OSU Geology Faculty & Students Join NSF-Funded Expedition to Labrador Sea
Two faculty members and two graduate students from Oklahoma State University’s Boone Pickens School of Geology recently returned from a five-week NSF-funded international research expedition aboard the R/V Roger Revelle, studying sediment and seawater chemistry in the Labrador Sea. The project, A Porewater Perspective on Benthic Sources of Neodymium to the North Atlantic, explores how trace elements like iron and rare earth elements move between seawater and sediments, processes critical to ocean life, the global carbon cycle, and climate history.
Expedition Highlights:
OSU team: Dr. Ashley Burkett, Dr. Natascha Riedinger, Amanda Harding, and Monica Hinson.
Collaboration: 29 scientists from 12 institutions.
Samples collected: 55 multicores, 12 gravity cores, 28 CTD casts, and McLane pump filtrations.
Research focus: Sediment-seawater exchanges of neodymium isotopes and iron cycling, key tracers for paleoceanography and climate modeling.
Graduate students Harding and Hinson will use expedition samples for their theses, gaining hands-on experience in marine geochemistry, sediment biogeochemistry, and paleoceanography. The team’s work will improve understanding of how the Labrador Sea shapes global ocean circulation, nutrient supply, and climate change resilience.