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ARCHIVE - EES Division Highlights/Accomplishments
March 26, 2006
Research on volcanic activity in the Yucca Mountain area published EES Division members working to assess volcanic risk for the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository recently published a paper that describes in detail the Lathrop Wells scoria cone volcano—the most important analog to potential future activity in the Yucca Mountain region (Valentine GA, Krier DJ, Perry FV, Heiken G, 2007, “Eruptive and geomorphic processes at the Lathrop Wells scoria cone volcano,” Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, v. 161, pp. 57-80). The authors show that that the volcano is monogenetic (erupted in one episode lasting months to a few years), in contrast to previous theories of the volcano having polycyclic activity. A wide range of eruptive processes occurred with little change in major element composition. The researchers conclude that the variation in explosive and effusive processes, including their simultaneous occurrence; must result entirely from fluid dynamic, crystallization, and degassing process in the ascending multiphase magma. The study is of interest to the Yucca Mountain Project because it helps define parameters for risk assessment, and to the broader volcanology community because of the growing interest in basaltic eruptive processes.
Figure 2. Left: aerial photograph of the Lathrop Wells volcano. Right: Contours of thickness of fallout deposits from the eruption, units in cm. Inset shows possible regional extent based upon thin (~1 cm) remnants of ash in distal locations. Lettered stations refer to stratigraphic columns. STE organizations contribute to Thermos 7 success Thermos 7 was successfully fired on March 22. This was the second dynamic plutonium experiment (DPE) conducted during the week. It is the second time the team has conducted two DPEs in a single week, and is the sixth DPE in the Thermos series. All diagnostics returned excellent data. The sample, along with data, will be returned to LANL for further post-shot analysis. Thermos 7 closes out the first sequence of six shots where the shock pressure and geometry were varied to cover a matrix of parameters, providing a rich data set for input to constitutive models and for comparison to calculations. The team will start the second sequence of six more shots in two weeks. The second sequence will again explore a variety of pressure and shock geometry interactions that will extend the range of the first sequence as well as check on the reproducibility of the experiments. The second set will include improvements in the radiography field of view and scatter shielding, and improvements in mounting the targets, which are the results of lessons learned from the first sequence. Employees from EES-11, MST-16, P-22, P-23, and T-3 contributed to this experiment. March 19, 2006 Imaging fractures applying Time Reversal Nonlinear Elastic Wave Spectroscopy (NEWS) published T. J. Ulrich, Paul Johnson, and Robert Guyer (all in EES-11) published laboratory imaging results on the interaction of cracks with elastic waves in the March 9th issue of Physical Review Letters(URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v98/e104301). The acoustics group in EES is developing crack (“damage”) imaging methods that combine Nonlinear Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) [also termed Nonlinear Elastic Wave Spectroscopy, NEWS] and time reverse acoustics. The general method is termed Time Reversal Nonlinear Elastic Wave Spectroscopy (TR NEWS). The basis of the method is to excite two waves in a solid. If a crack is present, nonlinear mixing results at the crack, and sidebands (sum and difference frequency waves) are formed. Other scatterers, such as layer boundaries, voids etc. produceonly linear scattering. The full signal train is detected, and one filters out all but the sidebands. Following this, one time-reverses the filtered signal, re-emits it from the detector, and it focuses at the nonlinear source, i.e., the crack. An example of a TR NEWS imaging experiment is shown in Figure 5. In the case of internal cracks in a 3-D solid, one cannot detect at the location of a fracture. Thus a modified method is used, whereby the detected signal is filtered and time reversed, but the wave is back propagated through a velocity model. Therefore the crack can be located if the velocity model is good. Efforts are being made to apply very similar methods for earthquake source localization and to study source complexity. LDRD supported the research. For more information: http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/ees/ ees11/geophysics/nonlinear/nonlinear.shtml
Figure 5. The crack is shown as a thin white line. The hot spots are associated with the crack opening and crack tip. A secondary hot spot is believed to be due to geometrical scattering of the sideband wave.
