USGS INCLUDES INDUCED THE MOST DANGEROUS LANDSLIDE DATING

EARTH
QUAKES IN HAZARD MAPS FAULT IN AMERICA? REVEALS RECURRENCE

Seeing the Seafloor

in High Definition

June 2016
www.earthmagazine.org
I’m-a-Ge|o-sci-en-tist n. 1 The proud declaration of
someone dedicated to the geosciences. 2 A really
cool t-shirt and 1.75" x .5" lapel pin!!!

Go to
www.americangeosciences.org/
im-a-geoscientist
for a free pin, and join the community.
NEIL YOUNG + PROMISE OF THE REAL
98 uninterrupted minutes long, EARTH flows as a
collection of 13 songs from throughout my life, songs i have
written about living here on our planet together. Our animal
kingdom is well represented in the audience as well and the
animals, insects, birds and mammals actually take over the
performances of the songs at times. - Neil Young

Featuring “After The Gold Rush” “Vampire Blues”

and an explosive 29-minute version
of “Love & Only Love”

AVAILABLE 6/24
AT music.com AND
BECAUSE SOUND MATTERS

r
 EARTH
June 2016 | vol. 61 no. 6 | earthmagazine.org

FEATURES

24 | THE MOST DANGEROUS FAULT IN AMERICA

Running through densely populated cities like
Oakland, Fremont and Berkeley, Calif., and not far
from San Francisco, San Jose and Silicon Valley is
a dangerous fault that could rupture at any time.
It’s known as the Hayward Fault, and when it goes,
it will likely produce a devastating earthquake.
| Steven Newton
24
32 | SEEING THE SEAFLOOR IN HIGH DEFINITION:
Modern Mapping Offers Increasing Clarity on
Earth’s Vast Underwater Landscape
Advancements in seafloor mapping technology
have allowed us to see through the water with
increasing coverage and resolution. But only a tiny
fraction of the seafloor has been mapped in high
resolution, leaving vast expanses of the deep ocean

32
virtually uncharted. | Timothy Oleson

40 | TRAVELS IN GEOLOGY:
Turkey’s Storied Turquoise Coast
Turkey’s Turquoise Coast — where the rugged Taurus
Mountains meet the Mediterranean Sea — owes
its breathtaking scenery to tectonic contortions
that have created a landscape that is both
spectacular and geographically complex. The many
Mediterranean civilizations that have inhabited this
40 coastline left behind an impressive legacy of ruins.
| Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

VOICES

8 COMMENT: 64 GEOLOGIC COLUMN:

Assessing the Threat From Massive Rock Slope Geology for the People: Finding New Paths to
Failures in the Norwegian Fjordlands Public Outreach

Records dating back to the Vikings describe The authors suggest novel ways to reach and
large rock avalanches into Norwegian fjords share geologic knowledge with constituencies
that set off lethal displacement waves. Today, in your community who may not otherwise be
increased development and tourism are exposed to geology. | Robert and Johanna Titus
exacerbating the risk. | Reginald L. Hermanns

ON THE COVER: Underwater vehicle-mounted multibeam sonar helps scientists map the ocean floor down to
meter-scale resolution. Credit: K. Cantner, AGI
NEWS

12 HUMAN-INDUCED QUAKES INCLUDED IN NEW

SEISMIC HAZARD MAPS

13 GIANT ICEBERGS SPUR CARBON STORAGE IN

SOUTHERN OCEAN

13 BURIED SANDS TELL OF TSUNAMI HAZARD FROM

CREEPING MEGATHRUST FAULT

14 RADAR REVEALS UNMARKED GRAVES

15 LACK OF FUNGI DID NOT LEAD TO COPIOUS

CARBONIFEROUS COAL
20
20 MEASURING RISING SEAS IS TRICKY IN DELTAS

21 SOCIAL TRENDS AND SHIFTING CLIMATES HAD

COMPLEX EFFECTS IN MEDIEVAL ITALY

16
16 SURPRISE QUAKE AT MOUNT FUJI TRIGGERED BY
RISING GASES
22
17 DOUBLE TROUBLE: VOLCANIC ERUPTION LEADS
TO STRONG EARTHQUAKE EIGHT MONTHS LATER 22 ANCIENT INDONESIAN TOOLS MADE BY
MYSTERIOUS INHABITANTS
18 DATING OF LANDSLIDES AROUND OSO REVEALS
RECURRING PATTERNS 22 UNDERWATER ROMAN MARBLE TRACED TO
GREECE, ITALY AND TURKEY
19 ABOVE OIL SEEPS, PHOTOSYNTHETIC LIFE
FLOURISHES 23 ICE (RE)CAP

DEPARTMENTS

4 FROM THE EDITOR 53 BENCHMARKS:

JUNE 4, 1783: The Era of
6 PERSPECTIVES Aviation Launches With
the First Balloon Flight
48 GEOMEDIA:
BOOKS: “Floodpath” Recounts the
Deadly Collapse of California’s St. Francis Dam 56 DOWN TO EARTH:
With Solar Physicist
50 WHERE ON EARTH? Thomas Berger

51 CONGLOMERATE: A Geo Word Jumble 61 CLASSIFIEDS: Career Opportunities

ON THE WEB AT www.earthmagazine.org

From the Editor

I
t’s become almost cliché to say that

EARTH
we know more about the surface of
Mars and the moon than we do about
the ocean floor of our own planet.
Cliché or not, it’s true to an extent: We have 4220 King Street
higher-resolution surface maps of Mars and Alexandria, VA 22302-1507, USA
Phone: (703)379-2480 Fax: (703)379-7563
the moon than we have of our own seafloor
www.earthmagazine.org
(although we know more about the chem- [email protected]
istry and geology of the seafloor than of the
PUBLISHER
surfaces of those other two bodies). We’ve mapped so little of the ocean bottom at P. Patrick Leahy
meter-scale resolution that, with rounding, it amounts to zero percent, according EXECUTIVE EDITOR
to one source in this month’s feature on seafloor mapping. Think about that: Zero Christopher M. Keane

percent. Granted, more than 70 percent of Earth’s crust is hidden beneath the EDITOR
Megan Sever
sea, but it seems we could do better than that given today’s technologies.
SENIOR EDITOR
Over the last two months, we’ve run two in-depth (pun intended) features on Sara E. Pratt
the seafloor. In May, we ran a complex feature on how magmatism at mid-ocean
NEWS EDITOR
ridges may be related to Earth’s climatic oscillations. This month, EARTH’s News Timothy Oleson
Editor Timothy Oleson brings us a techy look at the latest attempts to map the ROVING CORRESPONDENTS
seafloor in high definition using multibeam sonar, satellites and autonomous Terri Cook
Mary Caperton Morton
underwater vehicles. Let me be the first to tell you: I have learned a lot these last
DESIGNERS
two months! For instance, did you know that the largest mountain range on Earth Nicole Schmidgall
lies beneath the oceans: the mid-ocean ridge system? It makes up 23 percent of Brenna Tobler
Earth’s total surface. And did you know that in Iceland, where the Mid-Atlantic ILLUSTRATOR
Kathleen Cantner
Ridge breaches the ocean’s surface, you can stand inside a rift where two conti-
nents are pulling apart? WEB PRODUCTION
Mary Jo Alfano
I don’t know about you, but standing on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is on my bucket
MARKETING/ADVERTISING
list. If oceans aren’t your thing, we have plenty of other great stories this month, John P. Rasanen
including a feature on what some consider America’s most dangerous fault: the
CONTRIBUTORS
Hayward Fault, which runs through the San Francisco Bay Area. And Terri Cook Elizabeth Goldbaum
Rebecca Heisman
and Lon Abbott take us along on another of their family’s adventures, traveling Lucas Joel
along Turkey’s gorgeous Turquoise Coast (now also on my bucket list). Joellen Talbot
Here’s hoping you can knock some sites off your own bucket list this summer, EDITORIAL EXTERNS
Julie Freydlin
and that you bring EARTH along for the ride. Logan Nagel
Abbey Nastan
Lance Newman

CUSTOMER SERVICE
Nia Morgan

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Megan Sever Callan Bentley
EARTH Editor (Northern Virginia Community College)
Scott Burns
EARTH is published monthly in digital formats (ISSN 2373-1559) for a base subscription (Portland State University)
rate of $20.00 a year. EARTH is also published in print bi-monthly (ISSN 1943-345X) for
$38.00 a year by the American Geosciences Institute. To purchase single issues, please Jacob Haqq-Misra
(Blue Marble Space Institute of Science)
inquire at [email protected]. © 2016 American Geosciences Institute. Standard
mail, nonprofit postage paid at Denver, Colo., and at other mailing offices. Claims for Geoff Plumlee
missing issues will be honored only up to six months. Issues undelivered through failure (U.S. Geological Survey)
to notify EARTH of address change will not be replaced. Scott Sampson
(Denver Museum of Nature & Science)
Canadian Post Publications Mail Agreement Number 40065056; Canadian return address: Michael E. Webber
DP Global Mail, 4960-2 Walker Road, Windsor, ON N9A 6J3. (University of Texas at Austin)
Editorial Matter: We encourage readers to alert us to news and photos for possible publi-
cation. Opinions expressed by authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those EARTH is printed by American Web,
of AGI, its staff, its member societies, or its advertisers. The presence of an advertisement based in Denver, Colo. EARTH is printed
in this magazine does not constitute EARTH endorsement of the product. on 20% recycled (10% post-consumer
waste) paper. All inks used contain a percentage
Reproduction: More than one photocopy of an item from EARTH may be made pro-
of soy base. Our printer meets or exceeds all
vided that fees are paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood federal Resource Conservation Recovery Act
Dr., Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Phone: (978)750-8400. Fax: (978)646-8600. Any other form (RCRA) Standards.
of reproduction requires special permission from and is subject to fees by EARTH.

page 4 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

American Geosciences Institute
The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations
that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948,
AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in our profession,
plays a major role in strengthening geoscience education, and strives to
Member Societies increase public awareness of the vital role the geosciences play in
AASP-The Palynological Society (AASP)
American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
society’s use of resources, resilience to natural hazards, and the
American Geophysical Union (AGU) health of the environment.
American Institute of Hydrology (AIH)
American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) Executive Committee
American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA) President Scott W. Tinker, Jackson School of Geosciences
Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography Bureau of Economic Geology
(ASLO)
Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) President-Elect Jean M. Bahr, University of Wisconsin - Madison
American Association of Geographers (AAG) Department of Geoscience
Association of American State Geologists (AASG) Secretary William J. Siok, Mahawie Consultants LLC
Association of Earth Science Editors (AESE)
Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG) Treasurer Charlene Sundermann, Freshwater Society
Clay Minerals Society (CMS) Member at Large Katharine Lee Avary,
Council on Undergraduate Research, Geosciences Division (CUR) Consulting Petroleum Geologist
Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society (EEGS)
Member at Large Paul M. Bertsch, CSIRO
Friends of Mineralogy (FOM)
The Geochemical Society (GS) Member at Large Diane R. Smith, Trinity University
Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (GI) Past President Eric M. Riggs, Texas A&M University
Geological Association of Canada (GAC) College of Geosciences
Geological Society of America (GSA)
The Geological Society of London (GSL) Chair of AGI Foundation Richard M. Powers, Consultant/AMEC-BCI (retired)
Geoscience Information Society (GSIS) Executive Director P. Patrick Leahy, American Geosciences Institute
History of Earth Sciences Society (HESS)
International Association of Hydrogeologists/U.S. National
Chapter (IAH)
International Medical Geology Association (IMGA)
Karst Waters Institute (KWI)
Mineralogical Society of America (MSA)
Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland (MSGBI)
National Association of Black Geoscientists (NABG)
National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT)
National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG)
National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI)
National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA)
National Ground Water Association (NGWA)
National Speleological Society (NSS)
North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature
(NACSN)
Paleobotanical Section of the Botanical Society of America
(PSBSA)
Paleontological Research Institution (PRI)
Paleontological Society (PS)
Petroleum History Institute (PHI)
Seismological Society of America (SSA)
SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) (SEPM)
Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc. (SME)
The Society for Organic Petrology (TSOP)
Society of Economic Geologists (SEG)
Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG)
Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (SIPES)
Society of Mineral Museum Professionals (SMMP)
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP)
Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)
United States Permafrost Association (USPA)

International Associate Societies

www.americangeosciences.org
Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences (CFES)
Credit: Background: ©Semisatch/ shutterstock_78010345; AGI logo shape images:
Geological Society of Africa (GSAf)
lava: USGS, ESW Image Bank; Aztec sandstone: ©Michael Collier, ESW Image Bank;
International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG)
farm: Digital Vision; waves: Digital Vision; clouds: Digital Stock; space: Digital Vision.
YES Network (YES)

page 5 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Perspectives

Feature MIDCONTINENT RIFT IS OLD NEWS

T
At Marshall’s Beach south of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Franciscan

he article “Midwest’s Hybrid Rift Formed in Three Stages,”

mélange is exposed. During last year’s annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union
in San Francisco, geologist Callan Bentley and others visited the site to photograph the rocks.
Credit: Callan Bentley

in the January/February 2016 issue of EARTH, was pre-

sented in the news section. Such is far from the case, as opined
by the University of California at Berkeley reviewer quoted in
the article: “They’re taking ideas about the rift that have been
out there for a while…”
URBAN GEOLOGY Published information regard- News

Many of the rocks exposed around Lake Supe-

An Emerging Discipline in an Increasingly Urbanized World

ing the Midcontinent Rift goes
rior were uplifted from the Midcontinent Rift
during the formation of Rodinia, including these
basalt cliffs along the Porcupine Escarpment in
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Credit: Mary Caperton Morton
Michael C. Wilson and Lionel E. Jackson Jr.

back a full seven decades, to the

T
he mass urbanization of the human race is or do fieldwork in urban areas. When it comes to field- Midwest’s hybrid rift formed in three stages

M
a relatively new phenomenon in the history work, most still head out to the hinterlands where rocks iddle America is not lot of unanswered questions about how thick in some places, Stein says. Rifts

year 1943 and the discovery of a

of civilization. In 1900, when geology was and sediments are readily observable. However, many often recognized for its this feature formed.” are not normally associated with flood
interesting geology, yet To investigate the evolution of the rift, basalts, and the Midcontinent Rift’s
maturing as a science, only 10 percent of practical applications of geology today are just outside it boasts one of the larg- Stein and her colleagues turned to data dense, magma-filled crack gives the fea-
the global population lived in urban settings; now, this our front doors — or perhaps under them — in urban est and most unusual geologic features from EarthScope, a long-term National ture a different appearance in geophysical
in the country: the Midcontinent Rift, Science Foundation-funded project that imaging profiles compared to other conti-
proportion has surpassed 50 percent, fed by both overall areas where most of humanity lives, works, plays and

major positive gravity anomaly in

which stretches 3,200 kilometers in two uses geophysical and geological methods nental rifts, which are usually filled with
population growth and rural-to-urban migration. And builds community. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in arms from Lake Superior to Oklahoma to map the underlying structure of North low-density sediments, she says.
and Alabama. Subsurface imaging of the America. They plugged the EarthScope The second phase of the rift’s evolu-
by 2030, it is expected to reach 60 percent. The United his journal in 1856: “It is in vain to dream of a wildness rift has revealed that it’s not just a rift, data into a reverse modeling software tion began when the magmatism stopped
it’s also what’s known as a large igneous program that reconstructs geologic pro- and sediments began filling the exposed
States reached 50 percent urbanization around 1930 and distant from ourselves.”
province, making it a hybrid geologic cesses by going from the present day crack, Stein says. The sedimentary layers

northeastern Kansas. When the

is now approaching 70 percent. The urban population of We advocate that urban geology should be recognized feature not seen anywhere else in the backward through time. Modeling the that sit on top of the magma in the rift
world. A new modeling study is offering evolution of both arms of the rift, which are between 5 and 8 kilometers thick
Canada, meanwhile, accounts for about 80 percent of the as its own specialty because its applications potentially a more complete story of how the Mid- meet in the Lake Superior region and and are not well dated, she notes. “We
country’s people. Ten urban areas around the world now impact more than half of the global population. We are continent Rift evolved, in three stages. extend southwestward to Oklahoma and estimate that this period of rapid sedi-
“The Midcontinent Rift is a very southeastward to Alabama, the team ment accumulation probably lasted about
exceed 20 million people, with the Tokyo metropolitan not alone. Some countries, such as the United King-

Precambrian strata filling the rift

strange beast,” said Carol Stein, a geol- identified three distinct phases of forma- 50 million years.”
area approaching 35 million — larger than the popula- dom, the Netherlands and China, explicitly acknowledge ogist at the University of Illinois at tion: rifting, sedimentation and uplift. The third phase consisted of a series
Chicago and lead investigator of the According to Stein and her colleagues, of compressive events due to collisions
tions of most countries. urban geology as an area of study, and the term “urban new study, published in Geosphere, in a the Midcontinent Rift began as a tra- between North America and other
The word “geology” conjures images of wide-open geology” has seen wide international usage, as in the statement released last year when Stein ditional continental rift, similar to the smaller landmasses that eventually
and her colleagues presented research East African Rift today, where exten- formed the supercontinent Rodinia,
country with expanses of rocky outcrops rather than the multivolume U.N. “Atlas of Urban Geology.” However,

became the focus of a decade-long

on the rift at the annual meeting of the sional forces pull tectonic plates apart. although the timing of this stage is not
concrete, asphalt and steel of urban landscapes. Despite it is still not widely recognized in the U.S. or Canada, Geological Society of America. “Rifts As the rift was still pulling apart, magma, well understood. This compression
are long, narrow cracks splitting Earth’s possibly generated by a mantle plume uplifted some of the rocks contained in
the fact that most geologists live in cities, many still despite the potential benefits — integrating everything crust, with some volcanic rocks in them deep under the Laurentian craton, began the rift system, exposing them at Pic-
don’t think of cities as having much to do with geology. from hazard mitigation and water supply issues to urban that rise to fill the cracks. Large igneous flowing into the developing crack from tured Rocks National Lakeshore and
provinces, or LIPs, are huge pools of above — when surface lava flowed into other locations around Lake Superior.

search for hydrocarbons, begin-

Most geologists don’t study or teach the geology of cities design and tourism. volcanic rocks poured out at Earth’s the crack — and from below. “This was This three-stage story of the rift is not
surface. The Midcontinent Rift is both a huge amount of molten rock, like the entirely original, says Nicholas Swan-
of these,” she said. Columbia River Basalts [in the Pacific son-Hysell, a geologist at the University
page 52 • March/April 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org The Midcontinent Rift is about 1.1 bil- Northwest] or the Deccan Traps [in of California at Berkeley who was not
lion years old, dating to the Proterozoic India], but instead of spreading out on involved in the new study. But, he says,

ning in 1983, the bibliography

when North America existed as part of the surface, forming a thin layer a few the reverse modeling software the team
the ancient continent Laurentia, but the kilometers thick, it all got trapped within used presents the story in a more coher-
timing and stages of the rift’s formation the rift,” Stein says. ent form. “They’re taking ideas about the
EARTH_MarchApril_2016.indb 52 3/1/2016 4:03:33 PM have long been something of a mystery. After about 10 million years, the rift rift that have been out there for a while
“If you read the basic geology descrip- stopped spreading, becoming what geolo- and presenting a very nice synthesis of
tions of the Midwest, there’s not much gists call a failed rift, but the magma kept it all,” he says.

IS URBAN GEOLOGY REALLY A of Midcontinent Rift information

information in the literature about the flowing for a few million years longer, “Getting a better idea of the timeline
rift,” Stein told EARTH. “We still have a eventually piling more than 20 kilometers is important because that will allow us

page 18 • January/February 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

was quickly expanded by hun-

SEPARATE DISCIPLINE?
EARTH_Print_JanFeb2016.indb 18 12/22/2015 12:54:52 PM

dreds of articles and numerous monographs.

I n the article “Urban Geology: An Emerging Discipline

in an Increasingly Urbanized World,” which appeared
in the March/April 2016 issue, authors Michael C. Wil-
Although the reverse modeling of cross sections of the rift
is interesting and useful, none of the results presented in this
EARTH article are new: three-stage development, similarity to
son and Lionel E. Jackson Jr. do a nice job outlining the the East African Rift, possible identification as a large igne-
development of the “emerging discipline” of urban geology ous province, association with a mantle plume, and birth as
over the decades. a traditional continental rift. Rather than “standing on the
I believe one state, Oregon, made an important pio- shoulders of giants,” this article stands instead on the toes of
neering commitment to the area of urban geology in giants. We look forward to new and interesting results from
the late 1970s when legislation was passed requiring further EarthScope studies on the Midcontinent Rift backed by
all communities and unincorporated areas in the state comprehensive due diligence of prior results and publications
to develop comprehensive land-use plans that include that are appropriately vetted.
sections dealing with geologic hazards to be considered Albert B. Dickas, Professor of Geology, Emeritus
in zoning maps and regulations. I was hired to map the University of Wisconsin – Superior
geologic hazards in detail and prepare reports for most and
William J. Hinze, Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus
of the communities on the northern Oregon coast. I don’t
Purdue University
believe any other state has required statewide community
planning that incorporates geology.
However, I have mixed feelings about considering Visit our polls online at
urban geology as a discipline in its own right. I have www.earthmagazine.org
investigated igneous rocks within urban areas of eastern
Massachusetts for decades and my methods are not all POLL: K-P EXTINCTION CAUSE
that different than when working in wilderness areas, and
the goals are largely the same. I think a better case can be In March, we asked our readers: What do you think
made for a discipline called “urban environmental geol- caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene (formerly K-T)
ogy” that has goals and training that are largely distinct extinction event? Here are the results:*
from other geologic disciplines. Both the Chicxulub Impact and
Martin E. Ross Deccan Traps Volcanism�������� 54%
Associate Professor of Geology Chicxulub Impact������������������������ 37%
Northeastern University Other����������������������������������������������� 5%
Deccan Traps Volcanism�������������� 2%
EARTH welcomes letters to the editor. All letters are Don’t Know������������������������������������� 2%
subject to editing for length and clarity. Send letters to: *This poll is not scientific and reflects the opinions only of those Internet users
who have chosen to participate.
[email protected].

page 6 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

W. H. Freeman GeoloGy 2016
Grotzinger | Jordan
Understanding earth
seventh edition

Merritts | Menking | DeWet

environmental geology,
second edition

Kortz | Smay
lectUre tUtorials
visit
in earth science
launchpadworks.com
for more information
and demos

Stanley | Luczaj
earth system history Where content counts. Where service matters.
Fourth edition Where students learn.
Built around the challenges you face in the
classroom, LaunchPad features:
Ruddiman
Earth’s climate: an interactive e-book integrated with all
Past and FUtUre student media, including LearningCurve
third edition adaptive quizzing, Video Exercises, Google
Earth® exercises, EarthInquiry, and more
video assignment tool for assigning,
delivering, and assess video homework
Ruddiman
earth transFormed launchPad gradebook to monitor your class
individually and as a whole
Pre-built Units to use as is or customize
instructor resources including PowerPoints,
Prothero | Schwab teaching support, test bank, and more
sedimentary geology
third edition easy lms integration with your school’s
learning management system

