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• WNY Summer University Research Updates. Presentations By UB and SUNY Fredonia Student Researchers

  • When
    September 17, 2025
  •  
    5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
  • Location
    3785 South Park Ave, Blasdell, NY 14219
  • Registered
    29 registrants

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  The BAPG presents...

  WNY Summer University Research Updates. Presentations by UB and SUNY Fredonia Student Researchers

  Come join us for an enlightening series of updates from our local academic student researchers. Presentations are listed below and with additional pending presenters

  Suny at Buffalo
  

  • Postglacial permafrost history of a northeastern Baffin Island lake catchment inferred from geochemical analysis and modeling. Dr. Kurt R. Lindberg

  • Human-induced global warming is causing Arctic permafrost to thaw rapidly, releasing ancient carbon into the atmosphere, in the form of greenhouse gasses, and into the landscape where it can accumulate in lake basins. This process reinforces and further accelerates warming. The Holocene Thermal Maximum, a previous, natural warm period in the Arctic from 11 to 8 thousands of years ago (ka) at our study site, provides an opportunity to study Arctic climate and carbon cycling change under prolonged warm conditions/climate. In this study, we use geochemical tools to determine the age and source of carbon stored in sediments spanning the past 12.4 thousand years from Lake CF8, northeastern Baffin Island. We use that information to model the rate of carbon storage in the lake sediment, which reflects the rate of permafrost thaw and accumulation in the lake catchment. We find that permafrost thaw was greatest between 11.9 and 9.0 ka, coinciding with regional rapid warming and peak Holocene summer temperatures. Since the modern Arctic has already experienced similar warming to the Holocene Thermal Maximum, modern permafrost carbon may respond similarly to our estimates from that period.

  • Chemical Imaging Reveals that Black Cottonwood Roots Continue to Transport Carbon to Soil Even Under Extreme Drought. Fiona Ellsworth PhD student Department of Earth Sciences

  • Soils contain triple the carbon of all living things on Earth and understanding the processes that control carbon input to soil is critical in our efforts to maximize soil carbon storage and offset climate change caused by elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. One of the least understood inputs of carbon to soil is via diverse carbon-containing chemical compounds, called root exudates, transported by plant roots into the soil. High spatial variability and rapid turnover of exudates in the soil make quantification of exudate fluxes a major research uncertainty. Mass spectrometry imaging offers a novel pathway to examining how root exudation changes throughout the fine root network under varying environmental conditions. This talk will present results from a study in which root exudates of Populus trichocarpa, Black cottonwood, were imaged in situ along a time series from well-watered to droughted to rewetted conditions. Chemical images show that root tip exudation of a variety of biological compounds, including amino acids, nucleotides, and carbohydrates, is sustained even under extreme drought conditions. These results improve our projections of soil carbon dynamics under extreme drought and suggest potential mechanisms by which plants may sustain soil microbial communities and root processes through periods of extreme environmental stress.

  • Exploratory Scenario Planning (XSP) for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience. Andrea Harder, PhD student Environmental Sustainability.

  • Adapting to the impacts of climate change will require NYS communities to proactively adjust to climate-related hazards and risks. However, climate-related uncertainties can make it challenging to predict, anticipate, and prepare for the future. Will the pace of mitigation be enough to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change? How will global changes in climate affect communities at the local level? In what ways might climate change interact with other uncontrollable social, technological, economic, environmental, and political forces to shape the future? Exploratory Scenario Planning (XSP) is a tool that can be used to strategically anticipate and prepare for the complex, uncertain, and uncontrollable impacts of climate change. It has been widely applied across different sectors and levels of government to support organizational decision-making and resilience. The process encourages participants to brainstorm driving forces of community change, develop scenario narratives, identify robust strategies that are effective under a wide range of future conditions, and define warning signals that can indicate when it is time to pursue an alternative adaptation pathway. This presentation will provide a high-level overview of the process and will discuss how XSP can be used as an anticipatory tool to support climate adaptation and resilience planning in communities across NYS.

  SUNY Fredonia
  

  • The Effect of Sulfur on Hydrous Partial Melting in the Mantle Wedge. Isabelle Price1, Michael Lara2, Francesca Riley2, Megan Holycross2. 

