Labs & groups
Labs and groups are the heart of INSTAAR, where research gets done and students become scientists. A quick tour of INSTAAR labs, packed with gear and instrumentation, will get rid of any lingering image of labs as gleaming spaces housing eggheads in lab coats. You are more likely to find a research assistant weaving tangled wires into a prototype, students tromping mud down the hall as they return from Niwot Ridge, or a researcher elbow-deep in the guts of a broken machine.
See how INSTAARs band together around common questions, set of methods, or interests.
Develop optical technologies and algorithms for ground-based and airborne atmospheric measurements. Use new data to study atmospheric processes and chemical transformations.
Address the timing of Quaternary events using a relative dating technique with a temporal range greater than some common absolute dating techniques.
Prepare and measure radiocarbon for local university and federal research communities. Apply dating to climate change studies and use 14C as a geochemical and geophysical tracer.
Work at the intersection of marine science, environmental policy, and public outreach to achieve conservation solutions. Study krill modeling, fish ecology, seabirds, climate change, blue carbon, and marine conservation.
Understand and predict sediment and nutrient transport in the coastal ocean using numerical models. Work in a variety of coastal environments, including continental shelves, estuaries and wetlands.
Process and analyze sediment cores collected from terrestrial, lake, and marine environments. Perform chemical and physical analyses on sediments and other materials.
Study snow, glaciers and ice and how they impact landscapes and hydrology. Employ a range of field and laboratory approaches to measure and model the many surface processes that are involved.
Examine diatoms via research-grade microscopes. Study several thousand glass microslides and archived material, primarily from arctic, alpine and Antarctic lakes and streams.
Investigate how vegetation processes affect—and are affected by—water flow dynamics in soil and streams. Study how changes in land-use and climate will affect water resources and ecosystems.
Study the intersections of earth systems and ecosystems focusing on hydrology, solute transport, watersheds, streams and glaciers. Measure and model stream-groundwater interactions and more. Includes the McMurdo Stream Team.
Measure trace and minor element element concentrations in biogenic carbonates, including foraminifera, corals, and ostracods, to reconstruct past climates. These and other sample types are welcomed.
Prepare and analyze foraminiferal samples for faunal composition, stable isotopes, and radiocarbon dating to help reconstruct past marine and glacio-marine conditions and environments.
Investigate processes controlling hydrologic fluxes—especially snow distribution—with ground-based observations, remote sensing, and modeling. Contribute to sustainable management and environmental policy.
Investigate the impact of global environmental change on aquatic ecosystems in mountainous regions, including studies involving nitrogen deposition, wildfire, water quality, and lake ice phenology.
Use climate models and oceanographic observations to study the biogeochemistry of the ocean, including its carbon cycle.
Study the distribution, and chemical and stable isotope composition of organic molecules found in present-day and ancient environments to unravel the interplay between biology, biogeochemistry and climate.
Measure the amount and character of dissolved organic matter from diverse, often aquatic ecosystems. Seek to understand interacting hydrologic, chemical and biological processes that control system dynamics.
Use climate models to provide insights into changes in the Arctic Ocean and its sea ice cover as well as into changes in the ocean in past climates.
Measure carbon and oxygen isotopes in air and ice to better understand Earth systems, including the carbon cycle, past climate, and methane. Provide analytical services to scientists around the world.
Study plant community ecology at the interface of ecosystem, landscape and population biology. Apply cutting-edge science to the challenges of restoration, invasion, and environmental change.
Study hybridization, speciation, evolutionary ecology, and population genomics (primarily of birds). Gain insight into the impacts of anthropogenic change on species distributions, interactions, and evolution.