Many fish have their breeding grounds in estuaries. These sites also afford us an opportunity to study how sediments and other river materials affect the marine environment. Threlkeld's three-year stint as an associate editor of another journal, Limnology and Oceanography, established him as the top candidate for the Estuaries helm, he said. He also served as technical editor for a recent book on climate change. They wanted someone with editing experience and a history of multidisciplinary research.
Estuaries covers a broad range of disciplines, including chemistry, geology, physics and biology.
Articles run the gamut from a study of toxic chemicals in coastal marshes to the life history of a pipe fish. One of Threlkeld's top priorities as editor will be to publish the journal on the Internet. Electronic publishing provides a unique medium to present materials, especially illustrations and underlying data, in a dynamic way, he said. Print can't do justice to those kinds of graphics. We believe the journal can have a better audience once it moves into the electronic arena.