The ocean speaks volumes to scientists like Sacramento State’s Amy Wagner.
At its surface, it offers information about the health of our planet. On its floor, it reveals glimpses of the distant past.
Layer by layer, it tells a story about the impact of climate change, a topic of great interest to Wagner, an assistant professor of geology, and scientists around the world.
Aboard a 274-foot research vessel named the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, she and 21 other researchers spent weeks in remote locations on the Indian Ocean collecting water and sediment from the depths. The international research team, led by chief scientist Elisabeth Sikes of Rutgers University, returned with samples to be analyzed in an effort to reconstruct past ocean conditions and forecast the future.
Studies already suggest that climate change, likely spurred by human activity, is affecting the world’s oceans. A study in the journal Science found that ocean warming is accelerating faster than previously thought, with dire implications such as the killing of marine ecosystems, raising sea levels, and making hurricanes more destructive.
Wagner and her collaborators are seeking to build on such research. Her primary focus is paleoceanography, the study of the history and evolution of oceans through the lenses of water circulation, chemistry, biology and sediment patterns.
Aboard ship, the scientists worked in shifts round the clock to document climate conditions since the last ice age. They gathered material by “coring”—using giant pipes lowered by heavy machinery to the ocean floor to capture samples there—bringing up sediment and skeletons of tiny creatures called foraminifera—forams, for short. “These samples will keep scientists and students very busy for a long time,” Wagner said in an interview. “Many years of research will come out of this cruise.”
The mission was just the latest in a series of exotic adventures for Wagner, a former “desert rat” from Phoenix who discovered early in life her passion for the ocean and its inhabitants.
“When I was a kid, my older brother had a sailboat in Oceanside,” she said. “I fell in love with being out on the water.”
She studied marine science and oceanography at Texas A&M University, earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees before joining Sac State’s faculty in 2013. Her career has taken her on research missions around the world, including all seven continents.
Aboard the Thompson, Wagner helped oversee collection and preservation of samples from different ocean depths across a range of latitudes. Each layer of water, she said, has its own chemical properties that offer insights into the ocean’s health at various times.
Information gathered from the Thompson mission, dubbed CROCCA-2s for “Coring to Reconstruct Ocean Circulation and Carbon Dioxide Across 2 Seas,” has groundbreaking potential, Wagner said.
“We have no data for this part of the Indian Ocean,” she said. “This will give us a baseline that will help us put modern information into context” and help guide other scientists and policymakers working to stave off the potentially disastrous effects of climate change.
The cruise and subsequent research is funded by the National Science Foundation.
Wagner said she would incorporate some of what she learned into her oceanography and marine geology courses at Sac State, and ultimately publish a scientific paper on the team’s findings.
“I think the mission was very successful,” Wagner said. “I’m so grateful that my department and college supported this work, and I’m excited to bring it back to the students.”