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ARCHIVE - EES Division Highlights/AccomplishmentsMarch 27, 2006 EES Post Doc Ulrich and Collaborators Publish in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (March 2006 issue) In this work the nonlinear elastic response of cracks in solid materials and the acoustic energy localization ability of time reversed acoustics (TRA) were used in concert to locate and image a complex crack on the surface of a three dimensional glass block. This is the first experimental study to use nonlinear elastic wave spectroscopy (NEWS) with TRA for imaging cracks in 3-D solid materials. Work has begun to expand the capabilities of this technique to locate internal cracks, as well as the surficial scatterers presented here. The results of these experiments have implications for both nondestructive evaluation (NDE), study of crack motion due to elastic wave propagation, and potential for imaging fractures in situ. Publication information: T. J. Ulrich, P. A. Johnson and A. M. Sutin, "Imaging nonlinear scatterers applying the time reversal mirror," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 119, 1514-1518 (2006)
Figure 2. A. Doped glass block showing the attached sources. The sources are located approximately symmetrically about the crack on the apposing face. A cm scale is located on the right of the sample. B. Frequency components in the focused signal at each focal point. Frequencies of note are indicated by a vertical dashed line. The approximate extent of the damaged region is depicted by the horizontal dotted lines. March 20, 2006 Los Alamos Scientists Discover Pervasive and Profound Pollution Effects on Indian Ocean Clouds In a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters on March 20, 2006, Los Alamos scientists report profound and surprising effects that aerosol pollution from SE Asia has on the clouds over the Indian Ocean. This discovery has important ramifications to climate change policy. The team of EES and ISR scientists including Petr Chylek, Manvendra Dubey, Seth Olsen and Garrett Altmann analyzed 5 years of satellite data over the seas adjacent to the Indian sub-continent to investigate the effect of aerosols on the size distribution of cloud droplets and ice crystals (indirect aerosol effect). During the winter months of increased anthropogenic pollution they observe smaller sizes of cloud droplets in water clouds in agreement with the expected aerosol indirect effect. However, contrary to expectations, they find that during episodes of increased pollution the effective radius of ice crystals is shifted toward the larger sizes. They propose a combination of natural seasonal variability of meteorological conditions and an “inverse aerosol indirect effect” caused by heterogeneous ice nucleation as a possible explanation of the observed ice crystal growth. This heterogeneous ice nucleation effects cirrus clouds significantly, and is ignored by present global climate models used for climate assessments. By including heterogeneous ice nucleation in their global climate model the authors reproduce the observed increase in ice crystal size in cirrus clouds during the enhanced pollution episodes. The inclusion of this new aerosol effect on cirrus clouds will increase the amount of cooling by allowing more thermal infrared radiation to escape from the earth. This anthropogenic aerosol pollution partially masks the warming by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. In the future, developing countries like India and China will improve their air quality (as the developed world has done) to reduce the warming effects of greenhouse gases. This Los Alamos led research created strong and effective international collaborations with V. Ramanathan of UC-San Diego, Y. Kaufman of NASA, U. Lohmann of ETH, Zurich, G. Lesins of Dalhousie University Canada, and J. Hudson of Desert Research Institute. The work was funded by the aerosol LDRD-DR project http://aerosols.lanl.gov .
Figure 1. The average effective radius of water droplets and ice crystals during clean air summer months (June to September 2003) and polluted winter (November 2003 to March 2004). The corresponding scales are in p.m. March 13, 2006 Jeanne Fair Interviewed for Good Morning America Segment for March 13, 2006 As part of a week-long series on avian influenza, ABC News interviewed the LANL EpiCast team on their current influenza modeling and Jeanne Fair (EES-2) on the recent work with bird viruses. The story will be on influenza in humans and two scenarios for avian influenza H5N1 in North America. At EES-2, Jeanne supplied background information on avian influenza and the human--bird interface that could result in transmission of the H5N1 virus. She highlighted the large knowledge gap surrounding transmission of H5N1 to humans. Currently, it is unknown which species will be important in virus transfer. Bird to human transfer has been highlighted in the news, but other species, such as cats, could also be involved. In addition, some species will be important for contact with humans and poultry, and other species will be important biologically for rapid transmission of the virus. Knowing which species will be carriers of influenza and which species will not be susceptible will be important for the national surveillance program for bird monitoring as well as developing potential controls. The ABC News team filmed pigeons being measured and bled for collaborative research involving EES, Bioscience, and ENV Divisions on developing immunology technology. The segment aired on Monday, March 13, on ABC’s Good Morning America during the first hour of the show.
