Deep Earth Academy, the educational arm of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, has won a 2008 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) for a poster and website created as part of the “Sea90E” research cruise. A&M Oceanography Professor Will Sager and six of his students participated on the cruise and contributed to the poster and website. Mini-profiles of the expedition's key personnel are featured on the poster including Sager and Oceanography Ph.D. student Masako Tominaga.

An article in the July 2008 issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife on sperm whales and their comeback in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the work of Oceanography Professor Doug Biggs and Research Scientist Ann Jochens. Biggs and Jochens were principal investigators in a five-year Sperm Whale Seismic Study (SWSS) funded by the U.S. Minerals Management Service in cooperation with the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and five oil and gas companies. The study was conducted by scientists from Texas A&M, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Oregon State University, and four other US and UK institutions.

Dr. William Bryant, professor of oceanography in the College of Geosciences, has been selected to present a lecture in the 2008-2009 Texas A&M University Distinguished Lecture Series. Established in 1998, this annual series features lectures by renowned individuals from outside the University and distinguished members of the Texas A&M faculty.

Dr. Mahlon C. Kennicutt II, professor of oceanography and director of sustainable development in the Office of the Vice President for Research, was elected president of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research at its recent biennial meetings in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia.

-By Keith Randall

One of the world’s leading authorities on the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone,” Steve DiMarco of Texas A&M University, says the area is likely to be the largest ever recorded and last longer, with marine life affected for hundreds of miles off the Louisiana-Texas coast.

Six seminars in the geosciences will be offered to incoming freshmen this fall semester through the University’s new First-Year Seminar program. These one-credit seminars are open only to first year freshmen. Each will use a learning community setting to focus on a particular research area or topic of current interest.