Elizabeth Canuel | |
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Alma mater | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill |
Scientific career | |
Thesis | Seasonal variations in the sources and accumulation of organic matter in a coastal sediment (1992) |
Elizabeth A. Canuel is a chemical oceanographer known for her work on organic carbon cycling in aquatic environments. She is the Chancellor Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary and is an elected fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry.
Canuel has a B.S. in Chemistry from Stonehill College (1981) and earned her Ph.D.in Marine Science (1992) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [1] Following her Ph.D. she was a postdoctoral researcher at the United States Geological Survey until 1994 when she joined the faculty at the College of William & Mary. She was promoted to professor in 2006, and named Chancellor Professor in 2018. [1]
From 2018 until 2020 Canuel was a program officer at the National Science Foundation, and she returned there in 2021. [2]
Canuel's early research examined particles in the eastern tropical North Pacific Ocean, [3] [4] and lipid biomarkers in particles from North Carolina [5] and San Francisco. [6] She has examined the degradation of organic matter newly-placed on sediments, [7] and anoxia in the Chesapeake Bay. [8] Her research in Chesapeake Bay also considers how the source of organic matter to the bay impacts water quality. [9] [10] Canuel's use of stable isotopes extends to examining stable isotope ratios in plants from San Francisco Bay, [11] the use of stable isotopes to track sources of organic matter in estuaries, [12] how climate change will impact carbon cycling at the border between the land and the ocean [13] [14] and examining the age of organic matter in estuaries. [15]
Canuel was named a Leopold fellow in 2011. [16] [17] She was elected a fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry in 2016, [18] and was named a sustaining fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in 2019. [19]
The bathypelagic zone or bathyal zone is the part of the open ocean that extends from a depth of 1,000 to 4,000 m below the ocean surface. It lies between the mesopelagic above and the abyssopelagic below. The bathypelagic is also known as the midnight zone because of the lack of sunlight; this feature does not allow for photosynthesis-driven primary production, preventing growth of phytoplankton or aquatic plants. Although larger by volume than the photic zone, human knowledge of the bathypelagic zone remains limited by ability to explore the deep ocean.
A meromictic lake is a lake which has layers of water that do not intermix. In ordinary, holomictic lakes, at least once each year, there is a physical mixing of the surface and the deep waters.
Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is the optically measurable component of dissolved organic matter in water. Also known as chromophoric dissolved organic matter, yellow substance, and gelbstoff, CDOM occurs naturally in aquatic environments and is a complex mixture of many hundreds to thousands of individual, unique organic matter molecules, which are primarily leached from decaying detritus and organic matter. CDOM most strongly absorbs short wavelength light ranging from blue to ultraviolet, whereas pure water absorbs longer wavelength red light. Therefore, water with little or no CDOM, such as the open ocean, appears blue. Waters containing high amounts of CDOM can range from brown, as in many rivers, to yellow and yellow-brown in coastal waters. In general, CDOM concentrations are much higher in fresh waters and estuaries than in the open ocean, though concentrations are highly variable, as is the estimated contribution of CDOM to the total dissolved organic matter pool.
Professor Henry "Harry" Elderfield, was Professor of Ocean Chemistry and Palaeochemistry at the Godwin Laboratory in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He made his name in ocean chemistry and palaeochemistry, using trace metals and isotopes in biogenic carbonate as palaeochemical tracers, and studying the chemistry of modern and ancient oceans - especially those of the glacial epoch and the Cenozoic.
Dinosterol (4α,23,24-trimethyl-5α-cholest-22E-en-3β-ol) is a 4α-methyl sterol that is produced by several genera of dinoflagellates and is rarely found in other classes of protists. The steroidal alkane, dinosterane, is the 'molecular fossil' of dinosterol, meaning that dinosterane has the same carbon skeleton as dinosterol, but lacks dinosterol's hydroxyl group and olefin functionality. As such, dinosterane is often used as a biomarker to identify the presence of dinoflagelletes in sediments.
