Thank You Messages From Scholarship Recipients 2019 2020

Excerpts of Thank You Messages Received from Scholarship Recipients 2019-2020 Academic Year

I am writing to thank you for the opportunity to be one of the selected recipients for the Angelo Tagliacozzo Memorial Geological Scholarship. I am extremely grateful for the award and inspired by your effort to help students majoring in geosciences that are working towards their future careers.

As a first-generation college student, I understand the challenges that students in a similar situation like my own may have to face during their educational journeys; from working multiple jobs to help with the family’s finances to wishing for more time out of their busy schedules to focus more on their studies. I have always felt very privileged to be able to attend college and pursue my dream of becoming a geologist. My journey in college has been very challenging, but despite the difficulties, I will be graduating in May this year. I recognize that my educational accomplishments would not have been possible without the help of my family, educators, and inspiring scholarship donors like you. Thank you for being part of my journey. ~Joyce Franco; Rutgers University

I would like to share my uppermost gratitude for receiving the Angelo Tagliacozzo Memorial Scholarship in the amount of $2,500. It is an honor to accept such an award.

The money I will be receiving from this scholarship will not go to waste. I have a plan for how I am going to spend the money in order to have the resources I need to be a benevolent force in the geological community. I will use the money to purchase textbooks, which were previously unaffordable, in order to bettersupplement my learning as an academic. I also will use the money to make a small dent in my student loans, which are a burden for many my age. Not to mention, in the midst of this worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, the money may be useful for resources that support distance learning.

I want to thank the scholarship committee for understanding my needs as well as my potential based on my record. I can assure you I will use the money in order to supercharge my plans to evolve myself and the field of geology.

~Jarret Pidgeon; SUNY Plattsburgh

It is with much gratitude that I write to you today. Thank you so much for selecting me. I am very excited to attend my field camp this summer and look forward to my future studies and career in the geological sciences.

~Kaitlin Taylor; Central Connecticut State University

I cannot thank you enough for this generous scholarship. I was so happy when I got the phone call. Your generosity will help me make the most of field camp and make me a better student and geologist.

~Cornelia van Hazinga; Salem State University

Corals first came into existence during the Cambrian Period (Pratt et al., 2000). Since then, they have survived hundreds of millions of years involving ever changing conditions of high and low ocean temperature, high and low dissolved carbon dioxide, the rise and fall of ocean pH, variable sea level and five major mass extinctions. Thus, demonstrating that, as a group, they are very adaptable organisms. The Great Barrier Reef lies off the northeast coast of Australia with a northwest-southeast orientation. It is 2300 km long (1429 miles) and encompasses an area of 344,400 square km (132,974 square miles). These dimensions make it about the size of California. The large size is the result of the great number of individual ecological, geochemical, sub-sea depth, architecture and water circulation microenvironments. This is reflected in the 2900 individual reefs and 900 islands which comprise the reef system (Hopely, Smithers and Parnell, 2007). The perception by environmental groups, scientists and politicians that the Great Barrier Reef is in danger of imminent destruction is based upon the observation that, at times, large portions of the reef may experience bleaching and coral death. One such widespread event took place during 2008 at the Palm Islands area of the reef and involved the loss of Acropora corals and changes in coral community composition. Mass Acropora death took place at many other reefs in the region at the same time. The mass mortality events often occurred in association with disturbances of the ocean environment which took place during the nineteen twenties to the nineteen sixties and during the nineteen eighties to the nineteen nineties (Clark et al., 2017). There have been 26 bleaching events before 1982 (Oliver, Berkelmans, and Eakin, 2009). Bleaching events also took place during 1998, 2010, 2015 to 2016 and 2017. The bleaching that occurred during 2015 to 2016 and 2017 was particularly widespread (Hughes et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2018). The longest and most destructive bleaching event took place worldwide during the 2014 to 2017 El Nino (Albright, 2017). Additionally, bleaching IS NOT unusual and the extent of such episodes varies greatly over time. Severe bleaching episodes on the Great Barrier Reef have been noted for many decades in the past. While some years it can be extensive, during other years it is minimal. Organisms making up the reef recolonize dead areas on their own. Given a little time, the once dead areas will be repopulated by healthy coral (Marshall and Schuttenberg, 2006). Also, not all corals react in the same way to increasing water temperatures. The massive corals on the Great Barrier Reef are much more resistant than the short-lived plate and staghorn corals to environmental change (Ridd, 2017).

Bleaching is a complex event. The great majority of publications mention high ocean temperatures which exceed the tolerance of the algal symbiont. However, corals in the Red Sea thrive in temperatures up to 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit; Berumen et al., 2019). In consideration of cold water resistance, during 2008, coral bleaching took place in the Gulf of California due to a severe winter cold spell (LaJeunesse et al., 2010). Also, when reports are published and research is conducted, it is often stated that the subject reef is completely bleached. During the 1997–1998 El Niño Southern Oscillation (one of the most intense ocean-warming episodes to ever occur), patchy distributions of bleached corals were found to be present next to healthy unbleached colonies. This occurred due to different symbiont species harbored by affected and unaffected colonies off the coasts of Panama and Ecuador (Glynn et al., 2001). Marine scientists have also failed to consider another factor affecting the health of the Great Barrier Reef. The Australian tectonic plate has been slowly drifting northward for the past 50 million years. Ocean temperature in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef averages 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) whereas ocean water in its northern extent averages 27.4 degrees Celsius (81.3 degrees Fahrenheit; Lough and Barnes, 2000). Species of corals exist in the reef which can tolerate temperatures up to 29 degrees Celsius (84.2 degrees Fahrenheit; Ridd, 2017). The Great Barrier Reef is now entering the hottest waters of the Pacific. So, of course, there will be stressed corals and some coral die-off. Like all organisms, the corals must and do adjust to the environmental changes. This may result in the corals ejecting their current algal symbionts. However, other algal symbionts abound which are more heat tolerant and which will take the previous alga’s place (Roff et al., 2014). Evidence that reefs are resilient includes their ability to adjust their position relative to changing sea level (McCulloch and Tezer, 2000). Reefs are also very dynamic as they are composed of many coral species which have varying feeding mechanisms and are tolerant of sedimentation to a lesser or greater extent (Morgan et al., 2016). Castillo et al (2014) obtained specimens of the coral Siderastrea siderea from a Caribbean reef. They conducted controlled laboratory experiments and found that the calcification process for this species

(Great Barrier Reef continued on page 22)

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