November
19, 2004
Emily
Pratt ’06 Among First Group of Global Studies Summer
Fellows
 Photo
by: Todd M. LeMieux
Emily Pratt |
By Ember Oparowski ’07
Junior geology major Emily Pratt has an
apparent passion for mud. But what she’s really after is
the clues it may offer about Arctic climate change. Inspired
by her research in Norway this summer, Pratt has spent a great
deal of time this semester talking about and working with the
mud she extracted from Lake Linné in Norway. This work,
the basis for her senior thesis, has influenced her to pursue
similar research in graduate school.
As one of the students awarded a Global Studies Summer Fellowship, a new program
that provides financial support for students to do research abroad, Pratt ventured
to Norway this past summer to research climate change in the Arctic with Al
Werner, professor of geology. However, this wasn’t her first trip to
Norway with Werner. Pratt had been to Norway the summer of 2003 as part of
the CASCADE mentor program, designed specifically to involve first-years in
research.
In Norway, Pratt conducted research on glacial lake stratigraphy, a type of
geology that deals with the composition of layers of matter accumulated over
time. The layers are formed as lakes are fed by glaciers that are undergoing
seasonal change. By analyzing these layers, one can ascertain the changes that
a specific lake underwent. In order to obtain her research samples, Pratt sank
hollow, cylindrical tubes and hammered them into the lake’s bottom. The
tubes were then extracted from the lake, filled with mud. These became her
core samples, which ranged in length from 15 to 50 cm. The process preserves
the layers of sediment within the tubes so that the strata can be accurately
analyzed.
Pratt’s initial trip to Norway sparked her interest in geology, specifically
lamination stratigraphy, climate change, and paraglacial features. She intends
to follow this interest all the way through graduate school and make it her
career. She hopes to do graduate work with Hanne Christiansen, associate professor
of physical geography at the University Centre on Svalbard in Norway. Pratt
worked with Christiansen for a short time in Svalbard this summer and benefited
greatly from his expertise.
Currently, Pratt is learning how to create thinsections: very thin cross sections
of the cores of mud she dredged from Lake Linné that can
be viewed through a microscope. Helping her to create thinsections
is Lesleigh Anderson, a recent University of Massachusetts graduate with thinsection
expertise. Pratt is waiting to split cores; after the cores are split, Pratt
will photo-document them and write descriptions of the layers’ color
and grain size. That work will be followed by X-ray analysis and thinsection
examination.
After she creates the thinsections, she will spend spring semester and her
senior year doing interpretations on the data that will be the basis of her
senior thesis. Pratt hopes to have learned extensively about strata analysis
and will be able to reach her biggest goal: interpreting what the layers say
about climate change.
Much of Pratt’s learning is done through trial and error, reading, and
the guidance of Werner and Anderson. Her summer work and research project have
allowed her to become personally invested and knowledgeable in this field of
geology and Arctic climate change. “This summer was incredible because
I was able to do my own research with the help of the Global Studies Summer
Fellowship. Through my project I got hooked on the Arctic and geology,” Pratt
said. “I feel that I have a direction for my future as I look toward
graduate school and a career in this field.”
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