Volcanoes, Iron, and Phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean

Dear Colleagues,

We are very proud to announce that Prof Mike Coffin from the University of Tasmania will give the next Department Seminar on Volcanoes, Iron, and Phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean.

Date: 12th AprilTime: 12:15Room: 3G10e (PhD lunchroom)

Biography
Marine geophysicist Mike Coffin investigates interactions between the oceanic environment and the solid Earth. He was educated at Dartmouth College (AB) and Columbia University (MA, MPhil, PhD). Ever since, he has pursued an international career that reflects the boundless nature of the global ocean. Mike has worked at Geoscience Australia (1985-1989), the University of Texas at Austin (1990-2001), the University of Tokyo (2001-2007), the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (2002-2003), the UK’s University of Southampton and National Oceanography Centre (2007-2010), and the University of Tasmania (2011-). He has also held visiting positions at Dartmouth College (1982), the University of Oslo (1992, 1996), Geoscience Australia (2000), France’s University of Strasbourg (2001), the University of Hawaii (2002), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (2016-), and the University of Maine (2017-). From 2003-2005, Mike served as the inaugural chair of the Science Planning Committee of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, the largest international program in the earth and ocean sciences, and among the largest in any scientific discipline. From 2011-2015, he served as inaugural Executive Director of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania. Mike has led or participated in 32 blue-water research expeditions, focusing mainly in the Southern, Pacific, and Indian oceans.

Abstract
Phytoplankton in the ocean supply half of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere. Iron supply limits the growth of phytoplankton in the Southern Ocean as well as elsewhere in the global ocean. Situated entirely within the anemic Southern Ocean, Australia’s only active volcanoes, Heard and McDonald islands on the Kerguelen Plateau, are among the world’s most active hotspot volcanoes. Existing data show extensive blooms of phytoplankton on the Plateau and the existence of fields of submarine volcanoes, some of which appear to be active, extending for several hundred kilometers away from the islands. Data and samples acquired during RV Investigator voyage IN2016_V01 in January/February 2016 are testing the hypothesis that hydrothermal activity driven by active submarine volcanoes in the Heard and McDonald islands region fertilises surface waters with iron, thereby enhancing biological productivity beginning with phytoplankton.