EES Focus Areas

EES Group Pages

CONTACTS

EES Contacts

Division Office

EES 12

EES 14

EES 16

EES 17

Division Highlights Archive

September 4, 2007

Jasper Vrugt Wins Soil Science Society of America Early Career Award

Jasper A. Vrugt, a J. Robert Oppenheimer Postdoctoral Fellow who is jointly sponsored by EES-6 and T-7, has been awarded the S-1 Early Career Award from the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) in Soil Physics. This award recognizes scientists who have made outstanding contributions in soil physics within six years of completing their Ph.D. degree. Vrugt has been cited for his seminal contributions on parameter estimation in vadose zone hydrology, frequency domain analysis, and development of multidimensional root-water-uptake models. His current research interests are in advanced optimization methods applied to computationally intensive, high-dimensional models, with applications in a wide variety of fields, including weather forecasting, hydrology, transport in porous media, and epidemiology. The award will be given at the annual S-1 Business Meeting, New Orleans, November 4 - 7, 2007.

LANL Career Development Mentoring Award

The Women's Diversity Working Group sponsors the Career Development Mentoring awards to promote career development of women at the Laboratory by recognizing and applauding mentors who exhibit exemplary informal or formal mentoring. Mentor nominees may be male or female, but the employee being mentored must be female. LANS regular employees, limited-term employees, or contract workers of the Laboratory are eligible to be nominated. The mentor-mentee relationship may be formal or informal.

EES Division technical staff member and acting division leader Cathy Wilson is the recipient of a 2007 Career Development Mentoring Award. Cathy has been an exemplary mentor by providing valuable research guidance, career advice, and opportunities for professional advancement. Despite numerous other time commitments that have contributed to professional achievements, it is evident that Cathy values the role of a mentor. As such, Cathy has left an important and indelible impact on at least one young career female engineering student. She advises on how to optimize knowledge gained with producing quality research deliverables. Taking into account a mentoree’s learning curve and applicability of that experience to future work, Cathy advocates learning certain tools and skills over others. Cathy seeks channels to disseminate research and makes an effort to keep mentorees abreast of funding opportunities and conferences that are relevant to research interests. Collaborative work has been presented numerous times over the past year, gaining exposure that is advantageous to the mentoree’s career. She provides trusted advice on career options from both a personal and professional perspective, proving invaluable to mentoree career decisions. Cathy is rightly recognized by this award for her mentoring capabilities.

August 6, 2007

Study of tectonically controlled, time-dependent basaltic volcanism published

Urbanization and construction of long-term facilities in basaltic volcanic fields creates an important class of volcanic risk assessment problems. Understanding the evolution of basaltic volcanic fields is critical to the understanding of basaltic magmatism and to volcanic risk assessment. Estimation of event probabilities in basaltic fields that are dominated by monogenetic volcanoes requires forecasts of both the recurrence rates (or timing) and locations of future events.

Greg Valentine (EES-6) and Frank Perry (EES-9) have published research regarding volcanism in the Southwestern Nevada Volcanic Field (SNVF), an example of an extremely low volume-flux end member of basaltic fields. The SNVF is the geographical area where the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository is located (Figure 1 map). The researchers describe physical volcanological data that provide insight into the length scales of sources tapped for each volcano, the lengths of feeder dikes that transport magmas to the surface, and the relationship between lava effusion rates, dike lengths, and volumes at individual volcanoes. Relationships between age and cumulative eruptive volume indicate that the repose interval between eruptive episodes is determined by the volumes of prior episodes. Since approximately 3Ma, the field appears to be time-predictable.

Figure 1. Shaded relief map of the southwestern part of the Southwest Nevada Volcanic Shield showing Plio-Pleistocene volcanoes (buried volcanoes in the southern part of the map are indicated with white diagonal line patterns). Color patterns indicate basalts <3 Ma and gray scale patterns indicate>3 Ma. 4.6Ma episode — Thirsty Mountain (TM) and Anomalies C and D. 3.8 Ma episode — SE Crater Flat (SECF) and Anomalies B, F, G, and H. 2.9 Ma episode —Buckboard Mesa (BM). 1.1 Ma episode — Makani volcano (MC), Black Cone (BC), Red Cone (RC) and NE and SW Little Cones (LC). 350ka episode — Little Black Peak (LBP) and Hidden Cone (HC). 77 ka episode — Lathrop Wells volcano (LW). Crater Flat and Amargosa Desert are major basins that host many of the Plio-Pleistocene basalts. Black lines are Miocene caldera boundaries.

