Field work off the Oregon Coast

So many projects here... Where to begin?

​Since arriving at OSU in 2016, my lab group has sampled along the entire Oregon Coast on numerous cruises, processed samples from a plankton tow archive, received funding for and deployed 2 sediment traps 65 nautical miles off-shore, collected sediment from the seafloor, and sampled in estuaries. Phew, we've been busy. A few highlights:

How do marine heat waves affect foraminifera?  For Kelsey Lane's Master's project, she investigated how marine heat waves impact foram ecology over the last 10 years, when the west coast experienced two rather intense marine heat waves. During the warming events, sub tropical, and even tropical forams, become abundant. Kelsey expanded this project during her PhD research (manuscript in prep). Kelsey's other PhD projects were conducted using forams from Catalina Island, see the Catalina Island field research pages for details.

The figure above details foram assemblages during non-MHW and MHW years. Note the transition to warmer species during he last two marine heat waves. (Lane et al., 2023)

​Sediment trap deployments. In 2021, the Fehrenbacher lab received an NSF award (with co-PI Claudia Benitez-Nelson from the University of S. Carolina) to deploy two tandem sediment traps 65 nautical miles offshore near the Ocean Observatories Initiative Slope Base node. One trap is 600m below the surface, just above the regional oxygen minimum zone, the other resides 50m above the seafloor (~2950m). We will do trace element calibrations (L. Thompson's Master's project), quantify species assemblages, MicroCT image forams to assess calcification (C. Schulte's Master's project), and compare shallow to deep traps to understand diagenetic alteration driven by dissolution in the water column. The sediment traps, deployed in Sept 2021 (photos below) are recovered and redeployed every 6 months. We have several additional projects in the works using the trap material. Stay tuned...!

In addition to the projects above, our lab has participated in multiple NOAA MBON Cruises along the NCC. These 'cruises of opportunity' have provided us with samples to quantify calcification, live/dead stable isotope chemistry, opportunities to culture forams (stay tuned for these results, publications in prep). More photos coming soon...

Select projects:

• Field research with living forams for proxy development, to study microbial/symbiont associations, and for biomineralization research.
• Barium in non-spinose foraminifera: culture experiments and proxy development.
• Laser-ablation ICP-MS method development projects
• Reconstructing upper water column hydrography using multiple species of planktic foraminifera (Post doc research)
• Electron microprobe image maps of the Mg/Ca ratio in G. ruber and N. dutertrei (PhD research)
• Carbonate ion concentration in the ocean (proxy development, PhD research)