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Geosymposium 2009

 

The UNLV Geoscience Department presented the 4th annual Geosymposium on April 17-18, 2009, in the Blasco Event Wing of the UNLV Foundation Building, here on the UNLV campus. The symposium is student-run and provides graduate and undergraduate students with an opportunity to present original academic research and receive valuable feedback from industry, civic, and government professionals, as well as academic experts.

The GeoSymposium includes oral presentations, with time for discussion with audience members, and student poster sessions. A review panel awarded prizes for the best presentations and posters.
The field trip departed from the Lilly Fong Geoscience building parking lot on the morning of April 18th.

The UNLV Geoscience Student Symposium will showcase a wide range of important graduate and undergraduate research, and provide a forum for participating students to develop presentation skills in a friendly, relaxed environment. Student research projects include such diverse topics as: soils, geomorphology, hydrogeology, paleontology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, volcanology, seismology, structural geology, and economic geology.

The symposium began 4:00 p.m. Thursday evening at the Lily Fong Geoscience Building with a presentation titled Deep Earth Controls on Sea Level, Plate Tectonics, and Volcanism given by geophysicist Clint Conrad from the University of Hawaii.  At 8:30 a.m. the following morning, the technical sessions began in the Blasco Event Wing of the UNLV Foundation Building on campus.  The event got off to a great start with keynote speaker M. Stephen Enders, an honorary lecturer from the Society of Economic Geologists.  Dr. Enders’ talk So You Want to be a Geologist – Careers in the Gold Mining Business provided a beacon of hope that shined a light on an industry that is still going strong and that depends heavily on continuing research into resource exploration and development.

Swapan Sahoo, Ph.D. Student, Geoscience Department.
Twelve oral presentations filled the remainder of the morning; discussing topics related to hydrogeology, economic geology, volcanology, soils, paleoclimatology, paleontology, structural geology, and planetary geology.  The talks included scientific projects that represented the some of the latest research to have been produced by the UNLV Department of Geoscience during the 2008-2009 academic year.  Immediately following the oral presentations an inviting barbeque-style picnic lunch on the Foundation Building terrace, sponsored by ExxonMobil, preceded an afternoon poster session offering visitors the opportunity to review thirty additional research projects.  Much like the talks, these scientific posters also included a diverse range of geologic disciplines. 

Left to right: Erin Orozco and Tiesa Dunlop, two of several undergraduate majors in geoscience who participated in the 2009 Geosymposium.

 

A confidential review panel of judges awarded cash prizes, courtesy of Barrick Gold Corporation, and SEM or microprobe time, courtesy of EMIL, to students with the best oral and poster presentations.  Graduate awards included Colin Robins (Extraction of Authigenic Palygorskite and Sepiolite from Petrocalcic Soil Horizons: Implications for Isotopic Dating) for Outstanding Oral Presentation; Jonathan Baker (Paired δ13C Carb and δ13C Org Analysis and Chemostratigraphy across a Late Cambrian Carbonate Platform in the Great Basin, Western United States) for Best Graduate Preliminary Research poster; and, Joseph Asante (Evaluating Groundwater Recharge and Flow Dynamic using Coupled Interpretation of Water Quality, Stable Isotopes, and Numerical Modeling Techniques) for Best Graduate Research and Results poster.  Jonathan Carter (Structural and Sedimentological Development of Parhrump Basin, Southern Nevada with Implications for Seismic Hazards) received the award for Best Undergraduate Research poster.

Graduate Student Award Recipients, 2009 Geosymposium.

The day’s presentations concluded with a keynote address by Bill Rinne, Director of Surface Water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority.  Mr. Rinne’s talk, Meeting Current and Future Water Demands in the Las Vegas Valley discussed strategies for sustainability of the valley’s water supply now and in the future. 


Aubrey Shirk, Geosymposium Chair; Bill Rinnie, Southern Nevada Water Authority, and Interim Dean, Wanda Taylor.

 

After the closing ceremonies that immediately followed, guests and presenters moved to the Lily Fong Geoscience Building for a reception and silent auction.  This event provided an opportunity for guests and student researchers to network while dining and good-naturedly competing to bid on their favorite rock, mineral, and fossil specimens; as well as some unique pottery, and jewelry.  This event is a fun way to build relationships between students and professionals, and the money raised from the sale of these donated items will help make next year’s GeoSymposium possible. 

The last day of the symposium, Saturday, April 18, offered a field trip, sponsored by SNWA, to explore some of the more outstanding geologic features located at the Valley of Fire State Park just north of Las Vegas.  Student tour guides took guests to sites at Atlatl Rock, to observe Jurassic Sandstone and ancient petroglyphs; Rainbow Vista, to observe the Jurassic – Cretaceous unconformity exposed there; Gibralter Rock, for a hike to observe and discuss the importance of the many types of biological soil crusts, and other interesting features of the Willow Tank Formation; the Muddy Creek Formation, to discuss its possible deposition by the paleo-Colorado River; and Overton Beach to discuss the implications of the falling water levels of Lake Mead.

