Cold seepage at convergent and transform margins; gas hydrate dynamics; geochemical tracers for fluid flow, transport mechanisms and fluid provenance; analytical geochemistry of sediments and pore fluids; role of microbial communities in early diagenetic processes.
Statistical analysis of satellite data; coastal oceanography and eastern boundary currents; air-sea interaction; biophysical interactions in the coastal oceans.
Analysis of winds and satellite images of surface temperature, chlorophyll, and height in the eastern boundary currents.
Richard (Rick) Spinrad served as the 11th Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He also concurrently served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere from 2021 until 2025.
Aquatic microbial ecology; pelagic food webs; carbon and nitrogen cycles in aquatic ecosystems; phagotrophic protists.
Rates of bacterivory and herbivory by phagotrophic flagellates and ciliates; effect of protistan grazing on bacterial growth and metabolic processes; controls on bacterioplankton growth.
BS, Emory University (Biology), 1969
PhD, Duke University (Zoology), 1974
Applied Physical Geography, Remote Sensing, Natural Hazards
Organic geochemistry.
Developing tools to study transport, behavior, and fate of natural and pollutant organic matter in estuarine, coastal, and deep-sea environments; examining consequence of aquatic food webs and early diagenesis on the cycling and preservation of organic matter at the molecular level in natural water and sediments; evaluating what can (and perhaps cannot!) be realistically gleaned about environmental processes from stratigraphic biomarker analysis in geological records.
Study of Late Cenozoic history of the ocean-climate systems as recorded in deep-sea sediments so as to better understand the nature of global climate change, marine stratigraphy and sedimentation, numerical and statistical techniques as applied to geological problems.
Detailed analysis of Late Pleistocene time series of oceanographic variability in the Pacific Ocean with emphasis on the eastern equatorial Pacific and northern California Current region.
Cultural Geography
