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from a range of sites in Barataria Bay, Cook and colleagues put the samples through reverse osmosis and electrodialysis in order to greatly reduce the salt content. After this process was complete, only 20 or so liters of the concentrate remained. It was subsequently frozen and shipped to Georgia Tech for freeze-drying in order to further isolate the DOM. Cook’s lab and colleagues are in the process of conducting an analysis giving a molecular-level carbon profile of the dissolved organic matter, which should give the scientists more information about how much oil is associated with organic materials carried in coastal water ecosystems. R. Eugene Turner, Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences; Linda Hooper-Bui, Department of Entomology; and Laurie Anderson, Department of Geology & Geophysics, and their research group, received an NSF rapid response grant to study the effects of oil and dispersants on the Louisiana salt marsh ecosystem. Their results are still coming in, but Turner says that they are already seeing additional erosion of the coastline, an already damaged resource for the state of Louisiana, which loses several square miles of wetlands each year. Their
Figure 3.8 R. Eugene Turner, professor in the LSU School of the Coast & Environment’s Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, on a research vessel in the Gulf.