9633173 vanGreen This award will support travel costs for the PI to visit colleagues in Mexico and Chile to set up arrangements for monitoring of trace metals (in particular Cd) as indicators of upwelling variations in coastal waters. Local students will collect monthly samples of water from selected sites along the coast and mail them to the PI's lab for analysis. Cd has been shown to reflect the availability of nutrients, and is incorporated in the shells of benthic foraminifera. The water samples will provide a baseline to determine the seasonal and interannual cycle of upwelling-related production at each site; dated sediment sample of the benthic foraminifera will then provide a record of upwelling variability over the past few thousand years.
