
BGSU geology students to perform high-level research in Antarctica
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Katie Shanks ’24, Robert O’Conke ’24 and Jacci Kalemba ’24 will assist scientists and complete their own projects into a little-understood part of Earth
By Nick Piotrowicz
During a meeting with one of her professors at Bowling Green State University, geology student Katie Shanks ’24 said she had to stop for a moment to fully process what was just said.
As she sat in the office of Dr. Kurt Panter, a professor of geology at BGSU, Panter mentioned that he had a project that had been reviewed, accepted and funded by the National Science Foundation, a two-month journey aboad an icebreaker ship that would travel, quite literally, to the end of the Earth.
Would she like to go to Antarctica to study undersea volcanoes as part of her academic journey at BGSU?
“He casually threw out, ‘By the way, I’m going on this huge trip in 2025 and I can take students,’” she said. “The thought of going to Antarctica for school credit – how could I say no?"
A little more than a year later, it’s a reality.
Shanks, Jacci Kalemba ’24 and Robert O’Conke ’24 will be involved in a potentially groundbreaking trip to collect data on one of the least understood parts of the planet.
Funded by an NSF grant of $360,000, the three students will assist Panter and other scientists as they set out to study what role volcanism plays in the Ross Sea near a critically important part of western Antarctica.
In addition to assisting professional scientists, the BGSU students also will be conducting their own project to better understand one of the least-visited parts of Earth.
Kalemba and Shanks will join Panter aboard the ship, while O’Conke will streamline the team’s data analysis processes in the United States.
All three gained valuable field experience during their time as undergraduates at BGSU, which the Wall Street Journal ranked as the No. 1 public university in Ohio for student experience.
“I enjoy field work in general, but it’s absolutely incredible to have the opportunity to go somewhere that very few people have the opportunity to go,” Kalemba said. “Honestly, up until I got my tickets emailed to me, it was hard to believe that I was really going."
Panter said students will gain the invaluable experience of not only completing high-level field science, but collaborating with professionals in the field and studying something very few humans – let alone scientists – have ever seen.
“Experience is one of the best educators, and just experiencing this naturally broadens your mind,” he said. “Dipping your toe into the waters of research helps students stimulate scientific inquiry, and it’s, of course, an incredible opportunity to do some prominent science. This is science that’s in your face: I’m going to Antarctica to study undersea volcanoes.”
Through the opportunity, BGSU students will be able to perform science at its core: Asking questions of the world, conducting research and analyzing something that will provide a new understanding.
That the research will take place in one of the most far-reaching places of the world is part of what makes it even more thrilling.
“When I got the chance to participate in this project, I jumped on it immediately,” O’Conke said. “Everything on the mainland U.S. is pretty studied, but going into this, you know you’re coming back with pretty unique data.”
O’Conke, a native of Chardon, Ohio, east of Cleveland, is compiling a dataset of samples pulled up from around the Ross Sea, from which he will determine ages to find any temporal or chronological relations between samples.
Simply knowing ages of samples, he said, could provide critical data points that inform future research into the area.
“The age can give us a history, and it’s an additional characteristic we can apply to other studies,” he said. “When we’re talking about chronology and geology, the very nature of when something was produced matters very deeply in putting a region’s history together. When we can order events – if we know which rocks date to which time – that’s a very valuable characteristic to know.”

Contrary to common knowledge about Antarctica, it’s actually one of the most volcanically significant places on Earth.
It also includes several geographically significant features that the science community simply doesn’t know much about. Kalemba, a Cleveland-area native, is out to learn more about one of them, unusual formations near the Terror Rift below the sea about which scientists would like to know more.
“We know there are these flat-top mounds below the surface, but we don’t know exactly what they are,” Kalemba said. “We’re trying to find out exactly what they are composition-wise and how they formed, which should give us a better idea about the area overall.”
For her part, Shanks, who grew up in Bowling Green, is studying Davey Bank, an unexplored seamount about which scientists know its bathymetry – its shape and measurements – but little else.
Shanks will be doing composition, morphology and aging it to understand more about a sparsely explored place of Earth.
“It’s very surreal to think that I’m going to Antarctica. As a kid, you see those educational books about scientists in Antarctica, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that would happen to me,” she said. “Now, here I am telling people I’m going to Antarctica and watching their faces say, ‘Wait, what?’ It is very surreal to think I have the opportunity to go study a place in the world that’s really untouched.”
The area that scientists will study used to be covered with ice, but will now be accessible by an icebreaker research vessel.
The area is so difficult to reach that it has not been mapped thoroughly, leaving students with a chance to provide invaluable insight on a rarely studied part of Earth.
“When you go into science, one of the first things you really have to learn is that you’re fundamentally asking questions,” O’Conke said. “Even if you find out that your initial hypothesis is wrong, that in and of itself is a discovery. You answered your question even if it wasn’t what you thought you were looking for.
“Turning a simple question into an entire project is one of the most exciting things in science.”

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Media Contact | Michael Bratton | mbratto@bgsu.edu | 419-372-6349
Updated: 02/04/2025 02:38PM