2009 Geosymposium Committee members.

The field trip and presentation sessions would not have been possible without the dedication and collective efforts of the many volunteers who pitched in to make these events successful.  The generous contributions of time, effort, silent auction donations and/or financial support, provided by the many sponsors who participated were also critical to the symposium’s success.  Planning for next year’s GeoSymposium has already begun and organizers are accepting donations now.  For information on how you can donate gifts of goods, services, and/or financial support contact the UNLV Geoscience Department at 702-895-3262.

Thank You 2009 Geosymposium Sponsors

Diamond-Level Donation:
ExxonMobil Corporation
Barrick Gold Exploration, Inc.
Southern Nevada Water Authority

Corundum-Level Donation:
Maureen Wruck

Topaz-Level Donation:
Espresso World, Inc.
Steve McEwin

Quartz-Level Donation:
Robert and Loretta Klein
Dave Eisenstein
Cap'n Dave's Dinosaur Lectures and Shows, LLC
Jim Mills
Lynn Oliver
David J. Ely
Anthony D. Feig
Jean Cline
Jim O'Donnell
Nature's Art and Gifts
Patrick Haynes
Judith Costa
Laurie Thake
Tonia Arriola
Maria Figueroa
Electron Microanalysis & Imaging Lab (EMIL)
Nevada Isotope Geochronology Lab (NIGL)

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ScienceLives: Energy of Volcanoes Harnessed to Generate Power

http://www.livescience.com/environment/090507-science-lives-simon.html

 

Editor's Note: ScienceLives is an occasional series that puts scientists under the microscope to find out what makes them tick. The series is a cooperation between the National Science Foundation and LiveScience.
Name: Adam C. Simon
Age: 37
Institution: UNLV, Department of Geoscience and the High Pressure Science and Engineering Center
Field of Study: Geochemistry, Economic Geology, Volcanology 
UNLV geochemist Adam Simon is part of an international team seeking to better understand what drives volcanoes to erupt and how the heat from volcanoes can be harnessed to generate geothermal electrical power. Their results will have a direct impact on geothermal power production in the western United States, where legislative mandates require states to turn increasingly to renewable resources in the future. Simon is also interested in the potential of volcanoes to produce high quality gold and silver ore deposits, which can contain platinum and palladium.  The latter two metals are important in catalytic converters, and platinum is used as a catalyst to produce cancer medications. Determining the critical factors in ore deposition should help Simon identify the most likely places for additional ore deposits in Russia, Nevada, and around the world. Considering that Nevada currently produces 80 percent of the total gold mined in the United States and ranks fourth among all global producing countries, Simon's research is vital to mining exploration and the national economy. Read more about Simon at http://magazine.unlv.edu/Issues/Fall07/16-17whatlies.html and see his answers to the ScienceLives 10 questions below.

What inspired you to choose this field of study?

I was always outdoors as a child and developed a passion for the natural world.  Somehow, once I got to college I enrolled as a political science major, but I took Geology 101 my first semester and was fortunate enough to have a Geology instructor who narrated the history of the Earth so eloquently that I changed my major that semester. My undergraduate advisor encouraged me to participate in research and the rest is history.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received?

Treat school as a full time occupation and only do it if you love it.  Too many students today view post-high school education as a rite of passage, part of the entitlement generation. I pursued my degrees with an intense passion to learn as much as a I could. I’m still learning and consider myself a perennial student. School is a privilege and it should be treated as such.

What was your first scientific experiment as a child?

I was 5 years old and wanted to see how chocolate chips would melt in different pots. I put four pots on the stove and chocolate chips into each one. No stirring. Just observation.  The chips did melt. The pots were destroyed. Today I put rocks in furnaces and melt them at much higher temperatures. And yes I still destroy "pots," although now they’re a lot more expensive.

What is your favorite thing about being a scientist or researcher?

I earn a salary for doing what I love. My research is helping to change our understanding of Earth processes and my work in the classroom is helping to inform a new generation of voters about their natural environment.

What is the most important characteristic a scientist must demonstrate in order to be an effective scientist?

Never be afraid to test a new idea. There is no such thing as an unsuccessful experiment.

What are the societal benefits of your research?

My research helps mining geologists locate new deposits of platinum group elements, vital components in cancer medications, fuel cells, and catalytic converters.

Who has had the most influence on your thinking as a researcher?

My undergraduate and post-doctoral advisors are the consummate philosophers. They instilled in me a strong need to always question. Never trust anyone until you think it through yourself.

What about your field or being a scientist do you think would surprise people the most?