Figure 1. (A.) Jeanne Fair talks with ABC producer Beth Tribolet for the Good Morning America segment. (B.) Jeanne Fair measures the wing web of a pigeon for the Good Morning America segment. Japan Atomic Energy Commissioner Visits WIPP How do you communicate with the public? How will you mark WIPP after closure so that deep-buried radioactive wastes remain undisturbed? These and other questions were posed by Commissioner Hajimu Maeda of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission to WIPP management on a stopover to Carlsbad the first week of March, 2006. Maeda, accompanied by Noakazu Sumitani, a researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission, made a side-trip to WIPP after attending the international Waste Management ’06 Symposium in Tucson, AZ. Los Alamos National Laboratory-Carlsbad EES-12 Operations Manager Ned Elkins and DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Dave Moody took the guests on a tour of the WIPP facility, followed by a noon meeting with WIPP managers to discuss a number of questions Maeda’s staff e-mailed prior to his visit. When the discussion turned to site safety, Commissioner Maeda underscored the importance of individual responsibility. “Safety begins when the individual takes responsibility for his own protection.” WTS Safety and Health Manager, Craig Herndon, was quick to add, “And when individual responsibility extends to the safety of coworkers, the safety factor grows exponentially.” On his return to Tokyo, Sumitani thanked his WIPP hosts by e-mail. “I think the openness of information at WIPP was very good. We were able to get significant information about WIPP for disposal of future TRU waste in Japan.”  Figure 2. Members of Japan’s Atomic Energy Commission visit WIPP officials. Pictured left to right: Ned Elkins, Noakazu Sumitani, Hajimu Maeda, Dave Moody. EES-12 Staff Member Presents Paper at the Waste Management 2006 Symposium Sheila Lott (EES-12) presented a full paper at the Waste Management 2006 Symposium entitled, “The Road To Recertification—TRU Waste Inventory,” describing how transuranic waste inventory data are used in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s Recertification Performance Assessment. Beverly Crawford, Sheila Lott, Bill McInroy, Laurie Sparks and Greg VanSoest (all from EES-12) authored the paper. The Waste Management 2006 Symposium was held February 26 through March 2 in Tucson, Arizona. The symposium focuses on all elements of nuclear waste management including High Level Waste, Spent Nuclear Fuel, Transuranic Waste, and Mixed Waste, as well as Environmental Management. The symposium brings members of several professional engineering groups and government agencies together to discuss the research, developments, and operations of waste management groups across the country. This year’s meeting expanded to an attendance of nearly 2,000 experts with over 600 presentations in 79 sessions. The symposium is sponsored by the University of Arizona, American Nuclear Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New Mexico State University, Waste Management Education and Research Consortium; and the World Nuclear Association, with the cooperation of the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, and the Environmental Protection Agency. February 21, 2006 Yucca Mountain Tours "Tours" at Yucca Mountain consist of a general briefing of the tunnel/repository layout and experiments (both completed and ongoing). The briefings are conducted in an underground excavation off the main tunnel called an Alcove. This Alcove has been customized for tours, including maps/displays and is about 160 meters (175 yards) underground. On February 13, 2006, Brian Dozier (EES-7) conducted a tour of Yucca Mountain for three staff from the Department of Energy, Human Resources, in Washington, DC. On February 14, 2006, Brian Dozier (EES-7) briefed two groups of visitors: (1) from the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice, and (2) from the Nuclear Energy Institute and Non-Destructive Testing Management Association. On February 15, 2006, Dick Kovach (EES-7) briefed two groups of visitors: (1) the Governor of Delaware and staff, and (2) Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) VPs and managers (a pro nuclear power advocacy group). February 27, 2006 "Tours" at Yucca Mountain consist of a general briefing of the tunnel/repository layout and experiments (both completed and ongoing). The briefings are conducted in an underground excavation off the main tunnel called an Alcove. This Alcove has been customized for tours, including maps/displays and is about 160 meters (175 yards) underground. On February 23, Dick Kovach (EES-7) provided a briefing and tour of Yucca Mountain to two groups of visitors: (1) Transportation Packaging & Shipping Committee members from Nuclear Fuel Service, Inc. and BWX Technologies and (2) Allan Kerpan, Member, Canadian Legislative Assembly; about 20 Legislators from Minnesota, including Senators Ellen Anderson, Julia Rosen, and David Senjem; and several managers from Xcel Energy (Xcel serves energy needs to 10 Western and Midwestern states, including 2 nuclear power plants). February 13, 2006 EES Participates In Presentation For Secretary Bodman About Geospatial Science On Monday, January 31st, they attended a joint meeting of the newly formed DOE Geospatial Science Program Management Office (GS-PMO) and the DOE Geospatial Science Steering Committee (GSSC). Behr-Andres is the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) representative for the GS-PMO tri-chair governance, and Rich is the GSSC vice-chair and LANL GSSC representative. Rich presented an overview of Geospatial Science at LANL. Other presenters