Describing the vegetation at the Alpine Garden
This week I traveled up to Mt. Washington with this year’s EAPS FPOP (Freshman Pre-Orientation Program) Discover Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences: Extreme Weather & Climate. It’s the third time I’ve acted as a TA for the program by heading up the flora and fauna section, or what is now more commonly known as “Flora with Laura.”
The 3 day program is Spotlighted on the PAOC website, Continue reading
Share on FacebookPoster presented at the Ecology of Soil Microorganisms conference in Prague, 2011:
Ecology of Soil Microorganisms
Topic: Soil microorganisms dominate the fate of atmospheric molecular hydrogen (H2 ) and comprise an estimated 75-80% of its global sink. Recent work has linked atmospheric H2 uptake to a novel high-affinity [NiFe]-hydrogenase expressed in active Streptomyces sp. cells [1], and is perhaps not driven by abiotic hydrogenases as was previously thought. Consequently, atmospheric hydrogen may be a 60-85 Tg yr−1 energetic supplement to microbes in Earth’s uppermost soil horizon. Continue reading
Share on FacebookInstrument installation is finally complete and things have been running smoothly through the fall and winter seasons. Here are some photos of the installation and current setup, and of the forest in general.
The porcupine was first spotted in the fall during a lunch break at the Harvard Forest Environmental Measurement Site instrument shed. It continued to reside beneath the shed as was clearly evident by the snow tracks (or more like a trough) leading to a nearby chewed on balsam fir. I set up a crittercam to record the action, and have compiled a “best of” video of our porcupine waltzing through the snow…
We posted an advertisement looking for an undergraduate to fill our MIT Undergraduate Research Opportunity Position (UROP) for summer research as part of the Harvard Forest Summer Research Program. We are very happy to have Deepa Rao ’12 join our research efforts.
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American Geophysical Union General Assembly, 2010 poster
AGU 2010 Poster – Chemical tracers in the upper atmosphere
Abstract: A rare glimpse into the chemical and dynamical evolution of the Arctic polar vortex is provided by a suite of in situ balloonborne measurements. A set of mesospheric tracers observed in the late vortex validate theoretical mesospheric chemical profiles, which is especially valuable for the case of mesospheric H2 . Early vortex mesospheric profiles are constructed to explain mixing in tracer-tracer space. Expanding a model to incorporate three mesotracers, H2 , CO, and SF6 , instead of only one, will increase our ability to constrain estimates of the amount of mesospheric air that descended to stratospheric altitudes by vortex end.
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Anabaena heterocyst and associated epibiont
In the summer of 2010, I spent six inspiring, challenging, and chaotic weeks at the Marine Biological Laboratory Microbial Diversity Course in Woods Hole, MA. Taking full advantage of the opportunity granted by course directors Steve Zinder and Dan Buckley of Cornell, this budding atmospheric chemist plunged head on into the world of microbiology. I was eager to learn the theory and hands-on methods to study the microbial world, which has such a profound impact on atmospheric composition, and this course gave me a chance to explore my interests in a way not offered anywhere else. Continue reading
Share on FacebookDeployment day!
Two years after embarking on my thesis project to design and build a custom instrument that measures hydrogen fluxes, I deploy my creation to the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research site in Petersham, Massachusetts. The instrument shed is tight, but with the help of colleagues at Harvard University, the move is successful. In this short documentary by co-student Ryan Abernathey we introduce the forest and the project, but the work has only just begun…
Laura at Harvard Forest from Ryan Abernathey on Vimeo.
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