Poster selected for inclusion in the 2007 Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) Map Book Rick Kelley of EES-9’s Geographical Information Systems Laboratory (GISLab) was notified that a poster he presented at the ESRI International User Conference, entitled “Extents, Thicknesses and Volumes of Quaternary Volcanic Cones, Southern Nevada,” was chosen for inclusion in the 2007 ESRI Map Book: Volume 22. This poster was also awarded 2nd place overall in the Professional category at the 2006 Southwest Users Group Conference, held in Flagstaff, AZ. The work represented by this poster was performed as part of the Yucca Mountain Probabilistic Volcanic Hazard Analysis (PVHA) project. Published annually since 1984, the ESRI Map Book is the only publication dedicated to acknowledging the important and innovative accomplishments of GIS users and cartographers around the world. Each volume of the ESRI Map Book showcases a small portion of the thousands of works presented each year at the Map Gallery Exhibition during the annual ESRI International User Conference. This marks the 4th year in a row that maps and posters from EES-9’s GISLab have been included in the ESRI Map Book. March 12, 2006 LANL and National Center for Atmospheric Research sponsor scientific workshop Los Alamos National Laboratory (EES-IGPP) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) sponsored a workshop “Weather Extremes Impacts on Infrastructure”, February 27-28 in Santa Fe, NM. The Workshop brought together approximately 50 scientists and engineers from NCAR, LANL, other DOE laboratories, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration laboratories, and a wide range of universities; who work on weather extremes and climate modeling, infrastructure and other impact models, and sociological response. Impacts considered in the workshop included flood, fire, infrastructure security, forest fire, and biochemical dispersion. The goals of the workshop were to (1) identify the science challenges affecting their work, (2) outline how to improve infrastructure impact models, and (3) document gaps between existing and desired analytic capabilities. The product of the workshop was a white paper documenting the limitations of existing analytic capabilities and formulating desired future capabilities. The workshop also created an opportunity to better understand and communicate the requirements at the intersection of these two fields, and to form multidisciplinary collaborations. Organizers of the workshop included Brian Bush (D-4), Gary Geernaert (EES-IGPP), and Greg Holland (NCAR). The LANL DOD Program Office (D.V. Rao) provided funding.
EES-11 Poster, “Super-Resolution Ultrasound Tomography: a Preliminary Study with a Ring Array,” wins award at SPIE Medical Imaging 2007 Symposium An international medical-imaging collaboration, headed by Lianjie Huang (EES-11), won Honorable Mention Poster Award at the Medical Imaging 2007 Symposium of the International Society for Optical Engineering, held in San Diego, CA, February 17-22. Huang’s collaboration is developing a novel technology for ultrasound tomography. This technology has already demonstrated significant improvements in ultrasonic image resolution. The poster detailing this technology was one of 133 posters in the special session on “Physics of Medical Imaging,” most of which dealt with enhanced diagnostic imaging of tissue. This is the first experimental demonstration of an image resolution better than a quarter of ultrasound wavelength obtained using the factorization method and a ring transducer array. Huang and his team are conducting research to tackle the imaging problem that most breast cancers in women with dense breasts are undetectable by mammography, the only routine screening tool for breast cancers. The research team has made significant progress toward detection of those cancers using novel ultrasound tomography. Huang and his collaborators Y. Quan (Stanford), R. G. Pratt (Queen’s University, Canada), F. Simonetti (Imperial College, London), and N. Duric (Karmanos Cancer Institute, MI), presented two talks and two posters on their novel ultrasound breast-cancer imaging techniques at the conference. The titles of their conference papers are: “Time-of-flight ultrasound tomography using bent rays,” “Tomography with ultrasound waveforms,” “Super-resolution ultrasound tomography,” and “Reflectivity imaging for heterogeneous breasts.” Simonetti, Huang, Duric, and O. Rama (Karmanos Cancer Institute, MI) coauthored the winning poster, “Super-resolution ultrasound tomography: a preliminary study with a ring array”. LDRD supported the research.
