Well, it is possible, and it's being done at DRI's new E.L. Cord Geochronology Laboratory.
But why? "Knowing the age of sand buried long ago can tell us what the climate was like long ago-and may help us predict what our climate will be like in the future," explains laboratory director, Dr. Glenn Berger.
Berger's laboratory opened in November and it's one of only three in the country equipped for luminescence dating of geological samples-a method that measures the amount of light released when a grain of sand is either heated or exposed to infrared light. Using it, researchers can determine the ages of ancient earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, or discover when climate shifts changed a forest or grassland into a sea of sand.
With luminescence dating, researchers can determine the ages of many materials that are too old for the radiocarbon dating technique (older than 55,000 years). It measures the time elapsed since sand grains were last exposed to sunlight. Radiocarbon (Carbon 14) dating needs organic matter-anything that used to be alive-to be successful. Luminescence dating can use many inorganic materials as long as they were once touched by light.
Berger says the luminescence dating process is very complicated, and for a long time, took a back seat to radiocarbon dating. Berger believes that's because luminescence dating was not taken very seriously. "If a fraction of the money given to Carbon 14 dating was given to luminescence dating, we would be much further along. Carbon 14 dating relates more to the human era, while luminescence dating relates to the longer history of global change. It is probably the recent need to understand global changes that has most helped to push luminescence dating along," he explains.
Berger and the dating system are currently in high demand, but that wasn't always the case. Luminescence dating technology was partly developed in the U.S. in the 1960s and was quickly advanced and popularized in Europe for dating archaeological pottery. Initial measurements made on unheated sediments in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were poorly done, which made many American geologists skeptical. Due to those and other problems, the technology, which was further developed in Canada, has been very slow to return to the U.S.
"It's been a very curious history. Luminescence dating is probably unique among dating methods. It is superficially so simple-just heat things with simple equipment and get a signal-yet basically as complex as atomic phenomena. Different samples can behave quite unexpectedly," Berger explains. "Consequently, the wide variety of scientists in various nations who have been attracted to the method have made real progress only sporadically."
Darkness is crucial to this form of dating. First, a sample is taken and inserted into a light-proof container before being transported back to the laboratory. Next, particular grains of sand are taken from the sand sample and placed on a tiny metal disc, which is then placed inside the luminescence apparatus.
A native of Ontario, Canada, Berger received his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto, Canada's largest university. He moved on to Western Washington University where he founded a laboratory similar to DRI's.
At DRI, Berger is using the luminescence dating method to assign absolute ages to grains of ancient sand, silt and volcanic glass-grains that holds clues to past climates, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Berger has just returned from the South Island of New Zealand where he is collaborating with local geologists to develop a climate chronology that will chart the history of climate change and earthquakes in that area.
He is also measuring the age of silt and volcanic glass grains from central Alaska, mud from Arctic lakes in Alaska, and silt and sand from Antarctica. The Antarctic work is a new collaboration with DRI scientist Dr. Bob Wharton and graduate research student Peter Doran. Both the Arctic and Antarctic projects will help shed light on the regions' past climate changes.
Berger just finished working with a geologist from southern California and a physicist from Canada to date the past occurrence of large earthquakes in the Western Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles.
Inside the apparatus, the grains are either heated or exposed to a large amount of infrared light. The grains then release light particles (photons) which are counted and recorded. Finally, data are sent to a computer which calculates the age of the sand grains.
The new DRI laboratory was set up through a $50,000 grant from Reno's E.L. Cord Foundation, a long-time benefactor of DRI. The contribution paid for needed equipment and remodeling of an existing DRI laboratory. -J. McCooey
DRI does the "impossible" and dates ancient volcanic eruptions.
In DRI's newest lab, a grain of sand becomes a tiny time capsule.