included GSSC representatives from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, the Remote Sensing Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Savannah River National Laboratory. Daniel Cotter, Geospatial Management Officer for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), discussed geospatial science applications within DHS. Col. Brian Cullis, DoD Special Assistant for Geospatial Information Policy and Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure Executive Manager, presented an overview of the Pentagon's strategy for management of geospatial data and applications. Discussion focused on the path forward for the DOE Geospatial Science Program. On Tuesday, January 31st, Secretary Bodman attended an opening VIP walkthrough of the Geospatial Science Expo in the Forrestal building lobby. The Secretary, accompanied by new DOE CIO Tom Pyke, whose office is coordinating the new Geospatial Science initiative, viewed four presentations by members of the DOE GSSC: The DOE Geospatial Science Expo presents advanced geospatial science applications from across the complex that support DOE's mission in defense, energy, science, and environment. The Geospatial Science Program Management Office sponsors the Expo. The Expo features a continuous-loop "Geospatial Science Portfolio" slide show (including 20 LANL slides) and a series of posters from across the DOE complex (including 7 LANL posters). LANL posters included the following: "Impacts of Extreme Events" by Paul Rich (EES-9); "GIS Support for DOE Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships" by Tim Carr and Paul Rich (EES-9); "Impacts of Hurricanes and Other Extreme Weather Events on Critical Infrastructure" by Austin Ivey and Brian Bush (D-4); "Use of GIS for Detailed Geomorphic Mapping to Evaluate Contaminants Dispersed by Fluvial Processes" by Rick Kelley, Steven Reneau, Danny Katzman (EES-9), and Paul Drakos (ENV-ECR); "Uncovering Buried Volcanoes at Yucca Mountain" by Frank Perry and Rick Kelley (EES-9); "Drought-Induced Mortality in Semiarid Woodlands" by Paul Rich (EES-9), Randy Balice (ENV-ECO), David D. Breshears, Kevin Price, Neil Cobb, Jude Kastens, and Craig Allen; and "GIS Outreach for Native Americans" by Byron Yepa (LANL Tribal Relations) and Doug Walther (EES-9). The Expo will be going on the road after February 10, rotating between DOE Laboratories and Facilities. During the DOE GIS User Group Meeting on February 1, Tina Behr-Andres gave a presentation, "The DOE Geospatial Science Program Management Office (GS-PMO)," and Paul Rich gave a presentation, "DOE Geospatial Science Integrated Project Teams (IPTs) and Path Forward". EES Tours of Yucca Mountain Project February 6, 2006 Volcano Seismology Workshop in Ecuador
January 30, 2005 Staff Member Receives Certificate of Appreciation from DOE Nevada Site Office EES Conducts Tours of Yucca Mountain Repository EES Contributes to Yucca Mountain Investigations In ongoing laboratory experiments, the C-INC geochemistry team in collaboration with Schon Levy and Steve Chipera (EES-6) has demonstrated that both uranium and neptunium have a wide range of desorption rates from Yucca Mountain alluvium. Radionuclides of these two elements contribute significantly to Yucca Mountain risk assessments. The very slow long-term desorption of a significant fraction of the sorbed uranium or neptunium indicates that the effective retardation of these elements in the alluvium may be much greater than what batch sorption and short-term desorption experiments have indicated in the past. These previous experiments are sensitive only to the relatively large fraction of rapidly desorbing uranium and neptunium, resulting in sorption parameter estimates that significantly underestimate the retardation capacity of the alluvium over long time and distance scales. In addition to conducting further experiments, the team is currently developing process models that are consistent with the experimental results and that can be readily incorporated into Yucca Mountain radionuclide transport models. EES-9 employees (Cleoves Martinez and Miles Fitzgerald) provided QA support; the overall project is managed by Greg Valentine (EES-6) and Paul Dixon (EES-YMP). January 23, 2006 Early Hominid Discoveries in Ethiopia Reported in Nature Giday WoldeGabriel (EES-6) and a team of international collaborators were the subject of a news feature in the January 2, 2006 issue of Nature. The news article describes the paleontologic, geologic and paleoanthropologic work of the team of researchers in the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia. The team has made a series of key discoveries in this area during the last dozen years. They have identified several new species of hominids and performed innovative research that accurately dates the hominid fossils and places these human ancestors in an ecological context. Dr. WoldeGabriel and the team have been in the field for the past month and a half. Steen Rasmussen Named World Technology Network Fellow in Biotechnology Each year the World Technology Network (WTN), a San Francisco based organization, elects the most innovative people in science and engineering, education, business, law, policy, and the arts. The WTN members are focused on the business or science of bringing important emerging technologies of all types into reality. The WTN's membership is comprised of over 700 individuals and organizations from over 50 countries nominated and judged by their peers to be the most innovative in the technology world. The WTN exists to "encourage serendipity." The WTN works to accomplish its mission through events for its members (and others) to help make connections among them, and to examine the likely implications