Mitch Lyle, center, discusses research findings with an international group of scientists during a previous scientific voyage aboard the drillship Joides Resolution.

BOISE STATE PALEOCEANOGRAPHER RECEIVES NSF GRANT

A Boise State University researcher is making plans for a five-week scientific voyage to the sub-Antarctic Ocean early next year after the university was awarded a $318,211 grant from the National Science Foundation for his project.

Mitch Lyle, a paleoceanographer with Boise State’s Center for Geophysical Investigation of the Shallow Subsurface, received the prestigious NSF grant as part of his ongoing research efforts to document climatic conditions that existed in the Eocene time period of 34 to 55 million years. During the very warm Eocene, alligators roamed as far north as the Arctic, bananas grew in Oregon and palm trees thrived in Wyoming and Nebraska. The ancient climate patterns are of increasing interest to scientists because they help explain current climate conditions, including the effects of global warming.

Lyle will use seismic instrumentation and other technologies to survey the topography of the ocean floor and the thickness of the sedimentary deposits on the basalt crust. He and his crew will then study the data to identify suitable sites to drill sediment cores from deep beneath the ocean bottom. The cores, which contain fossilized remains of plankton and other organisms that existed millions of years ago, provide scientists with a continuous record of prehistoric climatic conditions.

Lyle will be joined on the voyage by collaborator David Rea, a professor of oceanography at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, as well as a number of research associates and Boise State students. The research lays the groundwork for future scientific expeditions as part of the international Ocean Drilling Program.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to include Boise State students on this research voyage,” Lyle said. “We’re very committed to taking both undergraduates and graduates with us to sea.”

Lyle has previously led 13 oceanographic expeditions and has participated in 29 expeditions. His most recent expedition was in 2001, when he served as co-chief scientists aboard the scientific drillship the Joides Resolution to the Pacific Ocean about halfway between Mexico and Hawaii.

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Mitch Lyle

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