I despised science in high school, and I actually failed chemistry as a junior. The teaching was terrible and incredibly un-stimulating. I’m sure other adolescent issues also led to my downfall in that class, but it was truly unbearable. But then I hit college and excelled with relative ease when put into an environment where faculty truly had the passion to teach.

If you could only rescue one thing from your burning office or lab, what would it be?

I don’t worry about such scenarios. Material goods can be replaced.

What music do you play most often in your lab or car?

Classical. My favorite station is Radio Swiss Classic out of Bern, Switzerland. Great symphonies and opera. I have no clue about much of the dialogue in Italian and French opera and this reminds me constantly that there is always more to learn. Great ego check.

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The Comment Factory
By Michael Pravica • May 5, 2009

http://www.thecommentfactory.com/we-need-to-resurrect-the-concept-of-the-public-intellectual-2167

A link to this article was posted on the London Guardian's "Best of the Web" in the "Comment is Free" section. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree

We need to resurrect the concept of the “public intellectual” As our economy falters with no end in sight, and we may soon be in the midst of a Depression worse than that in the 1920’s, public funding of education is in crisis. In my home state of Nevada, Governor Gibbons has proposed wide ranging cuts in education. There has been much public debate about the repercussions of such catastrophic cuts on education. Similar conversations are ongoing elsewhere in the nation.

As a frequent traveler, I read editorials, letters to the editor, opinion columns, listen to radio and watch television programs all over the country. To me, it is obvious that one voice frequently missing in this debate about the future of education is the educators themselves As an activist since 1992 on a variety of issues including education and science, I have learned much about how the “real” world works outside of academia and just how important activism is on a local, state, and national level to inform the public and thereby help steer the course of popular opinion.

In this spirit, I wish to appeal to fellow educators to similarly defend education. We need to train our future scholars to successfully innovate our way out of the current morass and to maintain our preeminence in science and technology. This might seem like a simple message that most Americans would understand. The problem, however, as I discovered when I was formerly Chair of the Mathematical Sciences Department at New Mexico Highlands University, is that in reality, few people beyond immediate colleagues fully understand the importance of one’s department within a University let alone possess the greater vision of why higher education is so vital to our society and economy. Scholars are often viewed as cloistered, ivory tower “pointy-headed academics” who only work the hours that they teach, people who are arrogant elitist snobs who disdain students, get graduate students to teach and grade for them, and are grossly overpaid. K-12 teachers are viewed as lazy, poorly-educated people who are incapable of securing a job outside of union-supported teaching and mainly baby-sit their pupils. I see these points of view expressed in the mainstream media almost daily. Educators need to get out amongst the public to explain what we do and challenge these grossly inaccurate perspectives.

To gain insight into what a modicum of activism can achieve, consider some of my experiences. I have delivered a number of public lectures here at UNLV which all mushroomed into further outreach. The first one (“The Great Contributions of Physics to Humanity”) was taped on our University cable television station (KUNV). That taping has been aired a number of times. I knew this because soon after every rebroadcast of my lecture, my students, next-door neighbors, and others would tell me that they saw me on TV and enjoyed my lecture. I wrote a related op-ed which was published in the Las Vegas Review Journal. For my second lecture, I spoke on global warming and wrote an op-ed on the subject which was published in the Washington Times. I was then invited to present a lecture to Mayor Oscar Goodman and the rest of the Las Vegas City Council. Right afterward, the Council voted to make Las Vegas a “green city.” Most recently, I spoke on Nikola Tesla to a packed audience. I was then interviewed by our local NPR-affiliate radio station (KNPR) on Nikola Tesla and other topics and also spoke to the Illumination Engineering Society in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Sun published my appeal to have a street named after this great inventor.

Beyond my independent activism, I have participated in national efforts such as the American Physical Society (APS)-organized Congressional Visit in March of 2006 during the APS March Meeting in Baltimore. I went with a number of my students to visit our Nevada delegation in Congress. This made a great impact as one of our Congressmen signed a “Dear Colleague” letter supporting budgetary increase of the National Science Foundation that day.

I write this column therefore asking educators nationwide to increase the level of their activism. Calling, writing and visiting elected officials helps (especially if you and/or your students live in their district) immensely by opening channels of communication and advice should they need to seek it. Politicians are very sensitive to public opinion and actively follow all discussions in the media. Every Congressional office we visited had televisions blaring, newspapers strewn in every corner, and staffers perusing all forms of media to gauge public perceptions of pertinent issues. Thus, writing letters to the editor, opinion columns, calling in to radio shows, and even writing or calling radio and television station editors off-program can have tremendous impact. I have been invited to give a number of lectures and radio interviews (e.g. the Boston-NPR affiliate) by editors and others who read various published letters of mine.

Once, I called a well-known radio program (“Democracy Now”) in New York just to thank them for airing an excellent broadcast that I heard when driving to work and was invited for an interview the next day!