Bierman | Montgomery
Key concePts in
geomorPhology

www.macmillanhighered.com/geology

page 7 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Comment

Assessing the Threat From Massive Rock Slope Failures

in the Norwegian Fjordlands
Reginald L. Hermanns

A
ll high-latitude coastlines have changed the risk. Today, the Nor-
with pronounced relief are wegian Directorate for Civil Protection
characteristically incised considers a rockslide disaster as the
by deep fjords — carved by fourth-highest risk to Norwegian society,
repeated glacial cycles — reaching far only topped by a pandemic, a long-term
into the mountain landscapes. What is electrical grid failure or a strong earth-
not characteristic of all of these coast- quake in a city.
lines is settlements, as these landscapes In Norway, individual communities
tend to be quite inhospitable, not to are responsible for the safety of their
mention dangerous, thanks to the like- populations, while the Norwegian Water
lihood of rockslides. Norway, however, Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE)
with thousands of people living on and is responsible for landslide and flood
visiting its fjordlands, is a different hazard mapping. The Geological Survey
story. In recent years, Norway’s geolog- of Norway (NGU) has also undertaken Florence Magnin is installing tem-
ical community has worked to reduce mapping of large rock slope instabil- perature loggers at 1,400 meters
the risks posed by landslides to fjord- ities across the entire country, due to above Loen Lake on an unstable
land communities. the complexity of geologic conditions slope at Hoggrenningsnibba Moun-
Norwegian fjordlands have been set- favoring and triggering rock slope fail- tain. In the background across the
tled since at least the Bronze Age, with ures, and because displacement waves lake, a rockslide scar can be seen
significant development occurring since do not stop at municipality boundaries. at Ramnefjellet Mountain; it is the
the late 1950s, when oil was discovered The NGU mapping efforts start with the failure surface of two previous rock-
on the Norwegian continental shelf. use of remote sensing data, especially slides that caused displacement
Whole communities sprang up as oil satellite-based InSAR technology, which waves in 1905 and 1936 (with max-
companies moved in and their workers’ has helped reveal unstable rock slopes imum wave runups of 40.5 and
grew prosperous along the fjords. In in high-mountain settings without veg- 74.2 meters), which killed 61 and
some localities along the coast, what etation, and lidar data, which helps in 74 people, respectively.
were small villages only 70 years ago are areas with thick vegetation. Credit: Reginald L. Hermanns
now cities with large harbor facilities, Systematic mapping started in 2007,
airports, hotels, football stadiums and and in nine years, three and a half of medium- to high-risk sites, like unstable
more. In addition, due to its natural the 17 counties with high relief have slopes that, upon collapse, could form
beauty, Norway is a hot spot for Euro- been fully mapped, revealing more than rock avalanches that could crash into
pean tourism. Fjords that boast only 250 unstable rock slopes. The coun- fjords and create displacement waves.
about 100 wintertime residents see tens ties with high relief are being mapped Mitigation measures include every-
of thousands of tourists per day in the in high resolution. Last year, Norway thing from draining rock slopes, which
summer. This sort of fast development, decided it would image the entire coun- stabilizes them — a process that has been
in such a setting, bears risks. try, not just the high relief areas, but at proven effective elsewhere, but which is
In the 20th century, three large rock a lower resolution than in the high relief extremely expensive and challenging due
avalanches dropped into Norwegian areas, relying on data from the Sentinel to many such sites only being reachable
fjords or fjord-lakes, setting off dis- satellites, part of the European Space by helicopter — to emplacing continuous
placement waves tens of meters high Agency’s Copernicus program: Each monitoring networks, including early
and killing dozens of people. Records locality will be over-flown once every warning networks. These installations —
dating back to the Vikings indicate that, six days, allowing for near real-time based on multiple instruments, such as
on average, such disasters occur two observations all year long. tiltmeters, extension meters, microseis-
to four times per century. If the fjords Once mapping reveals that slopes are mic networks and DGNSS (Differential
were undeveloped, this would be merely unstable, the NGU uses a rigorous hazard Global Navigation Satellite System) sta-
a geological curiosity. But the rapid and risk classification system on each tions — are also costly and challenging
development and increase in tourism slope to focus mitigation measures on to build and maintain.

page 8 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Comment

Geoscientists use ground-based

lidar to measure deformation on
the unstable rock slope of Stampa
Mountain above the village of
Flåm in Aurlandsfjord. More than
600,000 people visit this village
each year.
Credit: Reginald L. Hermanns

Draining slopes has been discussed

in Norway, but no such projects exist
yet. Norway’s prime mitigation measure
involves emplacing early warning net-
works on all slopes deemed hazardous.
Without such early warning networks,
new development in the fjordlands
would be impossible, since the build-
ing codes concerning landslide hazards
in Norway are among the strictest in
the world: Buildings without inhabi- In addition, backup systems exist for project is expanding into other coun-
tants must be constructed to withstand power supply and the telecommuni- ties and eventually all the rest will be
a landslide with a 1:100 probability of cation devices sending the monitoring mapped. Meanwhile, the NGU is work-
occurring in a given year, while sin- data to the monitoring center. When ing on the hazard and risk classifications
gle-family houses and condominiums these monitoring instruments detect for all currently known unstable slopes,
must be built to withstand landslides even minute changes of motion within which involves monitoring these slopes
with, respectively, 1:1,000 and 1:5,000 a slope, they send notes to the monitor- for a couple of years since the classifica-
probabilities of occurring in a given ing center, where experts decide, based tion is partially based on the deformation
year. (Probabilities of rock slope fail- on previously defined deformation rate rate over time.
ure are estimated based on the hazard thresholds, when to issue warnings to Norway’s mitigation strategy, rely-
classification system, which considers municipalities. Whether to evacuate is ing largely on mapping and hazard and
factors such as the current rate of slope a decision left to the local authorities. risk classification systems, combined
deformation, rockfall activity, and the This year, the NGU is releasing a with on-the-ground early warning net-
cumulative amount of damage that web-based map of all 250 unstable works, will not prevent the next rock
the rock has accrued since the Scan- slopes known so far (to be found at slope failure or a potential displacement
dinavian Ice Sheet receded 10,000 to www.ngu.no/en). The map will include wave, but the hope is that our efforts will
15,000 years ago.) relevant geological data on each slope, prevent future deaths when these slope
Because Norway’s building codes are including the hazard potential for rock failures do occur.
so strict, a clause has been written in: slope failures. At the same time, zones
If early warning can be given 72 hours with building restrictions for all sites Hermanns is head of the Geo­hazards
ahead of time and all persons (including where the hazard and risk classifica- and Earth Observation team at the
tourists) can be evacuated out of the tion has been completed (22 of the Geological Survey of Norway and an
hazard zone, then further development 250 known unstable slopes) — and for adjunct professor in the department
is allowed. which the hazard falls of geology and miner-
Today, more than 80 unstable slopes within the strict guide- al resources engineer-
have monitoring installations for either lines of the building ing at the Nor­wegian
ground-based or remote monitoring. codes — will become pub- University of Science
The early warning systems are main- licly available through and Technology in
tained by the NVE and are based on NVE (to be found at Trond­heim. The views
continuous-monitoring instruments http://atlas.nve.no/). expressed are his own.
installed both on the ground and in bore- There is much work
holes, as monitoring such hazard-prone remaining, but this is a Credit: Vera Maria
sites cannot rely on one technique alone. good start. The mapping Hermanns

page 9 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

AGI GeoRef
www.GeoRef.org
Providing fast, easy access to the
geoscience literature of the world
3.7 Million References and • GeoRef
Growing Search Aids
• Search GeoRef online, on the Worldwide Web
or on CD-ROM GeoRef Thesaurus,
Twelfth Edition
• Current, worldwide coverage includes the Edited by Barbara A. Goodman
Geology of North America from 1669 and The Thesaurus is the guide
the rest of the world since 1933 to the 30,800 controlled
vocabulary terms used in
• 3,500 journals in more than 40 languages GeoRef — indispensable for
efficient searching of the GeoRef
• New books, maps, reports, symposia, and database. Hierarchical lists and
theses from U.S. and Canadian universities guide available online at:
www.americangeosciences.org/
• Regular updates totaling more than georef/georef-thesaurus-lists
100,000 new references each year

GeoRef Providers • GeoRef Custom

GeoRef is made available through many
vendors:
Searches & Alerts
• World Wide Web Need an occasional search
Dialog of the GeoRef database?
Ebsco Do you have an ongoing
Engineering Village interest in a specific research
GeoScienceWorld area? Check out GeoRef ’s
Ovid Technologies Custom Search option at
ProQuest www.americangeosciences.org/
georef/how-access-georef#custom
• CD-ROM or the GeoRef Alert Service at
Ovid Technologies www.americangeosciences.org/
• Traditional Online Services georef/alert-service
Dialog
STN International

• For information on the content of GeoRef, licensing

the database, and on methods of access, contact
Monika Long at AGI headquarters, [email protected].

page 10 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 • GeoRef Preview Database
Want to check on new references even before they’re available in GeoRef? Check
GEOREF out the GeoRef Preview Database at no charge at:
www.americangeosciences.org/georef/georef-preview-database
SERVICES This database, updated weekly, contains unedited references that have not yet
been completed. Get a sample of the types of publications included in the GeoRef
database or keep up with new publications!

• Other GeoRef Databases

CanGeoRef
CanGeoRef is a bibliographic geoscience database that covers the Canadian
Antarctic Bibliography, geoscience literature since the early 1800’s. It is a product of a cooperative
1950-2011 arrangement between the American Geosciences Institute and the Canadian
The Antarctic Bibliography covers Federation of Earth Sciences. CanGeoRef provides an affordable alternative
all scientific disciplines related to the to the GeoRef database for small organizations, companies and individuals
region. The Antarctic Bibliography working in the Canadian region.
was produced with support from For a 30-day free trial contact [email protected] or visit:
the National Science Foundation www.americangeosciences.org/georef/cangeoref-database
with contributions from the Scott
Polar Research Institute, University of AusGeoRef
Cambridge. This bibliographic database, produced in cooperation with Geoscience
Australia and drawn from GeoRef, contains information on Australian
Bibliography on Cold Regions geoscience publications, both published in Australia or about Australia.
Science and Technology, 1951-2011 AusGeoRef includes over 202,000 bibliographic references on
The Bibliography on Cold Regions Science geology in Australia back to 1840, drawn from journal literature,
and Technology includes references to meeting proceedings and abstracts, books, reports and maps.
scientific and engineering research related For further information visit: www.americangeosciences.org/
to material and operations in a winter georef/ausgeoref-database
battlefield, the nature and impact of cold
on facilities and activities, cold-related Groundwater and Soil Contamination Database
environmental problems, and the impact of This highly specialized database provides coverage of literature on
human activity on cold environments. The the contamination of groundwater and soil. It includes over 157,000
Bibliography on Cold Regions Science and bibliographic references to the worldwide literature on this subject.
Technology was funded in part by the National Documents cited in the database are primarily related to
Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Cold geology, hydrology, and the environment.
Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. For further information visit: www.americangeosciences.org/
For further information on the Antarctic georef/groundwater-and-soil-contamination-database
and Cold Regions Bigliographies visit:
www.coldregions.org/vufind/resources/about
WWW.GEOREF.ORG
page 11 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org
News

Human-induced quakes included in new seismic

hazard maps

T
he U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
regularly releases National Seismic
Hazard Maps that summarize haz-
ards from potential ground shaking
produced by faults across the country. This
year, for the first time, those maps include not
only natural earthquakes, but also earthquakes
induced by human activities — particularly injec-
tion of wastewater produced during oil and gas
extraction practices. The new maps were released
in March on the USGS website.
The incidence of induced quakes has increased
dramatically since 2010, with the central U.S. The new USGS seismic hazard maps show the
experiencing more than 1,000 earthquakes above forecast likelihoods that damaging shaking
magnitude 3 in 2015, up from roughly 24 such from natural earthquakes will occur in the west-
quakes per year between 1973 and 2008. To date, ern U.S. (left), or from natural or induced earth-
the largest induced event was a magnitude-5.6 quakes in the central or eastern U.S. (right).
quake recorded in 2011 near Prague, Okla., which Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
was linked to several active wastewater injection
wells nearby. On its own, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking process as natural earthquakes,” he said. “When we look at
— commonly used to help liberate gas and oil trapped in the seismograms, there’s nothing we’ve found to distinguish
underground rock formations — is thought to only rarely whether they were triggered naturally or induced. Obviously,
trigger earthquakes above magnitude 3. this is a critical question and an area of very active research.”
The 2014 National Seismic Hazard Maps did not consider A clearer picture will require better seismic data, “with
induced earthquakes in its forecasts. The quakes’ inclusion in more seismometers on the ground to record even the small-
2016 highlights the evolving understanding of induced quakes, est events,” Rubinstein said. “And we need better data from
as more detailed seismic data have allowed researchers to link industry, including injection volumes, injection pressures, and
earthquakes in time and space to fluid-injection practices, information about where they’re injecting and when.”
particularly in Oklahoma. “I don’t think there is any debate Access to industrial data is limited; the U.S. Environmental
within the scientific community that wastewater injection Protection Agency only requires that petroleum companies
causes earthquakes,” said Justin Rubinstein, deputy chief of release their injection data on an annual basis. “For us to
the Induced Seismicity Project at USGS in Menlo Park, Calif., advance our scientific modeling, we really need more infor-
in a press conference accompanying the maps’ release. mation, more often,” Rubinstein said. “Ideally, we’d like to
Overall, inclusion of induced earthquakes in the new seis- get daily reports.”
mic hazard maps shows a significantly increased likelihood Efforts to map the location and geometries of active faults
of damaging earthquakes occurring in parts of the central near injection well sites have been more effective, with state
and eastern U.S., potentially affecting more than 7 million geologic agencies working with USGS to produce updated
people in six states (Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, fault maps. “These maps have been instrumental in linking
Oklahoma and Texas). “In a few portions of the central and earthquakes to active injection wells to the point that we are
eastern U.S., the chance of damage from induced and natural certain these induced earthquakes are directly related to the
earthquakes is similar to the hazard from natural earthquakes petroleum process,” Petersen said.
in high-hazard areas of California,” said Mark Petersen, chief In addition to including induced seismicity for the first
of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project, at the time, the new models also forecast the potential for ground
press conference. shaking in the calendar year 2016, the shortest time frame yet
Despite scientists’ improved capabilities in identifying for a USGS seismic hazard map. The maps typically forecast
induced earthquakes based on their timing and location, shaking potential over 50-year periods. The shorter time frame
distinguishing them from naturally triggered events still reflects the tendency of induced earthquake activity to rap-
presents a challenge, Rubinstein said. “As far as we can tell, idly increase or decrease over time with wastewater injection
induced earthquakes are produced through the same slip activity. The map will need to be updated more frequently now

page 12 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 News

that it includes induced quakes, especially as new regulations injection practices have led to an immediate and sustained
and restrictions concerning wastewater disposal come into reduction in induced seismicity. “The data are still coming
play, Petersen said. in … but it does seem that better regulation of fluid injection
In parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas, new regulations does lead to a decrease in seismicity in areas,” Rubinstein said.
and restrictions enacted in the last few years on wastewater Mary Caperton Morton

Giant icebergs spur carbon storage in Southern Ocean

A
new study shows that giant As floating icebergs melt, they release processes. In the study, published in
icebergs floating in the iron and other nutrients stored in the Nature Geoscience, scientists tracked
Southern Ocean around ice, boosting phytoplankton growth in dozens of icebergs that were longer than
Antarctica may be playing their wake. Phytoplankton are formi- 18 kilometers; these behemoths may be
a larger role in carbon sequestration dable agents of carbon sequestration, responsible for up to 20 percent of the
and Earth’s global carbon cycle than taking up carbon dioxide through photo- total carbon sequestered in the Southern
previously thought. synthesis and storing it in their calcium Ocean, Bigg’s team estimated.
By studying satellite images of the carbonate shells. When the microorgan- The new study sheds light on how
Southern Ocean taken between 2003 isms die — or after they are consumed Earth’s carbon cycle might be affected in
and 2013, Grant Bigg of the University and subsequently excreted by whales the future, as massive icebergs continue
of Sheffield in England and colleagues and other sea life — they sink to the to calve off of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. “If
found that drifting icebergs left a trail seafloor, where much of the carbon is giant iceberg calving increases this cen-
of enhanced phytoplankton activity at stored long-term in marine sediments. tury as expected, this negative feedback
the ocean surface for as long as a month The Southern Ocean is thought to on the carbon cycle may become more
after they passed. The resulting plank- be responsible for about 10 percent of important than we previously thought,”
ton blooms could stretch for hundreds the ocean’s total carbon sequestration Bigg said in a statement.
of kilometers. through both biological and chemical Mary Caperton Morton

Buried sands tell of tsunami hazard from

creeping megathrust fault

A
slow-moving portion of the Alaska-Aleutian Mega­ Thick sand deposits sepa-
thrust Fault near Alaska’s Dutch Harbor appears rated by dark bands of soil
more capable of generating sizable tsunamis than offered evidence of six tsu-
previously thought, according to a new study. namis in the last 1,700 years
Researchers led by Robert Witter of the U.S. Geological at Stardust Bay on Alaska’s
Survey dug and cored into the ground at dozens of sites at Sedanka Island.
Stardust Bay on Sedanka Island. Within a few meters of the Credit: Richard Koehler
surface, they found distinct sheets of marine sand left by half
a dozen past tsunamis up to about 800 meters inland and “creeping.” Creeping portions of faults, where seismic stress
15 meters above sea level. Radiocarbon dating revealed that is gradually released as two plates move slowly and contin-
the oldest of the six layers was deposited about 1,700 years uously past each other, are typically thought to pose smaller
ago, and that the events occurred every 300 to 340 years on earthquake and tsunami hazards than locked portions.
average. The most recent deposit was likely left by the 1957 But the study shows that this area has experienced frequent,
magnitude-8.6 Andreanof Islands earthquake, which struck large tsunamis in the past. The mechanisms of how these past
to the west of Stardust Bay and also carried large drift logs events were triggered — this fault segment may have previ-
far inland, they reported in Geophysical Research Letters. ously been locked, or the tsunamis could have been caused
Unlike the locked fault segments immediately to the east by submarine landslides, for example — are unknown, but
and west — which last ruptured in 1946 and 1957, respectively Witter and colleagues noted that the findings should prompt
— the roughly 400-kilometer-long stretch of the Alaska-Aleu- re-evaluations of tsunami hazards faced by coastal commu-
tian Megathrust Fault extending from just southwest of nities around the Pacific Rim and in Hawaii.
Sedanka Island to the northeast is known from GPS data to be Timothy Oleson

page 13 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

News

Radar reveals unmarked graves

T
he occasional excursion to Ground-penetrating radar data, in
Death Valley or mineralog- map view, indicates dozens of likely
ical study of bloodstone burials at Holy Mother of the Rosary
notwithstanding, geoscien- Cemetery in Cheektowaga, N.Y., in
tists don’t often delve into the macabre an area where only a handful of grave
in the course of their work. But when markers were visible on the surface.
the administrators of two cemeteries in Credit: Kevin Williams
western New York came calling in 2014,
researchers from Buffalo State College
ended up using their geophysical field
skills to hunt for centuries-old graves.
Grass-covered and mostly free of
tombstones or other markers, several
plots at Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara
Falls and Holy Mother of the Rosary
Cemetery in Cheektowaga, just outside
of Buffalo, appeared on the surface to
be devoid of burials. The cemeteries
were interested in whether the plots
could be used for future interments, but Kevin Williams (left) and Trevor Jen-
first wanted to confirm that the ground nings conduct a ground-penetrat-
below wasn’t already occupied — ideally ing radar survey at a cemetery in
without digging to check. western New York.
“With a lot of cemeteries, they could Credit: courtesy of Kevin Williams
just go back into their records and The administrators at Holy Mother
see if there were burials there,” says boulders or other objects buried in the were “kind of shocked” when they saw
Kevin Williams, a geologist at Buffalo soil, Williams says. But adding in the the results, Williams says, “but shocked
State. But both Oakwood and Holy third dimension, parallel to the ground in a good way.” Now, the cemeteries can
Mother of the Rosary “had lost their surface, improved the view substantially. update their records to mark spaces that
records in the early 1900s. So … they With this perspective, many of the reflec- are or are not empty. Unfortunately,
weren’t sure if [the grassy plots] were tions appeared cigar-shaped — about GPR doesn’t help uncover the identities
actually empty or not,” he says. what you would expect from human of those buried in the unmarked sites,
In summer 2014, Williams and Trevor burials. “You can also look at the orien- although Williams says differences in
Jennings, an undergraduate at Buffalo tations and spacing [of the reflections], the sizes and spacing of reflections offer
State, spent four days at each cemetery and that improves your confidence in clues as to whether graves hold adults
collecting three-dimensional ground your interpretation,” Williams adds. or children.
penetrating radar (GPR). The technique, In one 820-square-meter parcel at The cemetery visits have also offered
which has been employed on occasion Holy Mother of the Rosary Cemetery, student learning and outreach oppor-
to detect unmarked gravesites, entailed where just five grave markers were vis- tunities. While Williams and Jennings
carefully walking a wheeled radar unit ible, Williams reported at the annual collected GPR data, his colleague at Buf-
along grids of transects. The radar signal meeting of the Geological Society of falo State, anthropologist Lisa Anselmi,
reflects off interfaces between materi- America (GSA) last fall in Baltimore led students from the college’s archae-
als or layers of different density — say, that he and Jennings were “confident” ological field school through hands-on
between disturbed and compacted soil, of 99 burial sites, labeling dozens of training in surveying and record-keeping
or between soil and a casket — providing others as “likely” or “possible” burials methods. And when the team has been
rough images of what’s below the surface. as well. It’s not clear what became of at the cemeteries, Williams says, people
The pair found numerous indica- the rest of the markers, but some were have also “come out to see what we’re
tions of potential burials. Just looking probably wooden crosses or plaques that doing, and we’re able to educate them
at two-dimensional depth profiles from deteriorated over the years, while others about the equipment and the earth sci-
their GPR data, they saw reflections may have been buried, Williams noted ence side of things.”
similar to those you’d expect from in his talk at GSA. Timothy Oleson

page 14 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 News

Lack of fungi did not lead to copious Carboniferous coal

T
he Carboniferous Period is famous for sup-
plying Earth with an abundance of coal
deposits. According to one hypothesis, the
formation of all this coal is explained by a proposed
60-million-year gap, or lag, between the spread of
the forests globally about 360 million years ago and
the rise of wood-eating microbes and fungi that
could break down tough plant matter. But a new
study refutes this idea, instead attributing the Car-
boniferous’ copious coal to the consolidation of the The majority of the world’s coal dates to the Carbon-
iferous Period.
supercontinent Pangea. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton

When the “evolutionary In the new study, Boyce that’s hundreds of millions depositories for wet organic
lag” hypothesis was first pro- and his colleagues surveyed of years old, finding signs of plant matter, which was bur-
posed in the 1990s, “some in Carboniferous coal samples life — whether from plants, ied, compressed and cooked
the scientific community were from around North America bacteria, fungi, algae, insects over geologic time to form
really enamored of it,” says and found that lignin was not or other animals — can be coal. Similar conditions likely
Kevin Boyce, a geobiologist the dominant plant constit- tricky, he says, but “there’s also produced coal deposits
at Stanford University and uent preserved in the coal. plenty of evidence for fungi during the Mesozoic Era, and
an author of the new study, Many samples were com- in Carboniferous coals if you the Paleocene and Eocene
published in Proceedings posed mainly of lycopsids, know where to look.” epochs, often in conjunction
of the National Academy of an ancient group of plants Boyce says his team’s with mountain-building epi-
Sciences. “Despite plenty of that had little lignin in their findings lend support to an sodes such as the formation
evidence that the story doesn’t cell walls. The researchers alternate hypothesis: one that of the Rocky Mountains.
add up, it has refused to die.” also found that coals high credits the abundance of coal This tectonic- and cli-
The evolutionary lag in lignin did not necessarily formed during the Carbon- mate-driven explanation
hypothesis hinges on the date to times when larger vol- iferous to a combination of for Carboniferous coals has
amount of lignin — a class umes of coal were produced, wet climate conditions and been around for a while,
of tough cell wall polymers further suggesting that lignin basin-forming tectonics that Boyce says, but the new
that lend strength to plant tis- content was not a substantial prevailed during the assem- results make the case for it
sue and are more resistant to control on coal formation. bly of Pangea more than even stronger. “If you look
degradation than other plant In addition to the 300 million years ago. at the stratigraphic distri-
components — contained in prominent role that the “To form coal you need bution of coal over geologic
trees and plants during the evolutionary lag hypothesis two basic conditions: wet time, it’s clear that fungi
Carboniferous. Most species attributes to lignin in form- tropics and a hole to bury aren’t controlling accu-
of modern trees contain large ing Carboniferous coals, the organic matter in for a long mulation rates,” because
amounts of lignin, and if the hypothesis also suggests that period of time,” Boyce says. periods of coal formation
same were true of ancient fungi are rare or absent in During the formation of come and go throughout
trees before microbes and the coals, says James Hower, Pangea, collisions between the geologic record. But, he
fungi evolved to break it a sedimentary geologist at continents raised mountain says, coal accumulation pat-
down, the lignin would have the University of Kentucky ranges while downwarp- terns make “a lot of sense in
provided a huge source of who was not involved in the ing adjacent crust, which terms of wet climates and
carbon that could be con- new study. But that’s just created massive basins. basins opening.”
verted to coal. not the case, he says. In coal These basins became ideal Mary Caperton Morton

page 15 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

News
With a peak elevation of
2,335 meters, Mount Fuji is the
highest mountain in Japan.
Credit: Midori, CC BY 3.0