The data support a model wherein magmatism in the SNVF is a passive response to relatively slow regional tectonic strain. Partial melt resides in pockets of lithospeheric mantle that are relatively enriched in hydrous minerals. Slow deformation focuses melt, occasionally resulting in sufficiently high melt pressure to drive dikes upward and feed eruptive episodes, which relieve local stresses. Larger events are followed by longer repose intervals required to recover crustal stresses. The scientists suggest that time-controlled predictability may be a fundamental property of tectonically controlled basaltic fields, where melt accumulation and ascent are controlled by tectonic strain rate. However, time-predictability in a tectonically controlled field does not, by itself, constrain the location or size of potential future episodes. The authors have previously shown that volcano location in the low-flux SNVF depends primarily upon the location and areal extent of the mantle source that is tapped (magma footprint) and secondarily upon shallow structure and surface typography. Because most of the basaltic episodes (except the ~2.9 Ma Buckboard Mesa event) have returned to the vicinity of the existing cluster, the researchers suggest that the magmatic footprints of future events will probably also occur near or within these clusters. Furthermore, general similarities in volcano size and eruptive styles during the past ~1.1 Myr suggests that the future events during the next 100s of kyr will have similar characteristics. All of these factors form potentially important aspects of probabilistic risk assessment in the SNVF. The DOE Yucca Mountain Project supports the work. Reference: Valentine, G. A., Perry, F. V. “Tectonically Controlled, Time-predictable Basaltic Volcanism from a Lithospheric Mantle Source (central Basin and Range Province, USA), Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. (2007) doi, 10.1016/j.epsl2007.06.029 and George Zyvoloski of EES Division are the LANL co-PIs on the new CRADA.

a)	Figure 5. a) Map showing the location of the Piceance Basin shale deposit. b) Example of oil shale from the Mahogany zone of the Piceance Basin in Colorado. The color gradations indicate differences in hydrocarbon concentration and inspired the name for hydrocarbon rich geologic feature. b)

2006 CLES Technician of the Year Award Winners

Susan Barns (B-6) and Clifton Meyer (EES-2) are co-winners of the first annual Chemistry, Life, and Earth Sciences Directorate (CLES) Technician of the Year Award. Director Anastasio presented the Award at the CLES Directorate-Wide Meeting on June 19th. Barnes and Meyer were selected for their outstanding technical contributions in science, leadership, and teamwork.

Photo: Left to right: Mary Neu (ADCLES), Susan Barnes (B-6), Mike Anastasio (DIR), and Clifton Meyer (EES-2)

Barnes’s work involves environmental molecular biology research in support of biothreat agent detection and microbial diversity studies. She is a technical lead for sequence data management, comparison, and phylogenetic analysis. In addition to her busy work life, Barnes is an active member of the Mountain Canine Corps.

Meyer supports several field and laboratory research projects in ecosystem dynamics and carbon cycling. In 2006, he worked in calibration and testing of state-of-the-art instrumentation such as tunable diode lasers and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Meyer has also taken a very active role in working with students in EES Division, and he is the summer student coordinator for the ecohydrology team.

This is the first instance of this award, which was created to honor and acknowledge the outstanding technicians in the Chemistry, Life, and Earth Science Directorate. The Award is conferred on a technician from within the CLES Directorate demonstrating a high degree of professionalism and accomplishment for work up to and including the 2006 calendar year. A cross-divisional committee of CLES employees reviewed all nominations and made recommendations to CLES leadership. The primary work of a CLES technician is to help solve scientific problems, discover new scientific knowledge, and/or advance technology. Barnes and Meyer are both widely acknowledged in both these areas, as well as in others, such as leadership and technical innovation. They were each were presented with a silver star and a cash award at the meeting.

