Student prepares for another research trip on high seas

It’s time for Jimmy Maritz ’05 to go back to sea. This time, though, the geology major will have to dress differently. Very differently.

On April 12, Maritz heads to Antarctica with Colgate geology professor Amy Leventer. They are taking part in a monthlong collaborative research trip led by Hamilton College professor Eugene Domack.

Over the years, Domack has gathered professors and undergraduates from various colleges for expeditions to Antarctica. The research projects, funded by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs, are examining climate change on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is undergoing greater warming than almost anywhere on Earth.

Leventer has worked with Domack since the mid-1990s. Over the past six years, she has taken about a dozen Colgate students with her on the Antarctic research “cruises.”

Maritz gets to go on this year’s trip. And he’s excited.

“It’s a great opportunity, and I’m honored to be picked to go,” said Maritz. “It gives me another chance to see if I really enjoy oceanography and if it’s something I should consider (after Colgate).”

Maritz already knows that being at sea can be demanding. Last semester, he took part in a program offered through the Colgate Department of Geology that involved six weeks aboard a two-masted brigantine exploring the Caribbean and six weeks of study at Woods Hole, Mass.

The Sea Education Association program combines intensive research in the areas of oceanography, maritime studies, and nautical science with hands-on experience aboard a traditional sailing ship.   Piloting, celestial navigation, and practical seamanship are learned together with oceanographic sampling techniques and marine laboratory procedures.

Maritz studied surface sediments around Tobago, one of the southernmost islands of the Caribbean archipelago. He also learned that working 12-hour shifts on board can be physically demanding, and that teamwork and communication among his fellow sailors are critical to any trip’s success.

“It was a great introduction to oceanography,” he said.

During this upcoming trip, the Caribbean breezes will be replaced by the bitter wind and severe cold of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Maritz and Leventer will be traveling first to Punta Arenas, in the southernmost tip of Chile. They will then take a boat across the Drake Passage to the peninsula, which juts north from the Antarctica continent for about 800 miles.

The researchers’ main focus will be the Larsen Ice Shelf, the third largest in Antarctica, which has experienced catastrophic decay since the mid 1990s. While some scientists say it’s too early to conclude the reduction of the ice shelf is the result of global warming, others say it is evidence of just that.

Leventer and Maritz will be studying diatoms, single-celled algae with a hard silica skeleton that serve as a permanent record of past climate. They will collect diatoms in sediment cores from the western Weddell Sea.

The researchers will examine how any changes in the temperature of the surface water have affected the small plants. By looking at their results and all the data gathered by fellow researchers, the team can assess what role temperature change has had on the area.

It is a true collaborative effort, Leventer said. Besides those from Hamilton and Colgate, other researchers are coming from Montclair State University; Queens University in Kingston, Ontario; Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; Earth and Space Research, a nonprofit institute based in Seattle; OGS, an oceanography institute based in Trieste, Italy; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Domack, the lead researcher from Hamilton, recently was awarded $851,941 from the National Science Foundation for the three-year project.

After the trip ends on May 12, Maritz will have a short time to get his things together and hopefully get back to his home in St. Louis to see his sister graduate from high school. Then, it’s back to the Colgate campus in July to assist Leventer in analyzing the data collected during their Antarctica expedition.

Maritz will use his Antarctica experience for a thesis project. After that, who knows? The trip and the experience it will provide offer him a new set of options to consider.

The Colgate student who went to Antarctica with Leventer in March 2003, Emily Constantine ’04, is now working for Raytheon Polar Services. Raytheon provides technical support for the research teams working under the auspices of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs.

Constantine is on board the R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer, which is sailing in the western Ross Sea near Antarctica. She said in an e-mail from aboard the ship that she ‘thoroughly enjoyed’ working on deck and the technical aspects involved in facilitating science while she was on her first Antarctica cruise with Leventer.

With Leventer’s help, she was hired by Raytheon and now is working as a marine technician, providing support for the science groups.

Constantine said she also took the Sea Education Association program that Maritz had, and she was able to complete her requirements for graduation a semester early. She said she’s coming back to campus this month to visit friends and then again in May to attend commencement.