Surprise quake at Mount Fuji triggered by rising gases

O
n March 15, 2011, four meanwhile, isotopic analysis of hot seismic monitoring networks. “Even
days after the magnitude-9 spring waters sampled from boreholes at active volcanoes, [the underlying]
Tohoku megathrust earth- around the volcano tested whether the local geological structure is rarely stud-
quake and tsunami struck water — and the gases in it — derived ied to discern” how seismicity could be
Japan, a magnitude-5.9 earthquake from near the deep magma chamber or remotely induced, he says.
shook the southern flank of Mount Fuji. a shallow aquifer. When it comes to remote triggering
Seismicity has been rare at the volcano “We found a mechanically weak zone of earthquakes, proving causality can be
since its last eruption in 1707, leading [within the volcano] that is apparently difficult, says David Hill, a seismologist
many researchers to suspect that the Fuji susceptible to remote seismic trigger- with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo
quake — which hit about 300 kilome- ing,” Aizawa says. This weak zone, a Park, Calif., who was not involved in the
ters southwest of the megaquake — was northwest-trending fault zone sur- new research. “We always have to ask: Is
remotely triggered by the Tohoku event. rounding the hypocenter of the Fuji it really triggering or just coincidence?”
In a new study, scientists looking at quake, was identified by high electrical he says. “The evidence they have all
the volcano’s underlying structure and conductivity in the researchers’ mag- points to the same process: a deep source
plumbing have offered a potential mech- netotelluric survey. Meanwhile, the of magmatic gases, which then migrate
anism for how Tohoku’s shaking could isotopic analysis revealed high levels up, increasing the pressure [in the fault
have touched off the Fuji earthquake: of magma-sourced gases like helium zone near Fuji] and setting off a quake.
through rising gas-rich fluids released and carbon dioxide in the groundwa- I think they have a pretty good case.”
from the magma chamber beneath ter. “With the results of the isotopic Fuji is an ideal place to study the
the volcano. analysis, we interpret this electrically poorly understood phenomenon
“Seismicity at Mount Fuji has been conductive zone … as a fracture zone of remote triggering because it is so
very low for 20 years, and volcanolo- that allows magmatic gas to move well monitored, Hill says. This study
gists were shocked by the quake,” says upward through the groundwater net- identifies some intriguing structural
Koki Aizawa, a geophysicist at the Uni- work,” he says. Seismic waves from the features underground, many of which
versity of Tokyo and Kyushu University Tohoku quake may have kickstarted an are similar to “other volcanic systems
in Japan and lead author of the new upwelling of gas-rich fluids and bubbles in earthquake-prone landscapes, such
study, published in Geology. “We were from the volcano’s magma chamber as Mammoth Mountain [in California].”
really surprised and worried about an along this fractured pathway, leading Since 2011, Mount Fuji has remained
eruption because the hypocenter [of to an increase in pore pressure in the characteristically quiet, but Japanese
the Fuji quake] was located above the fault zone, which ultimately set off the geoscientists keep a close watch on the
magma chamber.” Fuji earthquake, the team wrote. volcano, which lies 100 kilometers south-
To study the trigger mechanisms for Remote triggering by both distant and west of Tokyo. “This work highlights the
the Mount Fuji temblor, Aizawa and local earthquakes has been observed at possibility that future eruptions could
colleagues surveyed the plumbing and other volcanoes, most often in highly break out along this newly recognized
groundwater system surrounding the active volcanic systems. “Mount Fuji weak zone,” Hill says. “A better under-
volcano in detail using magnetotelluric is unique in that the remote triggering standing of the plumbing system under
resistivity and isotopic analyses. The occurred at a very quiet volcano,” Aizawa the volcano will enhance our ability to
magnetotelluric method relied on local says. The study presents a rarely seen make more useful predictions about
variations in Earth’s natural electromag- perspective on subvolcanic structure, future hazards.”
netic field to image subsurface structure; one that was aided by Japan’s dense Mary Caperton Morton

page 16 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 News

Double trouble: Volcanic eruption leads to strong

earthquake eight months later

I
n January 2002, Nyiragongo Volcano erupted
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, kill-
ing more than 100 people. Eight months later
and 19 kilometers to the south, a magnitude-6.2
earthquake shook the Lake Kivu region, partially
destroying the town of Kalehe. Now, scientists have
determined that the two events were linked, and their
results highlight a newly observed trigger for strong
earthquakes near active volcanoes.
“When you have two Dike formation has been The deadly January 2002 eruption of the Nyiragongo
events strike the same area known to trigger microseis- Volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
within a few months of each micity at other volcanoes, also triggered a damaging earthquake in October
other, you have to wonder if such as during the Bardar- 2002 near Lake Kivu.
they’re linked in some way,” bunga eruption in Iceland in Credit: Christelle Wauthier/Penn State
says Christelle Wauthier, a 2014 and 2015, Wauthier says.
geophysicist at Penn State “At Bardarbunga, you could to trigger the earthquake in fail. We don’t yet know why it
University and lead author follow the propagation of the October is unknown. took eight months.”
of the new study published dike by tracking the micro- The timing of these events Even with a better under-
in Geochemistry, Geophys- seismicity, but the quakes is one of the most interest- standing of the timeline of
ics, Geosystems. were very small in magni- ing aspects of this study, says events, it’s not likely this
Wauthier and colleagues tude. [Lake Kivu] is one of the Tim Wright, a geoscientist kind of study will help pre-
used remote sensing radar first [places] that we have a at the University of Leeds dict when earthquakes might
data to analyze the shape link between a big earthquake in England, who was not occur in this kind of situation,
of the ground surface and magma intrusion.” involved in the new study. Wright says. “I don’t think
between Nyiragongo and To be sure the volca- “The seismic studies give us this information can be used
Lake Kivu before and after nic dike formation and the a lot of detailed timing infor- for its predictive power, but it
both the eruption and the earthquake weren’t just a mation about this series of can help improve models and
earthquake. Based on the coincidence, Wauthier and events. We know there was an tell us something about the
observed ground deforma- colleagues calculated how the eruption, closely followed by probabilities of fault failure
tion, they inferred that a dike intrusion would have a dike intrusion, and we know in these situations.”
19-kilometer-long dike intru- affected stress on faults in a big earthquake happened That may ultimately
sion, running between the the region. After identifying eight months later. So what improve hazard profiles for
volcano and the epicenter of the fault that slipped during was happening in that win- communities located near
the earthquake, had formed. the October 2002 earth- dow between the intrusion the East African Rift, which
Dike intrusions are common quake, along the border of and the earthquake?” runs for thousands of kilome-
in this part of the world, the East African Rift system, Wauthier says timing is ters through nine countries
where the East African Rift they found that the stresses difficult to pin down in the in East Africa, Wauthier
system is creating an exten- generated by the intruding case of triggered events. “The says. “Next,” she says, “we
sional tectonic environment. dike as it moved through the reason for the time interval plan to look at some other
As Earth’s crust is pulled crust could have pushed the between the dike intrusion magnitude-5 events that
apart by extensional forces, fault to near failure. The dike and the earthquake is an open were recorded along the rift
magma rises to the surface, intruded in January, soon question. The dike put stress in Tanzania to see if they’re
forming vertical magmatic after the eruption, but why on the fault and then some related to dike intrusions.”
intrusions called dikes. it took another eight months later perturbation caused it to Mary Caperton Morton

page 17 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

News

Dating of landslides around Oso

reveals recurring patterns

O
n March 22, 2014, after a Rowan and Headache Creek landslides,
period of heavy rain, a hill- just downstream and upstream of the
side near the town of Oso, 2014 event, respectively. They found that
Wash., collapsed, send- the Rowan Landslide — approximately
ing 7.6 million cubic meters of mud five times the size of the Oso slide —
and debris across the North Fork of occurred between 300 and 700 years Sean LaHusen points to buried
the Stillaguamish River, destroying a ago, and the Headache Creek Landslide debris in a landslide deposit that
rural neighborhood and killing 43 peo- is about 6,000 years old. predates the 2014 disaster on the
ple. The slide took Oso residents by Then, with dates for three area slides, North Fork of the Stillaguamish River.
surprise, but scientists say the event the team used lidar data to create what’s Credit: Alison Duvall/University of
was not altogether unexpected, as evi- called a roughness curve for the 22 other Washington
dence for dozens of past landslides can slides along the 6-kilometer section of
be found throughout the Stillaguamish the valley studied. Roughness curves are simultaneously, such as during a big
River Valley. New research suggests that commonly used to identify landslides earthquake, he says. This would help
large slides have occurred in the Oso in a landscape. But they may also be “test the validity of their assumption that
vicinity even more frequently than pre- used to date adjacent slides, LaHusen all landslides begin with the same degree
viously suspected. says, as newer landslides tend to have of surface roughness,” which “under-
During the last ice age, about rougher surfaces, which then smooth out pins” the whole study, Iverson says,.
16,000 years ago, the Cordilleran Ice over time due to erosion. The technique Knowing the recurrence rate for
Sheet extended from Canada into Wash- allowed the team to determine approx- landslides helps inform future hazard
ington’s Puget Sound. The ice sheet imate dates for the remaining slides in assessments, but it doesn’t help geosci-
dammed many of the rivers flowing west the valley without having to radiocarbon entists predict when the next slide might
out of the Cascade Mountains, building date each one. occur, LaHusen says. The team did find
up massive deposits of fine clay and The researchers found that many of evidence, however, for a pattern that
silt particles more than 200 meters the Stillaguamish slides were younger might provide clues as to where the next
thick in what is now the Stillaguamish than expected, less than 2,000 years slide could take place.
River Valley. old, meaning that landslides have been “There appears to be a close interac-
“This is a setup for landslides: a occurring more frequently in recent tion between the location of the river and
lot of inherently unstable and imper- times, perhaps as often as every 140 years landslides,” LaHusen says. As the river
meable material in a climate that gets on average instead of every 500 years. erodes laterally into the glacial material,
a lot of rain,” says Sean LaHusen, a “That’s a significant difference in recur- it destabilizes [valley] walls, leading to
geomorphologist at the University of rence rates, which are important when slides. Landslides of sufficient volume in
Washington and lead author of the new establishing hazard assessments for this turn block the course of the river, forcing
study published in Geology. valley,” LaHusen says. it to the other side of the valley. The river
Lidar studies conducted before and “This is the first time that a team starts “eroding the opposite side of the
after the 2014 Oso slide revealed 25 land- has used surface roughness as a dating valley, triggering a landslide on that side,”
slides up and down the Stillaguamish technique,” even though the technique and creating an alternating pattern.
River Valley. The river is known to have has been used a lot to identify landslides LaHusen says a team led by
begun cutting the valley through the and distinguish them from surrounding Adam Booth at Portland State University
glacial sediments roughly 12,000 years terrain, says Richard Iverson, a hydrol- plans to expand their study through-
ago, suggesting an average recurrence ogist with the U.S. Geological Survey in out the entire 25-kilometer-long river
rate of about 500 years based on the Vancouver, Wash., who was not involved valley, which shows signs of more than
25 landslides. in the new study. However, he says, 200 slides, to look at patterns in how
“But nobody knew how old any of the the surface roughness technique needs the landscape is evolving. “Do landslides
old slides were,” LaHusen says. To get an more testing to establish its validity as cluster in certain places? Or occur at
age for the valley’s landslides, LaHusen an absolute dating tool. certain intervals? These are patterns
and colleagues, including Alison Duvall, The next step should be to test you can only tease out when you look at
also at the University of Washington, the technique in a different location a larger area.”
started by dating plant material in the where a lot of landslides have occurred Mary Caperton Morton

page 18 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 News

Above oil seeps, photosynthetic life flourishes

T
he direct effects of oil and gas phytoplankton in ocean surface waters
releases in the ocean are typi- during a shipboard survey of previously
cally negative — as in the case recognized seeps. The biggest impact on
of 2010’s Deepwater Hori- phytoplankton communities “was seen a
zon oil well disaster, which devastated few hundred feet deep in the water col-
marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico. umn, at the point where phytoplankton
But scientists have now found that when have enough light from above to still
natural oil and gas seeps upwell toward grow, and are receiving the most nutri-
the ocean’s surface, they can also carry ents rising from below,” according to a Researchers found that phyto-
nutrients such as nitrates and nitrites press release accompanying the paper, plankton abundances in the Gulf
from the seafloor that feed communi- published in Nature Geoscience. Specif- of Mexico were higher in the water
ties of phytoplankton, which flourish ically, the team found that chlorophyll column above naturally occurring
as a result. concentrations above seeps were roughly oil and gas seeps than in nearby
Nigel D’souza, a postdoctoral twice as high as over nonseep sites. areas not above seeps.
researcher at Columbia University It is not yet known which phytoplank- Credit: NASA
who is now at Georgia Tech, and his ton species are benefiting most from the
colleagues spotted the effects of the seeps, or if some kinds of phytoplankton observations in the Gulf of Mexico prob-
seeps on phytoplankton abundance are also harmed by the oil. Still, “given ably reflect a worldwide phenomenon,”
while monitoring the fluorescence of the global abundance and distribution D’souza and his colleagues wrote.
chlorophyll compounds produced by of offshore hydrocarbon seeps, these Lucas Joel

Battelle to take over NEON Severe bleaching hits mean number of tornadoes per out-
The National Science Foundation Great Barrier Reef break and the number of outbreaks
announced that it has selected Aerial surveys over much of the north- per year.
Battelle Memorial Institute to take ern portion of the Great Barrier Reef Tippett and Cohen, Nature Communica-
over its troubled National Ecological off Australia in March revealed an tions, February 2016
Observatory Network (NEON), which unprecedented scale of bleaching,
has experienced delays and budget far outpacing large-scale bleaching
“Pregnant” T. rex helps
overruns while under construction. events in 1998 and 2002, according
National Science Foundation Special to Australia’s National Coral Bleach- researchers tell dinosaur
Announcement, March 2016 ing Taskforce. Only four of more than gender
500 reefs viewed showed no sign of Scientists have long struggled with
bleaching, while most were under- discerning male from female dino-
Jupiter’s red color may
going severe bleaching. saurs just from fossilized bones. But
come from irradiated sulfur Australian Research Council Centre of in a new study, researchers have
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, an enor- Excellence for Coral Reef Studies Media identified a type of reproductive tis-
mous persistent atmospheric storm, Release, March 2016 sue called medullary bone — today
may have cosmic radiation to thank found only in female birds just before
for some of its famous coloration. or during egg laying — in a Tyranno-
Extreme tornado
Researchers found that when they saurus rex femur. The finding suggests
irradiated ammonium hydrosulfide outbreaks growing more the presence of the tissue could help
— thought to be a component in common determine the gender of other fossil
Jovian clouds — with high-energy Large tornado outbreaks — extreme specimens, and “gives us a window
protons, the resulting chemical weather events that can last up to into the evolution of egg laying in
byproducts absorbed near-ultravi- three days and spawn hundreds of modern birds,” the lead author said
olet and bluer visible wavelengths funnel clouds across multiple states in a press release.
of light, leaving redder wavelengths — have grown more frequent and Schweitzer et al., Scientific Reports, March
to be reflected. more severe since 1954, accord- 2016; North Carolina State University Press
Loeffler et al., Icarus, February 2016 ing to a new study looking at the Release

page 19 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

News

Researchers used an experimental

basin filled with water and sand-,
silt- and clay-sized sediments to
mimic natural deltas and study
the formation and preservation of
stratigraphic records.
Credit: Kyle Straub

Measuring rising seas is tricky in deltas

E
arth’s stratigraphic record amount of sediment that settled in the Straub and his colleagues were par-
offers a patchwork diary of how delta, and the level of the model ocean ticularly interested in studying sea-level
different parts of the planet surface in the basin. During experiments fluctuations brought on by Milankovitch
have formed and changed over in which sea level was raised at a con- Cycles driven by variations in Earth’s
time. Some of the most extensive pieces stant rate, for instance, they observed orbit and axis, which contribute sub-
of the stratigraphic record are found “incredibly vibrant … dynamics that stantially to the planet’s glacial cycles.
in deltas, making them ideal places to were happening with the delta,” says The study found that during icehouse
look for long-term chronicles of Earth’s Kyle Straub, a sedimentologist at Tulane conditions, when continental-scale gla-
history, as well as clues to future changes University and a co-author of the study. ciers grow and shrink, the range of the
to our coastal landscapes. Stream channels jumped around, mov- resulting sea-level fluctuations, which
The stratigraphy of deltas, which ing to new locations and adding their varied from tens of meters to more
form where rivers empty into the ocean, own story to changes in the model strati- than 100 meters, was large enough to
is primarily controlled by fluctuations graphic record brought by the rising and be recorded in the stratigraphic records
in sea level. When sea level rises and lowering sea level. of almost all deltas. During greenhouse
shorelines move inland, for example, The goal of the work, Straub says, is conditions, however, when there were
the layers of sediment deposited in a to distinguish records of sea-level vari- no continental-scale ice sheets and sea-
delta may change from sands and plant ations caused by larger environmental level fluctuations were relatively small,
roots washed down rivers to mud and changes outside the delta from changes large deltas mostly did not record sea-
shells more characteristic of deeper caused by a delta’s internal activity. level changes while small deltas typically
marine environments. But internal Sea levels have naturally fluctuated in did. The researchers concluded that the
processes in deltas, such as the shift- the past — rising and falling by millime- larger deltas did not record the smaller
ing paths of different stream channels, ters over periods of days, up to hundreds sea-level changes because they experi-
muddle records of sea-level fluctuations of meters over hundreds of millions of enced more internal activity over larger
caused by external events like glacia- years. Short-period sea-level fluctua- areas and longer timescales that over-
tions, complicating efforts to interpret tions are primarily driven by shifting printed the signal of sea-level change.
those records. In a new study published atmospheric conditions, such as storms The delta’s internal activity, including
in Geology, researchers using physi- over deltas; longer-period fluctuations variations in channel size and location,
cal models to imitate natural deltaic can be caused by widespread glaciation can leave imprints on the stratigraphic
processes have shed new light on how or the breakup or assembly of super- record that cannot be separated from
and when scientists can confidently use continents. “Earth has done countless imprints left by the sea-level fluctua-
deltaic stratigraphic records to glean natural experiments for us,” says Chris tions, the authors say.
insights into Earth history. Paola, a sedimentologist at the Univer- The study provides guidelines
The team constructed model river sity of Minnesota who was not involved for understanding how the size of an
deltas out of sand-, silt- and clay-sized with the study. And this study “tells ancient delta system relates to the scale
sediment grains in an experimental us something about how to read,” or of sea-level fluctuations that can be con-
basin in a laboratory. The setup allowed sometimes not to read, the stratigraphic fidently interpreted from that system,
them to control the amount of water record based on those experiments, says Elizabeth Hajek, a sedimentolo-
that flowed into and out of the delta, the Paola says. gist at Penn State University who was

page 20 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 News

not involved in the study. For instance, This study “is an exciting example of meters below sea level — any change in
during greenhouse conditions, a small how we’re starting to take the sedi- sea level is going to cause a big problem,”
delta system like the Rio Grande Delta mentary record … and treat it much he says.
will likely preserve evidence of sea-level more quantitatively.” Gaining confidence in interpreting
change, whereas a larger delta system Learning how deltas responded to past sea-level changes in deltas is import-
like the Mississippi Delta will not record past sea-level fluctuations should also ant for preparing for future changes,
that same change. help researchers forecast potential Hajek adds. “Our landscapes and our
These physical experiments are use- impacts from future fluctuations in sea coastlines are going to be changing with
ful for demonstrating, in a measureable level, Straub says. “When you live only climate change, and we’re sort of heading
way, what happens over long times- a meter or two above sea level — or in into uncharted territory,” she says.
cales in Earth’s history, Hajek says. some locations in New Orleans, several Elizabeth Goldbaum

Social trends and shifting climates had complex

effects in medieval Italy

I
t’s easy to anecdotally pin environ- cores with accounts of social upheaval
mental changes and their societal recorded in church documents.
impacts on shifting climates. But The results show how climate change
when scientists and historians and societal forces influence each other,
came together to look at environmental Mensing says. After being left unde-
changes through the warm Medieval Cli- veloped by the Romans, and by the
mate Anomaly and cold Little Ice Age in Ostrogoths who succeeded them, the
Rieti, Italy, they found that the real story forested Rieti Basin was converted into
of climate and social change is much grassland and pasture between A.D. 870
more complex — and interesting. and 925. Rather than being closely tied
Rieti is a wetland-filled valley in to climate, this transformation occurred Researchers combined written
the mountains north of Rome that has before the height of the warm Medieval historical records housed in the
undergone a series of environmental Climate Anomaly, driven by the arrival Abbey of Farfa and Rieti Cathe-
shifts since it was first settled in the of the Lombards and new trends toward dral, seen here, with environmental
Iron Age almost three millennia ago, large, intensely farmed monastic estates. records from sediment and pollen
according to written historical records Then, starting in the late 14th cen- to see how the landscape of Ita-
from the region. Scott Mensing, a paleo- tury, cooler, wetter conditions during ly’s Rieti Valley changed through
ecologist at the University of Nevada the Little Ice Age, combined with depop- medieval times.
and lead author of a new study in the ulation caused by the plague, resulted Credit: Alessandro Antonelli, CC BY 3.0
journal Anthropocene looking into the in the plain being largely abandoned,
region’s past, wanted to see how physical and it reverted to swampland and for- to build a new channel that drained the
evidence of past environmental changes est. These conditions “caused people valley once and for all.
would compare to the written records. to abandon the land, and it returned to “Studies like this are important for
He and his colleagues collected sed- forest remarkably quickly. Within 50 or understanding societal responses to cli-
iment cores from one of the valley’s 60 years, you had forest back in an area mate change, and they provide a wake-up
modern remnant lakes, then dated the that was probably all pasture before call to the fact that humans have been
sediments and analyzed the pollen to that,” Mensing says. “The speed of these impacted by climate change in the past,
reconstruct local plant populations over transitions really surprised me.” even within single human life spans,”
time. They also recruited local histori- It was advances in hydrologic engi- says Elizabeth Thomas of the University
ans who could read medieval Italian to neering, not the return of a more at Buffalo, who was not involved in the
analyze archives of historical documents amenable climate, which eventually study. “It’s also interesting to note that
kept at the valley’s Farfa Abbey and the allowed the valley to be returned to cul- societies can learn, adapt and engineer
Rieti Cathedral. Thus, Mensing’s team tivation: In 1596, near the height of the solutions to changing environments,”
matched the changes in local vegeta- Little Ice Age, Pope Clemente VII com- she says.
tion recorded by pollen in the sediment missioned architect Giovanni Fontana Rebecca Heisman

page 21 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

News

Ancient Indonesian tools made by

mysterious inhabitants

T
he island of Sulawesi is one 194,000 and 118,000 years ago, which
link in a chain of islands substantially predates indications from
between mainland Asia and studies of limestone-encrusted rock art
Australia, and was likely an panels found on Sulawesi and attributed
important stepping stone in human to modern humans. These stone artifacts were found
dispersal from Eurasia through Ocea- Despite the rich stone tool record scattered on the ground near Talepu
nia to Australia. Previous research has uncovered at Sulawesi, the team, led by Hill on the island of Sulawesi, and
placed modern humans on Sulawesi as Gerrit van den Bergh of the University of date to at least 118,000 years ago.
early as 40,000 years ago, but scientists Wollongong in Australia, did not find any Credit: Erick Setiabudi
have now dated a set of stone tools to human remains, leaving the identity of
at least 118,000 years ago, suggesting the toolmakers a mystery. Reporting their Given the predominant flow of ocean
humans occupied the island far earlier findings in Nature, the team proposed currents through the island network of
than thought. three candidates for Sulawesi’s early Indonesia, “we speculate that the most
Excavations conducted on Sulawesi occupation based on fossils found on likely points of origin for the Sulawesi
between 2007 and 2012 uncovered four other islands: Homo floresiensis, known colonizers are Borneo to the west and
new early hominid sites and hundreds to be on Flores roughly 190,000 years ago; the Philippines to the north, with the
of lithic tools, including stone cores, Homo erectus, which appeared on Java implication being that other islands in
choppers and flakes. Uranium dating of 1.5 million years ago; or the enigmatic the region harbor undiscovered records
the soils containing the artifacts estab- Denisovans, who could have reached of archaic hominins,” the team wrote.
lished an age range for the site between Indonesia before modern humans. Mary Caperton Morton