July 23, 2006

LANL Scientists comment on recent advances on artificial cells in the New Scientist Journal

http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/dn12298-creeping-oil-might-propel-synthetic-life.html

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19526114.000-countdown-to-a-synthetic-lifeform.html

July 16, 2006

LANL scientists help DOE study effects of energy emissions and farming on clouds and climate in Oklahoma

In June atmospheric scientists Manvendra Dubey (EES-6), Claudio Mazzoleni (ISR-2/EES-6), Mathew McCabe (ISR-2/EES-6) and Thom Rahn (EES-2) participated in a large $5.5 million multi-disciplinary field campaign in Oklahoma funded by DOE's Atmospheric Science and Radiation Monitoring Programs (ASP/ARM) in the Office of Biological and Environment Research. Oklahoma, which is a heartland of farming, a center for oil and power production, and has a large city, provided a perfect site to examine this. The DOE-ARM's Central observational facility site, which is instrumented with a host of cloud and radiation monitoring equipment, made it ideal for measurements. The field campaign used aircraft, satellite and ground based sensors to examine the effects of aerosol pollution from energy production and land use change on clouds, a key uncertainty in climate change assessments. The dynamics that occur between the land surface and the atmosphere are important mechanisms in regional climate. Because of the range of disciplines involved (surface vegetation, moisture, clouds, aerosols, and solar energy exchange), it is very difficult to understand the interactions. The Oklahoma field campaign is the first concerted effort by DOE to do this.

LANL scientists deployed two state-of-the art laser based photo-acoustic instruments on DOE's G-1 aircraft to measure the absorption and scattering by aerosols in situ. While one instrument measured aerosol optics in the air, the other measured it inside cloud drops. LANL also deployed two towers to measure fluxes of water and carbon dioxide over an irrigated crop and a fallow field, respectively. LANL observations, together with measurements of cloud properties and chemicals by over a dozen scientists from PNL, BNL, and NOAA, will provide insights into how aerosols and pollution influence fair weather cumulus clouds and rainfall. The LDRD-DR project, “Resolving the Aerosol-Climate-Water

Puzzle”, supported LANL’s research.

Photos. Left: Manvendra Dubey inspects the (unpowered) Los Alamos Photoacoustic Instrument, which measures aerosol absorption and scattering, for deployment on the DOE Gulf Stream aircraft in Ponca City, OK. Right: Thom Rahn installs the LANL towers to measure CO2 and water fluxes from a field in Ft. Cobb, OK.

July 9, 2006

ARM Climate Research Facility in Papua New Guinea Launches Kiosk

The Climate Change: Science and Traditional Knowledge kiosk project for the ACRF Tropical Western Pacific sites has come full circle. Four years ago, ACRF Education and Outreach started building educational kiosks to promote awareness and understanding of ARM research in Manus Island, Papua New Guinea; Republic of Nauru; and Darwin, Australia. On June 12, 2007, the last of the three kiosks was launched in Lorengau, Manus Island, which is where the TWP kiosk project was initiated. On that day more than 200 people attended a dedication ceremony held at the Lorengau open market.

The event was planned to coincide with the community’s observance of World Environment Day. To kick off the kiosk dedication students from selected schools marched in uniform around the open market where people gathered to participate in the festivities. Several students made speeches about environmental issues specific to the island, such as revitalizing the mangrove tree population and repairing coral reefs.

In 2004 ACRF Education and outreach worked with Tradewind coimmunications to film interviews

Students from Manus Secondary School march into the open market to kick off the kiosk dedication.

Speeches by Provincial Administrator Wep Kanawi and Education Administrator Leonard Jonli highlighted the significance of the collaboration between the country of Papua New Guinea and U.S. Department of Energy to operate the ACRF on Manus Island. “We are thankful to the U.S. Department of Energy for this resource provided to us regarding climate research,” Kanawi said. “As an island community, we must remain aware of climate changes that will directly impact our future. This kiosk will help us educate our community about the importance of scientific research and understanding of weather and climate.”

The kiosk is an interactive computer program that enables users to select and listen to interviews about climate change and climate research taking place on the island. ACRF Education and Outreach staff worked with videographer Hans La Cour of Tradewind Communications to videotape interviews with people from the community of Manus discussing their observations of climate change. The project was inspired by a number of recent studies showing that indigenous people tend to understand and embrace science more fully when it is presented in the context of traditional ecological knowledge. The interviews with elders, teachers, and community leaders provide a “traditional” approach to observing weather and climate as they explain how climate change will impact their subsistence way of life. Common concerns among the locals include sea level rise, coastal erosion, unpredictable seasons, and persistent drought.