When writing letters-to-the-editor, keep the letters brief (usually 200 words or less). The saying “brevity is the source of wit” is very relevant here. Passionate letters are OK but be diplomatic/civil in your writing. Focus on one or maximum two points to discuss. Succinct letters that are current (e.g. based on recent news/articles in the paper) and that immediately catch the reader’s attention are most likely to be published. If you feel strongly about your viewpoint, encourage your colleagues to write as well. If you don’t get your letter published, don’t be frustrated – send it elsewhere. Depending on the issue and newspaper, roughly one out of every three of my letters has been getting published lately though my success rate was much lower when I started writing letters in 1992.

When the media seek your perspective, make yourself instantly available. When invited in the late afternoon for an interview on the “O’Reilly Factor” in March 1999, a friend delivered a suit to my workplace in upper Manhattan only to be chauffeured later that evening to Fox studios in lower Manhattan where our one-on-one live interview was conducted. On another occasion, I was interviewed by a local NYC television station on a street corner near my workplace during a 15 minute break.

We need to resurrect the concept of the “public intellectual” by expanding the role of the educator beyond the classroom and schools into the public realm. Administrators and colleagues should recognize and support those activists who speak out to defend academia in the public sphere. Our citizens and their leaders desperately need input from academics. We cannot assume that everyone will e.g. just magically “know” why physics education and physics research is so critical to our society. Public support for education just cannot be taken for granted anymore. It is our duty to explain our relevance.

And as a bonus, my life has been forever enriched by my contact and friendship with fellow activists and others from all over the world who are similarly concerned for our future and who, like me, believe that the essence and requirement of democracy is full, uncensored debate.

 

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“PEOPLE OF NOTE: UNLV Astrophysicist: In Search of Universal Truth,”
by Brendan Buhler, Las Vegas Sun, May 12, 2009

http://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/12/search-universal-truth/


Bing Zhang is an award-winning astrophysicist at UNLV, He studies gamma ray bursts, which generate more power in seconds than the sun does in billions of years.
Photograph by Sam Morris.

Bing Zhang takes the long view, peering back sometimes as far as a billion years after the birth of the universe and some eight billion years before our own sun and planets precipitated from a hydrogen fog drifting in the void.

From this perspective, the 100,000-year history of the human species is a minor rounding error.

Yet Zhang is concerned with events that last a fraction of a second or, at most, almost half an hour. He studies gamma ray bursts — the byproducts of unimaginable violence, worse than an extinction-level asteroid impact or an all-Canadian hockey playoff series, calamities like the collapse of a star into a black hole.

Zhang is an astrophysicist formerly of NASA’s prestigious Goddard Space Flight Center and co-winner of the American Astronomical Society’s 2007 Bruno Rossi Prize in high energy astrophysics. To do his job, he needs — besides a lifetime of training, a keen mathematical mind and the work ethic of an entire ant colony — a computer and a white board.
This is one of two reasons why Zhang is at UNLV. The other?

“I got a job,” Zhang says.

Astrophysics is a competitive field and one cannot remain a postdoc student forever. Eventually, one needs to acquire tenure and postdoc students of one’s own. Luckily, Zhang is not a particle physicist. Both astrophysicists and particle physicists are racing to discover the Ultimate Law of Everything, a single theory that can explain the wheeling of galaxies, the quantum dance of quarks and what’s really going on at the heart of a black hole. But particle physicists generally need to attach themselves to particle accelerator labs, which are huge, expensive complexes that hoard their data until publication. Astrophysicists, on the other hand, can work anywhere because they share data from satellites and radio telescopes. So even if an astrophysicist is one of five lead theorists on a NASA satellite mission, as Zhang is, he does not get to keep the data to himself. In fact, at the beginning of the mission, Zhang wore a cell phone and a pager, so that if the satellite detected a gamma ray burst he could immediately process the data, put it online and answer the questions of other astrophysicists.  “Even during the middle of the night,” Zhang says. “Usually, these things happened to me during the middle of the night.” But perhaps you are wondering exactly what a gamma ray burst is. When black holes are born or compact stars collide, they shoot off a jet of energy moving at nearly the speed of light. Zhang says the latest data suggest 95 percent of the jet is composed of electromagnetic fields. The remaining 5 percent of the jet is electrons, which pingpong back and forth in the fields, going faster and faster until, in layman’s terms, they go zap. Gamma ray bursts are so powerful that there is as much energy in one 10-second burst as our sun will produce in its 10 billion-year life. So powerful, in fact, that some have theorized that nearby bursts have caused or could cause massive, planetwide extinctions. We probably don’t have to worry about any bursts in our neighborhood, Zhang reassures. The Milky Way is all out of the massive stars needed for a gamma ray burst and, anyway, should any large stars form, they will be too metallic to achieve sufficient rotational velocity.

