bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
AGU develops earthquake curriculum
Authors: Blue Charles 
Published: October 2006

AGU, in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), announces the production of a new curriculum package for grades 7–12 on the engineering and geophysical aspects of earthquakes.According to Frank Ireton, AGU's precollege education manager, “Both AGU and FEMA are working to promote the understanding of earthquake processes and their impact on the built environment. We are designing a program that involves students in learning how science, mathematics, and social studies concepts can be applied to reduce earthquake hazards.”
Australian Geophysics Society reorganized
Authors: Barton Charles 
Published: October 2006

A recent government proposal to drastically change the administrative arrangements for the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (BMR) has caused turmoil within the Australian geoscientific community. BMR was established in 1946 to help identify and promote the development of Australia's oil and mineral resources. Currently, the organization is part of the Department of Primary Industries and Energy (DPIE).The government's proposal was that the resource assessment functions of BMR remain with DPIE and that the remainder of BMR be assimilated into the Commonwealth, Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). CSIRO is the largest scientific wing of government and undertakes industryoriented research in the national interest. The government proposed that BMR could be dismembered and fitted into existing CSIRO groups or possibly kept intact within CSIRO.
New visiting scientists in NSF's Earth sciences
Authors: MacGregor Ian 
Published: October 2006

The National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences has hired two new rotators to serve as program directors, as part of the ongoing visiting scientists program. The new directors are Jonathan Fink in Geochemistry and Petrology, and L. Douglas James in Hydrological Sciences.Fink has exchanged roles for 1 year with NSF's John Snyder, who is on sabbatical at Arizona State University. Fink's current research includes studies of how the Theological properties of magma govern the emplacement of volcanic domes and lava flows, and the gravitational control on their mass movements. This research extends to the mechanisms of igneous intrusion and interpretation of volcanic features in extraterrestrial and submarine environments.
NASA town meetings scheduled
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

The dates and locations for a series of public town meetings sponsored by NASA have been set. The meetings will give the public a chance to learn about NASA's projects and to express their opinions on aspects of the space program, according to NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin. Presentations at the town meetings will be made by top NASA officials, university researchers, members of the business community, educators, and individuals from aerospace associations. The public will be able to ask questions.Each of the town meetings will be held from 2:00 to 6:30 P.M. local time. Dates and locations are listed below.
Omnibus energy bill signed by president
Authors: Leath Audrey T. 
Published: October 2006

One‐and‐a‐half years after the Persian Gulf War reminded Americans of their dependence on foreign oil, Congress and President Bush approved a broad‐ranging energy bill (HR776) to reduce that dependence. The bill, passed by Congress on October 8, was signed into law on October 24.Incorporating provisions under the jurisdiction of many congressional committees, the energy bill faced a long and contentious battle to win approval. The House‐Senate conference lasted 11 hours, and in the last days, several provisions were dropped, including tax incentives for renewable energy development, and bans on some coastline oil and gas drilling.
California neotectonics to be examined
Authors: Bush Susan 
Published: October 2006

Research in neotectonics, the study of active faulting or recent fault activity up to 10,000 years ago, has been increasing over the past 10 years. The study of neotectonics in the Los Angeles, Calif., area gives an idea of seismic potential and hazards on faults buried in the Los Angeles Basin, said Charles Rubin of Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash. Rubin, with James Dolan of the Caltech Seismology Laboratory, is convening the poster session, “California Neotectonics,” to be held at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco.According to Dolan, there has been an explosion of knowledge of seismic hazards in the last year or two. He attributes this to the existence of the Southern California Earthquake Center, one of the first National Science Foundation science centers in the United States, now in its second year of a 5‐year project. About 100 researchers from different disciplines, including geology, geodesy, seismology, and engineering, are working on the same problem of understanding and profiling seismic activity in California. Most of the posters at the AGU session reflect work done through the SCEC project.
Workshop on low‐frequency electrical precursors to earthquakes
Authors: Park Stephen K. 
Published: October 2006

An NSF‐sponsored workshop entitled “Low‐Frequency Electrical Precursors to Earthquakes: Fact or Fiction?” was held at the Lake Arrowhead Hilton in California from June 14 to 17. Thirty‐seven scientists participated in a review of past and current experiments that began with a poster session followed by an open discussion. Highlights of research presented at this workshop included seismic electric signals from Greece, precursory changes of resistivity in China, a reassessment of the ULF anomaly at Loma Prieta, and identification of geophysical constraints for mechanisms possibly causing precursory signals.Discussion focused on instrumentation, laboratory studies, definition of anomalous signals, mechanisms, and the significance of correlations between anomalies and earthquakes. While much is still uncertain, some of the precursory phenomena exist and expanded measurement programs are warranted. The participants identified three main guidelines to improve and quantify their attempts to monitor electrical and electromagnetic precursors and to extend their understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the generation of precursory signals.
A visual display of ocean physics
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