Dr. Charles Elachi, the 1995 Nevada Medalist, helped pioneer the radar imaging technology that made these breakthroughs possible. He led the design and development of four major NASA systems: the first one was carried by the Seasat satellite in 1978 and the other three were aboard the space shuttle-in 1981, 1984 and 1994.
Besides providing some spectacular images, the latest radar system, which can penetrate several feet of the earth's surface, gives scientists a new tool to monitor and assess large-scale environmental processes by looking at vegetation, wetlands, soil moisture, snow cover, and ocean currents.
Elachi has also turned his special vision to other worlds: he is the radar team leader for the Cassini mission to Saturn and is a member of the science team for the Magellan Project, which radar-mapped the surface of Venus.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, holds four patents, and has authored more than 200 publications, including six books.
As part of the award activities, Nevada Governor Bob Miller will proclaim April 26 "Charles Elachi Day." Elachi will give the Eighth Nevada Medal Lecture, "Seeing the Unseen: Radar Imaging from Space," at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on April 25 and the University of Nevada, Reno on April 26. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Elachi is director for space and earth science at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He was nominated for the Nevada Medal by former NASA Administrator Richard Truly. Elachi has a doctorate in electrical sciences from the California Institute of Technology, three master's degrees (electrical science, geology and business administration), and a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Grenoble, France.
Founded eight years ago by the Desert Research Institute and Nevada Bell, the Nevada Medal is a national award given annually by DRI to recognize and stimulate outstanding scientific engineering and technical achievements.
Past Nevada Medal Recipients
The Clean Air Act requires that federal research money be used to identify and evaluate sources of pollution-and also, sources of clean air, regions otherwise known as clean air corridors. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked DRI to determine where the Grand Canyon's clean air is coming from and why it is clean. To answer the "where" question, Green is using wind measurements and trajectory models to find the pathways of air for clean days. He has found clean air at the Grand Canyon most often comes from the northwest, and arrives more often in winter than in summer.
The "why" question is a little more complex. Green identifies three main factors contributing to clean air from the northwest.
They are: (1) low emissions of air pollutants in the sparsely populated areas to the northwest; (2) enhanced dilution of air pollutants due to increased wind speeds compared to other areas; and (3) increased wash-out of pollutants by rain and snow.
EPA will use the results of DRI's research to determine the best ways of keeping the air corridors clean. Options include limiting growth, or requiring strict emission controls on new industrial sources in the "clean air" regions.
"The purpose of looking at clean air corridors is to help find ways of preserving the periods of excellent visibility. We would like to see this done without too many regulations imposed," Green adds.
Green is working closely with the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission which must issue a report to the EPA addressing the visibility issues by November 1995. The commission regularly holds public meetings and actively encourages public participation. (Dr. James V. Taranik, DRI's president, is on the public advisory commmittee of the commission.)
Green says he and the commission hope their work will mean that one day, visitors to the Grand Canyon can count on a clear view of one of Earth's natural wonders. -J. McCooey
He explained that these and other funds the foundation raises provide support that simply cannot be gained from the type of grants and contracts that are the basis of DRI's present operations. "The Desert Research Institute is poised on becoming a truly world-class institution," he said. "To fulfill that destiny, it is imperative that DRI provide the best possible research climate for its faculty."
The contracts and grants that are the lifeblood of the institute often don't provide for the purchase of needed equipment, nor time for research and development activities. "This is the gap that the DRI Research Foundation seeks to fill," Costello said.
Helping to fill that gap are the contributors to the Annual Fund, and the E.L. Cord Foundation, which gave $40,000 to establish an equipment loan fund. The fund will allow faculty to borrow the cost of purchasing equipment and then repay it over the course of several years. Also helping DRI with its equipment needs were the Robert Z. Hawkins Foundation, which gave $10,000 for the purchase of an advanced instrument for ecosystem studies, and Exxon Research and Engineering, which donated equipment needed for air pollution research.
Exploring the mystery further, scientists concluded the lines were trails left by ship smokestacks.