Of course.

Phew.

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“UNLV Receives 2.1 Million for Nuclear Technologies Research”

On May 26, 2009, UNLV announced $ 2.1 million in funding from the U.S. Department of energy.

Full text: http://www.unlv.edu/news/story.html?id=1530

 

UNLV Receives $2.1 Million for Nuclear Technologies Research

U.S. Department of Energy identifies UNLV as one of 31 lead research institutions to help nation move toward greater use of nuclear energy

LAS VEGAS – May 18, 2009 – UNLV has been awarded more than $2.1 million by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to lead four new research projects that will advance nuclear technologies in support of the nation’s energy goals.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu officially announced the awards recently as part of the nearly $44 million of new funding under the DOE’s Nuclear Energy University Program. UNLV was identified as one of 31 lead research institutions nationwide to conduct research that, the DOE says, will play a key role in addressing the global climate crisis and move the nation toward greater use of nuclear technology.

“As a zero-carbon energy source, nuclear power must be part of our energy mix as we work toward energy independence and meeting the challenge of global warming,” said Secretary Chu. “The next generation of nuclear power plants – with the highest standards of safety, efficiency and environmental protection – will require the latest advancements in nuclear science and technology. These research and development university awards will ensure that the United States continues to lead the world in the nuclear field for years to come.”

The funding will support four three-year research projects designed to advance technologies for two of the DOE’s major initiatives: the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), and the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) – or Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems. 

Three of the projects were developed by Ken Czerwinski, associate professor of chemistry and director of the UNLV radiochemistry program; Frederic Poineau, research professor in chemistry; and Dan Rego, a post-doctoral researcher in the radiochemistry program. Longzhou Ma, a research scientist at UNLV’s Harry Reid Center, is the principal investigator on the fourth project. Their collaborators include fellow UNLV scientists and students, as well as colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Argonne, Idaho, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest national laboratories.

“This major support from DOE will allow UNLV faculty and students to advance the knowledge necessary for solving some of our nation’s most pressing energy issues,” said Ken Czerwinski, who also serves as the principal investigator on three of the four projects. 

The research includes studies related to nuclear waste separation technology, the disposal of waste forms, and nuclear materials science.

About the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative:
The AFCI is a focused research and development program sponsored by the U.S. DOE tasked with reducing the cost of waste management, delaying the technical need for a second geologic repository, and dramatically reducing the inventory of civilian plutonium in the U.S. while recovering the energy value from spent nuclear fuel.

About the Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems:
The Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative within the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Nuclear Energy is the U.S. contribution to an international effort to develop next-generation nuclear energy technologies. Generation IV nuclear energy systems aim to reduce capital cost, enhance nuclear safety, minimize the generation of nuclear waste, and further reduce the risk of weapons materials proliferation.

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Radiation Chemistry Program Highlights

1. Submitted a proposal to conduct research on materials in extreme environment with Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Faculty and staff developed and submitted proposal with Brookhaven National Laboratory to use synchrotron experiments to investigated high temperature effects on nuclear fuel synthesis and irradiated materials. The UNLV Radiochemistry will provide fuel and material samples for investigations.

2. Submitted proposal for Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) student fellowships. Proposal allows students from UNLV Radiochemistry program to apply for fellowship support from DOE-Nuclear Energy

3. Four presentations offered at the 33rd Separations Conference 18-21 May 2009. Radiochemistry program members will make four presentations at upcoming meeting on actinide separations.

4. Participating in Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) safeguard program overview Gary Cerefice, a research professor in the program, was invited to review safeguards research at Argonne National Laboratory.

5. Four students from the program are engaged in interviews for post-doctoral positions upon graduation. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has offered Chinthaka Silva, a graduate of the UNLV radiochemistry program (May 2009), a post-doctoral position at the Seaborg Institute, She will perform studies on actinide nitrides. Rich and Julie Gostic visited NIST for an interview. These positions areas related to nuclear forensics research. Kiel Holliday was offered a position at Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, Karlsruhe, Germany. The position will involve synchrotron and laser spectroscopy studies of actinide compounds.

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“UMSL Names Microbiologist New Arts & Sciences Dean”

http://www.umsl.edu/services/media/newsrel/may15dean.html

Ronald E. Yasbin, a noted microbiologist and former dean of the College of Sciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has been named dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He will take over the post in August.

 “I am very excited about being part of a land-grant institution once again,” said Yasbin, who was a student and then faculty member at The Pennsylvania State University, one of the earliest land grant institutions in the country. “The challenges we face in the future will be better solved by large metropolitan land grant institutions such as UMSL.”

On a personal note, he added that he and his wife, Sherrill, look forward to living in St. Louis because of all that the region offers and because they will be a lot closer to their children and grandchildren.