A whiting event is a phenomenon that occurs when a suspended cloud of fine-grained calcium carbonate precipitates in water bodies, typically during summer months, as a result of photosynthetic microbiological activity or sediment disturbance. The phenomenon gets its name from the white, chalky color it imbues to the water. These events have been shown to occur in temperate waters as well as tropical ones, and they can span for hundreds of meters. They can also occur in both marine and freshwater environments. The origin of whiting events is debated among the scientific community, and it is unclear if there is a single, specific cause. Generally, they are thought to result from either bottom sediment re-suspension or by increased activity of certain microscopic life such as phytoplankton. Because whiting events affect aquatic chemistry, physical properties, and carbon cycling, studying the mechanisms behind them holds scientific relevance in various ways.
The sulfate-methane transition zone (SMTZ) is a zone in oceans, lakes, and rivers typically found below the sediment surface in which sulfate and methane coexist. The formation of a SMTZ is driven by the diffusion of sulfate down the sediment column and the diffusion of methane up the sediments. At the SMTZ, their diffusion profiles meet and sulfate and methane react with one another, which allows the SMTZ to harbor a unique microbial community whose main form of metabolism is anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). The presence of AOM marks the transition from dissimilatory sulfate reduction to methanogenesis as the main metabolism utilized by organisms.
The viral shunt is a mechanism that prevents marine microbial particulate organic matter (POM) from migrating up trophic levels by recycling them into dissolved organic matter (DOM), which can be readily taken up by microorganisms. The DOM recycled by the viral shunt pathway is comparable to the amount generated by the other main sources of marine DOM.
Adina Paytan is a research professor at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. known for research into biogeochemical cycling in the present and the past. She has over 270 scientific publications in journals such as Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Geophysical Research Letters.
Benthic-pelagic coupling are processes that connect the benthic zone and the pelagic zone through the exchange of energy, mass, or nutrients. These processes play a prominent role in both freshwater and marine ecosystems and are influenced by a number of chemical, biological, and physical forces that are crucial to functions from nutrient cycling to energy transfer in food webs.
Thomas S. Bianchi is an oceanographer and biogeochemist. He is currently the Jon and Beverly Thompson Endowed Chair of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida and Editor-in-chief of the journal Marine Chemistry.
Sulfur isotope biogeochemistry is the study of the distribution of sulfur isotopes in biological and geological materials. In addition to its common isotope, 32S, sulfur has three rare stable isotopes: 34S, 36S, and 33S. The distribution of these isotopes in the environment is controlled by many biochemical and physical processes, including biological metabolisms, mineral formation processes, and atmospheric chemistry. Measuring the abundance of sulfur stable isotopes in natural materials, like bacterial cultures, minerals, or seawater, can reveal information about these processes both in the modern environment and over Earth history.
Cindy Lee is a retired Distinguished Professor known for her research characterizing the compounds that comprise marine organic matter.
Judith Ann McKenzie was an American biogeochemist known for her research on past climate change, chemical cycles in sediments, and geobiology.
Margaret (Peggy) Delaney is marine geochemist known for her research on trace elements to examine changes in ocean chemistry over time.
Carol Kendall is a hydrologist known for her research tracking nutrients and contaminants in aquatic ecosystems using isotopic tracers.
Hilairy Ellen Hartnett is professor at Arizona State University known for her work on biogeochemical processes in modern and paleo-environments.
Margaret Ruth Mulholland is professor at Old Dominion University known for her work on nutrients in marine and estuarine environments.
Helle Ploug is marine scientist known for her work on particles in seawater. She is a professor at the University of Gothenburg, and was named a fellow of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in 2017.
Water clarity is a descriptive term for how deeply visible light penetrates through water. In addition to light penetration, the term water clarity is also often used to describe underwater visibility. Water clarity is one way that humans measure water quality, along with oxygen concentration and the presence or absence of pollutants and algal blooms.