April 11, 2007, 10:54 PM CT

Earthshaking Images

The powerful earthquake struck suddenly, shaking the seven-story building so hard it bent, cracked and swayed in response.

But this was no ordinary earthquake. In a groundbreaking series of tests, engineering scientists from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering jarred a full-size 275-ton building erected on a shake table, duplicating ground motions recorded during the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, California.

To record the impact on the building, the structure was fitted with some 600 sensors and filmed as the shake table simulated the earthquake, yielding a flood of data including stress, strain, and acceleration -- so much information that engineers were having a hard time making sense of it all.

That's where visualization experts from the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego came in.

"By recreating the shake table experiment in movies in a virtual environment based on the observed data, this lets engineers explore all the way from viewing the 'big picture' of the entire building from a 360-degree viewpoint to zooming in close to see what happened to a specific support," said SDSC visualization scientist Amit Chourasia. "Integrating these disparate data elements into a visual model can lead to critical new insights." ......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 2, 2007, 10:11 PM CT

Increasing Effectiveness Of Tsunami Warning

Researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno are at the forefront on many seismological fields, including helping the world better determine whether an earthquake is big enough to generate an ocean-wide tsunami.

Through work at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory on the Nevada campus, important data on seismological events throughout the world is compiled, including Mondays fatal occurrence in the Solomon Islands, where at least 13 people were killed. Tsunamis triggered by an undersea earthquake crashed ashore and wiped away entire villages and set off alerts from Australia to Hawaii.

A research team led by Geoffrey Blewitt of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and Seismological Laboratory has demonstrated that a large quakes true size can be determined within 15 minutes using Global Positioning System data. This swift exchange of information, which is much faster than is possible with current methods, can be critical in determining whether an earthquake might trigger a tsunami. Together with a seismometer and ocean buoy data, GPS has the potential to become an important tool in improving tsunami danger assessments, Blewitt said.

"We'll always need seismology as the first level of alert for large earthquakes, and we'll need ocean buoys to actually sense the tsunami waves," said Blewitt, whose work was originally accomplished through the NASA-funded Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Blewitts team recently was granted further funding from the U.S. Geological Surveys Natural Hazards Reduction Program to continue research and development......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

April 2, 2007, 10:05 PM CT

Supreme Court case on carbon dioxide emissions

Four faculty members from The University of Arizona in Tucson were part of an amicus curiae brief supporting the plaintiff in today's historic U.S. Supreme Court decision on carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.

In the case, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, several states sued the EPA for failure to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles as mandatory by the Clean Air Act.

Today the court decided in favor of Massachusetts, et al.

"This ruling is a victory for climate science," said UA ecologist Scott Saleska, the scientist who organized the scientists' collaboration on the brief. "EPA ignored what is perhaps the most important finding in climate science in the last decade, which is that the rise of global temperature and the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 are causally linked.

"The opening paragraph of the Court majority opinion cited that specific scientific finding".

UA researchers were leaders in the climate scientists' amicus curiae brief in support of the plaintiff. Scott Saleska, a UA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, organized the group of climate researchers to file the brief. Kirsten Engel, a UA professor of law, was one of only four lawyers on the amicus brief......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 28, 2007, 10:00 PM CT

Thinning of West Antarctic Ice

Polar ice experts from Europe and the United States, meeting to pursue greater scientific consensus over the fate of the world's largest fresh water reservoir, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, conclude their three-day meeting at The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences with the following statement:

Surprisingly rapid changes are occurring in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, a Texas-size region of the Antarctic Ice Sheet facing the southern Pacific Ocean. Experts across a wide range of scientific disciplines from the United States and United Kingdom met in Austin, Texas, to identify barriers to improved predictions of future sea-level rise resulting from these changes.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in February that the scientific community could not provide a best estimate or an upper limit on the rate of sea-level rise in coming centuries because of a lack of understanding of the flow of the large ice sheets.

All of the ice on Earth contains enough water to raise sea level over 200 feet, with about 20 feet from Greenland and almost all of the rest from Antarctica. Eventhough complete loss of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is not expected, even a small change would matter to coastal populations......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 28, 2007, 9:54 PM CT

Lightning Is Good Indicator Of Volcanic Activity

Eventhough it's been more than a year since Mount Augustine had its memorable eruption, work continues for University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers. The work of Alaska Volcano Observatory employees from UAF's Geophysical Institute will be appearing in the upcoming issue of the journal Science.

The article, which came out on Feb. 23, documents electrical activity that occurred during the January 2006 eruption of Mount Augustine. While it has long been known that volcanic eruptions can produce vigorous lightning, there are few direct observations of the phenomena, states the article. Following the initial eruptions of Jan. 11 and 13, 2006, two of which produced lightning, two electromagnetic lightning detectors were set up in Homer about 60 miles from Augustine. A couple of days later, the volcano erupted again, with the first of four eruptions producing a "spectacular lightning sequence".

The conclusions, as per Volcano Seismologist Steve McNutt, who is a research professor of geophysics at UAF and co-author of the article, is that in addition to the current means that seismologists employ in determining volcanic eruptions. As a result of this research, plans are under way to install a simple lightning detector on Mount Cleveland this summer......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 28, 2007, 9:52 PM CT

Understanding Extreme Weather

Weather is a hot topic here in Interior Alaska and a quick way to get anyone talking. Not a day goes by in winter months without some observations of temperatures, air inversions, or even a mention that the sun budged another degree above the horizon.

