TSU Visit

On October 16 and 17, Ben Gutierrez visited Tennessee State University (TSU) to give guest lecture in Environmental Science and Water Resource classes taught by Tom Byl of the USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Center. The visit was a follow up to a visit last February where Ben talked about the work that USGS does to understand coastal hazards and to develop and deliver scientifically based information that can be used by coastal managers. After speaking to the Environmental Science class on the first day of his visit, Ben Gutierrez accompanied Tom Byl’s students in a short field exercise. At the beginning of the semester, the students had buried pairs of new cotton underwear in eight locations on the TSU campus. After six weeks the students dug up each pair and attempted to identify what may have lead to the differing rates of decomposition among the sites.