Leah Joseph
Students working with Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Leah Joseph on paleoclimatology and paleoceanography research may have been surprised to learn that the samples they’re analyzing were obtained firsthand by Joseph.
Twice, before arriving at Ursinus, she sailed as a scientific participant on a two-monthlong research cruise to collect sediment cores from the deep sea as part of the ocean drilling program. The sediment record beneath the ocean floor contains much about the Earth’s past, and by measuring grain size and the rate of accumulation of continental grains, Joseph and her students get a glimpse of what may have happened climatologically over time.
“It’s a small piece of a very large puzzle of figuring out what climate used to be like, and as we try to predict what climate might be like in the future as climate change happens, we can start to understand the dynamic system of the Earth,”
~ Leah Joseph
