Fossil Fest rescheduled for April 26

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Oregon coast fossilsNEWPORT –  Guy “Oregon Fossil Guy” DiTorrice returns OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center on Saturday, April 26, for this year’s edition of the popular Fossil Fest – rescheduled from early February due to snow.

DiTorrice, a longtime fossil hunter and lecturer, joins Dr. William Orr for special presentations about fossil finds in Oregon and elsewhere. Mike Full, a local Pleistocene fossil hound, and Newport’s own Kent Gibson will show exhibits of amazing Oregon fossils, and the American Research Group will host additional displays and hands-on activities for the whole family. Visitors are invited to bring their own “mystery fossils” for expert identification.

Schedule:

  • 11:30 am – Guy DiTorrice speaks about seeking and finding dinosaur fossils at the Montana ranch where parts of Jurassic Park were filmed, including Duckbill (Hadrosaurus) dig sites .
  • 1:30 pm – Dr. Bill Orr, “In Search of the Conodont Animal” – a talk about the recent discovery of a small fish-like animal that has for 150 years been a mystery to the paleontology community. The Conodonts are one of the most important guide fossils to the entire Paleozoic interval of time: a duration of 300 million years, and the discovery has stirred immense interest among paleontologists.

All day:

  • Mike Full’s “Willamette Valley Pleistocene Project” display captures a glimpse of 50,000 years of prehistory in our own backyard. Giant bison and wooly mammoth fossils will be on display.
  • Kent Gibson, who has provided fossils to the Smithsonian’s collection will display a cross-section of fossils found in Lincoln County, including dolphin skulls, scallops, and whale vertebrata.

All events take place in the HMSC Visitor Center, which is open to the public from 10 am to 4 pm.

For more information, visit the HMSC Visitor Center Website.

Oregon Sea Grant partners in new regional STEM Hub grant

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Youngsters explore wave energy lab at HMSCNEWPORT – Oregon Sea Grant is partnering with the Lincoln County School District to create a new Oregon Coast Regional STEM Hub to serve coastal communities from Astoria to Coos Bay.

The effort, under a $644,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Education, will be based at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center under the guidance of Sea Grant’s marine education team. The goal is to help equip teachers to better provide STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education to k-12 students.

The grant is to the Lincoln County School District, which is partnering with Sea Grant, Tillamook School District and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. The new STEM Hub is one of six across Oregon intended to foster 21st Century career skills, particularly for historically under-served student populations. The new Oregon Coast Regional STEM Hub will help provide coastal schools and educators with the tools and support necessary to deliver world-class STEM instruction to rural students.

Learn more

 

Sea Grant survey: Coastal professionals, managers concerned about climate change

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High surf at Fishing RockThe American public may be divided over whether climate is changing, but coastal managers and elected officials in nine states say they see the change happening—and believe their communities will need to adapt.

That’s one finding from a NOAA Sea Grant research project, led by Oregon Sea Grant and involving multiple other Sea Grant programs, which surveyed coastal leaders in selected parts of the nation’s Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf and Great Lakes coasts, as well as Hawaii.

Three quarters of coastal professionals surveyed – and 70% of all participants – said they believe that the climate in their area is changing—a marked contrast to results of some national surveys of the broader American public which have found diverse and even polarized views about climate change and global warming.

The Sea Grant survey was developed to understand what coastal/resource professionals and elected officials think about climate change, where their communities stand in planning for climate adaptation and what kinds of information they need, said project leader Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant.  Sea Grant programs in Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois-Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington—states that represent most of NOAA’s coastal regions—took part, administering the survey at various times between January 2012 and November 2013.

Learn more:

Invasive species still a threat, three years after Japan tsunami

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Oregon Sea Grant’s invasive species specialist, Sam Chan, visited Vancouver B.C. recently and took some time to walk the beaches with his Canadian counterparts and talk about the potential for unwanted plant and animal visitors, washed to sea in the Japanese tsunami of 2011, to make it to North American shores – and the consequences if they do:

Sam Chan in Vancouver
http://globalnews.ca/video/1136779/still-waiting-for-tsunami-debris

Big sale on Oregon Sea Grant publications and videos!

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Now through February 28, 2014, Oregon Sea Grant is offering 20 to 30 percent discounts on all its sale-adpublications and videos.

You can purchase most of our publications and videos (including such favorites as the Oregon Coast Quests Book and Boats of the Oregon Coast) at a 20 percent discount, but three are available at a 30 percent discount—Pathways to Resilience, The Oregon Rain Garden Guide (printed copy, not pdf version), and Celilo Falls DVD.