The Monterey Area ShipTrack Experiment (MAST) was created to study these ship trails and their possible effects on our climate. DRI atmospheric scientist Dr. Jim Hudson says he pushed for the project since he first heard about the ship trails in 1986. Such a study is important, he explains, because the same type of pollution scratching the ocean sky is also changing the clouds over land. And, unlike the greenhouse gases that are linked to global warming, this air pollution is cooling things off.
MAST is a U.S.-British effort operating out of the Naval Postgraduate School near Monterey, California. Hudson and his fellow MAST researchers study ship trails by flying through the plumes of smoke coming from oceangoing ships.
Using instruments ranging from exotic lasers to common wind vanes, the scientists discovered the trails are caused by microscopic particles in the sulfur emissions from ship smokestacks. When these particles-mostly sulfate aerosols-reach the cloud, water droplets form around them. In a cloud altered by a ship trail, the droplets are smaller and more closely spaced, making the cloud more reflective.
When a cloud is more reflective than normal, much of the heat and light that would have reached the Earth through the cloud is reflected back into space, cooling the earth beneath the cloud. It turns out this happens in any cloud altered by sulfate aerosols, but since ocean clouds are cleaner than those over land, it's easier to see the effects of pollution.
The MAST results raise an obvious question: if greenhouse gases cause the Earth to become warmer, and the reflective clouds cause the Earth to cool down, will the two cancel each other out? It doesn't work that way, according to Hudson.
Hudson explains the pollution that causes the greenhouse effect spreads out to cover the whole planet. "Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, are dispersed throughout the atmosphere causing uniform warming," he says. "The sulfur emissions from factories, cars, and wood burning that are cooling the earth tend to stay close to where they originate."
They do drift, he adds, but not the way greenhouse gases do. For example, smoke from a ship off the coast of Monterey is not going to affect the air over New Zealand. Also, the air is more polluted in the northern than in the southern hemisphere because there is more industry and ship activity in the North.
The MAST experiment raises another, unsettling question: if ships have such an extensive effect on clouds over the ocean, then won't the massive amounts of sulfur emissions produced from land sources have an even greater effect?
"Unfortunately, we won't know what the long term effects will be, or even the extent of the problem, until more research is done," says Hudson. "It is too early to reach any conclusions."
One thing is certain-Hudson and his colleagues will keep their heads in the clouds for a long time to come, looking to the sky for answers to global climate questions. -K. Dolbier, C. Kimball
DRI atmospheric scientist Dr. Jim Hudson is inside a C-131 airplane packed with equipment that helped solve the mystery of the ship trails. One of the most important instruments was one that Hudson designed-it measures microscopic particles (both natural and manmade) that make cloud droplets.
Curiosity about these giant scratches in the sky led scientists to discover new clues about how human activities are changing our climate. Unlike the greenhouse gases that are linked to global warming, the air pollution that marks this cloud cover is cooling things off. Enhanced satellite image of the Northeast Pacific courtesy of the Naval Postgraduate School, Department of Meteorology, Remote Sensing Group.
Facts about global warming/cooling:
Scientists generally agree heat-trapping greenhouse gases are warming the planet.
Yet, global temperatures are not rising as fast as predicted by climate models.
Clouds polluted by sulfur emissions reflect more heat and light back into space than normal clouds .This cools the earth beneath the clouds.
While some sulfates come from nature-volcanic eruptions, for example-most are caused by human activity. We add a whopping 70 to 80 million tons of sulfur from sulfur dioxide to the atmosphere each year by wood burning and industrial and auto emissions.
Greenhouse gases reign when the sun goes down: recent studies show that temperatures are rising at night, when there is no sunlight for clouds to reflect back into space.
The cooling effect does not "cancel out" global warming-in fact, it may be "hiding" some of the greenhouse effect, and eventually, warming may overcome cooling.
We need to know more about the cooling effect of clouds before we can accurately predict our future climate.