When it comes to predicting weather events, however, especially the extreme events such as harsh winds, impact from massive wildfires or ash resulting from volcanic eruptions those who work in the field face a number of challenges in creating models specific for Alaska's unique environment.

The Great Alaska Weather Symposium aims to identify shortcomings in existing models and observations that deal with Alaska's changing weather patterns. Some of the topics also address research correlation to the International Polar Year. Sponsored by Alaska Region of the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS ) and University of Alaska Fairbanks' Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC ), College of Natural Science & Mathematics (CNSM), Geophysical Institute (GI), and International Arctic Research Center (IARC), the weather conference features presenters and attendees from UAF and other universities and research centers in the Lower 48, including the National Weather Service.

Alaska weather modeling can be used for various application purposes, said Nicole Mlders, a member of the GI's Atmospheric Sciences Research Group and one of the symposium organizers. For example, a session on wind prediction is important for small aircrafts, ship traffic, oil spill spread in coastal waters and coastal erosion. "These are themes of great financial relevance for Alaska's economies," Mlders said......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 27, 2007, 7:08 PM CT

Black Carbon Transported from Asia

More than three-quarters of the particulate pollution known as black carbon and transported at high altitudes over the West Coast during spring comes from Asia, as per a research team led by scientist V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in La Jolla, Calif. The material not only affects climate in Asia, it also carries consequences for the Pacific Ocean region that drives much of the climate around the world.

Climate researchers Ramanathan and Odelle Hadley are lead authors of a research paper appearing in the March 14 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the California Energy Commission (CEC).

"This study demonstrates that aerosols from all sources in East Asia significantly affect not only regional climate, but also affect climate across the 8,000 kilometers of the north Pacific Ocean," said Jay Fein, NSF program director for climate dynamics.

Transport of Asian black carbon, which is generated by automobile exhaust, agricultural burning and other sources, is heaviest in spring when cold Arctic fronts dip to lower latitudes and loft warmer air to higher altitudes. Worldwide transport of the aerosols keeps them at high altitudes for up to two weeks......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 25, 2007, 9:29 PM CT

Faulted Modeling

Factoring in crustal strength changes along the San Andreas Fault would improve the predictive models that scientists use to understand the likelihood and intensity of earthquakes there. That's the conclusion from a study reported in the recent issue of Geology titled, "Diffuse interseismic deformation across the Pacific-North America plate boundary."

Currently, it is standard practice for universities and government agencies to measure crustal movement that occurs within Southern California using precise Global Positioning System (GPS) and other highly accurate tools that project movements in millimeters per year. In this study, Dr. Shimon Wdowinski, research associate professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, and researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography used 840 very precise measurements of crustal movements collected in the past 25 years. These measurements were conducted mainly in southern California, to study the nature of steady crustal movements occurring in between large earthquakes within this same zone. By using a geometrical technique, they found a disparity between the observations and a mechanical model in a narrow band along the San Andreas Fault and in the Mojave Block.

"This suggests that crustal changes and fault segments that haven't yet been included in models really should be considered in future ones," Wdowinski said. "By adding in this information to the models, researchers will improve their assessments of potential earthquake hazards."........ Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 22, 2007, 10:20 PM CT

Delta Preservation With Coastal Science Experts

The Mississippi River delta region is of huge economic importance to the nation. As a "working coast," much of the Souths major industries especially seafood and petroleum are largely dependent on the health of the delta and its surrounding areas. After the 2005 hurricane season, however, experts are voicing growing concerns over how the Mississippi Deltaic Plain, or MDP, is being treated.

Scientists at LSU, led by John Day, estuary expert and professor of oceanography at the university, have joined forces with more than 10 other world-renowned coastal researchers to publish "Restoration of the Mississippi Delta: Lessons From Hurricanes Katrina and Rita," which will be featured in the March 23 edition of Science magazine.

The LSU group, which also includes Hassan Mashriqui, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Robert Twilley, professor of oceanography and associate vice chancellor of the Coastal Systems and Society Initiative, hopes that this article and the huge collaboration of experts that it represents will bring worldwide attention to the importance of preserving the MDP. "People need to understand that the formation of the MDP was a very complicated process, and its deterioration is equally as complicated," said Day. "Humans have affected it at every angle"......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 22, 2007, 10:18 PM CT

Evidence Of First Plate Tectonics

Identification of the oldest preserved pieces of Earth's crust in southern Greenland has provided evidence of active plate tectonics as early as 3.8 billion years ago, as per a report by an international team of georesearchers in the March 23 edition of Science magazine.

The finding pushes back the date of continent-forming processes previously determined as 2.5 billion years ago to a much earlier era considerably closer to Earth's formation some 4.5 billion years ago. Geochemical analysis of rocks has previously suggested an earlier date for plate tectonics, but this is the first study to find physical evidence of tectonics among Earth's oldest known rock structures, as per Hubert Staudigel of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

"The fact that this rock structure is so well preserved is especially lucky," Staudigel said. "The materials were formed as seafloor along a spreading center and accreted to a continental plate and just stuck there, surviving almost unscathed for as long as 3.8 billion years".

The study focuses on an area near the southwestern coast of Greenland where there is a rare outcrop of ancient rock, called the Isua Supracrustal Belt, which have been dated at 3.8 billion years old. The Isua rocks are ophiolites, which have a green hue from the chlorite minerals within them and are found in all major mountain belts, commonly located in areas linked to volcanism and plate tectonics. The Isua deposits were first described in the 1960s. They also have been found to contain fossilized evidence of the earliest bacterial life on Earth, also about 3.8 billion years old, in studies conducted in 1999 by Minik Rosing......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source