Student Tribune
Scholars' Day is This Week - Please Join Us April 30 and May 1
What if some inquisitive and productive minds at MCC got together and freely shared their diverse constellation of discoveries and creations with everyone?
That is happening this Tuesday and Wednesday, April 30th and May 1st. All members of the MCC community are urged to spend some time on the Brighton campus exploring the insights and achievements shared by students and faculty in posters, oral presentations, and Celebration of Learning sessions.
The full Scholars' Day and Celebration of Learning schedule is live!
No matter your interests and experience, you are guaranteed to find something fascinating and come inspired. You have the power to add meaning to the endeavors of these hard-working scholars by showing your interest in their work.
Two of the upcoming presentations are teased below:
Calibrating Site U1541 XRF Elemental Data Using Sediment Digests and ICP-MS
IO Reid
Professor Lydia Tien (Chemistry and Geosciences)
Elemental proxies, such as iron, titanium, and excess barium, in marine sediments, can constrain past variations in nutrient inputs, dust inputs, and biological carbon export over various climate conditions. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scanning is a valuable paleoceanographic tool for generating elemental proxy records because it can generate high-resolution basic intensity data in many samples in a timely fashion compared to other techniques. Still, XRF intensity data needs to be calibrated by further lab analysis to compute absolute elemental concentrations and ratios for comparison across study locations. Here the XRF calibrations and calibrated basic concentration data are presented for IODP Site U1541 from the Pacific Southern Ocean. Site U1541 is important because it records the sensitivity of the Pacific Southern Ocean to changes in continental dust deposition, where increases in iron delivered by continental dust may lead to increases in biological activity and the export of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean. A sediment digest was used to fully dissolve 50 bulk sediment samples into a clear liquid form. It measured a suite of elemental concentrations (including iron, titanium, aluminum, calcium, and barium) using an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). Then linear relationships were observed between the ICP-MS elemental concentration and XRF intensity data in the same sample depths to compute element-specific calibration curves and calibrate XRF concentration records throughout the core. The calibrated XRF records can then be used to examine changes in dust deposition at Site U1541 over the past 8 million years.
French Neoclassical Visionary Architects and The Democratization of Architecture
Christopher Hoffarth
Professor Scott Rudd (English/Philosophy)
Within the various subjects of architecture, visionary architecture remains among the least academically studied, consisting of impossible sketches and drawings not limited by physics, technology, or funding. The visionary architecture that emerged out of France spanning from 1784 to 1813 reflects tension before, utopian ideals during, and the alienation after the French Revolution. During the Revolution, the scope of accepted architectural criticism expanded from closed academic circles to the general public. This project studies that democratic movement through the visionary works of three French neoclassical architects, Etienne-Louis Boullee, Claude Nicolas Ledoux, and Jean-Jacques Lequeu. The works of these architects show a progressive abandonment of certain neoclassical elements and concepts that coincide with both the democratization of architectural criticism, and the chronology of the French Revolution. These architect remain pioneers in both theory and technique, fostering a community of scholars such as Sylvia Lavin and Luc Gruson who study how visionary works function as cultural critique and define the architecture of the future. This presentation will study visionary architecture’s ability to push the conceptual limits of their field as Boullee, Ledoux, and Lequeu funneled the cultural anxieties and tensions of their respective times into truly meaningful and worthwhile pieces of art.
View the Scholars' Day schedule online.
Ghidiu, Katherine
Library
04/29/2024