In 1994, DRI's Bwire Ojiambo, a graduate research assistant, was one of those ten. His application to study sustainable development in his native Kenya was among more than 10,000 reviewed by the Lindbergh Foundation. Ojiambo accepted the award in a ceremony at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
NASA Associate Administrator Charles Kennel nominated Taranik to the Earth, Space, and Technology Subcommittee. The subcommittee reviewed NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Goddard Space Flight Center and their support of NASA's Programs for studying the earth and the solar system. Taranik had a lead role in the evaluation of NASA's Scientific Research Enterprise.
The task force report made recommendations on the future role of NASA laboratories, which included consolidation, collaboration with the Departments of Defense and Energy, and working more closely with industry and academia. The National Science and Technology Council will incorporate these recommendations, along with those of the task forces reviewing the energy and defense department laboratories, in its report to President Bill Clinton this spring.
"I am pleased to become part of an organization that is dedicated to the environment as well as the state of Nevada," Cashman said. He is also a member of the board of directors of the YMCA Southern Nevada Region, the United Way of Southern Nevada and U.S. Bank. As a former Reno resident, he was also active with the Reno Chamber of Commerce.
Peltyn is the past chairman of Opportunity Village, a member of the Nevada Development Authority Board of Trustees, director of the Clark County Public Education Foundation, member of the UNLV President's Associates Council, and president of Nevada Alliance for the Arts. He is also affiliated with the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Steel Construction, and the National Society of Professional Engineers.
Wharton, a scientist whose research interests range from Mars to Antarctica, is a biologist with an international reputation in environmental studies.
He succeeds Dr. William Bishop who took an executive assignment with the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.
Wharton's responsibilities include developing new research programs and science initiatives for DRI with federal, state and private sector sponsors.
"There are about 50 different scientific disciplines represented by DRI researchers-all focused on environmental research. I think my interdisciplinary approach will be a benefit when working with experts across a wide variety of fields," Wharton said.
Wharton directs the first Long-Term Ecological Research site on the Antarctic continent as part of a network funded by the National Science Foundation to gather long-term data about various ecosystems.
Wharton earned a B.A. in botany and an M.A. in biology from Humboldt State University. He received his Ph.D. in botany from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Jarvis came to DRI from the 64-campus State University of New York (SUNY) system, where she was deputy to the chancellor. The SUNY system has an annual operating budget of $4.1 billion and is considered the largest and most comprehensive higher education system in the country.
At DRI, Jarvis is responsible for oversight of a $25 million budget. That budget is mostly acquired through out-of-state grants and contracts obtained competitively in the research marketplace, with the state of Nevada providing about 10 percent of the institute's operational support.
Jarvis began her 30-year career in higher education in New York where she received her Ph.D. degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo in educational administration. Prior to advancing to the SUNY system administration, Jarvis was a vice president for sponsored programs at SUNY Buffalo.
Jarvis succeeds Dale Schulke, who was named vice president for finance and administration in 1987. Schulke, who joined DRI in 1965 as a research assistant, is retiring in June.
Dr. Fred Nials, a geoarchaeologist with DRI's Quaternary Sciences Center in Reno, said the tusk remnants measured up to 18 inches long and weighed up to forty pounds. He said the Cortez crew's quick action and voluntary suspending of operations saved the remains for analyses. The company crew contacted the Bureau of Land Management immediately, and the BLM called Nials at DRI.
"These appear to have been fragments washed into the gravel bed, quite possibly from many miles away," Nials said. "This is not a site that needs to be excavated or examined further, but the scientific community really appreciates it when firms voluntarily stop work and notifiy us when they find something that might be significant."
The Dandini Medal is awarded annually to an outstanding Desert Research Institute researcher, and carries a $1,000 cash award to the recipient as well as a $5,000 contribution to the DRI Faculty Endowment. The award, initiated and sponsored by Countess Angela Dandini of Reno, includes a medallion designed by her late husband, Count Alessandro Dandini.
