr…

headshot photo of a man outdoors
Nzengung elected to National Academy of Inventors

Valentine Nzengung, professor of environmental geochemistry in the Franklin College Department of Geology who has conducted groundbreaking research on phytoremediation techniques, has been named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, becoming the eighth UGA faculty member to receive the honor, all since 2013: Nzengung is the founder and CEO of MuniRem Environmental, which provides remediation products and services for…
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