~ All of the samples we collected during our recent International Polar Year (IPY) field campaign on the Antarctic Peninsula and Tierra del Fuego are safely on continental American soil and should arrive in Carolina within the month. Dave DeMaster (NCSU) and Craig Smith (Hawaii) generously collected samples from Marguerite Bay during LMG 08-02 to bolster our collection.

~ Amanda Savrda is joining Team Barbeau at Carolina for an M.S. starting August 2008. Following up on a stellar undergraduate career at Auburn University, Amanda’s interested in using the stratigraphy preserved in the Magallanes and Larsen basins to shed some light on the opening of Drake Passage as part of our International Polar Year NSF-funded project.

~ Kendra Murray is back for a second tour of duty with Team Barbeau -- she’s running our lab for the remainder of spring semester 2008.

~ We are excited about a session on the tectonics, climate and biota of the Antarctic peninsula during GSA 2008 in Houston.

~ Barbeau and Sidney Hemming (Lamont) are hosting a collection of sediment geochemistry sessions at Goldschmidt 2008 in Vancouver.

~ Barbeau and Chris Kendall are heading up a Hedberg conference on the relative roles of eustasy and tectonics in defining stratigraphic architecture in 2010.