Lancaster's research on how windblown soils can reveal environmental and climate change is recognized worldwide. Lancaster's current research includes working with NASA on the space shuttle's radar project, using the images the shuttle took from space to look for possible buried sources of water under sand dunes.
Count Dandini served as special assistant to the DRI president from 1971 to 1974. He held doctorates in language, science, the classics and hydraulic engineering, and patented 22 inventions, including the three-way light bulb. A long-time supporter of DRI, Count Dandini was instrumental in the acquisition of the 470-acre parcel of U.S. Bureau of Land Management property that is now the Alessandro Dandini Research Park in Reno.
Ritter, director of DRI's Quaternary Sciences Center, has taught geomorphology for more than 30 years. Miller received his Ph.D. in geology from Southern Illinois University, and has been an assistant research professor at DRI since 1990. Dr. R. Craig Kochel, chairperson of the geology department at Bucknell University, was the book's other co-author.
The award was established by family and friends of Colin Warden after his death in 1991. Warden was an electrician at Washoe Medical Center and a DRI benefactor.
The award is given every year to a graduate student at UNR or UNLV who is working under the direction of a DRI research faculty member. Applicants submit papers based on research related to an environmental problem.
It is funded by the gifts of Sulo and Aileen Maki, Las Vegas real estate developers. For many years, they have been benefactors of DRI and its long-range programs. Sulo Maki died in 1985. A DRI committee awarded Leising the fellowship based on his academic record, letters of recommendation, and a statement of research interests, career goals, and expectations.
Yucca Mountain, an archaeological site 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been under the investigative lens of DRI archaeologists.
More than 800 archaeological sites have been documented, and more continue to be found.
DRI scientist Hal Rager is one of the many archaeologists working on a project that documents the mountain's artifacts and prehistory. He is building a Geographic Information System (GIS) database of all site locations, previous areas surveyed, and the characteristics of the artifacts found. Rager has a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Kansas State University.
Rager has worked on the Yucca Mountain GIS project for a little over two years, but that isn't his only research interest. He also enjoys working in the physical and forensic anthropology field, and has studied environmental modeling, especially as it relates to climate reconstruction in the Great Basin.
Rager recently presented a poster at the Great Basin Anthropological Conference in Elko, Nevada. He will present a paper at the Society for American Archaeology Conference the first week of May.
On his off-time, Rager is a voracious reader of almost anything he can get his hands on. This includes science fiction, social theory, Mayan culture, chaos.... the list goes on. But his hobbies don't end there.
Rager's resume will one day read "archaeologist/author." He is a self-described "frustrated science fiction writer."
"I have a collection of rejection slips," he quipped.
Roko Andricevic
It's a long way from Zagreb, Croatia, to Las Vegas, Nevada. Dr. Roko Andricevic, a DRI hydrological engineer and Croatian native, should know. He's made the trip several times.
Since joining DRI's Water Resources Center in 1992, Andricevic has worked closely with the Zagreb University Water Center in Croatia on several projects, including a National Science Foundation Technical Assistance Program designed to make research funding available to countries that could not otherwise afford travel or equipment.
He is also working on a study for the U.S. Department of Energy to assess the risk of radioactive materials migrating from the proposed high-level nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and the potential risk to human health.
Andricevic earned his M.S. in civil engineering at the University of Zagreb in 1985, and his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1988. While at Minnesota, Andricevic was active in educating people about the war in Croatia. He organized lectures, wrote numerous letters to promote awareness, and helped to organize two major shipments of medical supplies through the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He travels frequently to the area, but says the war has not affected his work. He and his family visit Croatia every summer.
If he's not in his office or on an airplane, you'll probably find him on the tennis or basketball court. He was voted best all-around athlete at his hometown high school in Split and again at the University of Minnesota.