In the course of our oceanographic research studies, we often produce visual descriptions of basic physical processes that are both scientifically informative and visually interesting, if not “beautiful.” Since we are confident that within the files of the oceanographic community many such visual descriptions already exist, we plan to compile a book of the best.Tentatively entitled A Visual Display of Ocean Physics, the book is intended to be a collection of classical and contemporary photographs and other data‐based images of the world's oceans provided by active researchers in oceanography. The book will be primarily a physical view of the ocean encompassing surface, subsurface, and remote (satellite or aircraft) photos over a broad range of scales, from microstructure (turbulence) processes to global space‐based views of the ocean.
Final meeting of NSF Commission on Future
Authors: Jones Richard M. 
Published: October 2006

The third and final meeting of the Commission on the Future of the National Science Foundation was held on November 7. Although this was the shortest of the three meetings, it provided the clearest indication of their report, which is due November 20.The commission was originally charged with examining the future role of NSF. The final report is likely to go considerably beyond this mandate, reviewing federal science and technology policy and the conduct of research and development in the United States. This report is the first step in what National Science Board Chair James Duderstadt promised would be a lengthy process of internal board discussions and meetings across the country. Duderstadt, while noting that NSF commissions are uncommon, said that the issues of the day demanded the present commission and predicted that the report would be a mechanism for launching a dialogue on science policy. He also said that the report would serve as a foundation for board meetings on future NSF budget requests. Perhaps most importantly, Duderstadt said that with the incoming Clinton administration, the forthcoming report could have great impact.
[Comment to “NASA reorganization splits the Earth and planetary sciences”] NASA reorganization linked to El Niño?
Authors: Crowley Thomas J. 
Published: October 2006

The October 27 Eos news article, “NASA Reorganization Splits the Earth and Planetary Sciences,” prompts me to note that there is a quasi‐cyclicity in reorganizations within NASA that appears to have the same time scale as El Niños.Previous reorganizations within the atmospheric sciences program seem to have occurred near the times of the 1982–1983, 1986–1987, and 1991–1992 ENSOs. Although we have just had one El Niño, I now wonder whether such actions may presage a rapid recurrence.
Robert I. Hill (1953–1992)
Authors: Davies Geoff 
Published: October 2006

Robert I. Hill of the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, died suddenly on July 25 at age 38. Robert was a warm and generous person, a scientist with substantial accomplishments already to his credit, and a skilled lobbyist for and communicator of science. He had great potential as a scientist and as a leader of science.Robert obtained a first‐class honors degree from the ANU Geology Department in 1976 and a Ph.D. from Caltech in 1984. He went on to become a research associate at Cambridge, a research fellow at RSES, and finally, a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow there. His Ph.D. research was a field‐based study of the dynamic processes involved in the intrusion of magma into the crust. Later, he studied the sources of deep crustal fluids using helium isotopes, the geological setting of ore bodies with a variety of geochemical and geochronological methods, the occurrence of oil and gas deposits, and the processes that formed and modified the continental crust.
Seismic noise on Rarotonga: Surface versus downhole
Authors: Butler Rhett , Hutt C. R. 
Published: October 2006

Seismic noise data are presented from the new Global Seismographic Network station, RAR, on the Island of Rarotonga in the South Pacific. Data from the first new borehole site in the GSN are compared with a surface vault installation. Initial indications from the data show that borehole siting on a small island significantly reduces long‐period (>20 s) horizontal seismic noise levels during the daytime, but little or no improvement is evident at periods shorter than 20 s or on the vertical component.The goal of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) GSN program is broad, uniform coverage of the Earth with a 128‐station network. To achieve this goal and provide coverage in oceanic areas, many stations will be sited on islands. A major siting consideration for these new stations is whether to build a surface vault or drill a borehole. Neither option is inexpensive. The costs for drilling a cased hole and a borehole sensor are large, but the benefit of a borehole site is that seismic noise is reduced during certain periods when a surface installation may be subject to wind, weather, and thermal effects. This benefit translates into recording greater numbers of smaller earthquakes and higher signal‐to‐noise ratio.
No growth for NSF's geosciences
Authors: Bush Susan 
Published: October 2006

The National Science Foundation's geoscience division showed virtually no growth under their fiscal year 1993 current plan, which was approved by Congress on December 9. Requesting $472.4 million for fiscal 1993, the agency will receive $401.9 million, about level with fiscal 1992's $402.1 million appropriation.The geosciences division falls under NSF's broad research and related activities, which also includes biological sciences; computer and information science and engineering; engineering; mathematical and physical sciences; social, behavioral and economic sciences; and EPSCOR. Total research and related activities stayed about level with 1992 funding. The current plan slates $1,859 billion, compared to 1992's $1,873 billion. A totalof $2,211 billion was requested for fiscal 1993.
Antarctic balloons study Mars and the Sun
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