Yasbin, a microbial geneticist, focuses on the evolution of bacteria and their adaptation to stressful environments. He came to UNLV as dean in 2003 from the University of Texas at Dallas and was a faculty member at the University of Maryland, the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York and Penn State.  
            
A native New Yorker, he earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology from Penn State, a master’s degree in genetics from Cornell University in New York and a doctoral degree in microbiology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in New York.

Glen Cope, UMSL’s provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs, said she was looking forward to welcoming Yasbin to the campus in August. “Dr. Yasbin is an excellent scholar and administrator and a fine person who will be an asset to the university. I am very pleased to welcome him,” she said. John Hylton, dean of UMSL’s College of Fine Arts and Communication, led the search for a new dean. “I am delighted that Ron has accepted the position of dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,” said Hylton. “The college and the campus will benefit greatly from his scholarly and administrative experience, and his creative insights into situations and solutions.”

Teresa Thiel, a professor of molecular biology, has served as acting and then interim dean since January 2008.

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SCI 107X: Sustainable Energy

George Rhee, Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy will introduce a new course, SCI 107X: Sustainable Energy, for the Fall Semester 2009. The course will meet on Monday and Wednesday from 4:00 – 5:15 p.m., in CBC-A112.

Abstract: Would you like to learn about solving our energy needs? Can we get off our fossil fuel addiction? Why not take a class for your general science credit?
We will explore the issue of sustainable energy in a quantitative manner. How much energy does an average person use in going about their daily business? Can we eliminate greenhouse gas emissions without changing our lifestyle? This is a straight talking class about energy use and policy, including the relevant numbers and their significance to our lives. Students will understand the scientific principles that underlie energy sustainability and become well informed citizens on this topic. Contact grhee@physics.unlv.edu 894-4453 for more information.

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 “Playing Around with Geology in the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area,”
by Denise K. Honn

The Playground

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has created a new National Conservation Area (NCA) in the northern McCullough Mountains.  This new park, the Sloan Canyon NCA, is right on the southern edge of the city of Henderson.  The main goal of the park is to preserve the high concentration of petroglyphs in Sloan Canyon, but the NCA also offers spectacular Micocene volcanic terrains.  There are five distinct volcanic centers including a classic caldera, stratovolcano, lava flows, domes, and cinder cones.  You can find everything from basaltic bombs to dacitic ash-flow tuffs within a short hike.  The NCA is a volcanologist’s playground.  So, how can we share this spectacular volcanic landscape with the public?  How can we get the public to understand the importance of the geology?  How do we get the public to connect with the Park so that they will actively want to protect it?

The Sloan Canyon NCA Geology Traveling Trunk project aims to help answer these questions.  The Traveling trunk is a series of geology lesson plans with examples of rocks and landforms from the NCA.  The Goal of the trunk is to bring the spectacular volcanic geology of the NCA to Clark County middle school classrooms, teaching basic geology lessons by highlighting NCA volcanism.

The Parents:

The Geology Traveling Trunk project has three parents; UNLV, BLM, and Clark County teachers.  As a Research Assistant, I have a contract with the BLM to help with the interpretation of the Sloan Canyon NCA geology.  My personal goals for this project are to find funding for geoscience in the NCA and to increase public awareness in the local geology.  The BLM’s goal for this project is conservation.  They have focused on the interpretation of the geology as a way to get the public connected to the NCA through curiosity and understanding.  If people feel a personal connection with the NCA, they will want to protect it.  The BLM views this project as a way to increase public interest in conservation of the NCA.  Clark County middle school teachers see the Traveling Trunk as an opportunity to teach earth science in a new and engaging way.

Playground Equipment:

The Traveling Trunk includes everything a teacher would need to teach introductory geology.  With the input of the BLM and Clark County teachers, I have created 10 lesson plans and activities including; The lessons included are:  (1) geologic time, (2) tectonic plate motions, (3) tectonic plate interactions, (4) the rock cycle, (5) mineral identification, (6) rock identification, (7) volcanoes, (8) volcanoes of Sloan Canyon NCA, (9) faults and folds, (10) stratigraphy, and (11) geologic maps.  Each lesson begins with lists of the teaching objectives and the Nevada State Teaching Standards that are covered.  These lists are designed to help teachers decide which lessons they want to teach.  The lessons can be taught individually or as part of a series.  Detailed teacher Background sections review basic geology and include supplemental information about the NCA.  The activities begin with the question: “what do YOU think?”  Students are asked to brainstorm on an idea.  For example, “Why do some volcanoes erupt with a huge explosion, throwing ash miles into the atmosphere, and others just quietly pour lava out onto their flanks?”  The goal of these student lead discussions is to interest students in the topic so that they become actively engaged in the lesson.    The teacher does not give them the answers, but leads them in the right direction so students can come to their own conclusions.  Teachers use examples from the NCA in order to help lead them in the right direction.

