Wednesday, December 19, 2007
SCRIPPS NEWS at 2007 AGU FALL MEETING
Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego
Tracing Earthquake Faults on the Southern San Andreas
NS11E-0835 · Monday, Dec. 10, 8 a.m. · Moscone South Exhibit Hall B
Scripps researchers are investigating seismic properties of the Salton Sea region (Oct. 10, 2007).
The Salton Trough at the southern segment of the San Andreas Fault is one of the most seismically active places in North America. Home to the Salton Sea, California's largest lake, the Salton Trough (two hours east of San Diego) separates seismic movements in the Gulf of California and the San Andreas Fault System. Scientists believe the area could be the epicenter of the "Big One," a massive earthquake that will one day relieve stress on the San Andreas. Despite its importance, the region remains poorly understood, largely because of a lack of geophysical data beneath the Salton Sea's 375 square-mile lake floor.
A seismic map of the Salton Sea area reveals the grid covered by the CHIRP instrument (green lines), faults (black lines) and bomb target sites (gray boxes). The red dots represent earthquakes that have taken place in the area since 1983.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego scientists have constructed sonar-based profiles of sediment layers to image the tectonic history of the lake's subsurface and the faults that branch out underneath it. The data, which includes previously unidentified tectonic structures, are providing clues to better understand the region's tectonic past and possible future. Graduate student researcher Danny Brothers will present the latest findings. Scripps explorations e-magazine feature story, including images and podcast:
Tracking Wave Power Extremes Along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts
GC11A-0144 · Monday, Dec. 10, 8 a.m. · Moscone South Exhibit Hall B
Large hurricanes are well documented in the news media as their damaging forces make landfall and move inland. Much less documented and publicized are the extreme wave forces that are generated by hurricanes and other powerful tropical cyclones that never reach land. A scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has analyzed these wave forces through measurements obtained by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration open-ocean buoys.
While 1995's Hurricane Felix never made landfall, the event generated powerful waves at coastal locations such as Cape Hatteras, N.C., and at more northerly coastal locations. Credit: NOAA
The analysis carries implications for coastal erosion and other impacts important for coastal management as the number of such extreme events rises along with global sea level in a warming world. Peter Bromirski of Scripps Oceanography investigated changes in wave power since 1980. He found a "significant increase" in wave power beginning in 1995, with the number of events becoming more frequent in the middle and latter stages of the hurricane season (June-November" target="_new">http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/Salton_Sea
PRESENTATION TITLE: "NEW SEISMIC CHRIP EVIDENCE FOR TRANSPRESSION AND TRANSTENSION BENEATH THE SALTON SEA, CALIF."
Tracking Wave Power Extremes Along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts
GC11A-0144 · Monday, Dec. 10, 8 a.m. · Moscone South Exhibit Hall B
Large hurricanes are well documented in the news media as their damaging forces make landfall and move inland. Much less documented and publicized are the extreme wave forces that are generated by hurricanes and other powerful tropical cyclones that never reach land. A scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has analyzed these wave forces through measurements obtained by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration open-ocean buoys.
While 1995's Hurricane Felix never made landfall, the event generated powerful waves at coastal locations such as Cape Hatteras, N.C., and at more northerly coastal locations. Credit: NOAA
The analysis carries implications for coastal erosion and other impacts important for coastal management as the number of such extreme events rises along with global sea level in a warming world. Peter Bromirski of Scripps Oceanography investigated changes in wave power since 1980. He found a "significant increase" in wave power beginning in 1995, with the number of events becoming more frequent in the middle and latter stages of the hurricane season (June-November). In general he found that extreme waves generated by these events occurred more frequently along the East Coast than the Gulf Coast. Monthly events along both coasts peaked in September, but October proved as eventful as August during the study period.
PRESENTATION TITLE: "HURRICANE WAVE POWER EXTREMES ALONG THE U.S. ATLANTIC AND GULF COASTS"
How Quiet was the Cretaceous Quiet Zone?
T13A-1135 · Monday, Dec. 10, 1:40 p.m. · Moscone South Exhibit Hall B
When and why the Earth changes magnetic polarity and how the intensity of the magnetic field has fluctuated in the past continues to intrigue earth scientists.
Jeff Gee and reseach team prepare the UAVs for flight.