Figure 1. Comparison of monochromatic images of two nylon wires at 1 MHz, scanned with a ring transducer array. The left panel is the image obtained using a conventional ultrasound imaging method with diffraction stacking, which demonstrates that it cannot resolve the two wires separated only by a quarter of ultrasound wavelength. The right panel is the super-resolution imaging result obtained with the factorization method, which clearly shows the images of two wires. March 5, 2007 Publications in Plant, Cell and Environment on climate change impacts on ecosystem
Figure 1. An open leaf gas exchange system coupled to a tunable diode laser (TDL) allowed measurement of the isotope composition of leaf-respired CO2 online and in real time. February 26, 2007 Groundbreaking results published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Researchers Donatella Pasqualini (EES-9), Katrin Heitmann (ISR-1), James TenCate (EES-11), Salman Habib (T-08), David Higdon (CCS-6), and Paul A. Johnson (EES-11) have investigated the nonlinear elastic properties of rocks at amplitudes lower than have ever been explored in order to understand the onset of elastic nonlinearity. The collaborators studied Berea and Fontainebleau sandstones, and characterized their behavior by applying resonant-bar experiments under carefully controlled thermal and humidity conditions. This study establishes the existence of two strain regimes: 1) where the material shows classical nonlinearity (this has never before been characterized), and 2) where the behavior becomes truly nonequilibrium—as demonstrated by the existence of relaxation (slow dynamics)—and where the theory of classical nonlinearity no longer applies. The separate effects of nonlinearity and relaxation in this regime cannot be disentangled. This transition from classical nonlinearity to nonlinear nonequilibrium dynamics elasticity in rocks is of significance in understanding the basic dynamical processes in consolidated granular materials. The new experimental evidence and the theoretical interpretation present a breakthrough for the investigation of the nonlinear elastic behavior of geomaterials, underscoring the need for new experiments and a new theoretical framework. The researchers described the preliminary results in a previous paper in Physical Review Letters, 93, 06551-06555 (2004). The most recent results have been published in “Nonequilibrium and nonlinear dynamics in Berea and Fontainebleau sandstones: Low-strain regime,” J. Geophys. Res.,Vol.112, No. B1, B01204 10.1029/2006JB004264 (2007). The research was funded in part through the DOE Office of Basic Energy Science and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) at LANL.
Figure 1. (a) Polarized thin section of Fontainebleau, one of the two rocks studied in this paper. Figure (b) Resonance frequency (linked to the elastic modulus) shift versus strain. For strains below 5*10-7, the material displays only an intrinsic reversible nonlinearity; for strains above 5*10-7,nonlinear and nonequilibrium effects are combined. STAR Awards The LANL Star Award is given by the Women's Diversity Working Group and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. This award is given to women who go above and beyond the call of duty in the performance of their job functions, who have achieved scientific or technical success, who make important contributions to the community, or who are stars in other ways. Wendee Brunish was one of several women who received a 2007 Star Award:
February 19, 2007 Thom Rahn, EES-2, published a News and Views article titled, “Tropical rain recycling,” in the February 1 issue of Nature. Rahn presents a perspective on a recent advance in remote sensing of stable isotopes in atmospheric water vapor in the same Nature issue (J. Worden, et al.) The distribution of deuterium in H2O vapor helps to quantify processes, such as the amount of rain that re-evaporates before reaching the Earth's surface and the amount of continental precipitation that is regionally recycled. These results are important in determining the atmospheric energy budget and serve as a baseline for future climate related changes in the global water cycle. Understanding all aspects of the hydrological cycle will be crucial as we proceed into a future with an uncertain climate, where potable water will become an ever more precious resource. The publication is available at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7127/index.html
February 12, 2007 AMALGAM – A New Evolutionary Optimization Algorithm Jasper Vrugt (EES-6, J. Robert Oppenheimer Postdoctoral Fellow) and Bruce Robinson, (SPO-CNP) have published a paper on a novel evolutionary optimization algorithm in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Improved Evolutionary Optimization From Genetically Adaptive Multi-Method Search," PNAS, 104, 3, 708-711, 2006, http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/ 0610471104v1. The work is focused on efficient solutions to multi-objective optimization problems, those in which two or more objective functions are simultaneously considered. As a commonplace illustration, consider the development of a personal investment strategy that simultaneously considers the objectives of high rate of return and low volatility. For this situation, there is no single optimal solution. Rather, there is a family of tradeoff solutions along a curve called the “Pareto-optimal front” in which improvement in one objective (say, high rate of return) comes only at the expense of a degradation of another objective (volatility). Development of robust algorithms to solve such optimization problems is a research direction that is currently attracting great interest. Vrugt and Robinson showed that dramatic improvements in the efficiency of evolutionary search can be achieved by running multiple optimization algorithms simultaneously using new concepts of global information sharing and genetically adaptive offspring creation. This novel approach is called A Multi-ALgorithm, Genetically Adaptive Multiobjective or AMALGAM method, to evoke the image of a procedure that merges the strengths of different optimization algorithms. Benchmark results, using a set of well-known multi-objective test problems, show that AMALGAM approaches a factor of ten improvement over current optimization algorithms for more complex, higher dimensional problems. An illustration of the efficiency of the technique, compared to existing single-algorithm methods, is shown in the figures 2 and 3.