Underwater Roman marble traced to Greece, Italy

and Turkey

F
rom the first century B.C. to the third century A.D.,
the city of Baiae, located on the west coast of Italy,
near Naples, was the preferred summer home of
Roman emperors, including Augustus and Nero. The
once-grand city now lies under more than 5 meters of water
due to coastal subsidence, and is preserved as the Underwater
Archaeological Park of Baiae. Researchers have now traced the
opulent city’s white marble floors to some of the most famous
quarries in Italy, Greece and Turkey.
Scientists led by Michela Ricca of the University of Cal-
abria in Italy took 50 samples from different marble floors
and entryways throughout the submerged city. The samples Scientists take the plunge underwater to analyze
were then studied using microscopy, X-ray diffraction, mass one of the most valuable materials used to construct
spectrometry and isotopic analyses. The unique characteristics affluent Roman villas: white marble.
of each sample, such as manganese content, crystal size, and Credit: courtesy of Michela Ricca et al.
carbon and oxygen isotopes, were then compared to known
samples of white marble from ancient quarries. the best ornamental marble of that time period,” said co-author
The results, published in the journal Applied Surface Mónica Alvarez de Buergo, a researcher at the Geosciences
Science, identified the origins of 45 out of 50 samples from Institute, a joint center of the Spanish Research Council and
quarries in Italy (Carrara), Greece (Thassos, Paros and Pente- Complutense University of Madrid in Spain, in a statement.
likon), and Turkey (Proconnesos, Docimium and Aphrodisias). “This helps to determine the trade routes that were used at
“The variety and quality of the marble identified highlight that point in time during the Roman Empire.”
the importance held by [Baiae] in the past seeing as it yielded Mary Caperton Morton

page 22 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 News

Ice (Re)Cap

F
rom Antarctica to the Arctic; from polar caps, permafrost
and glaciers to ocean-rafted sea ice; and from burly bears
to cold-loving microbes, fascinating science is found in
every nook and crevasse of Earth’s cryosphere, and new findings are
announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

• Researchers recently found that Phosphorus-rich melt-

buoyant warm waters off Antarc- water flows from the
tica are slicing into the undersides Leverett Glacier in
of ice shelves, creating long subsur- southwest Greenland.
face channels that may contribute Credit: Jon Hawkings
to destabilization of the vast, float-
ing platforms. Ice shelves surround according to a study in Proceed- annually — about 400,000 metric
most of Antarctica, buttressing the ings of the National Academy of tons — as the Mississippi or Amazon
larger continental ice sheet and Sciences. About 18,000 years ago, rivers. Phosphorus is a vital nutrient
slowing its flow toward the ocean. the Ross Ice Shelf — which today for plankton, which sit at the base
Researchers analyzed satellite still covers about 500,000 square of the oceanic food chain, so the
imagery and altimetry as well as kilometers, roughly the size of Spain amount added by massive ice
airborne ice-penetrating radar — extended hundreds of kilome- sheets could substantially affect
data collected from 2002 to 2014. ters farther offshore. Scientists led ocean productivity. Although
They identified numerous channels by Yusuke Yokoyama of the Uni- glacial meltwater was known to
up to tens of kilometers long, 5 kilo- versity of Tokyo in Japan studied contain phosphorus, there has
meters across and 50 to 250 meters geomorphic evidence of the ice been little systematic study of how
deep in the bases of shelves, which left on the seafloor — like furrows much is expelled by ice sheets. Jon
vary in thickness overall from about gouged by the deep keels of enor- Hawkings of the University of Bristol
100 meters to 2 kilometers. “We mous icebergs that broke free of in England and colleagues mea-
found that warm ocean water is the shelf and scraped the bottom sured meltwater flow rates and
carving these ‘upside-down rivers’ — as well as isotopes in samples of collected water samples from two
… into the undersides of ice shelves seafloor sediments from beneath Greenland Ice Sheet glaciers in
all around the Antarctic conti- the area formerly covered by the 2012 and 2013. They reported in
nent. In at least some cases these shelf. They found that the western the journal Global Biogeochem-
channels weaken the ice shelves, portion of the shelf began breaking ical Cycles that concentrations
making them more vulnerable to up soon after the LGM, but that it of dissolved phosphorus in the
disintegration,” said Karen Alley, stabilized by about 10,000 years meltwater were similar to those
a graduate student at the Univer- ago. Starting about 5,000 years seen in Arctic rivers, but that total
sity of Colorado at Boulder in a ago, however, a much larger sec- phosphorus levels were substan-
statement. Alley and colleagues tion of the ancestral Ross Ice Shelf, tially higher due to large quantities
reported in Nature Geoscience about 280,000 square kilometers, of bedrock particles ground up by
that the basal channels were most disintegrated before reaching its the glacial ice. Exactly how much
prevalent in shelves off West Ant- current state by 1,500 years ago. of that particulate matter makes it
arctica, such as the Getz Ice Shelf, Modeling of the ice shelf and into the oceans and could be used
and that they appear to be asso- ocean suggested to the team that by plankton before the particles
ciated with formation of crevasses warming air and ocean currents settle to the seafloor is not clear.
on shelf surfaces. combined to cause the breakups But the team estimated that the
of the shelf. Greenland Ice Sheet overall con-
• Warming was also likely responsible tributes about 15 percent of the
for the large-scale retreat of Ant- • A new study suggests that Green- bioavailable phosphorus to the
arctica’s largest ice shelf following land’s ice sheet might shed as Arctic each year.
the last glacial maximum (LGM), much phosphorus into the ocean Timothy Oleson

page 23 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

The Most Dangerous Fault

in America

The entire length of the Hayward Fault runs through densely populated cities such as
Oakland, Fremont and Berkeley (shown here), and is not far from the metropolises of San
Francisco (background) and San Jose. The U.S. Geological Survey describes the Hayward
Fault as “the single most urbanized earthquake fault in the United States.”
Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/ConstantGardner

Steven Newton

L
ast summer, a startling article appeared in The New Yorker magazine outlining

what could happen to the Pacific Northwest in the event of a large earthquake

resulting from a full rupture of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. As recently as

1700, this convergent zone produced an earthquake estimated at magnitude 9. If such an

event happened today, the results would be devastating. The article attracted a great deal of

attention, especially among people who had never heard of the possibility that the heavily

populated Pacific Northwest could, in a geologic moment, become “toast” — as someone

quoted in the article put it.

page 24 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

The San Francisco Bay

Area is riddled with faults.

Gre
C

Ro k Fa
re

dg u
One of the most danger- Nevada

en
er lt
s
ous is the Hayward Fault,

V
alle
which connects to the

yF
Rodgers Creek Fault to

aul
the north and seems to Berkeley California

G
t

re
San
connect to the Calaveras

en
Francisco Oakland

vil
Fault in the south, accord-

le
Lake Chabot

Ha

Fa
ing to recent research. The

yw

ul
Hayward

t
ar
Hetch Hetchy water sys-

d
Fa
tem, which provides water San Andreas Lake

ult
San Antonio Reservoir
to San Francisco, is extraor- Fremont
Crystal Springs Reservoir
dinarily vulnerable to seis- Calaveras Reservoir

Sa
mic disruption as it moves

Ca
n
water across several faults. San

An

lav
San Jose

dr

era
And several of the system’s
Gre

ea
sF

sF
reservoirs (shown on the
gor

au

au
map) sit directly on or very

lt
io F

lt
close to faults. 0 km 50
aul
t

Credit: K. Cantner, AGI

The Pacific Northwest is not the only region of Location, Location, Location
the United States in tectonic jeopardy. The San The Hayward Fault splinters from the Calaveras
Francisco Bay Area also suffers from the unfor- Fault, which itself is an offshoot of the San Andreas
tunate confluence of large populations and active Fault, near Hollister, south of the Bay Area. All
faults. However, the nine counties of the Bay three faults are right-lateral strike-slip faults. The
Area are home to dozens of major faults — the Hayward Fault is shorter than the San Andreas,
San Andreas, the Calaveras, the Concord-Green running about 70 kilometers from Fremont to
Valley, the San Gregorio, the Rodgers Creek and Point Pinole, and is therefore not expected to pro-
the Hayward, chief among them. These very active duce the magnitude-8-plus quakes we know the
faults, which produce small quakes (mostly under San Andreas can generate. But what the Hayward
magnitude 2.5) on a daily basis as well as occa- Fault lacks in potential magnitude, it makes up
sional quake swarms — a swarm in October 2015 for with proximity to people, lying directly under
produced more than 400 small quakes in two structures where many people live and work: hos-
weeks — cut through important infrastructure in pitals, schools, retirement homes, and house after
every city in the region, potentially affecting more house after house.
than 7 million people.
Most people have heard of the San Andreas, What the Hayward Fault lacks in potential magnitude,
which they assume will be the source of the next it makes up for with proximity to people, lying directly
big quake in the Bay Area, thanks in part to Hol- under structures where many people live and work:
lywood disaster movies, such as the dreadful “San hospitals, schools, retirement homes, and house after
Andreas,” which perpetuate geologic absurdities. house after house.
Despite the notoriety of the San Andreas Fault, it is
not the greatest seismic threat to the Bay Area. East The San Andreas cuts predominantly through
of San Francisco, across the muddy, green waters remote areas, whereas the entire length of the
of San Francisco Bay, sits a smaller fracture in the Hayward Fault runs through densely populated
crust: the Hayward Fault. One day, the Hayward cities such as Oakland (pop. 406,000), Fremont
Fault could produce the greatest natural disaster (pop. 224,000) and Berkeley (pop. 116,000), and
ever to hit the United States. is not far from the metropolises of San Francisco

page 25 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

On the campus of Contra Costa Community Col-

lege, the Hayward Fault distorts once-straight brick
paving stones.
Credit: Steven Newton

(pop. 805,000) and San Jose (pop. 945,000).

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) describes the
Hayward Fault as “the single most urbanized earth-
quake fault in the United States.”

The San Andreas cuts predominantly through remote areas,

whereas the entire length of the Hayward Fault runs
through densely populated cities.

While some of the fault lies at a depth of 15 kilo- In Berkeley, the Hayward Fault runs beneath
meters, near the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) the University of California at Berkeley’s foot-
commuter train station in Fremont, the fault ball stadium, offsetting the south wall.
breaches the surface. The surface expression can Credit: top: Kai Schrieber, CC BY-SA 2.0; bottom:
be seen near the Fremont Main Library and the Steven Newton
Fremont Police Department, as well as two hos-
pitals. It skirts the East Bay hills, then plunges When it ruptures, the Hayward Fault will do
into downtown Hayward, where it offsets the old more than damage homes, zoos and football sta-
Hayward City Hall, creating cracks in the walls and diums: It will endanger numerous lives and likely
distinct offsets in the tile floor, and slices a retire- deal a devastating economic blow. According to the
ment home. In San Leandro, the Hayward Fault Bureau of Labor Statistics, the region is home to
runs near the Fairmont Hospital and the earthen 87,000 businesses, 1.5 million jobs and quarterly
dam holding back the Lake Chabot Reservoir. The wages nearing $25 billion; the Bay Area’s overall
entrance to the Oakland Zoo is marked by the fault; GDP would, if it were a separate country, rank as
the zoo even notes the location of the fault on its the 19th largest in the world.
grounds with a sign. In Berkeley, the fault runs Some of the most important American tech-
beneath the University of California at Berkeley’s nology companies are located near the Hayward
football stadium, where offset on the south wall Fault. The headquarters of Facebook and Google
can be seen. The fault continues north, underneath and Apple’s new “spaceship” campus are less than
residential areas and the campus of Contra Costa 20 kilometers away — all close enough for shaking
Community College. to affect the operations of the companies.

page 26 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

This map from the third Uniform Cal-

Readiness of Faults ifornia Earthquake Rupture Forecast
(probability gain for ≥ M6.7 earthquakes) indicates which California faults are
most “ready” or at risk of rupture,
based on stress buildup. The Hayward
Recent earthquakes (less ready): is one of the highest risk.
1906 San Francisco Credit: U.S. Geological Survey
1983 Coalinga

1952 Kern County

1992 Landers
1999 Hector Mine
Particularly ready faults:
Hayward

Calaveras

Current earthquake likelihood relative to long-term likelihood

Very low Equal Two times greater

Southern San Andreas

The Hazard Calaveras and the Hayward faults. However, the

Given the Hayward’s proximity to large popu- accumulated creep on these faults does not match
lations, its rupture presents a huge risk. But when estimates of stress expected to have accumulated
might that risk become reality? The last significant on them, as Sarah Titus, now at Carleton College,
quake on the Hayward Fault was in October 1868. and her colleagues demonstrated in a 2005 paper in
That quake is estimated to have been about mag- Geology. This “slip deficit” suggests that creep will
nitude 6.8. James Lienkaemper of the USGS has not prevent future quakes, according to Kristy Tia-
done pioneering work both in mapping the location mpo, now at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
of the Hayward Fault and in estimating the long- and her colleagues, who explored the issue in a 2013
term frequency of its major tremors. In a 2012 study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. But
paper in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of creep on the Hayward Fault does allow us to map
America, Lienkaemper and colleagues determined its trace precisely, and to see where large ruptures
that the fault’s recurrence interval over the last two might happen when the fault does break again.
millennia is about 161 years, plus or minus 65 years.
The last quake was 148 years ago, so we currently
sit within that range. A Point of Comparison
In 2015, the Working Group on California Earth- When the last quake struck the Hayward Fault
quake Probabilities released the third Uniform in 1868, the Bay Area was sparsely populated. The
California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, which town of Hayward had about 500 residents, and
increased the probability of a major quake (magni- just 24,000 people lived in the East Bay in the
tude 6.7 or above) in the San Francisco Bay region immediate vicinity of the fault. Thirty people in the
to 72 percent within the next 30 years. Of the many region were killed by the quake while nearly every
faults in the Bay Area, the Hayward Fault has the building in Hayward was damaged or destroyed.
greatest likelihood of producing such an event. Today, Hayward has about 149,000 people, and
The Hayward Fault is unusual in that, in addition 2.6 million people live in the immediate vicinity of
to rupturing every so often, it experiences aseismic the fault. What would a big quake on the Hayward
creep; in other words, the fault slips, releasing Fault do?
stress gradually without necessarily producing One way to assess this question is to compare a
earthquakes. Aseismic creep is rare throughout the potential large Hayward quake to events of similar
world, although it occurs on the San Andreas, the size in areas of similar population. The 1995 Kobe

page 27 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

One of the southernmost exposures of the

Hayward Fault is near the intersection of
Gardenia Way and South Grimmer Blvd.
in Fremont. Here, cracking of the street is
very pronounced, although this spot has
since been repaved. This site is near Arroyo
Agua Caliente Park, a name that suggests
a hot spring — always a good indicator of
fault activity.
Credit: Steven Newton
On Camellia Drive in Fremont, the Hayward Fault
appears briefly as it moves under suburban neigh-
borhoods. Here, the sidewalk is dramatically offset
by the fault, demonstrating what can happen when I recently ran a HAZUS model for a Hayward
a creeping fault intersects modern cities. Fault rupture. I set up the model runs under
Credit: Steven Newton three scenarios with varying event magnitudes:
low (magnitude 6.7), moderate (7), and major
(7.2). Sufficient stress for a magnitude-6.7 quake
is thought to have already accumulated, but recent
quake, a magnitude-6.9 event in southern Japan, research suggests even larger quakes are possible;
has been proposed as the best analogue for a future in a 2015 paper in Geophysical Research Letters,
Hayward earthquake, which is expected to have a Estelle Chaussard of the University at Buffalo and
similar magnitude and may have a similar rupture her colleagues suggested the Hayward and Calav-
length. The length of rupture in Kobe was similar to eras faults are deeply connected, and thus a rupture
that of the 1868 Hayward quake. The Kobe quake could propagate along the two faults and produce
also caused 1.5 meters of horizontal displacement quakes greater than magnitude 7. For my model
on the ground; given the energy accumulated since runs, I chose an arbitrary epicenter near the Lake
the 1868 quake and the displacement observed Chabot Reservoir dam (which is one of many res-
in that event, scientists expect about 2 meters of ervoirs located near the fault that could inundate
horizontal displacement on the Hayward Fault, neighborhoods if the dams fail).
according to a 2008 fact sheet from USGS. The idea This is the range of buildings damaged
of a Kobe-type quake occurring on the Hayward modeled by HAZUS for the three different mag-
is unsettling: Out of a population of 1.5 million in nitude scenarios:
Kobe, nearly 5,000 people were killed.
Moderate Damaged
Another way to assess the Hayward Fault’s
damage (% beyond
potential damage is through FEMA’s hazard mod- of buildings) repair
eling program, HAZUS, which allows users to select
Mw 6.7 93,344 (12%) 5,756
variables such as the location of an earthquake’s
epicenter, the length of a rupture, the magnitude Mw 7.0 132,437 (17%) 5,988
and depth of a quake, and the time of day when Mw 7.2 156,471 (20%) 8,226
it occurs.

page 28 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

Rockett Drive in Fremont shows the distinctive evi- Near the Hayward Plunge swimming center,
dence of fault creep. As with all offsets on the Hay- the concrete wall of a playground is dra-
ward, the sense of movement is right-lateral; in other matically split.
words, when looking across the fault, the other side Credit: Steven Newton
appears to be moving to one’s right.
Credit: Steven Newton
Ripple Effects
HAZUS can also model how infrastructure
other than buildings will be affected by a quake.
Assessing casualties is more challenging. For For instance, it suggests that immediately after
instance, a lot depends on where people are when a magnitude-7 Hayward Fault event, out of
the quake hits. At 2 a.m., most people would be 920,502 households near the fault trace, 298,605
home asleep in wood-framed, single-family homes (32 percent) will be without water and 367,519
that are unlikely to collapse completely. But if (40 percent) will be without electricity. These losses
a quake occurred at 2 p.m. on a weekday, many are just the beginning of the infrastructure prob-
people would be at work or school in vulnerable lems a Hayward Fault quake will create. A big quake
structures constructed with brick walls and unre- in a highly populated area means that virtually
inforced masonry. The HAZUS model estimates every aspect of modern civilization — transporta-
the death toll of a 2 p.m. quake would be five times tion, gas, sewer, water, electricity, Internet access
greater than a quake occurring at 2 a.m. (The Kobe and more — will be affected.
quake occurred before 6 a.m., as did the 1994
Northridge quake and the 1906 San Francisco [HAZUS simulations] suggest that immediately
quake. It is possible that each of these quakes after a magnitude-7 Hayward Fault event, out of
could have produced higher casualties if they had 920,502 households near the fault trace, 298,605
occurred later in the day.) (32 percent) will be without water and 367,519
HAZUS predicts casualties in these ranges: (40 percent) without electricity.

Total Total Total Total

Transportation problems will be felt immediately
injured killed injured killed
2 a.m. 2 a.m. 2 p.m. 2 p.m. after the quake. More than 400,000 commuters use
the BART system on weekdays. BART has made
Mw 6.7 2,564 62 5,864 304
efforts to retrofit its infrastructure, but a 2002 study
Mw 7.0 4,005 120 9,980 574 estimated that major damage from an earthquake to
Mw 7.2 5,005 162 13,283 807 the underwater trans-bay tunnel, through which the
rail line travels, could shut down the BART system
for two to three years, with disastrous effects on the
Clearly, there is a big difference in the number local economy. A 2010 report by the Earthquake
of deaths predicted by the HAZUS model for this Engineering Research Institute noted the 2 meters
potential Hayward earthquake and the experience of expected offset in the BART Berkeley Hills Tun-
in Kobe, with HAZUS estimating an order of mag- nel, versus the 0.6 meters of displacement it was
nitude fewer. We can only hope that the computer engineered to accommodate, could “put the tunnel
model proves the better predictor. out of commission indefinitely.”

page 29 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

The Hayward Fault breaches the surface near the BART station in Fremont.
Credit: Adam Moss, CC BY-SA 2.0

Traveling over the water will be no less difficult; infrastructure, would take months to years. While
HAZUS estimates between 43 and 78 bridges will hazard planners commonly advise Bay Area resi-
be damaged. Since many of these bridges form dents to stockpile enough water for 72 hours, the
choke-points in traffic flow, damage to even a few reality is that many areas will be cut off from water
could create epic traffic jams. However, such traf- infrastructure for far longer.
fic jams may never materialize if damage to road A further problem is flooding. Most of the Bay
infrastructure is so severe that people cannot get Area’s water is impounded in reservoirs, in hills
on the freeways at all. far out of sight and out of mind of the residents.
Each reservoir has the potential for damage and
The Hayward Fault holds the potential for great catastrophic failure. The worst flooding could hap-
devastation, but many people are only vaguely pen to the city of Fremont. The Calaveras and San
aware of the danger it poses. Antonio reservoirs store more than 180 million
cubic meters of water, perched above the city of Fre-
Long stretches of freeways in the Bay Area sit mont and its 224,000 residents. These reservoirs
near sea level, built on marshy tidal flats that will sit 8 and 11 kilometers, respectively, from traces of
almost certainly experience liquefaction during the the Hayward Fault as it passes through Fremont.
quake. If liquefaction damages even small sections The worst-case scenario is a rupture of one or
of such freeways, they become unusable. Addition- both of these reservoirs. Inundation maps based
ally, if freeway overpasses collapse or become too on ruptures from these reservoirs show the entire
damaged for vehicles to travel underneath them city of Fremont flooded, from the hills to the bay.
safely, then freeways are rendered useless. In many Underscoring this risk, the Calaveras Reservoir’s
parts of the Bay Area, these roadways represent earthen dam, constructed in 1925, has been deemed
the only feasible way to move between areas; free- so seismically vulnerable that a replacement dam
ways physically isolate some communities, with farther downstream is currently under construction.
pedestrian movement impossible between them. The Calaveras and San Antonio reservoirs are
The quake would essentially cut off large parts of part of the Hetch Hetchy water system, an improb-
the Bay Area. able Rube Goldberg-like scheme to move water
Ground movement also has the potential to from the Sierra Nevada across the Central Valley,
destroy water delivery systems at multiple lev- across the Calaveras Fault, across the Hayward
els: at the household level, with pipes breaking Fault, across the liquefaction-vulnerable marshes
and flooding homes or unsecured water heaters of the southern bay, then into two long, linear
detaching; at the neighborhood level, with breaks sag ponds: the Crystal Springs and San Andreas
in municipal water lines or water mains; and at the reservoirs. (The latter gave its name to the fault
city level, with municipal water treatment plants when it was first recognized in 1895.) The Hetch
failing or reservoirs and dams rupturing. Repairs Hetchy water system is extraordinarily vulnerable
for many of these problems, which involve digging to seismic disruption. Unfortunately, it is also the
up streets and rebuilding major parts of the water prime water source for San Francisco.

page 30 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

One of the most well-documented offsets along the

Hayward Fault is at the intersection of Rose and Pros-
pect Streets in Hayward. Here, decades of changes
to a single curb have been photographed by Sue
Hirschfeld, professor emeritus at Cal State University
Hayward (East Bay). Her photographs, available at
geologyfieldtrips.com, show this intersection as early as
1971, when offset was minimal. Decade by decade,
the fault has shifted — as have the foundations of
nearby homes. In fact, many homes in the vicinity of
this intersection show visible distress, such as cracks
radiating from windows and garage doors that close
unevenly, because of fault movement.
Credit: Steven Newton