and possible applications of emerging technologies. The World Technology Awards are presented each year to the outstanding innovators from each sector within the technology arena, both as a way to honor those individuals and as a vetting mechanism to determine the newest WTN members. For the first time a LANL scientist, Steen Rasmussen (EES-6), was nominated as one of the top five innovators of the year in the Biotechnology category and became a WTN Fellow. Next year the new science and technology WTN Fellows will join earlier year’s WTN Fellows to elect the 2006 innovators in the different science and engineering categories. The overall WTN winners were announced at the 2005 WTN Summit in San Francisco in November. The overall winner of the Biotechnology category was Nadrian Seeman of New York University for his work on DNA-based nanotechnlogy. Rasmussen’s team was nominated for their radical design of a minimal self-replicating nanomachine. EES Scientist Gives Invited Public Lecture at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Steen Rasmussen (EES-6) gave an invited public lecture on “Protocell Assembly” at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC. It was part of AAAS seminar series on Science and Policy seeking to explore how cutting edge science may impact Social, Ethical, and Religious issues. Philosophy Professor Peter from Carnage Mellon University, as Steen’s opponent, gave a follow up lecture discussing some the societal issues associated with nanotechnology and the possibilities of the living technology. Aa one and half hour discussion followed the formal presentation with many questions from the audience. AAAS is best known as the publisher of Science Magazine, but it also advises Congress on science and technology issues, and develops K-12 and university science curriculums. ARM Mobile Facility Deployment to Africa Beginning this month, scientists in EES-2 will begin taking data from LANL’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Mobile Facility (AMF) deployed in Niger, West Africa at the Niamey International Airport. Los Alamos engineers and technicians are responsible for deploying the AMF and operating the facility during its 6 to 18 month deployment. As part of this intensive operation period, the AMF will be deployed beneath the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget instrument on the Meteosat satellite. The deployment is timed to coincide with the field phases of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis experiment, in which extensive airborne and surface measurements will be made in the region of the deployment site. This will enable the first direct measurements of the divergence of solar and thermal radiation across the atmosphere in this region, combined with measurements of the corresponding atmospheric structure, using the temporal sampling necessary to address fundamental questions related to radiative forcing of climate. LANL is one of several laboratory partners contributing to the overall mission of the ARM Program. The EES-2 team at LANL was selected to manage the mobile facility because of their level of expertise and success at operating the TWP sites over the past 10 years. For more information about the AMF and to find out about future deployments, visit the ARM web site at www.arm.gov. Sponsored by DOE's Office of Science and managed by the Office of Biological and EnvironmentalResearch, the ARM Program is designed to advance our understanding of global climate by providing data for advanced climate models.
Figure 2A. ARM Mobile Facility deployment in Niamey, Niger. B. Meteorological staff at the Niamey airport launch a weather balloon. January 17, 2006 Water On Mars But No Shallow Sea
Figure 1. Terrestrial surge deposits compared with cross-stratified Martian deposits. A: Typical layered and cross-bedded aspect of a terrestrial deposit, Kilbourne Hole, NM. B: Upper Dells mosaic taken on sol (martian day) 41. Lines added to highlight cross-sets. C: Festoon cross-beds from Kilbourne Hole, NM. Field Measurements of the Stardust Space Capsule Returning to Earth
Figure 2. Artist's conception of Stardust as it collected cometary dust particles.
Figure 3. A: NASA photograph of the Stardust Capsule moving through the Earth's atmosphere. Staff Member Receives Award from Washington TRU Solutions LLC January 11, 2006
C. Rowe (EES-11) convened two special sessions at AGU. "Advances in Signal Processing Methods in Seismology" was the second-largest seismology session with 51 abstracts; EES-11's Mike Fehler was an invited speaker at this session. "Lithospheric Structure of East Asia" was the largest special session at AGU and attracted 76 abstracts. Scott Phillips and George Randall, both of EES-11, were invited speakers in this joint Tectonophysics/Seismology session. In addition, many of the presentations were the result of collaborations with industry, government organizations, and universities including: US Forest Service, US Geological Society, University of Arizona, UCSC, UCB, UCSB, UCSD (Scripts) UCLA, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, MIT, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Oklahoma, University of New Mexico, Northern Arizona University, San Diego State University, Purdue. UT, Golden West College, University of Oregon, California Institute of Technology, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Itasca Consulting Group, and Gaffney Associates, Inc. For more information on the 2005 meeting, visit: LANL Conducts Large Scale Physics Experiment in support of Stockpile Stewardship and Test Readiness EES Student Develops Digital Geological Map of Koobi Fora Area in Africa |
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