One of two massive helium balloons was launched from the U.S. research station at McMurdo, in Antarctica, in mid‐December, carrying experimental detectors aimed at supporting probes of Mars and the Sun. The second balloon is to be launched before the end of the month.The balloons will float at about 40 km altitude, one for about 10 days and the other for 3 weeks, before landing again near McMurdo. The flights are part of studies supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA. The balloons allow heavy experiments to be lofted to heights above all but a tiny fraction of the atmosphere's mass, simulating conditions in space.
Satellite altimetry reveals seafloor tectonic fabric
Authors: McAdoo David C. , Marks Karen M. 
Published: October 2006

During the 1980s satellite radar altimetry matured as a geophysical technique, quickly becoming the best way to map the gravity field of the world's oceans. Maps derived from SEASAT altimeter observations of sea surface topography (or geoid) revealed much that was previously unknown about the marine gravity field [Haxby, 1987] and underlying seafloor, particularly in the vast areas that are poorly charted by traditional shipboard observations.Seafloor topography, and to a lesser extent, crustal/upper mantle density variations, produce the short wavelength (<200 km) undulations in the marine gravity field. This is simply due to the gravitational attraction of the mass in the seamount or similar structure emplaced on the seafloor. For topographic structures beneath the sea that are 20‐200 km in spatial extent, this attraction causes the gravity anomalies at the sea surface to vary in proportion to the relative height of the underlying structures. (This ignores isostasy or internal deformation of the Earth's crust and mantle, which acts to reduce this gravitational effect particularly over long‐wavelength—greater than 200 km—topography.) The ratio between gravity anomalies and height variations is slightly less than 0.07 milligals per meter (1 mGal equals 10‐5 m/sec2). Therefore, the fine structure in these marine gravity fields reflects the tectonic fabric imprinted in the seafloor. This fabric includes the mid‐ocean ridge axes (where tectonic plates form), fracture zones, which record the directional history of seafloor spreading, seamount chains, rifted continental margins, and other features that chronicle the history of relative motion among the tectonic plates over the past 200 million years.
Planning begins for IUGG 1995 assembly
Authors: Anonymous  
Published: October 2006

The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics has selected David S. Chapman of the University of Utah, AGU's current meetings chairman, to chair the committee that will plan the scientific program of IUGG's 1995 General Assembly. Also, in December, the National Academy of Sciences selected the U.S. National Committee for IUGG, which will oversee the assembly's organization. Approximately 5000 scientists from all over the world are expected to attend the assembly, which will take place July 3–14, 1995, in Boulder, Colo.IUGG president Helmut Moritz confirmed Chapman's appointment in an October 29 letter. Chapman recently said, “My overall objective is to put together a program that represents the important science in geophysics and that reflects the excitement in numerous disciplines. Another aspect is to manage the program so that it runs smoothly and with maximum efficiency.” He added that he wanted the IUGG meeting to have “the organizational professionalism of an AGU meeting, where there are a comparable number of papers being presented.”
Submesoscale air‐sea interactions studied
Authors: Brandt A. , Geernaert G. , Weinstein A. I. , Dugan J. 
Published: October 2006

Submesoscale air‐sea interactions was the topic of the 24th Liege Colloquium on Ocean Hydrodynamics, held May 4 to 8, 1992, at the University of Liege, Belgium.The topic was chosen because physical processes at and near the ocean surface are fundamentally dependent on submesoscale interactions due to the intrinsically small‐scale nature of interfacial processes such as surface gravity waves. The scales of motions extend from those on which turbulent energy is dissipated to those associated with the depth of the mixed layers, namely the lower kilometer in the atmosphere and the upper 100 m of the ocean. These scales are typically smaller than those associated with the “synoptic” motions either in the atmosphere or the ocean. An understanding of the momentum, heat, and mass fluxes necessitates simultaneous consideration of the atmospheric, oceanic, and surface processes as a coupled system. This interesting and difficult area has been the subject of increasing levels of research, including many field experiments that are listed in Table 1.
Plan for future study of the deep Earth
Authors: Banerjee Subir K. , Merrill Ronald T. 
Published: October 2006

We would like members of AGU's Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Section to start thinking how the discipline can contribute to interdisciplinary and inter‐institution projects under a Cooperative Study of the Earth's Deep Interior (CSEDI) umbrella. About 100 geophysicists and geochemists took part in a workshop from September 11–12, 1992, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, to discuss and approve a plan for a nationwide CSEDI.Starting with the 1991 Vienna IUGG meeting, a ten‐member ad hoc group led by Tom Jordan of MIT, Dave Loper of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute, Tallahassee, Fla., and Rick O'Connell of Harvard University met four times to devise a mechanism to encourage scientists from different disciplines within the Earth sciences to focus their efforts on solving the major unresolved problems related to the deep structure, energetics, and dynamics of the deep Earth, problems that express themselves through plate tectonics and other surface observations.
D'Entrecasteaux, 1792: Celebrating a bicentennial in geomagnetism
Authors: Lilley F.E.M. (Ted) , Day Alan A. 
Published: October 2006