Preparation or Denial Instead, the opposite is happening, and across the

The Hayward Fault holds the potential for great Bay Area, new homes are being built in fault zones
devastation, but many people are only vaguely with seemingly no consideration for what could
aware of the danger it poses. In my nearly two happen to the people in them.
decades of teaching geology in the Bay Area, I have Building codes could be strengthened to require
found that surprisingly few people even know where retrofitting of weak, soft-first-story buildings and
the fault is. But all they have to do is look. There to require demolition of dangerous brick buildings
are dozens of places where streets and parking lots that cannot be retrofitted. Household gas meters
are cracked, where sidewalks are dramatically offset could be required to have motion-activated auto-
by creep along the fault, and where cracks have matic shut-off switches, a technology widely used
appeared in buildings, such as the concrete wall of in Japan to reduce post-quake fire danger. Local
a playground near the Hayward Plunge swimming governments could establish community caches
center. These cracks are the harbingers of the major of critical supplies — drinking water, food, med-
seismic disaster that will one day affect millions of icine and tents, for example — in areas likely to
people in the region. be devastated by the shaking. Unfortunately, for
The science is clear: We know where the Hay- the most part, such prudent preparations are not
ward Fault is and we know it is going to rupture in being made.
the future. When it will happen is unknown, but
the effects of such an event are quite clear: Major The science is clear: We know where the
shaking to fragile infrastructure will result in loss Hayward Fault is and we know it is going to
of life and great economic damage. The scientific rupture in the future.
community has mapped the fault and assessed the
risk. Scientists have done their jobs. We have no excuse not to prepare for the coming
Governments, however, have not done theirs. quake. Just as the citizens of the Pacific North-
Not only are homebuyers not protected by any west may one day find themselves affected by the
required disclosures in contracts, but there has Cascadia Subduction Zone, the Bay Area will be
also been a failure to prepare for the inevitability damaged by the Hayward Fault. It’s just a matter
of this quake. How will hundreds of thousands of time before a large earthquake on the Hayward
of newly homeless people in the region survive Fault happens, but how we choose to prepare — or
absent running water, absent sewage systems, and not to prepare — will make a tremendous difference
absent electricity? to those caught in the aftermath of this inevita-
Local governments could have helped this situ- ble disaster.
ation by restricting development in areas near the
fault. They can still remedy the mistakes of the past, Newton teaches geology at College of Marin
however, in part by offering buyouts as an incen- in Kentfield, Calif. The views expressed are
tive to move people away from the worst zones. his own.

page 31 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

In the 1950s, Marie Tharp and Bruce

Heezen, of what was then called
the Lamont Geological Observa-
tory, began creating seafloor maps
based on single-beam sounding
data from the U.S. Navy and other
sources. Their compilation map of
the global seafloor was published
in 1977.
Credit: Library of Congress, Geography
and Map Division

SEEING THE SEAFLOOR IN HIGH DEFINITION

Modern Mapping Offers Increasing Clarity on
Earth’s Vast Underwater Landscape

Timothy Oleson

G
liding through pitch- In the California Borderland region the San Andreas is,” says MBARI marine
black waters 50 meters just off the state’s southern coast, for geologist Charles Paull. “Some of the big
off the ocean bottom, the example, detailed bathymetry has faults are right offshore.”
“D. Allan B” can sense the helped researchers piece together a
seafloor below in striking clarity, despite clearer picture of the complex array of
the darkness. In its backyard off the faults that parallel the shoreline. These Only a tiny fraction of the
California coast, the 5-meter-long, tor- offshore faults were formed by the same seafloor has been surveyed so
pedo-shaped autonomous underwater tectonic forces that created well-known far at meter-scale resolution.
vehicle (AUV) operated by the Monte- faults on land like the San Andreas and Rounding off, it’s about
rey Bay Aquarium Research Institute San Jacinto, but a reliable view of the zero percent.
(MBARI) has surveyed submarine positions and sizes of the offshore faults — Charles Paull, Monterey Bay
topography ranging from deep canyons — let alone their past movements or Aquarium Research Institute
incising the continental shelf to sub- the potential hazards they pose — has
tle scarps weaving through blankets of eluded scientists. Yet, these Borderland
ocean-bottom sediments. Since enter- faults — the Palos Verdes and San Diego Much remains to be learned about the
ing operation about a decade ago, the Trough faults to name a couple — are tectonics off California, but high-resolu-
AUV’s mapping prowess — it can dis- thought to accommodate as much as tion, AUV-acquired maps of the seafloor
tinguish features less than a meter wide 15 to 20 percent of the motion between have allowed Paull and his colleagues to
and just 10 centimeters tall, a level of the Pacific and North American plates. locate fault traces with far greater accu-
precision that rivals NASA’s Mars-map- “That’s not insignificant, particularly racy and even determine slip rates and
ping HiRISE camera — has become an in Southern California where you’re past seismicity on some, information
integral tool in MBARI’s efforts to study dealing with potentially very large faults that should improve hazard assessments
Earth’s surface beneath the waves. that are closer to the urban centers than for the state.

page 32 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

Mapping is fundamental to under- Three modern tools for

Satellite altimetry
standing a place and the physical collecting bathymetric
Altitude: 700-1,400 kilometers
processes that shape it, and modern data: satellite altime-
Swath width: 1-20 kilometers
efforts to chart the seafloor date back to try, hull-mounted multi- Spatial resolution: 1 kilometer
the birth of echo sounding in the early beam sonar and under-
20th century. But given the relatively water vehicle-mounted
Hull-mounted multibeam sonar
recent advent of submersible mapping multibeam sonar. Satel- Altitude: sea level
technology — along with ever-present lite altimetry senses dif- Swath width: 5-15 kilometers
limitations of scale, time and expense ferences in the height Spatial resolution: 25-100 meters
— only a tiny fraction has been sur- of the ocean surface,
veyed so far at meter-scale resolution. which is subtly shaped
“Rounding off,” Paull estimates, “it’s by seafloor topogra-
about zero percent.” phy, as opposed to Underwater vehicle-mounted
Even at spatial resolutions of 25 to detecting bathymetry multibeam sonar
Altitude: 20-90 meters above seafloor
100 meters, somewhere in the neighbor- directly. All specifica-
Swath width: 50-200 meters
hood of just 10 percent of the seafloor tions are approximate.
Spatial resolution: less than 1 meter
globally has been mapped using modern Diagram is not to scale.
bathymetric data collected by surface Credit: K. Cantner, AGI
ships. That means that vast expanses of
the ocean floor, which covers roughly
70 percent of the planet, remain virtu-
ally uncharted. NOT TO SCALE

Seeing the Seafloor

Look at a topographic map of the
world and, as on land, you’ll see long
mountain ranges, expansive plains and
enough bumps, ridges and other textures
under the oceans to convince yourself
that we’ve already mapped the seafloor
in full. But in the same way that such a
map won’t tell you a whole lot about the
peaks and valleys in your hometown,
global maps of the ocean basins don’t
offer much local detail. In most terres-
trial locations, we can zoom in to see
finer details, but the nearly 1.4 billion
cubic kilometers of seawater on Earth
make things trickier in the oceans.
Advancements in seafloor mapping
have been paced by the development of
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s torpedo-shaped auton- technology that has allowed us to see
omous underwater vehicle, the D. Allan B (foreground), is used to map through the water with increasing cover-
portions of the seafloor with a spatial resolution of about 1 meter. age and resolution. Starting in the early
Credit: Phil Sammet, ©2010 Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute 20th century, manual hydrographic
surveying techniques like lead-lining
The many uses of seafloor mapping mapping could be transformative, and wire drags gave way to echo sound-
for economic and strategic applications, helping geologists, biologists and ing, which converted the travel times of
however, as well as in engineering, sal- others document and assess changes, soundwaves emitted from and reflected
vage and conservation operations, offer large and small, due to underwater back to ships into ocean depths.
plenty of reasons to keep pushing the volcanism, earthquakes, landslides, By mid-century, echo-sounding tech-
boundaries. In marine science, mean- hydrothermal activity and other nat- nology matured into precision depth
while, researchers say that detailed ural phenomena. recorders employed by navies during

page 33 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

sources to produce what would become

the first modern picture of the global
seafloor. Among other features, Tharp
and Heezen’s maps documented not only
the mid-ocean ridges but the rift val-
leys that bisected them — key evidence
supporting the then-emerging theory of
plate tectonics.
The soundings on which these maps
were based came from single-beam
sonar instruments, which collected and
averaged depth information from indi-
vidual spots on the seafloor. Thus, even
in places well sampled by sonar, resolu-
tion was limited and educated guesswork
was required to fill gaps in coverage.
The two main technologies still used
today for large-scale seafloor mapping
— satellite altimetry and multibeam
sonar — were developed in the 1970s.
Both offered immense improvements
over single-beam sonar because they
collect data over broad areas rather
than distinct spots, minimizing the need
for interpolation. It’s largely thanks to
satellite altimetry over the ocean sur-
face, which is subtly shaped by the
topography below, that we have the
seafloor maps we’re accustomed to see-
ing in textbooks.
David Sandwell of the Scripps Institu-
tion of Oceanography and Walter Smith
of NOAA’s Laboratory for Satellite Altim-
etry pioneered a comprehensive, satellite
altimetry-based map of the global ocean
seafloor starting in the 1990s. And such
measurements, with resolutions down
to about 1 kilometer, continue to reveal
The modern map of the global seafloor (top) is largely based on bathym- previously unseen underwater features
etry derived from satellite altimetry. A relatively small proportion of the such as buried seamounts and extinct
seafloor has been mapped at higher resolution using multibeam sonar, rift zones.
however. Publicly available multibeam data included in the Global Sandwell and Smith’s map “is fabu-
Multi-Resolution Topography Synthesis covers only about 8 percent of lous and dramatic, and it gives us this
the seafloor (bottom, unshaded areas), although coverage is higher holistic perspective on a global scale,”
over continental margins and plate boundaries. says Daniel Fornari, a marine geologist
Credit: image from the Global Multi-Resolution Topography Synthesis, hosted by the at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu-
IEDA Marine Geoscience Data System tion (WHOI). “But, in terms of really
getting down to the details and pro-
World War II — when it took on the Columbia University’s Lamont Geolog- cesses” occurring at the bottom of the
name sonar, short for “sound naviga- ical Observatory (now Lamont-Doherty ocean, Fornari says, “we need to map
tion and ranging” — and subsequently Earth Observatory, or LDEO) famously it in great detail.” For the last 35 years
aboard civilian research vessels. In the began compiling and plotting sound- or so, this has largely meant relying on
1950s, Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen of ing data from the U.S. Navy and other multibeam sonar.

page 34 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

Multibeam Matures Shaded areas in this map, in the

Multibeam sonar became available vicinity of the Juan de Fuca Plate
to civilian researchers in the 1980s and off the northwest U.S. coast, rep-
progressed from arrays using just a resent portions of the seafloor for
dozen sensors to modern systems that which shipboard multibeam bathy-
fan out hundreds of acoustic signals metric data are unavailable in the
beneath a ship, continuously scanning Global Multi-Resolution Topogra-
swaths of the ocean bottom. The clarity phy Synthesis.
and coverage of multibeam bathymetry Credit: image from the Global Multi-Res­
vary depending on the frequency of the olu­tion Topography Synthesis, hosted by
the IEDA Marine Geoscience Data System
soundwaves, as well as on water depth.
Low-frequency waves travel farther
through seawater without dissipating, gained from previous work,” she says.
but offer lower resolution. Meanwhile, All told, the total portion of the seafloor
the deeper the water, the wider the sonar that has been mapped in high resolution
signal can fan out for more coverage, — and for which data are publicly avail-
but the blurrier the resulting image of able — remains small, probably about
the seafloor. 10 to 12 percent. Additional data held by
the U.S. and other governments, as well
as by private companies, are often not
The research community, in shared because the data are considered Focusing on Boundaries
terms of mapping, has really proprietary or strategically sensitive. and Margins
focused on the plate boundary Multibeam data from research cruises “The research community, in terms
regions and the continental and other sources that are made public, of mapping, has really focused on the
margins where people live and however, are added to repositories for plate boundary regions and the conti-
… where most of the action processing, storage and assimilation into nental margins where people live and are
is happening on the seabed. high-resolution maps. Internationally, more affected by [seafloor] processes,”
— Suzanne Carbotte, Lamont- the GEBCO (GEneral Bathymetric Chart Carbotte says. Thus, coverage with multi-
Doherty Earth Observatory of the Oceans) collaboration has long beam bathymetry is substantially higher
collected voluntarily contributed data- “where most of the action is happening
sets. And in the U.S., NOAA’s National on the seabed,” although the maps aren’t
“With ship-based sonars, we can Centers for Environmental Informa- complete even in these places.
resolve seabed topography with a spa- tion serves as the national archive for Carbotte and her colleagues have
tial footprint of 50 to 100 meters in the raw mapping data; LDEO, meanwhile, been looking in recent years at the Cas-
deep ocean, and with much smaller foot- helps transfer raw data from ships to cadia Megathrust off the U.S. Pacific
prints [down to a few meters or so with the NOAA archive, and also processes Northwest coast, for example, where
specialized shallow-water sonars] on the archived data into forms that can be the Juan de Fuca Plate subducts under
the continental shelves,” says Suzanne easily used by others. the North American Plate. Scientists
Carbotte, a geophysicist at LDEO. LDEO has “spearheaded the effort suspect the fault is capable of producing
With multibeam in use for several to process the high-resolution data,” earthquakes comparable to the mag-
decades it might seem that most of the Carbotte says, producing and continually nitude-9 Tohoku quake that struck off
seafloor should have been covered by updating a publicly accessible bathym- Japan in 2011. “We’re studying aspects
now, at least once. However, “we’re etry synthesis for the global ocean that of the downgoing plate that contribute
very much limited by the immensity of has been incorporated into geographic to the subduction process,” she says,
the ocean and the expense of acquiring information systems software as well as work that links sonar observations of
these data,” Carbotte says, as well as by Google Earth. The latest version of its seafloor morphology with seismic data
the limited number of research vessels Global Multi-Resolution Topography of the subsurface to better understand
equipped to collect multibeam bathym- Synthesis, released last November, con- how the megathrust might behave.
etry. There’s also the fact that mapping tains high-resolution multibeam data The main portion of the Juan de Fuca
is usually not the guiding priority on from 875 separate cruises totaling nearly Plate has been mapped with data from
oceanographic cruises, and that “scien- 4.5 million kilometers in track length. different cruises over the years, but “not
tists tend to go back to the same regions The synthesis covers roughly 8 percent in a systematic way … there are a lot
… to follow up on insights that we’ve of the global seafloor. of holes in the coverage and artifacts

page 35 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

The sharper resolution of shipboard

multibeam bathymetry compared
to altimetry-based bathymetry
(blurry areas at left mostly) can
be seen in this map of seamounts
near the Juan de Fuca Ridge.
Credit: image from the Global Multi-
Resolution Topography Synthesis, hosted
by the IEDA Marine Geoscience Data
System

(CHIRP) sonar — which image seafloor

and sub-seafloor textures, respectively,
rather than bathymetry — as well as
chemical and geophysical observations
made simultaneously (or following ini-
tial reconnaissance mapping), makes for
a powerful tool for studying features on
the seafloor. “When you’re getting higher
resolution, you’re able to make some
very strong inferences on what’s causing
associated with variations in data qual- Seafloor Volcanism the feature,” or how it’s related to other
ity,” Carbotte says. “So, even though it’s Up Close processes that are going on, Fornari says.
in our backyard, and the processes that For researchers studying past and In July 2012, an explosive underwater
are happening offshore are potentially present volcanism on land, the extent, volcanic eruption sent a vast raft of pum-
very impactful for people living on the volume and flow morphologies of lava ice floating to the ocean surface north of
West Coast, we don’t have a complete erupted tend to be among the first pieces New Zealand. The exact source of the
image of the plate.” of information assembled — typically pumice was a mystery until analysis of
Having consistent high-resolution through aerial, satellite or field mapping. satellite imagery and a subsequent ship-
maps over subduction zones, ridges, Until recently, similar capabilities have board multibeam survey by researchers
seamounts and other features is also simply not been available for studying from New Zealand identified the Havre
important for documenting large-scale submarine volcanism. But now, current Seamount in the Kermadec Island Arc
change brought about by submarine near-bottom multibeam mapping is on as the site of the eruption. Compared to
earthquakes and volcanism, Carbotte par with what can be done on land, an earlier survey, the updated bathym-
says. In the case of the Tohoku quake, Fornari says, thanks to the deployment etry showed fresh volcanic cones that
which ruptured along the subduction of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) had formed and a new bulge in the cal-
zone beneath the Japan Trench, she tethered to support ships starting in dera wall.
notes that researchers had “beautiful the late 1980s, followed a decade later But, while useful for confirming the
before and after bathymetry surveys” by untethered AUVs. And in the last eruption site, there wasn’t much detail to
of the seabed in the area. The surveys 15 years in particular, improvements be seen in the imagery, says Adam Soule,
showed that the landward seafloor near in “near-bottom” instrumentation have a volcanologist and chief scientist for
the trench lurched 50 meters horizon- provided opportunities to study the sea- deep submergence at the National Deep
tally and 10 meters vertically, substantial floor in unprecedented clarity. Submergence Facility housed at WHOI.
shifts that contributed to the massive “What we have available to us now- The new features basically showed up
tsunami that swept over the Japa- adays, through ROV or AUV mapping, as “a new lump there and a new lump
nese coastline. is basically the equivalent of a digital here.” So, in April 2015, Soule, Fornari
Unfortunately, data collected at the elevation model with sub-meter resolu- and colleagues sailed to Havre equipped
sea surface by sonar will only get us so tion, both spatial and vertical,” Fornari with Sentry and Jason — an AUV and
far. So, scientists have begun taking the says. The combination of these mapping ROV, respectively — to take a closer
technology beneath the waves aboard capabilities with sidescan and Com- look. “The map that was produced [to be
deep-diving underwater craft. pressed High-Intensity Radiated Pulse released in a forthcoming publication]

page 36 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

In 2015, researchers sailed to Havre Seamount with Sentry, an

autonomous underwater vehicle, and Jason (background), a
remotely operated underwater vehicle, to map the fallout of
an eruption in even more detail than could be seen from ship-
board bathymetry. Here, Rebecca Carey (left) of the University
of Tasmania in Australia and Korey Verhein (center) and Adam
Soule of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution pose with a
large pumice block recovered from the seamount using Jason.
Credit: courtesy of Adam Soule, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

was absolutely gorgeous; one of the Improving Offshore

most beautiful that Sentry has made,” Fault Maps
Soule says. A similar technological
From the bathymetric data, Soule transition has been occurring
says, “we could see lava flows that had in studies of seafloor faults.
cascaded down the caldera wall and Researchers have a num-
onto the caldera floor.” The researchers ber of tools and techniques
also noticed large bumps dotting the available to assess the posi-
seafloor, which, when they then sent tion and past displacements
video-equipped Jason down to inves- along near-surface terrestrial
tigate, turned out to be pumice blocks faults, from lidar and InSAR to sam- what can be achieved on land, where
1 to 5 meters in diameter — the “biggest pling rocks across and along fault strikes. ground cover and erosion can obscure
pumices I had ever seen, scattered all While current fault maps for Califor- such features, Paull says. Mapping
over,” Soule says. Elsewhere, the sea- nia do indicate offshore faults, in many can be followed up with targeted ROV
floor was smooth from where landslides instances the faults’ exact locations and deployments to “surgically sample”
had “pushed all these giant pumices whether or not they’ve been active on across a fault by collecting sediment
downhill.” The information was “valu- historic or Holocene timescales — fac- samples and geophysical profiles. That
able because we got a nice cross section tors that affect their perceived future helps researchers know where a fault
of the pyroclastic deposits that were hazard — are unclear because of the is and where the last ruptures were, he
produced,” he says. difficulty seeing them up close. says, and get data about the timing of
Most of these faults have been these events.
mapped because researchers looking In a 2012 study, these efforts revealed
[From the bathymetric data] at seismic profiles observed fault-like that the San Diego Trough Fault Zone
we could see lava flows that structures at depth below the seafloor, (SDTFZ), about 60 kilometers off
had cascaded down the Paull says. But even if a fault is present, it the coast, has slipped about 1.5 milli­
caldera wall and onto the might not have been active for thousands meters per year on average over the last
caldera floor. [The information of years or more, he says. “We are just 12,700 years or so — the first such rate
was] valuable because we now developing the technologies … to determined for a fault entirely offshore
got a nice cross section of allow the type of detailed studies that in the California Borderland. Addition-
the pyroclastic deposits that you need in order to constrain recent ally, the study showed that the SDTFZ
were produced. movements of [submarine] faults.” extends 60 kilometers farther north than
— Adam Soule, Woods Hole In recent years, Paull and his col- previously thought by way of a “step­
Oceanographic Institution leagues have used MBARI’s underwater over” region where the fault jogs subtly
vehicles to take close looks at some to the west. The location of the stepover,
prominent known faults off Southern the researchers noted, coincides with the
“If we hadn’t had Sentry and we California. High-resolution bathyme- aftershock swarm associated with the
hadn’t had the ROVs, there’s no way try has given them pictures of seafloor 1986 Oceanside earthquake — a magni-
that we would have been able to under- topography — including both large fault tude-5.4 temblor responsible for at least
stand” what happened at Havre as well, offsets and scarps just centimeters high one death and 29 injuries — suggesting
Fornari says. — that are sometimes even clearer than this region could have been the source.

page 37 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

A 2012 study that made

use of the seafloor map-
ping and sampling capa-
bilities of underwater vehi-
cles revealed that the
San Diego Trough Fault
Zone has slipped about
1.5 millimeters per year
on average over the last
12,700 years and that the
fault zone extends 60 kilo-
meters farther north than
previously thought.
Credit: ©2016 Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute

Meanwhile, the roughly 100-kilome- This perspective view of the seafloor

ter-long Palos Verdes Fault (PVF), which near the Palos Verdes Fault about
traverses from offshore onto land near 25 kilometers off Newport Beach,
Long Beach and then back offshore again Calif., is based on high-resolution
near Torrance, is thought to be capable bathymetry collected by the Monte-
of producing earthquakes up to mag- rey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s
nitude 7.3. Although the PVF has not mapping AUV, the D. Allan B. The
unleashed any quakes in historic times, fault trace can be seen running from
how it deforms and its prehistoric activ- top right toward bottom center in the
ity “are poorly constrained,” Paull and image (vertical exaggeration is 5x).
his colleagues wrote in a study published Credit: ©2016 Monterey Bay Aquarium
last year in the Journal of Geophysical Research Institute