Scripps researchers Jeff Gee and Steve Cande and Rutgers University researcher Dennis Kent report on the first deployment of unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs) from a University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) research vessel, used to map fluctuations in the magnetic field in a remote area of the southwest Pacific. Scientists deployed the UAVs from the UNOLS research vessel in order to collect valuable data on sea surface magnetic variations during the Cretaceous Quiet Zone (KQZ). The KQZ occurred from 121 to 83 million years ago and is thought to be a period of constant normal polarity when about one quarter of the present seafloor was generated. The UAVs (operated by Fugro Airborne) were launched from pneumatic catapult and captured by a wingtip clip that attaches to a rope suspended from a retractable boom on the fantail. Nine successful deployments, each averaging about 11 hours, provided more than 10,000 km of magnetic data, more than was acquired by the research vessel during the month long cruise. Based on the success of this study, the researchers anticipate that UAVs will play an increasingly important role in a variety of marine research programs.
PRESENTATION TITLE: "MAPPING GEOMAGNETIC FIELD VARIATIONS IN THE CRETACEOUS QUIET ZONE WITH UNMANNED AIRBORNE VEHICLES"
Related talk by Gee and colleagues:
P43C-03 · Thursday, Dec. 13, 2:20 p.m. · Moscone South 304
"New Lunar Paleointensity Measurements, Ancient Lunar Dynamo or Lunar Dud?"
IT on the High Seas
IN13B-1209 · Monday, Dec. 10, 1:40 p.m. · Moscone South Exhibit Hall B
Scientists and network experts have teamed up to expand research capabilities at sea.
R/V Roger Revelle is equipped with hiSeasNet, a remote communications network
Scripps scientists and satellite communications networking pioneers Steven Foley, Jon Berger, John Orcutt and Frank Vernon will present the latest endeavors of HiSeasNet, a satellite communications network providing continuous Internet connectivity for oceanographic research ships and platforms throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. By employing a variety of networking technologies, HiSeasNet has revolutionized seagoing research by connecting scientists with email, voice and videoconference, thus enhancing the ability to transmit data in real time with shore collaborators and increase multi-ship research opportunities. This year (2007) HiSeasNet extended its reach to the Indian Ocean to support ship operations by using a ground station in Germany. With still more bandwidth available for data, new opportunities currently exist to enhance ship-based ocean exploration as well as support the long-term data collection projects such as those proposed in the NSF's Ocean Observatories Initiative program. The R/V
Roger Revelle and R/V
Melville include NSF Real-time Observatory and Data management Network (ROADNet) Points-of-Presence aboard ship for buffering and delivering shipboard data to shore continuously and in near-real-time.
PRESENTATION TITLE: "EXPLORING THE OCEAN REMOTELY AND IN REAL-TIME WITH HISEASNET"
An Earth-Observing Revolution
Union 32A-08 · Wednesday, Dec. 12, 12:05 p.m. · Moscone South 303
Over the last 50 years, Earth observing satellites have transformed the way people view and study our planet. Researchers, including Scripps professor of geophysics Jean-Bernard Minster, will discuss a recent National Research Council (NRC) study that highlights selected scientific achievements made possible by Earth satellite observations.
Explorer 1 with Architects from left to right: W.H. Pickering, J.A. Van Allen, and W. von Braun.
Our capacity to detect and respond to both natural and man-made disasters has soared due to satellite technology, thus opening new avenues of scientific discovery and the better protection of human lives during a disaster. The first image of the "blue marble" taken by the crew aboard Apollo 17 sparked a revolution in our scientific capability to observe Earth from space. Earth imaging techniques evolved from simple photographs to quantitative measurements of Earth properties such as temperature, atmospheric gases and exact elevation of land and ocean. Consequently, every new earth imaging method from space has resulted in scientific accomplishments that have enabled new discoveries, transformed the field, refined scientific understanding, opened new avenues of research or provided important societal benefits by improving the predictability of earth systems processes. It follows on a recent report from the NRC entitled "Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond" (NRC 2007), also referred to as the "decadal study.
PRESENTATION TITLE: "EARTH OBSERVATIONS FROM SPACE: THE FIRST 50 YEARS OF SCIENTIFICACHIEVEMENTS"
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Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at University of California, San Diego, is one of the oldest,
largest and most important centers for global science research and education
in the world.
The National Research Council has ranked Scripps first in faculty quality among oceanography programs nationwide
Now in its second century of discovery,
the scientific scope of the institution has
grown to include biological, physical, chemical, geological, geophysical and
atmospheric studies of the earth as a system. Hundreds of research programs
covering a wide range of scientific areas are under way today in 65
countries. The institution has a staff of about 1,300, and annual
expenditures of approximately $155 million from federal, state and private
sources. Scripps operates one of the largest U.S. academic fleets with four
oceanographic research ships and one research platform for worldwide
exploration.
