Quahog Records of a Changing Ocean
Watercolor and Colored Pencil, 2021
I created Quahog in collaboration with physical oceanographer Dr. Nina Whitney who is currently based at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This painting was a fun collaboration as it is a gift to her former PhD advisor, so the concept was for them rather than a larger audience. Quahog clam shells preserved on the seafloor in the Gulf of Maine reveal a lot about changes to the ocean over long timescales. I used three graphs to construct the water column — all of these are data from the shells themselves. The surface represents changing oxygen isotopic ratios (δ18O) which reveal a lot about past ocean temperatures. Below this a shallow bottom (inshore), where Quahogs may live is marked by changing radiocarbon isotopes (∆14C). The third graph in the deeper ocean represents changing nitrogen isotopes (δ15N). These latter two reveal a lot about past ocean chemistry, which can be used to understand changes in the behavior of ocean currents, in particular the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current.
Whitney, N.M. (2020). Using Modern and Paleoceanographic Isotopic Systems to Reconstruct Late Holocene Temporal Oceanographic Variability in the Rapidly Warming Gulf of Maine. (Publication ID 27835391) [Doctoral dissertation, Iowa State University, Ames]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.