Figure 2. Generated Pareto-optimal fronts after 25, 50 and 75 generations with the NSGA-II, PSO, AMS, DE, and AMALGAM optimization algorithms for test problem ZDT4. This benchmark problem has 219 different local Pareto-optimal fronts in the search space, of which only one corresponds to the global Pareto-optimal front (dark line). The AMALGAM method is much more efficient in searching the parameter space and locating Pareto optimal solutions than any of the individual algorithms
Figure 2. Generated Pareto-optimal fronts after 25, 50 and 75 generations with the NSGA-II, PSO, AMS, DE, and AMALGAM optimization algorithms for test problem ZDT4. This benchmark problem has 219 different local Pareto-optimal fronts in the search space, of which only one corresponds to the global Pareto-optimal front (dark line). The AMALGAM method is much more efficient in searching the parameter space and locating Pareto optimal solutions than any of the individual algorithms February 5, 2006 Studies to address seismic hazard potential A cooperative effort with B- and D-divisions, EES-9 seismic hazards team, and the geodynamics team in EES-11 have been addressing the seismic hazard potential for the recently constructed B-division Biohazards Safety Laboratory (BSL-3) at the head of Mortendad Canyon. The teams were asked to address the nonlinear rock mechanical response to realistic seismic ground motion resulting from large earthquakes near the facility. Location specific information was gathered to enable development of an appropriate geomechanical model for the site (Figure 1). This included geologic mapping of joints and contacts and seismic measurements to determine shallow velocity structure.
Figure 1: ABAQUSÒ BSL-3 site model. The facility is represented by the blue box. The facility is underlain by construction fill and below this are jointed layers of Bandelier tuff. The right side plot shows the joint defined rock blocks as multicolored prisms. Also, site construction QA documents were referenced for characterization of the engineered fill under the building. These data allowed for construction of a deterministic rock mechanical model to simulate behavior of the blocky mass during the prescribed earthquake event.The resulting modeling is nearing completion and show that for some subset of expected ground acceleration histories there can be block failure of the cliff wall but acceptable damage to the facility foundation (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Predicted damage to the canyon face due to a simulated earthquake (degree of damage indicated by color). The red blocks have been displaced approximately 1.5 meters and have separated from the rock mass. January 29, 2007 Research on water at high pressures published in Science The high pressure behavior of water is extremely complex. Properties of water, hydrogen isotopes, and/or oxygen at high pressures are important for fundamental condensed matter physics, for weapons programs, and may be relevant for understanding the atmospheres of the gas giant planets and their moons. In a recent paper in Science, Wendy Mao (J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow co-sponsored by LANSCE and EES) and her co-workers from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Japanese National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center demonstrated the high-pressure decomposition of water into an unusual O2-H2 alloy under bombardment of high energy X-rays. Wendy L. Mao, et al., “X-ray-Induced Dissociation of H2O and Formation of an O2-H2 Alloy at High Pressure,” Science, 314, 636 (2006).
