I've had the privilege of interviewing marine biologists, conservationists, evolutionists, and scientists.  Where to go from here?  Now that our Marine Geology has "erupted" onto the scene (pun totally intended), we're doing a Q&A with Dr. Erik W. Klemetti, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California who studies volcanism.

Yep, that's right, he studies all aspects of volcanoes from why it takes a certain amount of time to drive a particular volcano to erupt to the marks and ridges that erupted volcanoes leave behind.

"I am fascinated by volcanoes, their eruptions and how those eruptions interact with the people who live around the volcanoes," Dr. Klemetti writes on his blog Eruptions.

We found Hari Srinivas in an effort to contact someone from the Global Development Research Center (GRDC) just in time for World Oceans Day on June 8.  The Center had already made every effort to promote ocean conservation and appeal to the United Nations in order to make World Oceans Day an official day of recognition.  See here.

We got one of the best people we could--Hari is The coordinator of the Center.

Little did we know that the GRDC was based in Japan, and when we found Hari Srinivas, he had just returned from Ethiopia to be thrust into all the chaos and conservation that went into promoting World Oceans Day.

Hari wasn't able to get to us in time for the big Ocean event, but he kindly answered our questions later and we had the opportunity to find out a great deal--from his opinion on current climate issues to the perspective of the GRDC to the marine situation in Japan!

Here's how to make a successful book. Take two climate change advocates--one climate modeller, one photographer, mix them together, add some beautiful pictures, and a pinch of some of the best climate  information around and Voila! You get Climate Change: Picturing The Science, the popular book by Gavin Schmidt and Josh Wolfe, which shows the impact of climate change through glorious photos.

Some of the best shots include pictures of the ocean, with threats to coral reefs and increasing ocean acidification, shots of the coast, and the sensitive polar ecosystems.  You won't believe your eyes!

After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!

Can each of you tell me about your backgrounds?

Don't know about the Finding Coral expedition? Well you do now! After all, it IS the first of its kind.  You'll see what I mean.

The Finding Coral expedition took off on June 8th to search for deep sea corals in Hecate Strait and the Queen Charlotte Basin. What the group calls a "blue ribbon" science team of 17 technicians, biologists, researchers and more, will head two deep worker manned submarine and travel to the depths of the sea searching for evidence of corals, associated species, and damage from human impacts.

This expedition is the first of its kind in British Columbia! It's designed to study deep water corals and threats to their well being. With the help of the Living Oceans Society, the Finding Coral expedition team members are doing just that!

The International Marine Conservation Congress (IMCC) was held on May 19 – 24 at George Mason University in Washington, DC.  The meeting was attended by over 1200 people, and addressed themes such as climate change; the land-sea interface; ecosystem-based management; and poverty and globalization.  Cross-cutting issues included marine protected areas (MPAs); education; outreach and capacity building; governance arrangements; fisheries and aquaculture; and economics.  The conference was devoted to practical conservation, that is, using science to drive marine policy and policy implementation.  The most important section of the conference from the perspective of our organization (the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, or ASOC) was a symposium organized by our colleague Dr. David Ainley titled:  The Ross Sea, Antarctica:  Science, Policy, and the Public in a Pristine Marine Ecosystem.

The symposium in part explained why the Ross Sea constitutes a unique ecosystem on par with such famous sites as the Galapagos Islands and other World Heritage sites, even though the Ross Sea does not yet have the same name recognition as some of those places.   

Map copyright WDCS/ASOC.

Thanks to Lina Hansson for some updates on some interesting experiments  the EPOCA has been conducting to study and combat ocean acidification...

The European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) just completed its first large-scale field experiment in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. Fifteen EPOCA scientists from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France participated in the campaign - aimed at investigating the response of Arctic communities to elevated CO2. Organisms living on the sea floor, such as barnacles, sea urchins, brittlestars, algae and crabs, were sampled by divers and placed in indoor mesocosms – aquaria in which pH and other parameters are controlled. In 2010, about 40 EPOCA scientists will return to Svalbard, this time to study planktonic communities using offshore mesocosm facilities of several cubic metres.