Assignment - for discussion on Wednesday, Nov. 27, due Wednesday, Dec. 4 As there are many topics remaining to be covered and only a relatively short time left in the semester, this next assignment gives you considerable latitude to focus on a topic that interests you. The range of topics is indicated below, together with some links to sites that may be useful. You are also welcome to perform a search on your own. Select a topic or question pertaining to one of the areas below; investigate the question using some combination of your own research and the links available in this message or in the class bookmark list. Write up a synthesis, including links to relevant images or data, and discuss how the topic under investigation relates to material in the relevant chapter of the textbook. For example, if you choose to look at floods, landslides, or debris flows, investigate a case study of a particular event (some examples are listed; you can also find your own). Relate the impacts to the factors responsible for causing the event (e.g. earthquake, storm, etc.) and, if possible, to their spatial distribution, and comment on anything unusual or noteworthy about this particular event. In the case of flooding, try to find flow data in the form of a hydrograph. If successful, describe the pattern you see and explain why it looks the way it does. Another example might be an investigation of a long-term ecological research site, or a large-scale field experiment conducted under the auspices of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (see links listed below). Again using a case-study approach, select a particular example and try to put together a synthesis of the major questions being asked and the research methods being used. If results are available on one or more questions you find particularly interesting, comment on their significance. Alternatively, you might choose a particular biome or ecosystem type in a particular part of the world and put together a synthesis of research results that provide important clues to its structure and function. This also could be combined with an investigation of a particular problem in an environ- mentally sensitive area. Examples could include the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia; the depletion of the Ogallala aquifer in the high plains of the midwestern U.S.; the declining water levels in Mono Lake, California, and the resulting impact on rare and endangered species; the poisoning of the Kesterson Reservoir and of other areas in the Central Valley of California by increasing concentrations of selenium in irrigation return flow; the channelization of the Kissimmee River in south Florida and the subsequent project by the Army Corps of Engineers intended to restore the natural ecosystem; the decline of the Everglades in response to human alterations in the natural flow system and in water quality; deforestation and its impacts in (you pick the location); flood hazards and flood management on the Yangtze (or other rivers) in China. Another option would be to select a particular river or river system and investigate its characteristics, including the size, shape, and underlying geology of the watershed, the pattern of flow observed over time, the physical characteristics of the channel system, and the effects of human activities on flow patterns or channel morphology. An atypical, but fascinating and well-documented example is the Colorado River in Grand Canyon (some links are listed below). Other examples might include (in no particular order; these are names that just came to mind) the Platte River, the Altamaha, the Savannah River, the Eel River or Redwood Creek in the Pacific northwest, the Huang Ho, the Rio Grande, the Amazon River, the Ob and the Yenisei in Russia, the Irrawaddy, the Indus, the Ganges-Brahmaputra, the Yukon, etc. I haven't researched all of these and I don't know what information may be available on the web. If you are interested in glaciers and ice ages, you might try to look up some information on the history of climate, particularly during the Pleistocene. What kind of surrogate information is used to reconstruct climatic history, and what does it tell us? Or you might look for information about glacial landforms and/or evidence of the history of glaciation in a particular area. A particularly fascinating example that combines glaciation with flooding is the story of the catastrophic release of water from a large glacial meltwater lake (Lake Missoula) that led to the creation of the channeled scabland in Washington state. Please note also that there are sites with lots of satellite images from diverse corners of the world. A good repository, for example, is at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. If you are studying a particular region, try to find an image that shows it clearly enough for display in class and inclusion in your assignment. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For web pages pertaining to biogeography, ecosystems research, and ecology, look at the list of bookmark links from the class homepage and scroll down to the "Biogeography and ecology" heading. Some of the items listed there are also included below, together with assorted other sites on ecosystems and environmental problems affecting ecosystem health. -------------------- Biodiversity and long-term ecological research: LTER (U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research Network) http://lternet.edu/ Biodiversity in Ecosystems (World Resources Institute) http://www.wri.org/wri/biodiv/ecosys.html Biodiversity: An Overview http://www.wcmc.org.uk/infoserv/biogen/biogen.html Biodiversity web sites http://www.biologie.uni-freiburg.de/data/zoology/riede/taxalinks.html Botany and Field biology Sites http://www.euronet.nl/users/mbleeker/urlists/boturl-1.html -------------------- Marshes and