The first surveys of global magnetic intensity, and especially the demonstration of its variation with latitude, are commonly credited (for example, Chapman, [1967]) to Alexander Von Humboldt, who played a major role in developing geomagnetism in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Von Humboldt made intensity measurements in South America from 1798–1803 and later encouraged the establishment of a global magnetic observatory network (see, for example, Malin and Barraclough, [1991]).However, as pointed out by Sabine [1838] in a review of intensity measurements to that time, the earliest surviving survey of global magnetic intensity, showing it to strengthen away from the equator both north and south, was made by Elisabeth Paul Edouard De Rossel during the 1791–1794 expedition of Bruny D'Entrecasteaux. Even earlier measurements seem certain to have been made by the scientist Robert de Paul, chevalier de Lamanon (always referred to as Lamanon) of the La Pérouse expedition [Milet‐Mureau, 1799], but any records are evidently lost. Lamanon died when the La Pérouse expedition was in Samoa in 1797, and both ships of that expedition were wrecked on the island of Vanikoro, presumably in 1788 [Marchant, 1967; Spate, 1988]. All such measurements were of relative magnetic intensity until a method for the determination of absolute intensity was invented by Gauss in 1832. For a recent discussion of this latter topic, see Jackson [1992].
Climate change, rifting, and landscape evolution in the Ross Embayment
Authors: van der Wateren Frederick , Verbers Anja L. L. M. 
Published: October 2006

The last decades have seen remarkable progress in the understanding of the history of the Antarctic ice sheet and the evolution of the Cenozoic West Antarctic Rift System. It has been suggested recently that glaciology, glacial geology, and paleontology on the one hand and geophysics, marine geology, and structural geology on the other may be related, which may hold more clues to the history of the ice sheet.This progress notwithstanding, the mechanisms underlying this interrelationship are still poorly understood and a number of fundamental questions remain unanswered. The biggest problems concern episodes of accelerated uplift, the timing and rate of uplift and subsidence of the rift system, and the changing geometry of the ice sheet.
Fractal forms in hydrology
Authors: Bras Rafael 
Published: October 2006

The beginnings of fractals can be traced to hydrologic studies, dating back to the late 1960s with Mandelbrot's description of river flow as a self‐similar process. Early applications of fractal concepts included the description of the length of coastlines and fracture patterns in the spatial domain, and river discharge in the temporal domain. Recent efforts to apply fractal concepts to hydrologic phenomena have produced new organizing principles for understanding the life cycle of water on Earth as it affects the terrestrial landscape and subterranean geologic deposits.Fractal mathematics offers a natural way to describe irregular patterns if they contain fine structure that is encountered repeatedly over a range of spatial or temporal scales [Meakin, 1991]. Like the objects of classical geometry—circles and spheres—the objects of fractal geometry are idealizations that are only approximated in natural systems, but are nonetheless useful for mathematical description [Guyon and Stanley, 1991].
Space physics and undergraduate education: Sins of omission
Authors: Freeman John W. 
Published: October 2006

Ask the average undergraduate if he or she has heard of the Van Allen Belt, the magnetosphere, or the solar wind and most likely you will get a blank stare. On the other hand, ask the same about black holes, pulsars, or the big bang theory. Chances are you will get a positive response; moreover, they'll have some idea of what at least one of these objects is and may be happy to start a conversation on the subject.Most students have heard of, or even seen, an aurora, but few have any idea of its source. This holds for most educated adults as well. At a beach party on the shore of Lake Superior last summer, I was besieged with questions about a bright aurora seen over the lake. I realized that there is no point in a traditional education where this aspect of nature is encountered.
IAGA announces program outreach
Authors: Williams Donald J. 
Published: October 2006

The existing network of worldwide ground‐based observatories provides long‐term, high‐accuracy measurements essential to science and technological applications. However, many of these observatories are facing severe difficulties, especially those in developing countries and parts of the former Soviet Union.There are no easy solutions to this problem. A long‐term solution will involve assessment of critical observatory needs by the international community and identification of possible ways to provide a stable operating mode for these observatories. Following the defeat of a motion made at the August 1991 IUGG General Assembly in Vienna to charge for the use of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field and use the proceeds to aid needy observatories (see EOS, Nov. 5, 1991), the International Association for Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) has begun an investigation of potential long‐term solutions.