Play dates:         

I am not a middle school teacher.  I do not know what concepts are appropriate and interesting to middle school students.   In order to figure this out, I talked to middle school teachers, read through the Nevada State Teaching Standards, talked to more teachers, and talked to parents of middle school students.  Afterwards, I realized that I was asking the wrong people.  If I want to know what interests middle school students and how to teach them different concepts I should ask them directly. 

Kathe Brenner, a fifth grade teacher at Solomon Schecter Day School, agreed to let me use her class of fifth graders as a test group.  I have been taking one lesson at a time to her classroom to try it out.  This has been my favorite part of the project.  I have to admit I probably I learn more from these play dates than the students do.  I am always amazed at how much interests them and how excited they get about difficult concepts.
During my first visit to Kathe’s class we went through the lesson on volcanoes.  The main objective of this lesson is to understand how the shape and explosiveness of a volcano is related to the composition of the magma and its viscosity.  These are concepts that I didn’t fully understand until I took a graduate level course in volcanology, so I thought I might be going over their heads.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Student curiosity and questioning lead me to an impromptu demonstration on the polymerization of magmas and how viscosity is affected by network formers and breakers.
I had groups of four students hold hands to form “network chains” and try to move around the classroom.  The “chains” were difficult to move around with chairs, desks, and other “chains” in the way.  I then used “network formers” to link the chains together.  These longer chains are very hard to move around (very viscous).  Then “Network breakers” (like water and carbon dioxide) shortened the chains down to two students each.  These short chains are really easy to move around (low viscosity).   Impromptu demonstrations like this really help me find out what students find interesting and what the lesson plans are missing.

I have learned several key things from my play dates with Kathe’s class.  (1) Students like to get their hands dirty.  Being actively involved with the lesson keeps them engaged and focused.  Even if it’s as simple as doing long division on the white board.  (2) Students are interested in the same things that interest me.  I get excited talking about my favorite topics, and students pay more attention when I share my energy.  (3) Fifth graders are smart.  It is better to tell them the whole complicated story than try to simplify concepts.  (4) Students learn by doing, asking their own questions, and coming to their own conclusions.  They don’t learn from lectures.   Everything that I learn from the experiences with Kathe’s class I try to incorporate into the lesson plans.  I want to make the trunk as useful to teachers as possible, so I am going to go through the updated lessons again with another class. 

Playing Well With Others

The next step for the Traveling trunk project is to see if the updated lessons will work well larger public school classrooms.  Will I need more materials?  Will it be harder to work with a larger group?  Will I need an assistant?  The final step will be to put the trunk in practice with teachers leading the lessons instead of me.  I will be in close contact with the first few teachers so that I can get feedback on what extra information they may need.  I am also in the process of designing an assessment plan.  I want to know what teachers and students think of the Trunk so that I can make it better.  
Working on the Sloan Canyon NCA Traveling Trunk project has taught me that work can feel more like playtime if you let yourself enjoy it.  This experience has given me the opportunity to share my love of geology with a group of students whose curiosity and energy makes me remember how much fun geology really is. 

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“Students Have a Gas in Science Bowl,” Las Vegas Sun, By Ray Brewer, May 7, 2009


Courtesy Cecilia Dickinson
Elton M. Garrett Junior High School student Rebecca Adams works on a model car for the Nevada Regional Science Bowl.

This group of students is passionate about science.
Students in the Science Club at Elton M. Garrett Junior High School worked diligently after school and on weekends for two months to design model cars with hydrogen fuel cells to compete against other middle school clubs at the 2009 Nevada Regional Science Bowl last month.

The children first had to learn the science behind hydrogen fuel technology. Armed with that knowledge, they planned, measured, drilled, split water into its hydrogen and oxygen and sent their cars off.

One of the cars didn't stop until it placed high in the regional event at UNLV.

Seventh-grader Bryann Pluta's car took second out of cars from 15 schools — each school could enter up to three cars — to earn Garrett a trophy and $500 stipend for the science program. Grant Sawyer Middle School of Las Vegas won the competition. Adams worked with classmate Rebecca Adams to work on the car.

"The children built these cars, not me or their parents," said Ceil Dickinson, one of the program's advisers. "They did the planning together."

The cars were roughly 1 foot long and powered by the hydro fuel cell. Pluta's car crossed the finish line on the 10-meter course in under 6 seconds — several cars stalled and didn't make it across the line.

The competition also called for students to answer questions about fuel technology. They could not race their cars unless they were able to explain how they operated during the questioning.
The hydro cell extracts hydrogen and oxygen from distilled water to power the vehicles. It is a complicated process for some to understand, but the students had no troubles in using that science to construct their cars.

"For me, that was just common sense," Pluta said of the technology.
There cars were constructed from scratch as the children had to follow engineering principals, keep good records and communicate together as teammates. The fuel cell, which runs about $120, is donated.

