Worsnopp

Madeline Breeze Worsnopp

worsnopp@usc.edu

University of Southern California

Department of Earth Sciences ZHS 117

3651 Trousdale Parkway

Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740

Office 325A

Phone: (213) 740-6736

Estuarine solute transport.
- I am currently using radium and radon isotopes as tracers of solute transport in Upper Newport Bay, CA. Solute exchange across system boundaries contributes nutrients and contaminants to the overlying water. However, quantifying this exchange is difficult due to the complexity of coastal hydrology. Exchange mechanisms include: molecular diffusion across the sediment-water interface, macrofaunal irrigation within sediment, tidal pumping, advective ground water flow. In an estuarine setting, river flow and tidal exchange with the ocean are also important. Radium and radon are naturally occuring radionuclides with a range of half-lives that make them suitable for quantifying different transport functions.

NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) at the University of Delaware College of Marine Studies (Summer 2002): Using oxygen isotopes to study millenial-scale oscillations in sea surface temperature through the Pleistocene.
- Temperature variations on the order of approximately 1-4 kyr were determined from oxygen isotope ratios of planktonic foraminifera (G. sacculifer and N. dutertrei) in sediment cores (MIS 10 through 12) from the subtropical North Atlantic. This research contributes to growing evidence of global climate variability on millienial-scales.

Billups, K.; Chaisson, W.; Worsnopp, M.; Thunell, R. 22 May 2004. Millennial-scale fluctuations in subtropical northwestern Atlantic surface ocean hydrography during the mid-Pleistocene. Paleoceanography, Vol. 19, No. 2, PA2017.