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Photos available for download at www.lsu.edu/pa/photos Robert Carney, professor of oceanography at LSU, is leading a team of scientists from the United States and France through the final stages of a project that, when complete, will yield the most comprehensive details ever of the flora and fauna of the continental slopes. The project, which will conclude in 2010, is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the results will be used to populate an upcoming Google application, Google Ocean. Carney and his research partners at LSU are in charge of studying the continental slopes in a project titled COMARGE, or Continental Margin Ecosystems. This is just part of the international effort supported by the Sloan Foundation called “Census of Marine Life,” an umbrella of global ocean activities that began in 2000. In December 2007, Discover Magazine called the “Census of Marine Life” one of the six most important experiments in the world. “COMARGE began in 2005, when an international group of deep ocean experts approached the Sloan Foundation for support and selected LSU as the operating institution,” said Carney. “When the project ends in 2010, it will have fostered a synthesis of old and new data, leading to a greater understanding of the ecology of all continental slopes.” Continental margins are between 200 and 3,500 meters in depth and are one of the least explored parts of the oceans. Researchers have proposed that these areas are of great scientific interest because they may contain more species of life than any other place on Earth – including rainforests. But the margins are important in other practical ways, too. “The continental margins here in the Gulf of Mexico are the most economically important in the world because of the vast oil deposits contained there,” said Carney. “While the COMARGE project is slated to end in 2010, we plan to forge an agenda of basic and applied research that can be followed for decades to come. If this agenda is adopted by scientists, the offshore oil industry and regulatory agencies, Louisiana will benefit from the results more than just about any other place on the planet due to the ecological and geological complexity of the Gulf of Mexico margins.” Carney serves as the grant’s principal investigator and project co-director. Myriam Sibuet, a noted deep-sea biological oceanographer and long-time colleague affiliated with the Institut Oceanographique Paris serves as project co-director. The COMARGE network of scientists numbers about 75 and comes from all continents, including Antarctica. “Claiming Antarctic participation is not a fanciful exaggeration,” said Carney. “Several COMARGE scientists study the southernmost margins and live there for months at a time at research bases and on research vessels.” LSU supports major activities in France through two subawards, one to the French national oceanographic lab in Brest, Ifremer, and one to the Institut Oceanographique Paris. The total amount of support over the life of COMARGE is approximately $2.4 million. “Awards from major philanthropic organizations such as the prestigious A. P. Sloan Foundation are quite the endorsement of an institution,” said Carney. “This means that LSU’s deep ocean ecology work is internationally recognized, and that LSU’s grants administration is capable of executing these complex programs.” Because so much of the program’s work takes place at international locations, Carney has depended on LSU’s Office of Sponsored Programs for assistance with relatively unusual requests. “Flying a scientist from Nigeria to Ghent, Belgium, [on a grant] so she can meet with other experts isn’t an everyday task,” said Carney. “It gets done at LSU because so many people here work together to make important things happen.” The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation makes grants in science, technology and the quality of American life. The Sloan Industry Studies program seeks to develop a deep understanding of industries by supporting academic research grounded in direct observation. For more information, visit www.sloan.org. Related Links Discover Magazine’s “ The Six Most Important Experiments in the World” http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec/the-6-most-important-experiments-in-the-world/article_view?b_start:int=3&-C= Census of Marine Life Web site http://www.coml.org/ -30- |
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