The University of Texas Marine Science Institute is on a roll.
Earlier this month, the Port Aransas facility received its biggest grant ever, nearly $7 million to investigate how oil from a spill can disperse in the Gulf of Mexico.
On Tuesday, Sept. 20, the institute received its second-largest-ever grant, this one for $5.6 million to conduct studies in the area of the Chukchi Sea, a body of water that connects the Arctic and Pacific oceans. The grant came from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement.
“I’m really excited about it, because it brings together an all-star team of excellent scientists from throughout the country,” said Ken Dunton, a UTMSI marine science professor who will be the grant’s principal investigator. “We will have people from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Florida – biologists, chemists, physical oceanographers, ecologists, and they all have been working in the Arctic, each of them for decades. … Their depth of knowledge will help us really move forward in understanding this sub-Arctic system.”
(See the Sept. 22 edition of the South Jetty for more details on this story.)