"They took the time to be careful and precise about it," Dickinson said.

Tyler Hinson and Jacob Piper also raced cars during their event, but their vehicles didn't make it out of the preliminary heat.

Other students who participated in the event included: Eric Gros, Clint Hatch and Connor Nichols.
 
Science Seminars – Upcoming Presentations

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The website can be found at http://cmse.unlv.edu/seminar/.

Approximately once a week, an email is sent out to subscribers of a listserv, announcing that week's upcoming seminars.

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Chemistry Colloquium

Dr. Zineb Felfli, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University
Friday, May 8, 2009, spoke on “Regge-pole calculation of the resonance contribution in electron-atom scattering.”

Abstract: Complex angular momenta (CAM) were originally introduced in 1918 to analyze the diffraction and scattering of short wavelength electromagnetic waves. In 1959, T. Regge applied them to particle physics, thereby focusing attention on the properties of the poles and their residues. Despite the power of the technique, there are relatively few applications of CAM (also known as Regge-pole) methods to the study of scattering problems. The conventional quantum approach to scattering problems expresses the desired solution as a partial-wave series where the summation is over the orbital (or total) angular momentum quantum number. This series is generally slowly convergent, particularly when the wavelength of the incoming particle is much smaller than the range of the scattering potential. If the angular momentum were allowed to become complex-valued, this slow convergence can be overcome. This is particularly important in the case of negative ions, where the diffuse nature of the orbitals translates into the need for an extensive partial wave expansion. Here, we investigate the formation of metastable states of negative ions through low-energy electron-atom collisions as resonances, within the context of our recently developed Regge pole methodology. The position in energy of the long lived resonances when they exist, are then identified with electron affinities of the corresponding neutral systems. Relatively good agreement is generally obtained with measurements as well as theory.

“An Overview of the History of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and a Summary of Ongoing Aqueous Separations Research,” May 12, 2009, Chemistry Auditorium, Room 101, by Jack Law, INL, Idaho Falls.

Abstract: Under the purview of the U.S. Department of Energy, Idaho Operations Office (DOE-ID), the INL is home to the largest concentration of technical professionals in the Rocky Mountain region. INL is an 890-square-mile section of desert in southeast Idaho and was established in 1949 as the National Reactor Testing Station. Initially, the missions at the INL were the development of civilian and defense nuclear reactor technologies and management of spent nuclear fuel. Fifty-two reactors—most of them first-of-a-kind—were built, including the Navy’s first prototype nuclear propulsion plant. Of the 52 reactors, three remain in operation at the site. Sponsorship of the INL was formally transferred to the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (NE) by Secretary Spencer Abraham in July, 2002. The move to NE supports the nation’s expanding nuclear energy initiatives, placing the INL at the center of work to develop advanced Generation IV nuclear energy systems; nuclear energy/hydrogen co-production technology; advanced nuclear energy fuel cycle technologies and providing national security answers to national infrastructure needs.

Mr. Jack Law has more than 25 years of experience at the Idaho National Laboratory. His primary areas of expertise are with the development and demonstration of aqueous separation processes to support nuclear fuel reprocessing and radioactive waste treatment. He has also been extensively involved in the design and testing of solvent extraction equipment, primarily pulse columns and centrifugal contactors. He is also extensively involved in the ODE-NE Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative for the last five years. As part of these programs, he was responsible for the development and demonstration of two new solvent extraction processes for the separation of Cesium and Strontium from used nuclear fuel. He has been awarded two US patents, three Russian patents and has over 50 peer reviewed publications. A year ago, he has been appointed Manager of the Aqueous Separation and Radiochemistry Department at the INL. Contact: Prof. Patricia Paviet-Hartmann, Harry Reid Center for Envir. Studies, 5-5488, Patricia.Paviet-Hartmann@unlv.edu. 

On May 20, 2009, Kevin E. Smith, Department of Physics, Boston University offered a presentations, “Observation of Intrinsic Quantum Effects in Electron Accumulation Layers.”

Abstract: The electronic structure of InN thin films has been studied using high resolution synchrotron radiation excited angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). We have measured a set of unusual electron states in the conduction band, near EF. These states are observed for a relatively narrow range of photon excitation energies and angle of detection, and are nested around the Brillouin zone center. The states are associated with electron accumulation at the surface, and we have discovered that these are in fact quantum well states.1 ARPES was also used to measure the Fermi surface of the quantum well states, as well as their constant binding energy contours below EF. Furthermore, the states at the top of the valence band were also found to be modified by the confining quantum well potential, and exhibit a classic inverted band structure at zone center, a phenomenon usually associated with engineered semiconducting quantum well states.2 Our discovery of quantum well states in an electron accumulation layer was verified in a recent ARPES study of CdO.3

This work supported in part by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

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