NEWSLETTER
OF THE ARIZONA-NEVADA
ACADEMY OF SCIENCE

Department of Geosciences
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona 85721-0077
(520) 621 7953, (520) 621 7953
anas@geo.arizona.edu
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/anas

February, 2002

Editor, Stephen Williams
Assisted by Owen K. Davis
anas@geo.arizona.edu

http://geo.arizona.edu/anas/mapmidwstrn.html

Glendale has a much to offer, nearby, for accompanying persons. Visit http://tour.glendaleaz.org/attractions.html for a sampling.

MEETING SCHEDULE

April 6

7:00 - 11:30 am
Registration, Ocotillo Hall, Lobby, Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ

8:00 - 11:30 am
ANAS 46^th Annual Meeting. Ocotillo Hall, Rooms 101-108, Lecture Halls E,F,G. Papers and Poster Session

12:00 -1:15 pm
Luncheon and Annual Business Meeting, Multipurpose Room, Cholla Hall.
The luncheon Lecture will be,

"Bioterrorism: What You Need to Know" Presented by John Burdick, Ph.D., MWU Dean of Basic Sciences; Lieutenant Colonel, Medical Service Corps, United States Army Reserves.
"A historical perspective of the use of biological and chemical agents as instruments of terrorism. Learn the facts about anthrax, smallpox, and other biological agents classified as possible threats by the National Security Council and the World Health Organization."

1:45 - 5:00 pm
ANAS 46^th Annual Meeting. Ocotillo Hall, Rooms 101-108, Lecture Halls E-F,G. Papers and Poster Session

HOST HOTELS

Announcement

Advertising Opportunity in the: Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science. Deadline for Next Journal Issue: March 1, 2002.

The Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science's journal will now include advertisements and other paid announcements. Current circulation consists of 332 individual members and 84 institutional members (libraries).

Rates:

Full page = $500
1/2 page = $250
1/4 page = $125
Business card = $50

Please send questions, and camera-ready ads to:

Arizona Public Education gets and "F" for funding

In a recent survey, the state of Arizona got an "F" for funding of Public Education, and it hasn't raised spending for early learning since 1996. And, although it receives a "C" for accountability, the future of Arizona's AIMS test, which was scheduled to count for this year's seniors, is uncertain. The results of survey of Public Education by EDUCATION WEEK is available online at www.edweek.org/sreports/qc02/ The Arizona report card of is at www.edweek.org/sreports/

USGS Reveals Strategy for National Map Project

Geologists and Geographers are looking forward to seeing the results of the USGS' ambitious 10-year plan to develop a seamless, continuously maintained, nationally consistent set of online, public-domain geographic base information for the entire United States. In late 2001, U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) published the final report of the task force that defined The National Map, the agency's largest mapping endeavor to date, as well as a companion "Issues and Actions" document that summarizes reviews of the report. The documents are available on the USGS Web site at http://www.nationalmap.usgs.gov

National Workshops for Science and Mathematics Teachers.

AAAS' Project 2061 promotes science literacy and develops K-12 benchmarks for student learning in science, mathematics, and technology. This year Project 2061 will be hosting workshops for MATHEMATICS and SCIENCE educators.

The Project 2061 workshop "Using Atlas of Science Literacy," will be held:

• Austin, TX, April 4-6· Chicago, IL, May 2-4
• San Francisco, CA, October 10-12
• Miami, FL, November 14-16

• Denver, CO, March 7-9
• Providence, RI, March 14-16
• New York, NY, April 11-13
• Atlanta, GA, May 9-11
• Milwaukee, WI, July 10-12
• Anchorage, AL, July 17-19
• Boston, MA, August 7-9
• Charlotte, NC, October 10-12
• Honolulu HI, October 24-26
• Phoenix, AZ, November 7-9
• Los Angeles, CA, November 14-16

SCIENTISTS TO BEGIN DEEP LAKE DRILLING IN AFRICA'S LAKE MALAWI

Scientists from four U.S. universities next year will core deep into arguably the longest and richest archive of Earth's climate -- an untapped,year-by-year continuous record going back millions of years in a part of the world that may drive global climate and where humans first evolved.

Enabled by a newly developed and affordable deep-lake drilling system called GLAD800, t hey will for the first time core sediments from the bottom of one of the African Great Lakes, 7-million-year-old Lake Malawi.

"Our goal is to get something on the order of a half-million to million-year record on past climate and environment, taking advantage of the fact that these lake sediments are frequently annually layered," said University ofArizona Professor Andrew Cohen.

Cohen and David Dettman of the UA geosciences department are principal investigators on the award for the UA. They collaborate on the project with scientists from Syracuse University, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and the University of Rhode Island. Christopher Scholz of Syracuse University is principal investigator for logistics on the Malawi Lake drilling project,which is funded by a new $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Each annual layer of Lake Malawi sediment consists of a black zone - the sediment runoff from land deposited during the rainy season -- and a light-color seam of diatoms, or single-celled algae, that formed during the productivity bloom of each dry season, Cohen said.

not exaggerating to say that there are probably a hundred different things we can analyze from the cores.

"But a big question for us has always been whether the global climate engine has been driven by advance and retreat of glaciers at high latitudes or by circulation patterns at the tropics. It has long been assumed that Earth's climate engine was driven by the ice sheets themselves.

But based on theory, there's good reason to believe the tropics may be driving the global climate system. So one of the first things we want to address is the question of whether the climate history of the tropics leads or lags behind climate of the polar regions," Cohen said.

An NSF-funded university consortium called DOSECC (Drilling,Observation and Sampling of the Earth's Continental Crust) built the Global Lake Drilling 800 rig, or GLAD800, with funds from the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP). The rig was installed on a floating platform and successfully field tested on the Great Salt Lake and nearby Bear Lake, Utah, in August 2000."

GLAD800 technology has made what we've planned and dreamed of for decades affordable," Cohen said. "It costs about $75,000 a day to operate the ship used in the Ocean Drilling Program. It costs about $3,000 a day to operateGLAD800.

This is a risky scientific expedition, to be sure," said David Verardo of the NSF Earth System History program. "We are moving a new drilling system into a technologically challenging environment. Lake Malawi is deep and the weather window for drilling operations is short and unforgiving. What spurs us on, however, is the potential scientific payoff in recovering critical baseline data on Earth's climate system...Betting on future climates without such baseline data is like investing in a company's stock without assessing its past performance. It just isn't prudent."