The Colorado Front Range and Antarctic Research: Spring Community Lecture Series at Fort Collins Main Library

Scientists will share their stories about Antarctica with the local community through a lecture series held at the Fort Collins Main Library this spring.

Geographic exploration has given way to scientific investigation that will be highlighted by the International Council for Science’s designation of 2007-08 as the International Polar Year. The presenters hope to raise understanding of the polar regions at all levels and major changes underway in the biological and physical environment at the two poles.

The lecture series, free and open to the public, is sponsored by Colorado State’s Department of Biology, the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory and the Fort Collins Public Library.

Each lecture will feature a scientist from the Front Range who has based much of his or her career on research in Antarctica.

All lectures start at 7 p.m. and will be held in the in the Ben Delatour Room of the Fort Collins Main Public Library, 201 Peterson St. The series schedule follows.

– Feb. 26: "Oasis Under the Ice: Research Diving and the Unique Marine Life of Antarctica," presented by Stephen Alexander at Raytheon Polar Services.

– March 25: "Antarctica under the Ice: A 4-Billion-Year History of the Continent," presented by Dennis Harry from Colorado State University.

– April 29: "Ice Cores and Climate Change: Why You Should Care and Take Action Now," presented by James White from the University of Colorado-Boulder.

– May 20: "Murder at the End of the Paleozoic: Clues from Antarctica – Did Global Warming Have a Role in the World’s Greatest Extinction 251 Million Years Ago?" presented by Jim Collinson from Ohio State University.

For more information about the International Polar Year, visit www.ipy.org.

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