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, State University of New York at Fredonia, Fredonia NY
  2. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

  • Oceanic crust carries volatile elements such as water (H2O) and sulfur (S) into the mantle as it subducts. As oceanic crust experiences increasing pressures and temperatures, volatile-bearing minerals are destabilized, releasing H2O and S into the mantle. Previous experimental studies have demonstrated that the presence of H2O decreases the solidus of mantle rocks. However, the role of S on magma formation in the mantle wedge is less understood. Under different redox conditions, sulfur can exist as either S2- or S6+, affecting the stability of minerals and partial melts in different ways, but the effect of sulfur valence on mantle melting has yet to be tested experimentally. We studied the effects of S valence on primary arc magma formation with piston cylinder experiments at 1250 °C and 1 GPa in gold-palladium (Au90Pd10) capsules. Our starting compositions consisted of peridotite (KLB-1) with added H2O and S. Two different experimental designs were employed to induce reducing and oxidizing conditions to fix the presence of S as either S2- or S6+. Additionally, control experiments were run with the same amount of H2O, but no S. All experiments were analyzed using an electron microprobe. Under oxidizing conditions, where S is present as sulfate (S6+), higher melt fractions were produced relative to reducing conditions (S as S2-) at identical pressure and temperature. Relative to the sulfur free experiments, the addition of sulfide (S2-) and sulfate (S6+) to hydrous peridotite decreases and increases melt fractions, respectively. These results suggest that sulfate is acting as a flux in the mantle to promote melting, while sulfide is not, likely due to the greater stability of sulfide minerals relative to sulfate minerals at high temperatures. More broadly, our experiments imply that the melt fraction is influenced by the oxidation state of the mantle wedge.
    
  • Revealing Rare Earth Elements (REEs) Enrichment: An Example from Garnet Amphibolite. Mia Enders1 , Nabajit Lahiri2, C. Heath Stanfield2 , Yuntian Teng2 , Sebastian Mergelsberg2 , Quin Miller2, Hans-Joachim Massonne3.4 , H. Todd Schaef2, Wentao Cao1.

  1. Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences, State University of New York at Fredonia, Fredonia, NY 14063, USA.
  2. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA99 354, USA.
  3. Fakultat Chemie, Universitat Stuttgart, Stuttgart, D-7069 5, Germany.
  4. School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan, 430074, China.

  • Rare Earth Elements (REEs) have a significant impact on economics and energy security, influencing everyday life through their involvement in electronics, vehicles, and other technologies. These elements are typically extracted from REE-enriched specimens, such as carbonatite or ion-adsorption clays. However, textures and varieties of REE-bearing minerals in geological specimens are typically complex, rendering the difficulty in studying and selecting a suitable REE extraction approach. We utilized a variety of instruments with corresponding applications to reveal REE-bearing minerals in a rare REE­enriched garnet amphibolite. Wavelength Dispersive (WD) X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) reveals that the specimen is enriched with REEs, comparable to some REE ores, with a negative Ce anomaly. X-ray microtomography (XMT) shows that the higher­density minerals are spatially distributed as connected or individual minerals, accounting for 2.65Micro-XRF maps of multiple elements indicate the correlation of REE positions with phosphorus. This was confirmed under a higher magnification showing the high concentrations of phosphorus and oxygen with RE Es. Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy via scanning electron microscope (SEM-EDS) confirms the presence of lanthanide phosphates and yttrium phosphates, with the REE phosphates distributed as anhedral to subhedral grains or along grain boundaries or cracks. Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) of the billets revealed signatures consistent with the presence of rhabdophane and xenotime. The spatial distribution, textural relationships, and alteration of mineral assemblages indicate the REE minerals were likely formed due to hydrothermal precipitation at shallow subsurface conditions. Despite the possible complexity of REE mineral occurrences in geological specimens, the multimodal approach is effective in revealing their mineral chemistry and structural information, which provides crucial basic information to apply extraction methods for the next step. basic information to apply extraction methods for the next step.
    

  Important Information & Reminders - 

  Did you know that the cost is the largest barrier preventing students from attending BAPG meetings? Please consider sponsoring a student's attendance during registration. This gesture can have a long-lasting impact by supporting students beyond the current meeting. The final headcount for attendance is due the Monday (9/15) before the presentation. 

  
  

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