Dr. Katlin Bowman, who earned her doctorate in Environmental Sciences under the direction of Prof. Chad Hammerschmidt at Wright State, discusses in an EarthZine article her continued work in the area of methylmercury in the environment. Bowman is a postdoctoral researcher in oceanography at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and sailed with nine research expeditions, including the ongoing GEOTRACES study, to measure mercury concentrations in large sections of the ocean and deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
"One of my research goals has been to quantify how much mercury in the ocean originates from natural- versus human-caused sources,” said Bowman. "Deep-sea hydrothermal vents may be a source of mercury to the sea floor, but we don't have enough data to understand how far-reaching or significant this source is."
Earlier this year, Bowman spent a week at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to learn DNA extraction methods and work with newly developed tools to search for relevant mercury gene sequences. Using DNA samples from the Arctic Ocean where Bowman found methylmercury, she will apply her new skills to search for methylating genes. Read the full article.