Research – Solid Earth. In the study,

they found that the PVF has likely been canyons. “The stage is set, in the 21st Mapping hydrothermal vents and
slipping 1.6 to 1.9 millimeters per year century, to be able to make a lot of other biological hot spots, such as
on average since the Late Pleistocene — substantial contributions to our under- marine reserves, should also help sci-
less than previous estimates based on standing of the ocean floor in many entists assess how these areas evolve
studies on land — and that it appears to environments,” Fornari says. over time, which may assist authorities
have ruptured three times in about the At MBARI, Paull’s team has also been in protecting them, Soule says. There are
last 10,000 years, perhaps most recently studying underwater canyons, like Mon- economic, political and societal uses as
within the last several hundred years. terey Canyon, which play major roles in well: mapping potentially mineral-rich
“Constraining the motions of big fault transporting large volumes of sediments, areas, or the exclusive economic zones
systems that are offshore of major met- nutrients and pollutants from the conti- surrounding countries; or searching for
ropolitan areas is a topic that clearly nents to the deep ocean. downed ships, aircraft or other man-
demands respect,” Paull says. These “Submarine channels are probably made debris, for example.
data can be incorporated into Califor- only second to rivers in terms of moving And then there’s the notion of con-
nia’s fault map, and “ultimately play materials across the surface of Earth,” tinuing to map unexplored areas simply
a role in building codes and earth- Paull says. Yet, he adds, for all we know for the sake of broadening our submarine
quake insurance.” about rivers, “we know shockingly little” horizons. “There’s a whole universe in the
about how their marine counterparts ocean,” Fornari says, “it’s just harder for
operate. “The ability to make detailed people to visualize” than Earth’s surface.
Mapping Into the Future maps and to access that environment has Yet, when people actually see what
In addition to volcanism and seismic- completely changed what we are study- seafloor ecosystems look like, or they’re
ity, high-resolution mapping is helping ing in submarine canyons … from the able to appreciate the huge scale of the
researchers study other seafloor pro- crude shape of what a canyon looks like topography — that there are underwater
cesses, including natural gas seeps, to how a canyon is changing” due to sub- canyons larger than the Grand Can-
hydrothermal vents and submarine marine landslides or other phenomena. yon or how Mauna Kea, from base to

page 38 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

In addition to volcanism and seis-

micity, high-resolution mapping is
helping researchers study other sea-
floor processes and environments,
such as underwater landslides in
Monterey Canyon off California.
Credit: ©2012 Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute

summit, is actually taller than Mount

Everest, for instance — it can affect them
emotionally, Soule says. “As humans, we
want to know what our environment is
like,” he says. But there is “this vast part
of our planet that we don’t know much
about. Every time we reveal something,
it is, I think, exciting and beneficial.”
How long it might be before there is a Technical challenges for seafloor since 2009, Schmidt has supplemented
complete map of the seafloor that stacks mapping efforts persist as well, including the existing oceanographic fleet with
up against, say, the maps we have of the limited durations and ranges of mapping its multibeam-equipped research ves-
surfaces of the moon or Mars, or indeed excursions. Another issue is the diffi- sel Falkor, offering researchers another
whether we’ll ever have such a map is culty of navigating underwater vehicles platform from which to conduct map-
anyone’s guess. while trying to make precise, repeatable ping and research; it is also currently
centimeter-scale measurements, which developing its own ROVs. And in
impacts resolution as well as the ability December, XPRIZE announced a three-
We’ve reached a point in our to merge bathymetric datasets collected year, $7-million “global competition
technological evolution where, at different scales. challenging teams to advance ocean
with some effort and some But innovation is a standing goal, technologies for rapid and unmanned
resources, we can lay bare researchers say, and continuing efforts ocean exploration.”
the ocean basins and really to improve submersible sonar instru- “There is plenty of room at the table
understand what’s down there. mentation, battery life, miniaturization, for partners and solutions,” and “huge”
— Adam Soule, Woods Hole autonomy and navigation should lead to benefits of the contributions of these
Oceanographic Institution even better capabilities down the line. organizations, Soule says. While XPRIZE
In recent years, new players, such is trying to catalyze development to over-
as Google, the Schmidt Ocean Insti- come technological hurdles, he says,
Even at the resolution of shipboard tute and the XPRIZE Foundation, have Schmidt and others are contributing to
multibeam, Carbotte says the cost of also ventured into marine science and meet challenges on the resource end.
fully mapping the seabed would require mapping, teaming with traditional “We’ve reached a point in our techno-
a financial commitment comparable to research organizations to push the logical evolution where, with some effort
some big-ticket space missions, a scale science and technology farther. Goo- and some resources, we can lay bare
not seen in oceanographic research bud- gle has worked to make the seafloor the ocean basins and really understand
gets. With ongoing efforts, however, she more accessible to the public by incor- what’s down there,” Soule says. “It’s
says she’s “very optimistic that we’ll have porating high-resolution bathymetry a pretty exciting time for mapping in
comprehensive mapping of the coastal collected by LDEO, NOAA and others the oceans.”
regions, and particularly the subduction into Google Earth, announcing the lat-
zones that really impact people.” est update early this year. Meanwhile, Oleson is the news editor at EARTH.

page 39 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

The rugged Taurus Mountains meet the Mediterranean Sea along Turkey’s Turquoise Coast.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

Travels in Geology

Turkey’s Storied Turquoise Coast

Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

We visited Turkey in June 2015, prior to the like to visit historic sites, and the kids prefer to skip
heightening of the Syrian refugee crisis. At the the history in favor of a pizza or ice cream stop. Tur-
time, there were few security concerns, but due to key’s Turquoise Coast — where the rugged Taurus
recent turmoil, the U.S. Department of State has Mountains meet the Mediterranean Sea — offers all
issued a travel warning encouraging Americans to of this and more, making it the perfect destination
avoid visiting southeastern Turkey and warning of to satisfy the diverse tastes of any group of travelers.
heightened threats from terrorist groups through-
out the country. At press time, none of the areas
covered in this article were within the State Depart- Where the Mountains Meet
ment’s advised avoidance area. However, it’s best the Sea
to frequently check the State Department website The Turquoise Coast stretches for more than
(https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en.html) 500 kilometers from Anamur in the east to the area
prior to your trip and sign up for their travel alerts around Bodrum, where the Aegean Sea blends into
in case additional warnings are posted. the Mediterranean. The region owes its breathtak-

T
ing scenery to the complex tectonic plate boundary
rip planning in our family of four can be on which it lies. Here, the Anatolian Microplate is
a slightly contentious affair. Two of us moving to the west, escaping the vice-like collision
love to lounge on sandy beaches, whereas occurring between the much larger African and
the other two favor hiking to mountain Eurasian plates. This collision, which closed most
summits and camping beneath the stars. The adults of the ancient Tethys Sea beginning in the Late

page 40 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

0 km 100
Aladaglar
National Park

Selge
Perge
Termessos Aspendos
Dalaman Mersin
Antalya Caves of
Oludeniz Side Heaven
Myra Chimaera and Hell Kizkalesi
Demre
Patara
Mamure
Kas Ucagiz Anamur Castle

BULGARIA GEORGIA
MACEDONIA
Istanbul The Taurus Mountains, which
ALBANIA begin in central Turkey, are
Ankara ARMENIA
a good jumping-off point for
GREECE TURKEY
Izmir
Cappadocia a visit to the Turquoise Coast.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott
Antalya

SYRIA IRAQ
CYPRUS

The Turquoise Coast runs 500 kilometers along Turkey’s Mediterra-

nean coastline.
Credit: both: K. Cantner, AGI

Cretaceous, appended multiple tectonic fragments, small component of compression (this combina-
known as terranes, to the Turkish continental mar- tion is called transpression), which causes crustal
gin. Bits of oceanic crust and underlying mantle, thickening. The individual sub-ranges within the
called ophiolites, typically mark ancient sutures. sprawling Taurus mountain chain have been raised
The collision zone’s enormous compressional forces where transpression has occurred.
heaped the area’s rocks into a series of giant recum- Ultimately, these tectonic contortions have
bent folds, which stack atop one another like giant created a landscape that is both spectacular and
breaking waves. After the last terrane collision, geographically complex. We couldn’t wait to explore
the area subsided beneath the sea, allowing Mio- the myriad impressive ruins left behind by the many
cene-aged marine limestone to be deposited on top Mediterranean civilizations that have called the
of the contorted folds. Turquoise Coast home.
The region re-emerged above the Mediterra-
nean waves about 8 million years ago when the
Taurus Mountains were uplifted. By that time, The Aladaglar: Crest of the
the Anatolian Microplate’s westward motion was Taurus Mountains
being accommodated by two major strike-slip We began our adventure close to the Cappadocia
faults, the North Anatolian and East Anatolian, region, a bit inland from the Turquoise Coast, in
which bound the fertile Anatolian Plateau to the the heart of the impressive Taurus Mountains: the
north and southeast, respectively. (These faults are Aladaglar Range. There, transpression along the
active today, posing the greatest natural hazard to Ecemis Fault raised the towering limestone peaks
Istanbul and other areas of Turkey.) Several other of the Aladaglar to a lofty 3,700 meters, making it
important strike-slip faults form subsidiary splays the highest of the Taurus ranges and the centerpiece
off the two main ones. Although these splays mainly of Aladaglar National Park. An ice cap there during
accommodate the horizontal sliding characteristic the Pleistocene fed glaciers up to 17 kilometers long
of strike-slip faults, many of them also feature a that carved the range’s deep, U-shaped valleys that

page 41 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

The 13th-century
Mamure Castle still
has 39 towers and
an intact moat,
making it the largest
of the many Cilician
fortresses along the
Turquoise Coast.
Credit: both: Terri Cook
and Lon Abbott

The limestone peaks of the Aladaglar Range,

which rise to 3,700 meters, are the highest
peaks in the Taurus Mountains.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

today are studded with alpine lakes. Several premier Once we reached the Mediterranean Sea, the
trekking routes loop through the range’s alpine Caves of Heaven and Hell, a few kilometers west
grandeur, and rock climbers flock to the range to test of Mersin, were our first destination. Both are
their skills on the steep walls of Tethyan limestone. massive sinkholes formed by dissolution of the
We stayed in a tiny village called Cukarbag, Turquoise Coast’s abundant limestone bedrock. You
where we settled into a cozy cabin at the Aladaglar can marvel at the 120-meter-deep Pit of Hell from
Camping Bungalow run by two climbers who know a platform built out over the abyss. According to
every trek and every rock climb in these moun- legend, Zeus imprisoned the fire-breathing monster
tains. Their expertise helped us organize several Typhon in this pit after vanquishing him in battle.
delightful days of trekking through the stark lime- You can also descend into the Chasm of Heaven
stone landscape. down 450 treacherously slippery steps, passing
a fifth-century Byzantine chapel en route. In the
Cave of Typhon, the deepest part of the chasm, we
Cilicia’s Crusader Castles and heard an eerie sound, like the gurgling of a river,
Roman Ruins making it easy to understand why the legendary
From Cukarbag, we headed south to the east- River Styx is said to begin on the other side of the
ernmost portion of the rugged Turquoise Coast, cavern’s limestone walls.
which, similar to Italy’s Amalfi Coast, is marked by a Just west of the caves, the rugged coastline
beautiful drive that traverses pine-covered hills and bulges southward, reaching toward the island of
precipitous gorges. The pass from interior Turkey Cyprus. Along this coast, in A.D. 1080, Armenians
through the Taurus Mountains, known as the Cili- fleeing the Turkish advance on the crumbling Byz-
cian Gates, has historically been a strategic choke antine Empire founded the Kingdom of Cilicia
point. The town that guards its southern entrance, (Lesser Armenia) amid the relative sanctuary of
Mersin (ancient Yumuktepe), dates to 4500 B.C., the coastal mountains. Cilician science and cul-
making it one of the world’s oldest fortified settle- ture thrived in the succeeding centuries, and the
ments. Travelers and armies have passed through Cilicians built a series of stout castles that later
the gates for millennia, including such luminaries served as safe havens for Christian armies on their
as Alexander the Great and Saint Paul. journeys east during the Crusades.

page 42 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

The Chimaera’s eternal flames

have been glowing for more
than two millennia, thanks to nat-
ural chemical reactions that cre-
ate methane as ultramafic rock
weathers. It is here that the legend
of the Chimaera — a fire-breath-
ing lion-headed, goat-bodied,
snake-tailed beast — was born.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

The Chimaera’s Eternal Light

We continued along the coastal road, heading
west toward Lycia, a southward-protruding pen-
insula between the modern cities of Dalaman and
Antalya. South of Antalya, our first stop in Lycia was
Built in A.D. 155, the Roman amphitheater at at the eternal flame of the Chimaera, near the beach
Aspendos, which seated 7,000 people, is one town of Cirali. At dusk we began the 20-minute
of the best preserved in the world. uphill hike to an outcrop of ophiolite that marks one
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott of Turkey’s many terrane sutures. Natural chemical
reactions that occur as the ophiolites’ ultramafic
rock is weathered produce more than 150 tons of
methane gas each year. The gas seeps to the surface
We passed castle after castle along the drive. at a couple dozen vents, where, for more than two
Kizkalesi, the Maiden’s Castle, is particularly note- millennia, it has fed natural “eternal” flames that
worthy, as it was built on a shallow reef about are mesmerizing as night sets in.
300 meters offshore, making for an unusual and Given that the blaze emerges straight from the
striking vista. We camped one night near Anamur, rock, it isn’t surprising that in ancient times the
amid palm trees fronting a beach that is one of local population believed the flames came from the
about a dozen nesting sites along this coast for mythological Chimaera. Legend has it that the hero
endangered loggerhead turtles. Next to the camp- Bellerophon, who rode the winged horse Pegasus into
ground was the 13th-century Mamure Castle, whose battle, slew the Chimaera — a terrifying, fire-breath-
39 towers and intact moat make it the biggest and ing beast with the head of a lion, the body of a goat
best preserved of the many Cilician fortresses. and the tail of a snake — at this very spot. But even in
West of Anamur, we followed the winding coastal death, the creature continues to breathe fire, feeding
road as it rose and fell from ridge to ravine along the these mesmerizing eternal flames.
rugged coastline. This area has an especially dense
concentration of spectacular Roman ruins; it would
take months of dedicated travel to see them in their Discovering the Sunken City
entirety. One great spot is the coastal town of Side, The Lycian civilization, which
where five of the Temple of Apollo’s second-century Homer described in the “Iliad,”
B.C. columns have been reconstructed on their began in the 12th century B.C. The
original beachfront site. Side was where our kids got Lycian League, a confederation of
their first taste of Turkish ice cream — which, much 23 city-states, formed in 168 B.C.,
like gelato in Italy, became their food of choice for when the area was granted inde-
the rest of the trip. pendence from the Roman Empire.
Also well worth visiting is nearby Aspendos, The League is often cited as history’s
the location of one of the world’s best-preserved first democratic union.
Roman theaters. It was an amazing site that left
us hungry to view more historical ruins, but time Some of the best Lycian tombs,
constraints and our children’s pleas that they were dating to the 12th century B.C.,
“historied-out” forced us to pass by the world-class can be seen in Myra.
ruins of Selge, Perge and Termessos. Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

page 43 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

The fishing village

of Ucagiz is a
departure point
for tours to the
island of Kekova.
Credit: Terri Cook
and Lon Abbott

Once the seat of the Lycian parliament, Patara hosts

restored ruins of the world’s oldest parliament building.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

the time of Christian rule, Demre was of sufficient

importance that it was the seat of a bishop, the most
famous of whom was Saint Nicholas, of Santa Claus
fame, who lived from A.D. 270 to 343.
A short drive west of Demre is the tiny fishing
village of Ucagiz, the departure point for boat or
kayak tours to the island of Kekova, where you can
view a few marble ruins of an old Roman city that
sank beneath the waves during a rash of earth-
quakes in the second century A.D. Broken pottery
At Kekova, visitors can see the marble ruins of an old and stairways are visible beneath the boat thanks
Roman city sunk beneath the waves by a series of to the crystal-clear water. After passing the sunken
earthquakes in the second century A.D. city, most tour boats drop anchor in an idyllic bay
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott where passengers can swim amid ruins and soak
in the beautiful surroundings.
For travelers, the most memorable reminder of Most sunken city visitors base out of Kas, a
the Lycian civilization is a look at an ornate Lycian regional center with good diving. Our next target,
tomb. Good examples of tombs are scattered all however, was Patara, once the seat of the Lycian
across Lycia, but Myra boasts the most impressive parliament. Patara boasts one of Turkey’s best
complex. There, dozens of tombs are carved into the beaches, a full 18 kilometers of uninterrupted
soft limestone of a steep hillside about two kilome- sand, with extensive Lycian ruins, including what
ters inland from the town of Demre. Myra also has is widely considered the world’s oldest parliament
a theater that, while not as impressive as the one at building, a leisurely stroll away.
Aspendos, is known for evocative theatrical masks Patara was a particular hit with our family
carved into the fallen building facades. because it had, in addition to the beaches and the
Demre was a seaport during Lycian and Roman ruins, Tlos Restaurant, one of the best that we found
times, but over the millennia the port silted in. during our travels. There, the smiling, mustached
Although the silt accumulation deprived Demre of Bolulu Osman and his wife serve amazing food,
shipping traffic, it provided rich soil, making the including fish salad, creamy hummus and smoky
town a major producer of fruits and vegetables, a baba ganoush mezes, as well as refreshing water-
distinction that becomes obvious as you catch sight melon juice and — much to our kids’ relief — pide,
of the many greenhouses during the descent to the Turkish pizza that sustained them (along with
the river valley from the surrounding hills. During ice cream) everywhere we went.

page 44 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Feature

Oludeniz offers great

beaches as well as
a secluded lagoon
Kayakoy was once a thriving village of 4,000 homes, to explore.
but was abandoned in 1923, when Turkish Christians Credit: both: Terri Cook and
left the village almost overnight to move to Greece Lon Abbott

when Turkey gained independence. Today, it’s an

eerie ghost town along the Lycian Way.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

Hiking the Lycian Way After Turkey’s success-

Traversing the coast of Ancient Lycia is Turkey’s ful war of independence
first long-distance trekking trail, the Lycian Way, from Greece and its allies,
whose winding footpaths are thousands of years old Greece and Turkey con-
but were combined and waymarked into a modern ducted a massive population
trekking route in 1999. This 540-kilometer-long exchange in 1923, with Greek Muslims moving to
footpath takes about 29 days to complete, but it Turkey and Turkish Christians moving to Greece.
also offers excellent day hikes. To get a taste of In 1923, what is now Kayakoy was the 4,000-house
this stretch of coast, we chose the especially scenic Christian village of Levissi. It was abandoned almost
stretch between the tourist town of Oludeniz and the overnight and today stands as a sober reminder of
eerie ghost town of Kayakoy, where the ruins reveal the hardships endured by both Greeks and Turks
a much more recent chapter in Turkish history. during the birth of the modern Turkish nation.
From Kayakoy, this stretch of the Lycian Way
The 540-kilometer-​ ascends a pine-clad ridge, from whose summit we
long Lycian Way foot- caught a breathtaking vista down to the turquoise
path takes almost a waters of the gorgeous Oludeniz lagoon and a
month to complete, series of secluded coves. From this lofty perch, we
but also offers great could see the sunbathers sprawled on the glistening
day hikes. white sand and paragliders soaring above the town.
Credit: Terri Cook and During the entire descent to Oludeniz, we marveled
Lon Abbott at the view and plotted our return, all of us eager to
revisit our own favorite highlights and see more of
the Turquoise Coast’s many wonders.

Cook (www.down2earthscience.com) is a
science and travel writer based in Colorado
and an EARTH roving correspondent. Abbott
is a geology professor at the University of Col-
orado at Boulder.

page 45 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Feature

Turkish ice cream is every

bit as delicious as the best
American ice cream, with
a more plastic consistency
that ice cream vendors har-
ness to deliver an entertain-
ing show with every scoop
they sell. You’d better not
be in a hurry when you
purchase a scoop, but be
sure to have your camera
ready to record the look of
surprise on the face of the
young customer when the
vendor repeatedly places
the ice cream on the cone
and then jokingly removes it
with a long stainless steel ice
cream scoop.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott

Getting There & Getting Around

T urkey has two major airports — Istanbul
and Ankara — and many smaller regional
ones. Istanbul Ataturk Airport offers nonstop
From Istanbul, it’s an easy flight to Anta-
lya, the largest city on the Mediterranean
coast, or to Kayseri, the main airport in the
flights on Turkish Airlines from several U.S. cit- Cappadocia region, which is famous for its
ies, including New York, Chicago, Atlanta, “fairy chimneys” and Byzantine sanctuaries
Los Angeles and San Francisco. To enter the carved from volcanic ash. Although it’s pos-
country, Americans need a visa; these can sible to take an overnight bus between these
be quickly obtained online. regions, by far the most convenient option for
exploring the Turquoise Coast’s sometimes
out-of-the-way sights is to rent your own
vehicle, which we found to be reasonably
priced. Rental cars are widely available at
airports and in all the major cities. Road signs
are posted in both Turkish and English and
the roads are in good condition.
Accommodations in Turkey span a wide
range of quality and price; Booking.com lists
hundreds of reviewer-rated properties across
the region. Campgrounds with modest facil-
ities and very friendly hosts are available
along the coast. In the Taurus Mountains,
we recommend the family-owned Aladaglar
Private boats to visit the Sunken City Camping Bungalow (www.aladaglarcamp-
are surprisingly affordable along the ing.com), which has campsites, a small café
Turquoise Coast. and several clean, cozy bungalows.
Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott TC & LA

page 46 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

I’m-a-Ge|o-sci-en-tist n. 1 The proud declaration
of someone dedicated to the geosciences.
2 A really cool t-shirt!!!

Wear your pride in the geosciences with this all-

cotton “I’m a Geoscientist” t-shirt. Its heavy
duty fabric is perfect for the field, the classroom or
lounging about the house!!
In black — in S, M, L, XL and XXL. Shirts will shrink
some after washing. $12.00 plus shipping/handling.
Photo: AGI/John Rasanen
To order, visit:
www.americangeosciences.org/pubs/t-shirt

To get involved, visit:

www.americangeosciences.org/im-a-geoscientist
and join the community.

AGI
american
geosciences
institute
connecting earth, science, and people

page 47 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Geomedia

Books: “Floodpath” Recounts the Deadly Collapse of

California’s St. Francis Dam
Abbey Nastan

T
he catastrophic collapse of the St. Francis Dam, located 80 kilometers
north of downtown Los Angeles and east of the town of Santa Clarita, just
before midnight on March 12, 1928, claimed more than 400 lives when
towering floodwaters destroyed homes, bridges and farmland, as they
swept through downstream communities. The disaster was initially blamed on the
failure of the west abutment, anchored in soft conglomerate rock. Additional studies
have revised this explanation, with recent research citing other geologic and design
factors that likely contributed. Regardless, the collapse effectively ended the career
of William Mulholland, the self-taught engineer whose 1913 Owens Valley Aqueduct
made the explosive growth of Los Angeles possible. Yet, despite the magnitude of
the disaster and its impact on local and national policy, it has been almost entirely
forgotten, except by a few historians.
In “Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-Made Disaster of 20th-Century America
and the Making of Modern Los Angeles,” author Jon Wilkman explores this lit-
tle-known episode of California history and the decades-long efforts of scientists,
engineers and historians to discover what really happened that night. Wilkman, an
award-winning filmmaker who spent more than 20 years researching the disaster
with his late wife and partner, Nancy, is currently working on a documentary as a
follow-up to the book. He recently spoke with EARTH about his efforts to shed new
light on the disaster.

AN: What was your goal in writing resources and water. All of those were “Floodpath: The Deadliest Man-
the book? factors in the technical mechanism of the Made Disaster of 20th-Century
JW: My goal in writing the book was collapse, beyond the forces of geology or America and the Making of Mod-
to take a surprisingly unknown story an engineering failure. ern Los Angeles,” by Jon Wilkman,
and put it in its proper historical sig- Bloomsbury Press, 2016, ISBN-13:
nificance and context; at the minimum, AN: You grew up about 30 kilo- 978-1620409152.
to honor those who had died and been meters away from the ruins of the
forgotten. At the same time, it’s not just dam. But you say that it was never survivors and eyewitnesses. Some of
an old story. I wanted to engage people mentioned in school, is that right? them had never been asked what hap-
dramatically and intellectually to the JW: I grew up in Los Angeles. It was pened to them. I also realized that there
point where they can apply what they never mentioned by anybody. This is was another layer of obscurity: I began,
learn in the book to issues that are quite a story with an enormous impact not really for the first time, to interview
vital today. only on Los Angeles, but California and some of the Mexican-American workers
the rest of the country. But few have who had been personally affected by the
AN: What is the one piece of infor- heard of it. I began thinking: What really catastrophe but had been largely over-
mation that is most valuable for happened here? And even more of a looked in the intervening years. Many of
people to learn from the book? mystery: Why don’t we know about it? them were young people, children at the
JW: Science and technology do not This was the second biggest disaster time, but they remembered the flood.
exist in a vacuum separate from social, in California after the 1906 San Fran-
political, economic and personal factors. cisco earthquake and fire. But this was AN: So, growing up, you had
This may seem obvious, but so often peo- a man-made disaster. So I just had to not heard about the St. Francis
ple forget that, and the St. Francis Dam look into it. Dam, but did you learn about Wil-
story is connected to the growth of the [Researching the book] took a long, liam Mulholland?
city, the rapid evolution of technology, long time. Early on, I noticed that the JW: Yes, I knew about him. I knew
the powerful personality of one man, the people who had witnessed this were there was a Mulholland Drive and I knew
political and economic struggles over dying, so as early as 1995, I interviewed there was a Mulholland Fountain, but

page 48 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Geomedia

Concrete rubble from the St. Fran-

cis Dam can still be seen in the
valley where it stood until failing on
March 12, 1928.
Credit: Abbey Nastan

William Mulholland’s granddaugh-

ter, Catherine Mulholland, also gave
me three boxes of newspaper clips she
had gathered for her biography of her
grandfather. And another source that no
one had looked at were the stories about
the incident in Spanish-language news-
papers, so we brought in a researcher
to go through and translate. You get a
whole different perspective.
Also, by the time we started work-
ing on our research, the archives of the
Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power were starting to open up. Outland
even in high school, California history — AN: What sources, beyond Out- was sort of shut out of all that. One of
certainly Los Angeles history — was not land’s research, did you use in the critical things was reports from the
a big part of the curriculum. And most your book? investigators who were involved in res-
people didn’t miss it. The urban history JW: One of the most critical pieces titution efforts and who examined the
of the West is only now beginning to be of information was the transcript of the dam site as part of the Coroner’s Inquest.
taken seriously. [Los Angeles County] Coroner’s Inquest, So we ended up getting access to a lot of
which decided whether to issue criminal stuff that Outland didn’t have.
AN: How did you first find out indictments. I think Outland had access
about the dam disaster? to parts of the transcript, but it was AN: Even today, the location of the
JW: I read the book “Man-Made pretty much considered lost, or buried former dam isn’t well marked on
Disaster: The Story of St. Francis Dam” somewhere where no one would ever maps or on the ground. Would you
by Charles Outland [published in 1963]. find it. One day, my wife Nancy came like to see more commemoration
Outland was a rancher, not a trained home and said she’d found it in a very of the disaster, or a memorial at
historian or engineer, yet he wrote this unlikely collection at the Huntington the site?
incredibly compelling and detailed his- Library in San Marino. And there it was JW: Absolutely. It is the worst man-
torical and technical examination of — all 800 pages. made disaster of the 20th century in the
the collapse. U.S. The Santa Clarita Valley Historical
Society, a local congressman, the Native
AN: You researched the events sur- American community and others are
rounding the dam collapse over pushing hard to have the location des-
the course of 20 years. What do ignated as a National Historic Site, but
you feel you’ve added to the story it’s been a long slog. I hope the book, by
that wasn’t covered by Outland or raising awareness of the importance of
others who have written about it? this disaster, will help it receive the rec-
JW: I’m not an engineer, so tech- ognition and the monument it deserves.
nically I could only report what other
people had discovered. What I wanted Nastan recently graduated from
to add to it was the personal dimension, Caltech with a master’s in plane-
the political dimension, the economic tary science, and is currently the sci-
dimension and the historical context. I Documentary filmmaker and ence teacher at St. Gregory A. and
thought as a historian and a storyteller author of a book on the St. Francis M. Hovsepian School in Pasadena,
I could take these events and put them Dam collapse Jon Wilkman. Calif., as well as a freelance science
in a broader context and engage people. Credit: courtesy of Jon Wilkman writer and extern at EARTH.

page 49 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Where on Earth

WHERE ON
EARTH?