Web Kanawi thanks DOE and ARM for contributing to science education on the island.

Interviews with atmospheric scientists from the ARM Program and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology were also included in the kiosk to provide a scientific perspective of climate change. The scientists give straightforward explanations of concepts such as the greenhouse effect, solar radiation, the Pacific warm pool, and the El Niño phenomenon. ARM scientists explain why the Pacific region is so crucial to global climate and describe the functions of the instruments located at the ARM research facility.

A demonstration of the much anticipated kiosk was provided by ACRF Education and Outreach director Andrea Maestas (EES-2). Under a thatched-roof shelter, the crowd gathered for a first look at the interviews from the Manus community. Students who were allowed to attend the event were given front row seats to the presentation.

Tau Gabi and Taddy Barras of the PNG National Weather Service on the day of the kiosk installation at Papindo Supermarket

Kiosk contributors show off their ACRF hats and certificates of appreciation with ACRF Education and Outreach staff.

Several people who contributed interviews to the kiosk attended the dedication ceremony and received certificates of appreciation along with ACRF safety hats. The crowd then made its way to Papindo Supermarket where the kiosk is displayed. Governor Stephen Pokawin gave a short speech and cut the ribbon that enveloped the kiosk. As soon as it was officially launched, people anxiously lined up for a chance to use the kiosk.Because most students were attending classes during the dedication ceremony, Maestas visited Pombrut Primary School and Manus Secondary School to provide information about the ACRF Education and Outreach program and show the new

Designed to be played on classroom or personal computers, the kiosk program will be distributed on disc to interested teachers and students throughout Manus Island and Port Moresby, where the PNG National Weather Service headquarters is located.


*Andrea Maestas visits Pombrut Primary School in Lorengau.*

Invited talk at Meteroroids2007 meeting in Barcelona, Spain

Douglas ReVelle and postdoc Stephen Arrowsmith (both from EES-2) attended the Meteroroids2007 meeting in Barcelona, Spain (from June 11-15.) This meeting is only held once every three years worldwide. The symposium was attended by some 120 researchers from over 20 countries. ReVelle gave two consecutive talks for 45 minutes. The first one was an invited talk on “Acoustic-Gravity Wave from Bolide Sources” and the second one was on a very similar subject, “Historical Reanalysis of the AFTAC Infrasound Database”.

The first talk was a theoretical treatment of the acoustic-gravity waves expected from bolides as a function of their source energy, altitude of penetration, optical luminosity output, etc. for four very energetic bolides:

1) The Tunguska bolide of June 30, 1908 (Great Siberian Meteor)

2) The Revelstoke meteorite fall of March 31, 1965 over British Columbia, Canada

3) The Crete bolide of June 6, 2002 over the Mediterranean Sea

4) The Antarctic bolide of September 4, 2004

ReVelle also gave specific solutions for near- and mid-field shock waves propagating from much smaller meteoroids in the Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN), which is collaborative work with Professor Peter Brown and colleagues at the

University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada.

Figure 1: Map of the Southern Ontario Meteor Network of all-sky cameras and relative locations of CMOR and the Elginfield observatory infrasound array, ELFO.

The second talk focused on the complete digitization and reanalysis of a huge dataset of 10 bolides collected by AFTAC (US Air Force Technical Application Center) from 1960 -1974 and officially released by the DoD to George Wetherill (deceased) and ReVelle (then of the Carnegie Institution of Washington). They specifically reanalyzed the Revelstoke meteorite fall infrasonic data and the S. African bolide infrasonic data (from August 3, 1963) because these were among the two most energetic events ever recorded infrasonically. They also reanalyzed the global influx rate of bolides predicted using these revised digital data solutions.

July 9, 2006

Advances in carbon capture and storage technologies published

The potential reactivity of Portland cement in wellbores is one of the key issues in assessing the long-term viability of storage of CO2 in geologic formations. CO2 is known to react with Portland cement, and the possibility of deleterious reactions leading to leakage of CO2 is a serious concern.

