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| Marmot Dam coming down | | A documentary crew visited SAFL in June to shoot footage of a model study located in the basement of the lab. This model study represents potential geomorphic responses of the Sandy River to the removal of the Marmot Dam. The Marmot Dam, located on the Sandy River near Portland, OR, is a 58-foot-high structure that impounds approximately 900,000 cubic yards of deltaic sediment upstream. Following removal of the dam in summer 2007, the river will once again be able to distribute sediment, initially redistributing the deltaic sediment downstream. To learn more about the Marmot Dam's removal, click here. To learn how NCED is involved in this project, click here. |  | | Left: NCED summer interns learn to run the Marmot model with SAFL student worker Nick Olson. Right: Nick Olson, Jeff Marr, and Gordon Grant narrate a cofferdam breach for the film crew. | | |
| Understanding debris flow using "smart" balls | | To better understand how a single particle behaves in a debris flow, the geomorphology group at the University of California, Berkeley, (UCB) is using a 4" hard, rubber ball that contains a variety of sensors: accelerometers, magnetometers, and gyroscopes. These sensors provide information on acceleration, orientation, and rotation rate when placed in a debris flow. Using an 80 cm wide rotating flume (drum) at UCB's Richmond Field Station, researchers have the unique opportunity to use natural debris flow materials (mud, sand, gravel, and boulders), along with a sensor ball (and later sensor rocks), to study how a single particle experiences different stresses and imparts those stresses on the channel bed, therefore contributing to channel erosion. This study of stresses in a debris flow contributes to the larger goal of predicting the rate of channel incision in debris-flow dominated areas. Eventually, researchers hope to create landscape evolution models to help predict how the land surface changes over time. |  | | Left: View of the rotating flume during an experiment. Right: A "smart" ball containing accelerometers, magnetometers, and gyroscopes. | | | | | Dalbotten Presents Faculty-to-Faculty Program at AAAS Annual Meeting | | NCED Director of Diversity Diana Dalbotten joined others from National Science Foundation Science and Technology Centers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting. She participated on a panel entitled "Identifying Pathways for Under-represented Students in Science and Engineering" where she discussed NCED's Faculty-to-Faculty Program. | | MYRES conference | | NCED and SAFL postdoctoral research associates have proposed that the 2008 Meeting of Young Researchers in Earth Sciences (MYRES) conference bring together researchers to examine feedback loops between ecology and geomorphology. Read more here. Voting by the Earth Sciences community for the meeting topic ends July 14. | | |
