St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center

The Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel (a group of local scientists and resource managers; including Davina Passeri, Research Civil Engineer, SPCMSC) released a new report recommending a set of sea level rise projections for use throughout the Tampa Bay region. 

Dr. Christina Kellogg (Research Microbiologist, SPCMSC) is a member of the judging panel that will award winners of the $7 million dollar Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE during the final award announcement at the Musée Océanographique de Monaco on May 31.

S Gold, a student researching projects for a master’s degree at Western Carolina University, saw the news coverage last fall about the DEEP SEARCH research expedition to a large deep-sea coral area off the South Carolina coast and reached out to SPCMSC Research Microbiologist Christina Kellogg about doing a master’s project involving microbiology and these deep-sea corals. 

Scientists spent the last two weeks collecting sediment cores from Lake Enriquillo, a hypersaline lake in the Western Dominican Republic. The sediment cores will help scientists reconstruct the frequency of Caribbean drought and determine the controls on hydroclimate during the Holocene.

Dr. Christina Kellogg (SPCMSC Research Microbiologist) hosted the final 2-day Judges Summit at the USGS office in St. Petersburg during which the winners of the $7-million dollar Shell Ocean Discovery Xprize were chosen. Dr. Kellogg is one of the 7-member international judging panel that determined the top scoring teams.

On May 6, 2019, Congressman Charlie Crist (13^th district, FL) and Operations and Outreach Director Mr. Kendrick Lewis will visit the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC). Congressman Crist requested this visit because he is interested to learn more about the Center and to discuss needs/priorities that we may have.

A news feature published last week in Science Magazine highlights research by SPCMSC scientists into the problem of reef erosion in the Florida Keys.

A team of four scientists from St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center and collaborators from NOAA and Florida Institute of Technology published a paper in the journal Limnology and Oceanography. The research was conducted in the Florida Keys including sites in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Dry Tortugas National Park, and Biscayne National Park.

The Feb. / Mar. 2019 issue of Sound Waves is available.

Christina Kellogg is at sea April 9-30, 2019, as part of the #DeepSearch team on the NOAA ship Ron Brown with the Jason ROV. The team is collecting samples to research deep-sea coral, canyon, and seep environments off of the Southeastern United States.

SPCMSC Oceanographer Kara Doran was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Friends of Pinellas Master Naturalists annual meeting on Wednesday, March 20, 2019, at the Bay Pines STEM center in St. Petersburg, FL.