A team from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, led by Dr. Alysia Cox, got a project off the ground on Sept. 19. The project integrates geochemistry and microbial activity in the Pecan Island area with coastal change. 

Cox, an assistant professor of geosciences who is new to the campus this semester, has a previous 11 years of teaching and researching at Montana Technological University and a year at the University of Montana. She has led research through her Laboratory Enumerating Geobiochemical Exploration and Natural Dynamics (LEGEND).

Speaking with Cox, she shared that an aspect that influences her research is contributing to whichever community that she is living in. 

She said, “For the past 11 years, we lived in a super fun town with an open pit mine that was there, and it had been the biggest copper mine in the world in 1900.”

Using that as a research advantage, she said that LEGEND sampled every three months, the river and the stream both above and below where the mine and the influence of the mine is. Over the 11 years, she collated a vast data set associated with the aqueous geochemistry and the microorganisms that are living and metabolizing in those environments. 

Coming to UL Lafayette, Cox had a whole new environment to work with, and an opportunity presented itself shortly after she arrived. She said, “Soon after I got here… this SpaceX announcement came out, and I’m like, okay well… there’s my project.” 

She decided to study the aqueous geochemistry and the microbiology in the freshwater bayou on Pecan Island and along the Gulf Coast, and the sediments associated with that water. 

Together with nine students under LEGEND at UL Lafayette, and an assistant professor of biology from the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, the team hit the ground running with collecting samples on Pecan Island. 

Cox said that there is a sense of urgency due to the progression of construction for the spaceport. She said, “Since they already started dredging in some areas, right, it’s really important for us to get out and get some samples… pre-installation of world’s largest spaceport.”

On Sept. 19, the team got permission to conduct sampling on private property on Pecan Island, and collected samples from four locations in the affected area. 

Jonathan Pillsbury, a senior geology major, is one of the students involved. Pillsbury’s role was spectrometry testing, taking the different water samples, adding reactive agents to it and allowing a special machine to detect the concentration of chemicals in the water. The aim is to study a change in pH levels, and, if there is a change, how the water would be impacted.

Sharing his hopes for the project’s findings and outcome, Pillsbury said, “Hopefully, nothing. It would be very nice to not find anything because that would mean that the environment hasn’t really been changed that much at all.”

On Sunday, Oct. 4, Cox and her team went out for a second round of sampling at the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge just beside Pecan Island. Cox said that the refuge is a good place to study coastal changes. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, “Shoreline erosion in this area averages more than 50 feet each year. Since the refuge was founded, it has lost more than 15,000 acres to coastal erosion.”

On Monday, Oct. 5, they conducted their final round of sampling for forming a baseline, before the research project can seek funding to proceed officially. They collected samples from the freshwater bayou just along and slightly off the coast of Pecan Island.

Cox said that a struggle in the sampling process so far has been the uncertainty of who holds authority over which portion of Pecan Island. She said, “It’s a little bit scattered. Usually we are very organized… but this was really difficult with getting permissions.” 

She compared it to her research in Yellowstone National Park, where the process of getting an official permit was detailed and straightforward. 

This project is not yet officially funded. According to Cox, she hopes to seek funding for the project once the sample baseline has been achieved. 

Once officially funded, Cox plans to sample once every three months for the next eight years to 10 years, monitoring changes in the ecosystem parameters and microbial organisms that live on Pecan Island.