Maureen Hatcher Conte

Senior Research Scientist

Maureen Conte Headshot
Contact Information
Education
Ph.D., 1989, Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory (LDGO)
M.Phil., 1987, Columbia University, LDGO
M.A., 1982,Columbia University, LDGO
B.A., 1975, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD
MBL Affiliation
Ecosystems Center
Research Area
Ecosystems
Global Change
Marine Biology
Lab Website
Oceanic Flux Program (OFP)

Maureen Conte is an oceanographer and organic geochemist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and a Senior Research Scientist at the Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Lab, where her lab is located. After receiving her PhD from Columbia in 1989, she spent five years at the Organic Geochemistry Unit at the Univ of Bristol, England, where she conducted oceanographic research on particle cycling in the North Atlantic and also had major projects focusing on early sediment diagenesis and paleoceanography. Since 1996 Conte has been the Principal Investigator of the 43+ year Oceanic Flux Program deep ocean particle flux time-series offshore Bermuda, the longest running time-series of its kind. Her primary research activities focus on the use of organic compounds and elemental tracers to elucidate the ocean’s carbon cycle and the processes which control the generation and attenuation of the particle flux within the ocean interior on time scales ranging from days to decades. Conte also has research interests in the molecular and isotopic organic geochemistry of biogenic aerosols, and in the development of molecular, elemental and isotopic proxies for paleoclimate reconstructions.

News and Research Highlights
Maureen Hatcher Conte works with
Selected Publications

Cael, B. B., K. Bisson, M. H. Conte, M.T. Duret, C. L. Follett, S. A. Henson, M.C. Honda, M. H. Iversen, D. M. Karl, R. S. Lampitt, C. B. Mouw, F. Muller-Karger, C. A. Pebody, K.L. Smith Jr., D. Talmy (2021)  Open ocean particle flux variability from surface to seafloor Geophys. Res. Lttrs. DOI: 10.1029/2021GL092895

Xu C., P. Lin, L. Sun, H. Chen, W.Xing, M. Kamalanathan, P. G. Hatcher, M. H. Conte, A. Quigg, P.  H. Santschi (2020) Molecular nature of marine particulate organic iron-carrying moieties revealed by electrospray ionization Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (ESI-FTICRMS). Frontiers in Earth Sci. doi:10.3389/feart.2020.00266

Pedrosa-Pamies, R., M.H. Conte, J.C. Weber, R. Johnson (2019) Hurricanes enhance labile carbon export to the deep ocean. Geophys. Res. Letts. /doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083719

Conte, M. H. (2019) Oceanic Particle Flux. In Cochran, J. Kirk; Bokuniewicz, J. Henry; Yager, L. Patricia (eds.) Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences, 3rd Edition, vol.[4], pp. 192-200. Oxford: Elsevier.

Zheng, Y., P. Heng, M. H. Conte, R. S. Vachula, Y. Huang. (2019) Comprehensive chemotaxonomic profiling and novel paleotemperature indices based on alkenones and alkenoates: potential for disentangling mixed species input. Org. Geochem. 128, 26-41.

Conte, M. H., A. M. Carter, D. A. Koweek, S. Huang,  J. C. Weber. (2019) The elemental composition of the deep particle flux in the Sargasso Sea. Chem. Geol., 511, 279- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2018.11.001

Pedrosa Pamies, R., M. H. Conte, J. C. Weber and R. Johnson. (2018) Particle cycling in the Sargasso Sea water column:insights from lipid biomarkers in suspended particles. Progr. Oceanogr. doi: 10.1016/j.pocean.2018.08.005.

Smart, S. M., H. Ren, S. E. Fawcett, R. Schiebel, M. H. Conte, P. A. Rafter, K. K. Ellis, M. A. Weig, D. M. Sigman and G. H. Haug. (2018) Ground-truthing the planktic foraminifer-bound nitrogen isotope paleoproxy in the Sargasso Sea. Geochem. Cosmochim. Acta. 235, 463-482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2018.05.023