Figure 2. Photomicrographs of two diamond anvil cell samples. The top four panels were taken at 13-IDC, APS, ANL; the bottom two panels were taken at BL12XU, SPring-8. (A) Sample after XRS measurement at 8.8 GPa. The light brown streak through the middle of the sample shows the portion irradiated by the x-ray beam. A small ruby ball on the left edge of the gasket was used for pressure calibration. (B) After the release of pressure to below 1 GPa, bubbles of O2 and H2 formed. (C) Bubbles collapsed upon the increase of pressure as the H2 and O2 were incorporated into the crystalline sample. (D) Sample after XRS measurement at 15.3 GPa. (E) Sample before and (F) after x-ray exposure at 2.6 GPa.
EES scientists author invited review book chapters Paul Johnson, Jim TenCate, Michele Griffa, Thomas Shankland (all EES-11); Donetella Pasqualini (EES-9); and Palo Patelli (EES-2) have written invited review chapters in the recently published book, Universality of Nonclassical Nonlinearity,Applications to Non-Destructive Evaluations and Ultrasonics, Delsanto, (Pier Paolo, Ed.), 2007. The book chapters including LANL authors are the following:
Milestone EES-12 supports first Remote Handled shipment to WIPP On January 3, 2007, DOE-EM HQ managers Dr. Ines Triay and Frank Marcinowski, as well as the Carlsbad Field Office Manager, Dr. Dave Moody, congratulated EES-12 for successfully loading the first Remote Handled (RH) canister with three drums of RH waste at INL, on December 22, 2006. This milestone enabled the first RH shipment to WIPP. Later in January 2007, the EES-12 Mobile loading Team loaded the canister into an RH 72-B Transportation Cask, and released it for shipment to WIPP. On January 23, 2007 the first shipment of RH Waste arrived at WIPP. This critical EES-12 Mobile Loading function was executed without incident or issue. EES-12 Mobile Loading Teams are deployed throughout the DOE Weapons complex to load both Contact Handled (CH) and RH defense generated transuranic waste. As part of Group EES-12 (located in Carlsbad, N.M.), these nationally recognized teams load and certify shipments, providing DOE CBFO with flexibility, and timely cost-effective shipments of TRU waste.
First Remote Handled “72-B” Transportation Cask containing canisterized Remote Handled (RH) Transuranic Waste for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Outstanding Student Paper award at American Geophysical Union Meeting Saikiran Rapaka, a Graduate Research Assistant in EES-6, received an Outstanding Student Paper award for his presentation titled, "Critical Times for the Onset of Density-Driven Convection in Anisotropic Porous Media" at the American Georphysical Union (AGU) 2006 Fall Meeting. Sai is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. January 16, 2007 EES scientist appointed Chairperson of the NNSA/NSO Containment Evaluation Review Panel Jay Norman, Acting Manager of the Nevada Site Office of NNSA, has appointed Wendee M. Brunish (EES-11 Group Leader) as the first Chairperson of the NNSA/NSO Containment Evaluation Review Panel (CERP). The CERP will be charged with assuring the containment of radionuclides from underground experiments at the Nevada Test Site, and will carry out the responsibilities previously assigned to the NNSA/NSO Containment Evaluation Panel and the Containment Review Panel. January 8, 2006 Research on methane hydrates published in Physical Review E Methane hydrates within permafrost and on the ocean floor represent a vast potential energy resource, one at least as large as all other known fossil fuels present on Earth. In a recent paper in Physical Review E, Ioannis Tsimpanogiannis (former EES-6 postdoc) and Peter Lichtner (EES-6), use pore-network and invasion-percolation modeling methods to theoretically address the availability of this energy resource. Pore-network modeling methods represent porous media as networks of large sites, representing pores, connected by smaller sites, representing throats connecting the pores. These methods allow theoretical evaluation of the conditions under which physical phenomena, such as methane extraction, can operate within porous media; for example, sediments in the Arctic or on the ocean floor. Such modeling methods have been extensively utilized by engineers evaluating chemical processing methods and petroleum extraction, but have not been previously applied to methane hydrate problems. The authors investigated the distribution of methane in porous media of varying properties following pressure release (a method proposed to release methane from methane hydrates). Key observations include the delineation of a “critical gas saturation” level – a concept not previously recognized for gas hydrate extraction. As expected intuitively, large throat sizes or wide throat distributions, large pressure drops, and high initial hydrate saturation act as promoters for the production of released gas. From a practical perspective, an implication of these calculations for real-world situations is that methane hydrate extraction from ocean floor sediments may only be practical in coarser-grained sedimentary facies, such as sandstones. The LANL LDRD-DR “Clathrate Hydrate Science and Technology” supported the research. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting EES Division was highly visible at the 2006 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Fall Meeting, held in San Francisco, California on December 11-15. The meeting drew a crowd of over 14,000 national and international geophysicists, and offered EES researchers the opportunity to present their research and review the latest issues. EES research represented diverse topics ranging from geoid anomalies to hydrology and geomorphic characterization to volcanism and seismology. (Geoidis the equipotential surface of the Earth's gravity field that best fits, in a least squares sense, global mean sea level.) Approximately 30 EES scientists attended talks, presented posters, gave papers, and organized or chaired sessions. The scientists who co-organized or chaired sessions were the following:
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 meeting information: http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm06/ January 2, 2007 Underground Radio™,abreakthrough in underground digital and wireless communications, to be tested at Yucca Mountain Site Brian Dozier and Richard Kovach (both EES-7) coordinated a Yucca Mountain Site visit on December 14, by David Reagor (MPA-STC and PI of the LANL team that originally developed Underground Radio™), James J. Heinz and Richard D. Fann (both Heinz Corporation), James V. Restifo (Vital Alert), and Ed Meigs [BSC (YMP M&O)] as part of the initial assessment of Yucca Mountain Exploratory Studies Facility and the proposed repository for the application of Underground Radio™. This system has the potential for significant enhancement to Yucca Mountain life safety systems. LANL originally developed Underground Radio™ for the DOE Office of Industrial Technology and LDRD. Vital Alert Technologies is commercializing the technology for use by emergency rescue crews in urban centers and by the mining industry. Underground Radio™ (Figure 5) uses very low frequency (VLF) electromagnetic radiation and digital audio compression technology to carry voice and text data. The VLF signals also can transmit tracking and location data for radio users in the case that they are unable to respond. Thus the technology provides convenient, portable underground communication and a data link to robotic machines. Visitors to Yucca Mountain were encouraged to find that this site offered little interference in the rock. The visitors made plans for a second visit to test the system at various depths in the coming months. Recently Underground Radio™ was selected to receive a Federal Laboratory Consortium Mid-Continent Technology Transfer Award, given for outstanding achievement in the technology transfer arena.
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Two new publications in Plant, Cell and Environment highlight innovative techniques being developed and tested by Nate McDowell and his team in the Atmospheric, Climate and Environmental Dynamics Group (EES-2). Tunable Diode Laser (TDL) techniques, refined and improved by the team, have allowed the first continuous, high precision and high frequency isotopic CO2 flux measurements at the tissue scale. These two papers are the first to demonstrate that TDL's can be applied to tissue level analyses (e.g. foliar isotope fluxes). This significant advancement allowed the researchers to discover new insights in foliar carbon metabolism and foliar water/CO2 interactions. They are now pushing the TDL technique towards long-term monitoring of climate change impacts on carbon and water fluxes at ecosystem scales. The EES-2 team has the only long-term (3 years) data set of continuous measurements exchanged between a terrestrial ecosystem and the atmosphere; this unique data set is shedding novel insights into how climate impacts ecosystem metabolism. The 3-year data set on ecosystem isotopic fluxes is the subject of a workshop on measurement and model comparisons, funded by IGPP and hosted by EES-2, to be held March 28-30 in Santa Fe. This new method of continuous measurement is being adopted by the National Science Foundation as an early warning system of ecological collapse. 
Wendee Brunish, Group Leader for EES-11, was recognized for her communications skills both one-to-one and in group meetings. She has an exceptional ability to ensure that each person understands tasks and action items. Brunish was also cited for her work to promote EES-11 group members. In addition, she was recognized for her community service, which extends from increasing awareness of women's issues to her very demanding work with search and rescue.