SUBMIT
YOUR
PHOTOS!
SEE DETAILS BELOW

♦♦ This tiny promontory — the southeasternmost location

CLUES

on a peninsula that is the southwesternmost tip of a March Answer:

country and a continent — protrudes to the east into Running Eagle Falls,
a “bogus” body of water, which is a famous hunting also known as Trick
ground of great white sharks seeking a meal of fur seal. Falls, in Glacier
The peninsula hosts multiple capes, a similarly named National Park in northwest Montana lies
town and a famous flat-topped mountain. on Two Medicine Creek, which exca-
vated an underground channel through
♦♦ When the HMS Beagle docked nearby in late May and its limestone bed to produce the double
early June 1836, Charles Darwin made one of his first waterfall. The falls are named after Pita-
geologic maps highlighting a geologic contact that makan, a female Indian warrior who was
settled a debate between plutonists and neptunists chief of the Pikuni Blackfeet tribe. Photo is
over the origins of what are now known (thanks to the by George Seielstad.
plutonists’ triumph) as igneous rocks.
March Winners:
♦♦ The old lighthouse on this promontory was poorly located, T.J. Arnhold (Quakertown, Pa.)
misleading many a mariner onto the rocks. The April 1911 Les Paul Beard (Tucson, Ariz.)
wreck of a Portuguese ship — which shared a name and Tania Crocker (Lutong, Sarawak, Malaysia)
similar fate with a much more famous British ocean liner Rick Farrand (Denver, Colo.)
that was sunk in 1915 — prompted the relocation of the Dan McCue (Clifton Park, N.Y.)
lighthouse to its current site.
HOW TO PLAY

NAME THE PROMONTORY & ITS COUNTRY.

Where on Earth was this picture taken? Use these clues submit entries to Where on Earth? EARTH, 4220 King Street,
to guess and send your answer via Web, mail or email Alexandria, VA 22302 (postmarked dates on letters will be
by the last day of the month (June 30). Subscribers can used). EARTH also welcomes your photos to consider for
also view contest photos and clues in EARTH’s monthly the contest. Find out more about submitting your photos at
digital editions. From those who answer correctly, EARTH www.earthmagazine.org/whereonearth/submit, and send
staff will randomly draw the names of five people who them to [email protected]. If we print your photo in
will win “I’m a Geoscientist” T-shirts. Enter the contest at EARTH, you’ll receive a free one-year subscription or renewal
www.earthmagazine.org/whereonearth. You can also and an “I’m a Geoscientist” T-shirt.

page 50 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Conglomerate: A Geo Word Jumble
1. Argentopentlandite 16. Joint sets
L F S W V E T I D N A L T N E P O T N E G R A Y Q
2. Arsenopalladinite 17. Leucophoenicite D R A I N A G E D I V I D E Z A I X H J M O I M Q
V J A L E T I N I D A L L A P O N E S R A M V C A
3. Auriform 18. Natroniobite C E T I C I N E O H P O C U E L N F X T J G Y P K
4. Baumstarkite 19. Ocean current G A L L O B E U D A N T I T E Q A A C T R I M X O
N D O H T E M U A E D N O L B R D O H N F C X N C
5. Blondeau method 20. Orientation R G F C E H I N G E N O D E N F P R Z W I M O Y A
6. Campanite 21. Pore ice F X H R T T S V N A F K H K A N L M A H Y I G U E
S N I O I T N O P E T I N E X O R Y P U T T R A T
7. Cepstrum 22. Postadaptation O E E S N U T N S T E S T N I O J A O A R I U P H
R F U S I S F R M U G E L D S D R F T R F N F D E
8. Chain coral 23. Pyroxenite
I L O B M Y S E N O Z M T E P G V P M O Q A Z Q R
9. Chloraluminite 24. Rheoplast E O R E U X L T U G J F G I O L A P R C T J B X M
N P G D L E E I Y V E P I P K D B M A S O I K L A
10. Cross bedding 25. Sillar
T P W D A R T B R Y F L O T A R K M L F C T A D L
11. Drainage divide 26. Spectrography A W M I R X I O E E I T I T G E A K L F E A V A S
T J C N O C N I C Q V R S F X O Z T I F A T R J T
12. Gallobeudantite 27. Thermal structure
I S Y G L W A N I C U O K C L K J M S G N O I I R
13. Gelifluction 28. Tinajita O T A I H S P O E P P F U R L U B K M M C T G S U
N O D L C D M R R J B N E Z P U C X Y N U K L N C
14. Gemstone 29. Topographic
E X S X P E A T O V I F Y R X C R T I A R A B W T
15. Hinge node 30. Zone symbol C C R D M O C A P L G Y C P N Q K A I S R J B L U
F H W G Y T E N D T L V F L T X H Z Y O E L N W R
Puzzle solution will appear in next month’s F Y O Q N T Y H P A R G O R T C E P S X N D O F E
issue of EARTH. M U R T S P E C R Z P Y U L K T P K X E T I M G L

This is a word search of terms from the Glossary of Geology. Check out GeoWord of the Day at
www.americangeosciences.org/word. Words in the puzzle may be hidden horizontally, vertically or diago-
nally, and spelled in either forward or reverse order.

Solution to the May 2016 Cross-Section

GEOWORD T A U B W O L F F P H A T

of the Day E
D
T
O
S
E
A
L
A
S
D
I
I
R
U
S
E
E
R
O
A G A
D O R
A free service of the S P R I I T U A I L S M
American Geosciences Institute. N O R M B A S A L T
All of the terms and definitions are from the P U P A T E S L Y D I E
Glossary of Geology, 5th Edition Revised.
A N I M A L
C U L E S L A N
I S L E U S A S I B S
Subscribe at:
www.americangeosciences.org/word D A L I R R E P A R A B L E
U F O C A B L A S S E S

AGI
american P E W T E R R I C H
geosciences
I D E N T I T Y C A R D
institute
connecting earth, science, and people I M A M B I Z E T O R E O
R O L E I N A L L R I F T
K R I S T E R S E D A T E

page 51 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 DIRECTORY OF
GEOSCIENCE DEPARTMENTS
Directory of www.agiweb.org/pubs
Geoscience
Departments
DIRECTORY OF GEOSCIENCE DEPARTMENTS 2016

and other geoscience organizations

51st Edition 2016

ion of Geologi
l Un ca
na
l Sc
tio
Interna

iences
y
Eart

unit
hS

ien 50 years Co
mm

ce F
or The Global
c

51st Edition ISBN: 978-0-913312-64-3

Just $39.95!
UPDATED FOR 2016
Shipping and handling additional. The 51st edition of the Directory of Geoscience Departments
is the most comprehensive directory of its kind available.
The American Geosciences Institute
4220 King Street The Directory provides state and country-sorted listings
Alexandria, VA 22302 of approximately 2,000 geoscience departments,
Phone: 703/379-2480
Fax: 703/379-7563 research departments, institutes, and their faculty and
Email: [email protected] staff worldwide and this new edition is a more accurate
representation of the global geoscience community.

Also available on the Kindle™, Google Play Books, and on

the iBookstore™ for iPads™ and iPhones™. Please visit these
image: © Marli Miller, University of Oregon, from sites to purchase your copy today!
AGI’s ESW Image Bank. Striated fault surface.

page 52 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Benchmarks

June 4, 1783: The Era of Aviation Launches With the

First Balloon Flight
Lucas Joel

I
n the small French town of
Gonesse in August 1783, a
large, spherical and nebulous
object painted with red and yellow
stripes fell from the sky and began
fluttering about on the ground. The
town’s peasants, fearful, attacked
the object with pitchforks, and then
tied it to a horse’s tail to be dragged
through the streets.
The invader, it was later discovered, was
Le Globe — the first hydrogen-powered
balloon. Le Globe’s inventor, French sci-
entist Jacques Charles, had built it shortly
after two French brothers, Joseph-Michel
and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, had A crowd of peasants attacked the first hydrogen balloon in Gonesse,
launched the first public hot-air balloon France, in August 1783.
only a few months earlier on June 4. Credit: public domain

Two brothers, Jacques-​ So why did it take until the late

Étienne (far left) and 18th century for balloons — at least
Joseph-Michel Montgol- those that could carry humans — to be
fier (left), are credited invented? “Ancient peoples built rela-
with the first hot-air bal- tively lightweight fabric, and everybody
loon launch. knew that smoke rises, so why didn’t
Credit: public domain the ancient Egyptians, or the Babylo-
nians, or the Mayans build balloons?”
Crouch asks. The likely answer, he says,
is that the balloon idea simply never
occurred to them, as flight in nature
The Montgolfier brothers’ launch Balloons Begin tends to be done by creatures that are,
ignited a balloon craze, catching the The Montgolfier brothers, who were unlike balloons, heavier than the air
interest of figures like Charles, for whom papermakers by trade, were not the first around them.
Charles’s Law — which describes the to employ the properties of buoyant Things changed, though, during the
relationship between the temperature warm air for flight. That distinction scientific revolution, which in 1766 saw
and volume of a gas — is named; Ben- likely belongs to inventors in China and the discovery of hydrogen gas by Henry
jamin Franklin, who was the United other Southeast Asian countries who Cavendish, who referred to it as “flam-
States ambassador to France; and the were “probably flying balloons in antiq- mable air.” People “recognized that,
French king, Louis XVI. Balloons soon uity, albeit small balloons — essentially ‘Here we have a gas that’s six times
rose to prominence, and in the ensuing the kind of Japanese paper lanterns lighter than ambient air. If we fill some
centuries they have been used as tools of that we fly sometimes today,” says Tom kind of a lightweight vessel with this
war, instruments of weather forecasting Crouch, senior curator of aeronautics stuff, maybe it’ll fly,’” Crouch says. You
and atmospheric research, and vehicles at the Smithsonian’s National Air and can just imagine “light bulbs going off
for recreation, sporting and tourism. Space Museum. over heads all over Europe.”

page 53 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Benchmarks

human, anatomically speaking, whereas

the rooster and duck represented ani-
mals more naturally adapted to flight. If
there were to be any adverse side effects
to flying, the thinking was that Montauc-
iel, and perhaps the flightless rooster,
would likely incur them.
On Sept. 19, 1783, in front of a large
crowd at Versailles, including the king
and queen, the animals rose off the
ground, carried by a blue balloon dec-
orated with brightly colored designs,
including suns, zodiac signs and royal
symbols. The balloon, carrying the ani-
mals in a hanging basket, drifted for
about eight minutes over 3 kilometers
or so. “The people who were at Ver-
sailles chased the balloon on horseback,”
Crouch says. “De Rozier was the first guy
Illustrations depicting the first hot-air balloon flight (left), in Annonay, to reach the balloon when it landed, and
France, on June 4, 1783, and the first balloon flight with human passen- he discovered that the animals were OK.”
gers (right) in November 1783. A few months later, in November,
Credit: both: public domain de Rozier, along with a French marquis
named François Laurent d’Arlandes,
By the time they began experiment- Antoinette, at the Palace of Versailles. climbed into another Montgolfier bal-
ing, the Montgolfier brothers knew about This time, the balloon carried the first loon, this time at the Chateau de la
hydrogen, but they lacked the imper- living creatures aloft. Muette near Paris in front of a large
meable materials needed to harness it; crowd that included Benjamin Frank-
before turning to hot air, they had tried lin. The balloon took off, traveled about
filling a paper balloon with hydrogen, Climb to the Sky 8 kilometers in 25 minutes, and carried
but the gas leaked out. So, the broth- At first, the king suggested a criminal the first human aviators into history.
ers turned to what they themselves had be used for the first launch. But, Crouch
dubbed Montgolfier gas — something says, a man named Jean-François Pilâtre
they thought was another buoyant gas de Rozier is said to have objected, sug- The Montgolfiers’ Legacy
like hydrogen, but which was simply hot gesting the king not “give the honor of The spectacle of balloon flight cap-
air produced by burning organic matter. being the first human being to fly to tured imaginations, but the future of
The first unmanned balloon, launched a convict.” Of course, it was also not balloons, and how they would eventually
by the Montgolfiers using hot air, took known what sort of effects flight might come to be used, was unclear. When
off from a square in Annonay in southern have on the human body. “People had Charles launched Le Globe in August
France on June 4, 1783. The balloon was climbed mountains, [so] they knew that 1873, Benjamin Franklin, who was
about 11 meters in diameter horizontally, when you got higher than this balloon watching the event from his carriage,
made of cotton lined with paper, and was ever going to go, there was still stuff purportedly overheard someone in the
weighed about 230 kilograms. While too to breathe,” Crouch says. What was not crowd question the usefulness of such
small to carry a person, the launch none- so clear, though, was whether the atmo- a flying object, Crouch says, to which
theless marked the birth of aviation, and sphere — at least one in which humans Franklin is said to have responded, “Sir,
the news quickly reached Paris. could survive — only stretched a certain what use is a newborn babe?”
Charles soon constructed Le Globe, height above the ground, regardless of Franklin, the statesman-scientist,
which he launched from the Champs de where one stood on Earth. immediately recognized the military
Mars — close to where the Eiffel Tower The first three aviators, then, would be potential of balloons. During the French
now stands — and, in September that a sheep named Montauciel, which means Revolution as well as during the Amer-
same year, the Montgolfiers launched “climb to the sky,” a rooster and a duck. ican Civil War, military balloon corps
another balloon, this one for the French The choice of these animals was not ran- were used to support infantry. “In a
king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie dom. The sheep most closely resembled a battle, the higher you are, the better off

page 54 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Benchmarks

Balloons lifting
off at Albuquer-
que’s annual
Balloon Fiesta.
Credit: a4gpa, CC
BY-SA 2.0

you are because you can see what the In the 1980s, balloons recorded some of
other guy is doing behind his lines,” the first measurements that helped sci-
Crouch says. entists discover a hole in the ozone layer
The scientific utility of balloons also above Antarctica.
eventually became apparent. In 1896, Human-piloted balloon flights, flown
French meteorologist Léon Teisserenc for pleasure, are now widespread. One
de Bort, who is credited with discovering of the best places to find them is in
the stratosphere and the tropopause, New Mexico at the annual Albuquerque
began launching the first weather bal- International Balloon Fiesta, held every
loons from his observatory in Trappes, October, where hundreds of parti-col-
France. Today, hundreds of weather bal- ored balloons — many as extravagant
loons, carrying instrument arrays called as the one the Montgolfiers sent up
sondes, are launched every 12 hours for the French royalty 233 years ago —
from locations around the world. Other take flight.
initiatives, like NASA’s scientific bal-
Launch of a NASA balloon from the loon program, which was founded in Joel is a freelance science writer
Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility the 1960s and 1970s, send unmanned based in Ann Arbor, Mich. You
in New Mexico. instrumented balloons floating into the can find more of his writing at
Credit: NASA/JHU APL highest reaches of the upper atmosphere. www.lvjwriter.com.

Travels in Geology: www.agiweb.org/pubs

On the Road with EARTH

Volume 1: U.S. & Canada
Megan Sever, Sara Pratt, and Erin Wayman

Digital Only ISBN 9780922152971 Available from the following sources:

Direct from AGI (ePub)* $4.99 Amazon Kindle**
(ePubs are not PDFs, see below) Google Play Store
Secure online ordering available at www.agiweb.org/pubs for these and other AGI
publications.
You may also contact us by phone: (703) 379-2480, fax: (703) 379-7563 or email:
[email protected].
* ePub files require an ePub reader. Many e-book readers support the ePub format, such as the
Nook and Sony Reader. Or, you may install software on your computer to read ePubs. Adobe
Digital Editions http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions.html is a free option for both
Windows and Mac.

** Kindle files can be read on a Kindle e-reader. They can also be read in Amazon Kindle for PC or
Amazon Kindle for Mac, software that you can download for free to your Windows or Mac computer.

page 55 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Down to Earth

With Solar Physicist Thomas Berger

Sara E. Pratt

G
rowing up in California during the Space Race, Thomas Berger was fasci-
nated with aeronautics and aviation, so when he arrived at the University
of California at Berkeley, physics seemed like the natural choice. After
graduating with a degree in engineering physics, Berger took a job with Lockheed
Aircraft in Burbank. But he soon decided it was not for him and returned to graduate
school at Stanford, where he discovered a new passion: solar physics.
His first job out of graduate school was, ironically, back at Lockheed Martin,
where, this time, he stayed for 15 years primarily developing magnetograph instru-
mentation for ground- and space-based solar telescopes. In 2012, he moved to the
National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, N.M., as the project scientist on the Daniel
K. Inouye Solar Telescope under construction on Haleakala Volcano in Hawaii.
In August 2014, Berger was appointed director of NOAA’s National Space
Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), in Boulder, Colo., which is responsible for Thomas Berger is director of NOAA’s
monitoring and forecasting solar and geomagnetic events that can impact satel- National Space Weather Prediction
lites, power grids, GPS, communications, navigation and many other technologies Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colo.
Credit: NOAA/SWPC
that modern societies rely upon. He took the helm at SWPC at a critical time for
the space weather community: the government was developing the country’s first
space weather strategy, and critical gaps had emerged in the system of satellites
that comprise Earth’s space weather sentinel.
Berger recently spoke to EARTH about the importance of open data in maximizing
our return on “big science” investments like telescopes, the role of international
cooperation in funding satellite missions, and what is needed to ensure our ability
to predict a severe geomagnetic storm.

SEP: Who influenced your early interest data. And we also operated the telescope in a way
in science? that was different from a lot of previous missions in
TB: My father, a doctor, was also very interested astrophysics and solar physics. We used what’s been
in physics and astronomy. But probably the most called “service mode,” in which the telescope was
influential element in my early life, in terms of continually doing different [observing] programs
science, was the original Exploratorium in San proposed by the community; and the proposal pro-
Francisco. There was no admission fee; you just cess was very easy. You just had to fill out a form
walked in, and there were all these things sitting saying, “I would like Hinode to observe this location
around on the floor like a giant warehouse full of at this time using these instruments,” and we would
physics toys. It was really just a wide open experi- do it. Then your data would show up immediately
mental space, which was wonderful for kids. after that at the data center. So you didn’t have to
put in a lengthy proposal, you weren’t in charge
SEP: At Lockheed you worked on the Hinode of running the telescope, and you didn’t have to
project — a Japanese mission to fly a tele- go to the control center, which is the “principal
scope to observe the sun. What lessons from investigator” model.
that work did you try to implement at the This had been done with other satellites as
National Solar Observatory? well, including some NASA satellites for solar
TB: One thing about Hinode that is very good is observing. But this was very controversial for the
that the data are rapidly made publicly available. ground-based [telescope] community, which was
We had a very good pipeline from the telescope entrenched in the principal investigator mode,
to the data center where people could pick up the where you have a small group of people taking and

page 56 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Down to Earth

Berger in SWPC’s operations cen-

ter in Boulder, Colo.
Credit: NOAA/SWPC

essentially sitting on those data; and the number of and the solar magnetic field conditions, and any-
papers that came out based on the data from those body on the ground who’s using GPS and/or the
missions was quite meager. power grid. We all rely on the power grid, which is
As soon as you give the data to the public, there potentially vulnerable to a large-scale geomagnetic
is an amplifying effect on your return on investment storm. Satellites are also a consideration: You can
in the telescope. The number of papers out of the short out a satellite because of electron pileup just
Hinode mission in six years was many times that due to solar wind changes.
produced by ground-based solar telescopes, which There are a lot of things we need to do on a
had never been used in service mode until Hinode daily basis to monitor the solar wind and the solar
showed the way. weather, but we also can’t lose sight of looking out
for the “big one” as part of our mission.
SEP: Why do we need to predict space
weather? Who needs to know about it? SEP: Why did it take so long for the U.S. to
TB: Space weather prediction, in my view, develop a space weather strategy?
is analogous to a combination of hurricane and TB: It wasn’t until the ‘70s that it became obvious
tsunami forecasting. It’s a constantly changing that if we had a really big geomagnetic storm, such as
phenomenon, and there is space weather that is last occurred in May 1921, which blew out the New
significant outside of just the extreme events — York City subway switching system and disrupted
smaller storms that occur regularly. But it’s really telegraph service nationwide, you could potentially
the big storms that occur due to huge eruptions on have a wide-scale, prolonged blackout. The farther
the sun that we can’t yet predict that we have to north you go, the stronger these geomagnetically
watch out for. The biggest driver of space weather induced currents are, so it’s conceivable that Wash-
on Earth is the sun. But we’re finding, as we develop ington, D.C., could be hit, requiring the government
models of the ionosphere [the upper layer of Earth’s to move. And any time you require the government
atmosphere that interacts primarily with the solar to move, under what’s called the continuity of gov-
wind], that the lower atmosphere of Earth — the ernment scenario, that’s a big deal.
troposphere and stratosphere — also has to be In 2012, President Obama asked John Holdren,
included in models because waves in those regions his science advisor, to develop a new national
propagate up into the ionosphere and rearrange strategy specifically to ensure that we can predict,
it. You have to understand the entire system of mitigate and respond to an extreme geomagnetic
Earth’s atmosphere, Earth’s magnetic field, and storm. The strategy deals with what we would do
Earth’s interactions with solar wind and with the as a nation if we got hit with one of these extreme
solar magnetic field. geomagnetic storms that could potentially black out
The major [consumers of space weather fore- large portions of the country and damage the grid
casts] are anybody operating in space, obviously, to the point where it would take weeks, or perhaps
who needs to know about the solar wind conditions even months, to get it back up.