wetlands: EPA's Wetlands Division http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/OWOW/wetlands/ University of Maryland College Park Coastal Marsh Project http://www.geog.umd.edu/wetlands/Marsh.html -------------------- Chesapeake Bay: Chesapeake Bay Information Network http://www.chesapeake.org/ Chesapeake Bay Program Home Page http://www.epa.gov/r3chespk/ Chesapeake Bay: Virtual Reality for a Less than Model Ecosystem http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SCMS/Metascience/Articles/Chesapeake.html --------------- One of the most threatened ecosystems in the U.S. is the Florida Everglades, which is impacted by human activities throughout South Florida. Try a search of the web looking for information on the Everglades or the Kissimmee River, and look for web pages managed by the South Florida Water Management District. The following sites also provide some relevant information: U.S. Geological Survey: South Florida Ecosystems Homepage http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/ South Florida Ecosystem Program Fact Sheet http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/sfepfact.html South Florida Ecosystems: Changes Through Time http://sflwww.er.usgs.gov/HTML/SFLA/HTML/Ecosystem/Deb.html Central and Southern Florida (C&SF) Project Comprehensive Review Study http://www.saj.usace.army.mil/restudy/index.html ----------------- Coral reefs: The Great Barrier Reef http://www.erin.gov.au/portfolio/dest/wha/gbr.html http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~salmon/wh-gbreef.html The Coral Health and Monitoring Program http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/ ----------------- Virtual Hawaii Home Page http://hawaii.ivv.nasa.gov:80/space/hawaii/index.html ----------------- Tropical forests: Humid Tropical Forest Inventory Project http://pathfinder-www.sr.unh.edu/pathfinder/index.html Rain forests http://www.euronet.nl/users/mbleeker/urlists/boturl-2.html#rainfo The Tropical Rainforest in Suriname http://www.euronet.nl/users/mbleeker/suri_eng.html ------------------ Research on global change HAPEX-Sahel: the Hydrology-Atmosphere Pilot Experiment in the Sahel, 1990-1992 http://www.orstom.fr/hapex/htdocs/whatis.htm International Geosphere-Biosphere Program: Biospheric Aspects of the Hydrological Cycle http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~bahc/ LBA, the Large Scale Biosphere - Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~bahc/lba.www The BOREAS Project (Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study) http://boreas.gsfc.nasa.gov/BOREAS/BOREAS_Home.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some information on soils, soil-water relationships, soils and biology, weathering: Soil-water relationships http://gnv.ifas.ufl.edu/~fairsweb/text/ss/19828.html Biodiversity, soil and ecologically sustainable development http://kaos.erin.gov.au/portfolio/esd/biodiv/articles/soil.html Ancient land and young soils http://cres.anu.edu.au/bulletin/ollier.html Ayers Rock, Australia http://www.world.net/Travel/Australia/NT_info/NTTC/ayers.html http://ebweb.tuwien.ac.at/ortner/images/nt16.jpg National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory http://soils.ecn.purdue.edu:20002/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The geologist's lifetime field list (not for an assignment, but take a look) http://www.uc.edu/~ACOMBTY/geologylist.html NASA JSC Digital Image Collection http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/ World Heritage List (many of the places in the world worth visiting) http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~salmon/world.heritage.html Chicxulub Impact Crater Provides Clues to Earth's History (also not for assignment, but also a good story) http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/sharpton.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Some information on landslides and debris flows: National Landslide Information Center http://gldage.cr.usgs.gov/html_files/nlicsun.html History of landslides and Debris Flows at Mount Rainier http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Rainier/OFR93-111.html 1995 PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF THE FIRE-RELATED DEBRIS FLOWS ON STORM KING MOUNTAIN, GLENWOOD SPRINGS, COLORADO http://gldage.cr.usgs.gov/html_files/ofr95-508/skrep.html Debris-Flow Flume at H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, Oregon http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Projects/MassMovement/flume.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some information on floods: The Upper Mississippi Basin and the great Mississippi flood of 1993 http://edcwww2.cr.usgs.gov/./sast-home.html The Great Flood of Summer 1993: Mississippi River Discharge Studied http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/walker.html Corps of Engineers 1993 Flood Data http://www.wes.army.mil/EL/flood/fl93home.html Landsat Imagery of the 1993 Mississippi River Flood http://www.geo.mtu.edu/rs/tm/flood/ Photographs of the 1993 floods in Missouri http://www.nssl.uoknor.edu/~edwards/rogersky.htm#Missouri Floods Flash flood forecasting http://www.nssl.uoknor.edu/projects/fffc/fffc.html NASA Flood Management Home Page http://iquest.com/~sentar/NASA/Flood_Management.html PALEOFLOOD INFORMATION WILL HELP IN ANALYSIS OF EXTREME FLOODS WORLDWIDE http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ogp/papers/hirsch.