LANL has attacked this problem using field, experimental, and modeling methods. Researchers J. W. Carey, S. Chipera, R. Pawar, P. Lichtner (all in EES-6); M. Wigand (C-CSE); G. WoldeGabriel (EES-9); G. D. Guthrie (SPO-FE); R. S. Wehner; and M. Raines obtained the first-ever samples of wellbore systems with exposure to CO2. This provided key insights into wellbore performance that demonstrated for the first-time that the Portland cement may be more robust than was originally thought. Reference: Carey, J. W., Wigand, M., Chipera, S., WoldeGabriel, G., Pawar, R., Lichtner, P., Wehner, S., Raines, M., and G. D. Guthrie. (2007) “Analysis and Performance of Oil Well Cement with 30 Years of CO2 Exposure from the SACROC Unit, West Texas, USA”. International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control 1: 75-85.

Carey and Lichtner conducted innovative experiments on simulated wellbore systems involving flow of high pressure CO2-brine mixtures through composite cement-caprock and cement-casing systems. The scientists used the results of these experiments to guide their modeling efforts. They found that they needed to significantly enhance existing reactive transport codes to handle solid solution. The researchers published the first reactive transport code capable of handling arbitrarily complex solutions, allowing them to handle both major compositional variation as well as trace contaminants in cement system. Reference: Lichtner, P. C. and Carey, J. W. (2006) “Incorporating Solid Solutions in Geochemical Reactive Transport Equations using a Kinetic Discrete-composition Approach”. Geochimica Cosmochimica Acta 70: 1356-1378.

Using this theoretical foundation, the Carey and Lichtner developed a numerical model for wellbore cements exposed to CO2. They employed this model to predict long-term performance of Portland cement and have thus made significant contributions to the development of Carbon Capture and Storage technologies. These successes have made LANL a recognized leader in wellbore issues. Reference: Carey, J. W. and Lichtner, P. C. (2007) “Calcium Silicate Hydrate (C-S-H) Solid Solution Model Applied to Cement Degradation using the Continuum Reactive Transport Model FLOTRAN”. In Mobasher, B. and Skalny, J., editors, Transport Properties and Concrete Quality: Materials Science of Concrete, Special Volume, pp. 73-106. American Ceramic Society; John Wiley & Sons, Inc. LANL researchers organized the international Wellbore Integrity Network and hosted the most recent meeting of the Network in March.

Figure 2. The polished surface of a sample of wellbore cement recovered from the SACROC CO2-enhanced oil recovery field (about 5 cm in height). The orange-altered cement reflects reactions with CO2 and is separated from unaltered gray cement by a translucent deposit of silica. This is the first sample of cement ever recovered for studies of long-term CO2 interactions and the security of geological storage of CO2.

Figure 3. Primary Plot: Numerical simulation of CO2-cement reactions occurring within the wellbore environment. The simulations reproduce the key features of the sample of cement recovered from the SACROC site including a 0.5 cm zone of intense carbonation, a region of non-altered cement, and a barrier between the two that impedes further reaction.

Environmental Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA): Chevron

LANL began work as the lead laboratory on an Environmental R&D CRADA with Chevron. Mark Puckett, President of Chevron Energy Technology Company, put the final signature on the Multi-Laboratory CRADA on June 21, 2007. LANL will work with Pacific Northwest National Lab, Idaho National Lab and Chevron to develop and deploy environmental models and technology in support of oil, gas and unconventional fuel production projects. This multi-million dollar environmental program will first focus on supporting the Chevron In-situ Oil Shale RDD pilot project in the Piceance Basin, Colorado (Figure 5). The Chevron multi-lab environmental CRADA was developed and executed as a joint effort between staff at Chevron, LANL, INL and PNNL. LANL staff from Technology Transfer, EES and C Divisions and the Fossil Energy and Environment Program Office contributed to the successful execution of this CRADA. Cathy Wilson and George Zyvoloski of EES Division are the LANL co-PIs on the new CRADA.

Figure 5. a) Map showing the location of the Piceance Basin shale deposit. b) Example of oil shale from the Mahogany zone of the Piceance Basin in Colorado. The color gradations indicate differences in hydrocarbon concentration and inspired the name for hydrocarbon rich geologic feature.