There are a lot of ways to boil water. Nuclear energy does it without emitting as much carbon as coal, oil or gas. In the search for safer and more efficient nuclear technology, Oregon State University operates one of the few nuclear reactors on a college campus in the United States. A new production by [...]
Category » Earth
October 20, 2010
Light on Leaves
Lasers reveal forest structure in HD
Not long ago if you wanted to measure the height of a tree, you had to do trigonometry on the ground — or gear up for a climb. But these days you have a more sophisticated option: beaming lasers from the sky. A revolutionary airborne technology called LiDAR (“light detection and ranging”) is making it [...]
October 10, 2010
Land “evapotranspiration” taking unexpected turn: huge parts of world are drying up
The soils in large areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including major portions of Australia, Africa and South America, have been drying up in the past decade.
October 2, 2010
Countdown on the Columbia
Deadline looms for the river that turned darkness to dawn
More than 400 dams produce power and control floods in the nation’s fourth largest river basin. The U.S./Canada treaty that established responsibilities for water flow and power sharing is due for renewal.
July 23, 2010
Uncharted Waters
Communities, engineers and scientists prepare for the next tsunami
It may come like it did the last time, in the middle of a cold and blustery January night. Suddenly the ground will begin to shake, windows will shatter, bridges collapse, the electricity will go out and parents will frantically try to find a flashlight and dig sleepy kids out of bed, ignore everything else [...]
April 23, 2010
Living on the Fault
On a computer generated diagram of seismic profiles from Nepal and Tibet, John Nabelek traces a thin blue line. “That’s the interface between the Indian and the Eurasian tectonic plates,” he says. The earthquake-prone, mountainous terrain above it is home to an estimated 40 million people. “It is very steep. In earthquakes, landslides come tumbling [...]
February 22, 2010
Depths of Discovery
A young oceanographer carries on a legacy of epic seafloor science.
The colossal clamshells caught the young scientist’s eye soon after he arrived at Oregon State University in the late 1970s. Giant bivalves the size of footballs were piled in the corners of offices and cradled in the arms of researchers walking the halls of the School of Oceanography. “I realized pretty quickly that they weren’t [...]
January 24, 2009
Committed to a Fault
Ajeet Johnson is digging into Central Oregon's violent past
Growing up in Central Oregon’s spectacular landscape, Ajeet Johnson challenged the backcountry of the Cascades. She pulled herself hand-over-hand up Smith Rock and carved down slopes at Mt. Bachelor, but over time, she became curious about the forces that shaped the terrain and will influence its future.
January 23, 2009
Wired Watershed
Fiberoptics bring new precision to ecosystem sensing
It took a potato launcher, a canoe and a helium-filled balloon to propel a high-tech scientific enterprise during an international workshop at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.
July 19, 2008
Acid Ocean
New study finds increasing acidification along the West Coast
Water that upwells seasonally along the West Coast of North America is growing increasingly acidic, according to a survey conducted in 2007 by an international team of scientists. In June, they reported finding acidified ocean water within 20 miles of the shoreline, raising concern for marine ecosystems from Canada to Mexico. Deep-ocean currents take years [...]
July 23, 2007
Cyberforest Unplugged
OSU undergrad team designs wireless sensor system
The science of mountain airsheds requires a strong back as well as a sharp mind — especially when you’re lugging a 65-pound golf-cart battery in your pack. An interdisciplinary team of OSU students spent 10 weeks this summer scaling the steep slopes of H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest to enable researchers to unplug their high-tech gear [...]
July 23, 2007
Dreaming of Hurricanes
When Kim Johnson was 8 years old, she would race through her school work so she could watch the Weather Channel. Her favorite show was “Weather in the Classroom,” and Johnson was in love with the subject. Seeing weather in action gave her a thrill. Now, the OSU senior and Honors College student from Beaverton, [...]
July 23, 2007
Glass Half Full (roughly speaking)
It takes a model to measure subsurface water
The next time you sip a glass of spring water, consider this: Before it got to your lips, that water was soaking through soil, creeping along basalt crevices or flowing through porous volcanic rock. It nurtured microbes, carried dissolved minerals and may have spread the byproducts of human activities. Its pivotal role in the environment [...]
July 23, 2007
Grasping for Air
Nighttime breezes may be key to mountain forests
Under a blue sky in mid-March, an Oregon State University research team left Corvallis to collect data in a valley deep in Oregon’s western Cascades. The two-hour ride to the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest gave the technicians and graduate students time to catch up before arriving at the facility’s headquarters near Blue River. They would [...]
July 22, 2007
Winds of Change
Scientists link air and water currents as shifting conditions take their toll on the Oregon coast
In his 32 years as a crab fisherman off the central Oregon coast, Al Pazar has pulled up a lot of strange things in his pots: wolf eels, skates, huge starfish, fossilized rocks, octopi, fish that rarely stray south of Alaska, and others that prefer the warm subtropical waters off Mexico. But until July 2002, [...]
April 1, 2007
Fishing for Life
Every spring, the Umatilla people of northeastern Oregon join other Columbia River tribes in celebrating the return of the salmon. Growing up on the reservation in the foothills of the Blue Mountains east of Pendleton, Patrick Luke learned to appreciate the bond between fish and people. When he wasn’t helping to tend the family’s horses, [...]
April 1, 2007
Grinding Out Lessons From the Earth
When Jeremiah Oxford, a master’s student from Coos Bay, Oregon, isn’t in class or writing a paper, he puts his mind to that most unacademic of tasks: grinding rocks. Tedious as it might sound, his work in Robert Duncan’s lab in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences isn’t a punishment. Instead, he is preparing [...]
April 1, 2007
A Student’s View
To become a research scientist and a teacher — that’s Sam VanLaningham’s goal. The OSU Ph.D. student from Ellensburg, Washington, received his master’s degree working with Andrew Meigs in the Department of Geosciences. For his Ph.D., VanLaningham walked next door to study with Bob Duncan and Nick Pisias in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric [...]
April 1, 2007
Lessons From the Zumwalt Prairie
Grazing for nature
When Marcy Cottrell Houle headed to the Zumwalt Prairie in the 1980s with her topo maps, tree-climbing gear and raptor leg bands to study hawks, she assumed wildlife and cows were incompatible. After all, that was the prevailing view — and there were millions of overgrazed acres across the West to prove it. So when [...]
February 1, 2007
Genes of Autumn
“Its leaves have been asking it from time to time, in a whisper, ‘When shall we redden?’” Henry David Thoreau Autumnal Tints, 1862 The magical transformation of autumn leaves inspires poets and awes observers. But the genetic triggers that produce those stunning colors have long baffled scientists. Until now. OSU researchers, studying aspens with scientists [...]
February 1, 2007
Scientists Witness Undersea Eruption
As OSU volcanologist Bill Chadwick watches live images of a violent series of explosions deep in the Pacific, he searches for words that capture the otherworldly scene. “It’s like a balloon popping, or a pillow!” Chadwick is witnessing for the first time what no one has seen before: explosive eruptions of a submarine volcano. Terra [...]
February 1, 2007
Underwater Volcano Eruption
No need to duck! Watch an underwater volcano erupt in this video shot by OSU researchers.
April 23, 2006
Sounding an Arctic Retreat
The Arctic doesn’t give up its secrets without a fight. A science team led by OSU oceanographer Kelly Falkner learned that the hard way last year when a sudden windstorm off the northern Greenland coast destroyed their tents and scattered debris for miles.
April 23, 2006
Fish Bones and Tree Rings
Fish bones smaller than a fingernail have a big story to tell.