To purchase online, go to marketplace.oregonstate.edu and use these promotional codes: 28Feb20% (20% discount) or 28Feb30% (30% discount available only on the three products mentioned above). Please note that you might not be able to use both codes in one order, so you may need to place two separate orders if you wish to use both codes.

 

Funds available for social science research

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Oregon Sea Grant will release a special call for Social Science and Human Dimension Research proposals on Monday, February 3, 2014.

Researchers who intend to respond must submit a Letter of Intent by Friday, February 14. Full Proposals will be due Monday March 3, 2014. The principal investigator on each proposal must be faculty at any public or private institution of higher education in Oregon.

We expect to invest up to $300,000 in two to four projects addressing one or more of our strategic planning focus areas. Examples might include learning more about factors that help or hinder Oregon’s coastal communities in becoming more resilient to social, economic or environmental stress, challenges communities face in moving toward-ecosystem-based management, or community governance concerns and challenges.

Learn more:

Despite speculation, scientists see no Fukushima radiation risk in albacore

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Japan’s nuclear disaster released hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive water in 2011, sparking rampant speculation that a contaminated plume would reach the waters of North America’s West Coast.

Three years later, such speculation is alive and well on the Internet. But scientists in Oregon and California have collected samples of tuna, a fish known to migrate back and forth across the Pacific, analyzed them for radioactive isotopes, Cesium-134 in particular, from Fukushima – and found levels so low they are barely detectable.

Delvan Neville labels albacore samplesDelvan Neville, a PhD candidate in Radiation Health Physics at Oregon State University, has tested dozens of samples of albacore tuna for radioactivity. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s intervention levels for cesium 134 and cesium 137 is 1200 becquerels per kilogram. The highest levels he’s seen in his albacore, of both cesium 134 and cesium 137 combined, is 1 becquerel per kilogram – a level so low that his device couldn’t pick it up until he concentrated the samples.

“That’s more than 1,000 times lower than the point where the FDA would even think about whether they need to let people eat that food still,” he said.

Neville, along with OSU fisheries graduate Jason Phillips, is working with Dr. Lorenzo Cianelli, a marine biologist with OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences , to learn more about the migration patterns of Pacific albacore. Their initial work was funded in part by Oregon Sea Grant and NOAA.

It was only the timing of their research – coinciding with the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster – that led the scientists to consider radiation as a possible marker for learning which waters fish caught off the US Pacific coast might have traveled.

Learn more

 

 

Noted salmon biologist and fisheries historian to speak at OSU

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Salmon, People and PlaceCORVALLIS, Ore. – Jim Lichatowich, a noted biologist and author, will discuss the fate of Pacific salmon during a presentation on Wednesday, Jan. 15, at Oregon State University. The free, public event begins at 7 p.m. in the rotunda of the Valley Library on campus.

Lichatowich will speak about his new book, “Salmon, People, and Place: A Biologist’s Search for Salmon Recovery,” which was just published by the OSU Press.

Joining Lichatowich will be Carmel Finley, an OSU science historian, and author of “All the Fish in the Sea,” which was published in 2012 by the University of Chicago Press.

In his OSU Press book, Lichatowich points out many misconceptions about salmon that have hampered management and limited recovery programs. These programs will continue to fail, he argues, as long as resource managers look at salmon as “products” and ignore their essential relationship with the environment.

Lichatowich served for years on the Independent Scientific Advisory board for the Columbia River restoration program, as well as on Oregon’s Independent Multidisciplinary Science Team and other science groups in British Columbia and California. He is author of the award-winning book, “Salmon without Rivers: A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis.”

Finley and Lichatowich will discuss the status of salmon recovery, address its problems and outline the potential for revitalization. Audience members will have the opportunity to pose questions to the scientists, purchase books and have them signed.

Learn more

Shark Day in Newport next weekend

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Shark Riddle CoverNEWPORT – Saturday is all about sharks as the Hatfield Marine Science Center celebrates its annual  “Shark Day” at the Visitor Center on Jan. 11.

Join Oregon Sea Grant’s marine educators and scientists for a day of shark science, with a full day of hands-on crafts, family activities and games.  The Shark Riddle film and education program will be presented in Hennings Auditorium in the morning and again in the afternoon.  The Visitor Center is open from 10 am to 4 pm, and as always, admission is by donation.

SCHEDULE:

  • 11:00am and 2:45pm – Film: The Shark Riddle (30 min)
  • 11:30am and 3:15pm – Shark based education program

Fellowship opportunities in the new year

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Check out several new fellowship opportunities, including the newly announced 2015 Knauss Fellowship:  http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/education/fellowships

Current opportunities

Want to find out more what it’s like to be an Oregon Sea Grant Scholar?