page 57 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Down to Earth

A NASA schematic showing the technologies

and infrastructure that can be affected by
space weather.
Credit: NASA

least two viewpoints — one on the Earth-

sun line and another at a side position.
In the golden age, we had three. We
had the two satellites of the Solar Terres-
trial Relations Observatory — STEREO
A and STEREO B — and SOHO. We had
three views of every coronal mass ejection
(CME) coming off the sun for about four
or five years. And during that time, the
predictions of CME arrivals at Earth got
very good. But since the STEREO satel-
SEP: Are we currently in a position to imple- lites went behind the sun [in 2014], we’ve gone back
ment that strategy? to the state we were at before, in which we were only
TB: An implementation plan was part of the accurate to plus or minus six to 12 hours ahead of
strategy. In terms of where we stand today, hope- the CME arrival time.
fully, we will be able to observe a big eruption in The STEREO satellites are just coming around
the first place if one occurs, so that we’d know we from the back side of the sun, so they’re looking
need to respond. I say “hopefully” because one of at the back side of the sun right now, which isn’t
the telescopes we use to observe these eruptions is very useful if you’re trying to predict Earth-directed
the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), an eruptions. The other problem is that Stereo B [mal-
ESA-NASA research satellite that’s 20 years old. It functioned] and they don’t know if they can get it
has what’s called a coronagraph, a special type of back. So there’s really just STEREO A. It’s rotating
telescope needed to see magnetic eruptions from back around toward Earth so STEREO A will be
the sun. The original mission was three years, but helpful in viewing Earth-directed eruptions in about
luckily, it was designed very well and it has lasted three or four years, but then it will keep orbiting and
20 years. But it’s all we’ve got. If that were to fail be out of position again. We need a stable platform
tomorrow, and then we were to have one of these out at the L5 Lagrangian point to give us at least a
massive eruptions from the sun, we would be blind second viewpoint for measuring CMEs.
to the eruption. So we’re in a precarious position,
and part of what we addressed with this national SEP: So our observing capabilities have
strategy was pointing out that we are in a very actually declined?
precarious position. TB: Yes. We got good, and then people said,
“Oh, you guys are good at predicting space weather.
SEP: What tools do we need to effectively I guess you’re done.” But the reason we were good at
predict space weather? predicting space weather arrival times is because we
TB: What we need is a satellite out at L1 [Lagrang- had this temporary situation with multiple NASA
ian point 1] that has a coronagraph and solar wind research satellites that allowed us to get better at
measurement instrumentation on board so that you it. One of my main goals in this job is to try to get
can see these eruptions coming. And ideally, you’d back to the situation where we have permanent
want to have a magnetograph, so that you have operational presence at at least two points in space,
the magnetic field of the sun being observed, the ideally three.
explosions in the corona being observed, and the However, it’s really hard to sell people on the
solar wind being measured as these things swept fact that you’re going to spend a billion dollars on
by. But, if you’re looking straight on at an eruption, these missions for something that might not hap-
it’s sometimes hard to tell exactly which direction pen for another 60, 70 or 100 years. I think it’s a
it’s moving in. So what you really need is to have at key societal question that we need to ask and our

page 58 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Down to Earth

Berger speaking at a briefing on

NOAA’s Deep Space Climate
Observatory (DSCOVR), which
launched from Kennedy Space
Center in Florida on Feb. 11, 2015.
DSCOVR, a joint mission with NOAA,
NASA and the U.S. Air Force, pro-
vides the ability to monitor solar
wind in real time.
Credit: NASA/Jim Grossman

politicians need to answer: How much money do SEP: What’s the role of international coop-
we spend on probabilistic events, events that may eration in these missions?
or may not occur in our lifetimes, but if they do, TB: These deep-space missions are very expen-
could be extremely severe? That balance is, I think, sive. For example, DSCOVR has a nominal five-year
very difficult to achieve. lifetime. Hopefully, by 2020, perhaps 2022, NOAA
will launch its replacement, which will include a
SEP: Why is the Deep Space Climate Obser- coronagraph. However, NOAA has not committed
vatory (DSCOVR) mission, which you to launching a mission to the L5 Lagrangian point
worked on and which launched in February due to cost constraints, for example. Fortunately,
2015, important? international partners, such as the U.K. Met Office,
TB: DSCOVR is the first operational space which also runs a 24/7 space weather forecast-
weather satellite dedicated to space weather oper- ing service, are looking at launching a mission
ated by NOAA, not NASA. So it’s a huge milestone to the L5 orbit that would complement NOAA’s
in that sense. It represents a big step in the direction L1 mission.
of [making] space weather prediction a national That’s the ideal scenario in terms of international
priority, like what the National Weather Service cooperation. NOAA takes care of one requirement,
does — 24/7, absolutely reliable communications and the international community supplies others,
of predictions of environmental effects. But that and we eventually end up with a system of senti-
means we need dedicated instrumentation just like nels in positions to give us good CME predictions
weather satellites. And DSCOVR is the first step in through international cooperation.
achieving that.
DSCOVR was developed from the repurposed SEP: When was the last time you saw an
Triana spacecraft, originally designed just to view aurora, and can you appreciate them aes-
Earth. It was never intended to have a large number thetically, or do you just think about the
of solar instruments on board, and a coronagraph potential danger?
unfortunately could not be accommodated. In TB: Well, actually, it’s funny. That’s a good
the end, DSCOVR has solar wind measurement question, and the answer, which is uncomfortable
instruments, which are very important because to provide, is: I’ve never seen an aurora. I’ve always
as that eruption comes sweeping by the DSCOVR wanted to. On transatlantic or transpacific flights, I
spacecraft, it takes another 15 to 30 minutes before always try to position my seat at a window so that
the satellite signal gets to Earth. So it at least gives I can look north. I think it would be fantastic, but
you that 15-to-30-minute warning time, but if you I haven’t had the chance to make a dedicated trip
don’t have a coronagraph looking at the eruption to see one yet.
as it comes off the sun, you won’t be able to gauge
how fast it’s going and when it’s going to arrive. Pratt is senior editor of EARTH.

page 59 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
American Geosciences Institute
The Search Committee invites applications for the position of A Position Description is available at
Executive Director for the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). http://www.americangeosciences.
org/executive-director-search/
The Executive Director conducts the demonstrated leadership and vision position-description.
affairs of the Institute, with direc- in their field; possesses proven senior
tion from the Executive Committee, management and budgetary expe- Interested persons are invited to
including administering all plan- rience and excellent interpersonal submit a resume, an expression
ning and policies, supervising AGI skills; and has a record of success as of interest, and a list of five refer-
staff and coordinating the various a fundraiser for not-for-profits. The ences. Submission may be made via
activities, projects and programs of successful applicant must have the email to executive-director-search@​
the Institute. The Executive Director ability to communicate effectively americangeosciences.org or by
maintains and fosters relationships across the scientific community, aca- mail to the address below. Review
with the officers and administrators demia, industry, government and of applications will begin April 2016.
of the 51 AGI member societies, the public.
international and regional associates, Chair, Search Committee
and with other geosciences and sci- An earth sciences background American Geosciences Institute
ence-related organizations in addi- is highly desirable. An advanced 4220 King Street
tion to academia, government agen- degree is preferred. The success- Alexandria, VA 22302
cies, and industry representatives. ful candidate must be willing to
relocate to the Washington DC Applications and inquiries will receive
The ideal candidate will be an area and to fulfill the demands of confidential consideration. AGI is an
established scientist who has frequent travel. equal-opportunity employer.

The Member Societies of AGI:

AASP - The Palynological Society • American Association of Petroleum Geologists • American Geophysical Union • American Institute of Hydrology •
American Institute of Professional Geologists • American Rock Mechanics Association • Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography •
Association for Women Geoscientists • Association of American Geographers • Association of American State Geologists • Association of Earth Science
Editors • Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists • Clay Minerals Society • Council on Undergraduate Research • Environmental & Engineer-
ing Geophysical Society • Friends of Mineralogy • Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers • Geochemical Society • Geological Association
of Canada • Geological Society of America • Geological Society of London • Geoscience Information Society • History of Earth Sciences Society • Interna-
tional Association of Hydrogeologists/U.S. National Chapter • International Medical Geology Association • Karst Waters Institute • Mineralogical Society of
America • Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland • National Association of Black Geoscientists • National Association of Geoscience Teachers •
National Association of State Boards of Geology • National Cave and Karst Research Institute • National Earth Science Teachers Association • National Ground
Water Association • National Speleological Society • North American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature • Paleobotanical Section of the Botanical
Society of America • Paleontological Research Institution • Paleontological Society • Petroleum History Institute • Seismological Society of America • SEPM
(Society for Sedimentary Geology) • Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration • Society of Economic Geologists • Society of Exploration Geophysicists •
Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists • Society of Mineral Museum Professionals • Society of Vertebrate Paleontology • Soil Science Society
of America • The Society for Organic Petrology • United States Permafrost Association

page 60 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 Classifieds
Please visit our website, www.earthmagazine.org/classifieds, for these and many other current career opportunities.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES season begins on June 11. August 6 But EARTH welcomes applicants of all
begins the last session of the program. backgrounds who are interested in
PHILMONT SCOUT RANCH For more information and to sign sharing what’s new in earth science
VOLUNTEER GEOLOGIST PROGRAM up, contact Ed Warner, 62 South Ash with a broad audience. We typically
CIMARRON, NEW MEXICO, USA St, Denver CO 80246, USA, +1-303- work with three or four externs at any
Sponsored by the Rocky Mountain 331-7737, [email protected]. given time, but we regularly rotate in
Association of Geologists Alternate contact: Bob Horning, P.O. new writers as positions come open.
Volunteer to teach and demon- Box 460, Tesuque, NM 87575, USA, If you are selected as an EARTH
strate area geology in back-country +1-505-820-9290, rrhorning@grap- extern, the position is essentially an
New Mexico! pawireless.com. Learn more about the as-you’re-available writing opportunity.
Philmont Scout Ranch is one of geology of the area at http://pubs. In any given week or month when you
three national high-adventure bases usgs.gov/pp/pp_505/html/pdf.html. have time to write, you’ll email us
owned and operated by the Boy Scouts and say, “Hey, I have time to write.”
of America. Located in the southern Then, either we can assign you a story
Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern or you can pitch stories to us — it’s
New Mexico, Philmont is a 137,000 acre STUDENT OPPORTUNITIES up to you. If you’ve got a great idea
ranch dedicated to outdoor activities. for a story and would like practice
The twelve-day backpacking experience EARTH SCIENCE WRITING pitching your idea to an editor, you’re
serves over 21,000 high-school-age EXTERNSHIP encouraged to do so. On the other
boys and girls from all over the USA EARTH’s externship is an opportunity hand, if you’d prefer that we provide
as well as several foreign countries. for select students and inexperienced you with an assignment — as is the
Fifty-four positions are open again writers to learn about the process of case with many first-time externs, for
this year, to be filled on a first-come, writing and editing a news story about example — that’s fine too.
first-served basis. Volunteers will recent scientific research, and to get Our extern-written stories typically
receive a sign-up packet with scout professionally edited and published clips. cover a recent, peer-reviewed scientific
applications (you have to be a scout, Most of our externs have backgrounds study or report, and include quotes
at least for the summer!), medical studying science — particularly geosci- about the study from multiple expert
forms, and brochures in May 2016. ence-related fields relevant to EARTH’s sources — obtained via first-person
Students who would like to volunteer typical content — and are interested interviews — just as a professional
must show proof of enrollment in a in potentially pursuing science writing news story would. Before your first
graduate-level program. The 2016 as a part- or full-time career option. assignment, we’ll provide guidance

The Roadside Geology book

you’ve all been waiting for!
EXPLORE SOME OF THE
MOST DIVERSE GEOLOGY
IN THE WORLD WITH
THIS NEW GUIDE . . .

“Within an eight-hour
drive of any point in
southern California,
you may view the
results of almost
every type of geologic
process, from desert
erosion to glaciation,
from ancient to recent
volcanism, and from
prehistoric landslides
to active earthquake
faults.”
—FROM THE INTRODUCTION
OF Roadside Geology of
Southern California
Mountain Press 6 x 9, full color
P U B L I S H I N G CO M PA N Y
P.O. Box 2399 • Missoula, MT 59806 • 406-728-1900 400 pages
800-234-5308 • info @mtnpress.com
www.mountain-press.com $26.00

page 61 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

Classifieds
Please visit our website, www.earthmagazine.org/classifieds, for these and many other current career opportunities.

about the general style, tone and SERVICES AND SUPPLIES

structure of the news stories we publish
in EARTH to help get you started. And GEOLOGICAL GLOBE OF (The new home of Palouse Petro Products.)
then we’ll work with you through the THE WORLD
Preparation of thin sections for all methods of analysis.
writing and editorial process. You’re + Jupiter & its moons, Mars, MOLA, Petropoxy 154 Thin Section Epoxy
encouraged to ask questions, and Venus; Focal Mechanism Lab Kits Petrographic Slide Boxes
you’re welcome write as frequently www.realworldglobes.com
or infrequently as works for you and www.burnhampetrographics.com
the magazine’s editorial staff. TRANSLATION SERVICE [email protected]
The externship is a remote position; Translator.com.au – Fast and accu-
you can work from any location and at rate translations
(800) 772-3975
your leisure. Once a story is assigned, (208) 687-5951
you’ll generally have one to two weeks IGNEOUS AND CONTACT Fax (208) 687-0232
to research, report and write it before METAMORPHIC ROCK SUITES
turning it in. (We do ask that you stick from the Gettysburg and Newark 5029 W. Lodestar Ave., Rathdrum, ID 83858 USA
closely to deadlines, so please keep Basins of Pennsylvania. Including
that in mind when determining your n e w l y d i s c o ve r e d O l i v i n e Zo n e s
availability to write.) Once edited and rocks and Monocacy Hill Xenoliths. Technology of Materials
finalized, extern-written stories are Price is $75 per suite. Please contact X-Ray Powder
posted on EARTH’s website as soon as [email protected] Diffraction Analysis
possible. Select extern-written pieces Qualitative and
may also appear in a print issue of the PROSPECTING MAPS quantitative I.D.
magazine. Publication, either online WWW.GOLDMAPS.COM Reitveld analysis
and/or in print, is subject to the dis- SEM/EDS and Particle Size
cretion of the editorial staff and is not OnlyGlobes.com offers a huge selec- Distribution
Soil/Clay analysis
guaranteed. The externship is unpaid. tion of maps and globes.
If you’re interested in the experi-
www.xraydiffrac.com
ence, email a cover letter discussing WORLD GLOBES [email protected]
your interest in the geosciences and www.1worldglobes.com and globe gifts Phone: 1 (800) 682-2922 or
why you’d make a great extern at www.1worldglobalgifts.com - the larg- (714) 446-9227
EARTH, your resume or CV, and at est selection in the world. Classroom 4020 N. Pam Street, #202
least one writing sample to earth@ maps, history map sets, raised relief Fullerton, CA 92835
earthmagazine.org
MSI_EARTH_ad_Layoutto1 apply. maps
8/14/14 10:57 AM Page 1 -www.worldmapsonline.com

OUTSTANDING IN OUR FIELD

mount sopris instruments is a leading manufacturer of

slimline borehole geophysical logging systems for
groundwater, mining, geotechnical, energy, research
and other downhole applications.

Learn more at mountsopris.com or call 303-279-3211

PROBES WINCHES LOGGERS SOFTWARE

page 62 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

The AGI Foundation’s programs impact young people, Critical new initiatives of the center require new
educators, researchers, the public and policymakers, all funding from the AGI Foundation, include the fol-
who comprise the geoscientists and informed citizens lowing focus areas:
of tomorrow. AGI Foundation’s most recognized pro-
grams focus on geoscience STEM educational excellence • Understanding the Status of U.S. Earth
and workforce development, and public awareness and Science Education with the 2013
government affairs. Widely acclaimed examples include “roll-out” of the Nation’s new science
the most prestigious endowed Fisher Congressional standards in which 26 States have
Fellowship, development of inquiry-based geoscience signed on and 40 states are expected to
curricula for elementary and secondary school, conduct- fully adopt;
ing teacher academies to improve instruction of the geo-
sciences, collection and analysis of geoscience workforce • Supporting innovative Energy
status and trends, and award winning publications and Education;
training materials to increase awareness and geoscience
literacy by students, the public and professionals. • Conducting and distributing outcomes
from Geoscience Critical Issue Forums;
A major new initiative that the AGI Foundation is work-
ing to fund is the implementation of the new AGI Center • Expanding the scope and distribution
for Geoscience Education and Public Understanding. The of geoscience career materials and
Center builds upon the foundation of the AGI and capi- workforce information;
talizes on its strength as a federation of 50 scientific and
professional geoscience societies representing a quarter • More outreach to students positioned
of a million practicing geoscientists in the United States. earlier in the “geoscience education flow”.

AGI Foundation Leadership AGI Foundation Trustees: John A. Adamick, TGS-NOPEC Geophysical
Chair: Richard M. Powers, Company • John J. Amoruso, Legends Exploration • Ronald G. Amundson,
Consultant/AMEC-BCI (Ret.) Univ. of California • Bruce S. Appelbaum, Mosaic Resources • Michael J.
Vice Chair: Daniel D. Domeracki, Schlumberger Baranovic, Shell (Ret.) • Steven R. Bell, CASA Exploration • C. Scott Cameron,
Shell Energy Resources Co. (Ret.) • Peter D. Carragher, BP America, Inc. (Ret.)
Secretary: Stephen M. Cassiani, ExxonMobil (Ret.)
• William E. Crain, Chevron (Ret.) • Scot Evans, Halliburton • William L. Fisher,
Treasurer: William A. Van Wie,
Univ. of Texas at Austin • Michael C. Forrest, Shell (Ret.) • William E. Gipson,
Devon Energy Corp. (Ret.)
Gas Investments/Gas Fund Inc. • Priscilla C. Grew, Univ. of Nebraska State
Interim Executive Director: P. Patrick Leahy, AGI Museum (Ret.) • Elwyn C. Griffiths, ExxonMobil (Ret.) • Charles G. Groat,
The Water Institute of the Gulf • James W. Handschy, ConocoPhillips (Ret.)
• Jeffrey J. Heppermann, Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. • G. Warfield Hobbs IV,
Ammonite Resources • Ernest Leyendecker, Anadarko • Kate C. Miller,
AGI Foundation
Texas A&M Univ. • James H. Painter, Cobalt International Energy • Thomas
P. Patrick Leahy
E. Scoulios, Polarcus US, Inc. • John N. Seitz, GulfSlope Energy, Inc. • Mark
AGIF Interim Executive Director W. Shuster, Shell Energy Resources Company • Berry H. Tew Jr., Geological
c/o American Geosciences Institute Survey of Alabama • M. Ray Thomasson, Thomasson Partner Associates •
4220 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22302 Jack C. Threet, Shell Oil Co. (Ret.) • Scott W. Tinker, Texas Bureau of Economic
[email protected] Geology • Nick Way, ExxonMobil Exploration Co. • Paul Weimer, Univ. of
www.agifoundation.org Colorado • Kane C. Weiner, Texas Crude, LLC • Lawrence P. Wilding, Texas
Tel: (703) 379-2480 A&M Univ. • John Willott, ExxonMobil (Ret.)
page 63 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org
Geologic Column

Geology for the People:

Finding New Paths to Public Outreach
Robert and Johanna Titus

O
ne might think ice age history how geologic events had shaped each We continue to do what we have
an unlikely topic for a pop- one. Glaciers had advanced down the done annually for the last 25 years: give
ular science book, but our Hudson Valley and then rose up into the dozens of talks and write about 70 geol-
2012 book, “The Hudson Val- Catskills. They had shaped the Catskill ogy columns, which are syndicated in
ley in the Ice Age,” seems to have struck Escarpment and many of the area’s regional weekly, monthly and quarterly
a chord with the public. Over the last few lakes. As the glaciers were melting, tor- publications. These, along with the book,
years, we have built upon our success to rents of meltwater eroded picturesque our talks and trail guides, have opened
highlight local awareness of our Hudson gorges and canyons. The artists were doors for us to communicate with the
Valley and Catskills regional geology. drawn to these scenic locations, most of general public about our local geology.
We thought our story might encourage them not realizing that the ice age was We believe that we continue to reach
others to undertake similar efforts in responsible for their raw beauty. many people who may not otherwise
their own communities. We have also partnered with local ever be exposed to geology, and help
It began when our book was included civic groups, such as area land con- make them aware of the role geology
on a list of Christmas gift suggestions servancies, which are dedicated to has had in shaping our regional culture.
by an Albany television station, which preserving parcels of land and keep- We encourage you to reach out to
soon afterward invited us to appear on ing them free of development. Their those constituencies in your commu-
one of their Sunday morning interview members form a natural constituency nity who perhaps wouldn’t otherwise
shows. After that, the speaking invi- for geology outreach. Land conser- be exposed to geology and to find new
tations started pouring in: first from vancy members generally feel a strong ways to share your knowledge with them.
local libraries, then historical societies, attachment to the land, but often do not It won’t make you rich, but at the end
environmental groups, hiking clubs, art have in-depth knowledge of its geologic of the day, you will feel good.
museums and book stores. history. Thus, they make for extremely
We were even asked to speak at a responsive audiences, and such groups Robert Titus is a professor of geol-
meeting of a kidney research association; are often looking to sponsor events for ogy at Hartwick College in Oneonta,
they had heard about us while looking their members, typically including lec- N.Y., and Johanna Titus is a professor
for interesting speakers outside of med- tures and nature walks. of biology at Dutchess Community
icine. We developed an ice age hike for When the Woodstock Land Conser- College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. They
the annual Hudson River Valley Ramble, vancy — founded to protect an especially are celebrating 25 years of writing
a series of events celebrating the region’s scenic cornfield that was threatened by regular geology columns for Kaatskill
cultural and natural history. developers — was planning to celebrate Life magazine, the Columbia-Greene
Because our book discussed how ice their 25th anniversary, they invited us Media newspaper chain and the
age landscapes inspired the landscape to speak. You can imagine their surprise Woodstock Times, and recently pub-
painters of the Hudson River School of and pleasure when we informed them lished their 800th column. The authors
Art, as well as many of America’s pio- that their treasured cornfield had once can be contacted at randjtitus@
neering landscape architects, we were been an ice age lake. Another of their prodigy.net. Join them on their Face-
also able to reach the artistic community. properties, Sloan Gorge, had formed as book page at: The Catskill Geologist.
This led to speaking invitations from an ice age meltwater spillway. We vol- The views expressed are their own.
the Albany Institute of History and Art unteered to make this a formal geology
and the Roosevelt Presidential Library trail and worked with the conservancy
in Hyde Park. to create a trail guide for self-guided
It also led to our contribution to the tours. Today, it’s one of their most vis-
Hudson River School Art Trail, which ited preserves. We did much the same
highlights many of the most important for the Columbia Land Conservancy, for
sites and views painted by artists like which we led a geology walk on one of
Thomas Cole, Frederic Erwin Church their properties on the east bank of the
and Asher Durand. We visited Art Trail Hudson River. That property had once
locations and put together accounts of been on the floor of Glacial Lake Albany. Credit: Linda Post

page 64 • June 2016 • EARTH • www.earthmagazine.org

 ◆ Suppliers of Field Instrumentation ◆

Did You Know…

Visit Our Website
Purchase with Only a P.O. #
No Credit Card Needed! Enviro-Tech Rental Program
If Requested Instruction Manual
Calibration Kit, and Rental Agreement
Video & CD,
Tool Kit
It looks Sharp
and Professional
Instrument is
Charged & includes
Charger
Our Quality Guarantee–
All Accessories If we fail to provide any
as needed of this, your rental is
FREE* until we fix it.
*The only condition is you need to
notify us immediately.

Clean Foam
Packaging Working Instrument &
Certificate of Calibration

We Rent Instruments
Visit www.envirotechonline.com ◆ Call Toll Free 1-800-468-8921

EnviroTech’s Quality Guarantee on Rentals

• If we fail to provide any accessory
equipment as ordered, your rental is free
• If any rental doesn’t work, your rental
is free RENTAL RATES
75/200/600
DAY WEEK MONTH
RENTAL RATES Also a Certified
RENTAL RATES
75/200/725 Repair Facility
25/60/200 DAY WEEK MONTH
DAY WEEK MONTH Also a Certified
Also a Certified Repair Facility
Repair Facility

AMS Basic Soil Sampling Kit

Solinst 101
RAE Systems
Water Level Meter
MiniRAE 2000 PID

RENTAL RATES RENTAL RATES

w/Controller
RENTAL RATES 75/210/600
165/495/1485 60/180/560 DAY WEEK MONTH
DAY WEEK MONTH Also a Certified
DAY WEEK MONTH
Also a Certified Repair Facility
Also a Certified
Repair Facility
Repair Facility

Geotech YSI 556

Low Flow Sample System Solinst Levelogger System

We accept PO’s ◆ Call Toll Free 1-800-468-8921

NOW YOU CAN HAVE YOUR EARTH
ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET

EARTH Magazine is now available digitally for

a Kindle, e-reader or as a PDF! For just $20, you can
have EARTH’s informative content anywhere each
and every month.
Go to www.earthmagazine.org to subscribe. Twenty
dollars has never gone this far!
Image ©Shutterstock.com/Sergey Nivens