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Water resources and hydrology information: Hydrology primer from U.S. Geological Survey http://wwwdmorll.er.usgs.gov/~bjsmith/outreach/hydrology.primer.html Hydrology links http://srv2dcolka.cr.usgs.gov/nawqa/splt/LINKS.html/ THE SOUTH PLATTE NAWQA ONLINE DATA REPORT http://srv2dcolka.cr.usgs.gov/nawqa/splt/ Research at the USDA Agricultural Research Service Hydrology Laboratory http://hydrolab.arsusda.gov/Hydrology.html A series of papers reviewing recent advances in hydrology http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/contents.html#hydrology National water policy: Shifts continue http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/moreau01/moreau01.html Water-Level Changes in the High Plains Aquifer, Predevelopment to 1994 http://h2o.usgs.gov/public/wid/FS_215-95/FS_215-95.html Colorado water (with some general background info on hydrology and water resources) http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/CWK/contents.htm Calculation of evapotranspiration rates (Penman calculator) http://jei.umd.edu/jei/penman.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rivers (add more): Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah - Entrenched meanders http://www.mines.utah.edu/~wmgg/Geology/UtahGIFS/Goosenecks.html Colorado River/Grand Canyon Grand Canyon National Park Home Page (see features on controlled flooding) http://www.kaibab.org/gc/gc_homef.htm The River That Flows Uphill http://weber.u.washington.edu/~wcalvin/bk3ch1.html Studies of Colorado River Sandbars (Beaches) in Grand Canyon at Northern Arizona University http://vishnu.glg.nau.edu/gces/sbar.html The Unofficial Guide to the Colorado River in The Grand Canyon  http://river.ihs.gov/ LINKS TO OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION RELATED TO THE COLORADO PLATEAU, GRAND CANYON, AND COLORADO RIVER http://phantom.uc.usbr.gov/links.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lakes: Lake Baikal http://www.icc.ru/fed/baikal.html Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia http://ripley.ece.uiuc.edu/~vfridman/baikal.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karst topography: Tower karst in China http://www.atm.ch.cam.ac.uk/~oliver/guilin.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Case studies of environmental problems (add other examples): Modeling the Radionuclide Transport by the Ob and Yenisei Rivers (radionuclides courtesy of the Chernobyl accident) http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-mpb.htm Arctic Nuclear Waste Assessment Program (ANWAP) http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-onr.htm Observations and Modeling of Transport and Dilution of Radioactive Waste and Dissolved Pollutants in the Kara Sea http://www.nrsc.no:8001/NIERSC/PROJECTS/r_a_waste.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glaciers, climate change and climatic history: The Quaternary Page http://www.geog.ualberta.ca/kholden/quat.htm Paleoclimatology and climate system dynamics http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/overpe00/overpe00.html Variability in the earth climate system: Decadal and longer timescales http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/schime01/schime01.html Climate change: does it matter? http://earth.agu.org/revgeophys/firor00/firor00.html CLIMAP: modern and last glacial maximum (18 KBP) comparison http://ingrid.ldgo.columbia.edu/SOURCES/ECMWF/.v+P+1000.000+VALUE+T+300.5000+VALUE+Y+flip+X+Y+2+REORDER/Y+flip+(XOVY)+1.972603+def+X+Y+/3+index/.CLIMAP/help.html Images of North America between 18,0000 years ago and the presetn http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tjms/namerica.html Wind-Borne Dust Holds Clues to Early Climate http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/banerjee.html Deciphering Mysteries of Past Climate From Antarctic Ice Cores http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/vostok.html Reconstructing Past Global Change in Western North America http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/anders.html Ice Sheets Play Important Role in Climate Change http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/clark.html Global Change Researchers Assess Projections of Climate Change http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/barron.html Glacial water features (excellent student project from Emporia State University) http://www.cadvantage.com/~cinnabar/glacier.htm Measuring Antarctic glacier velocity with remote sensing (another student project) http://www.emporia.edu/s/www/earthsci/ice/naomi/menu.htm Measuring a moving glacier http://earth.agu.org/kosmos/sauber.html THE VATNAJÖKULL ERUPTION AND JÖKULHLAUP OF SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER, 1996: MAIN PHOTOGRAPHIC SITES http://www.geog.ualberta.ca/als/icepics/iceindex.htm#Vatna General Geology of Southeastern Washington (location of channeled scabland) http://www.whitman.edu/Departments/Geology/LocalGeo.html The Cordilleran Ice Sheet in Washington, Idaho, and Montana http://www.isri.unlv.edu/~john/rummage/demo/1319.html Channeled scabland of eastern Washington http://esther.la.asu.edu/asu_tes/TES_Editor/PATHFINDER/SCABLANDS/scablands_menu.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Coastal and marine processes: Coastal and Nearshore Erosion http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/docs/erosion.html Historical Bathymetric Changes Near the Entrance to Grays Harbor, Washington http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-grays.htm WIND-DRIVEN VARIABILITY OF THEAMAZON RIVER PLUME ON THE CONTINENTAL SHELF DURING THE PEAK OUTFLOW SEASON http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-amazon.htm Numerical Modeling of the Nearshore Dispersal of the Amazon Outflow http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-near.htm Long-Term Fate of Waste in an Urban Coastal Ocean: Calculations of DDE Concentration in Effluent-Affected Sediments off the Palos Verdes Peninsula http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-palosv.htm Measurements and Modeling of Suspended-Sediment Transport on the Northern California Continental Shelf http://www.msl.pnl.gov:2080/projects/a-chris.htm -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------