 | |  | | Shown above is an interactive exhibit featured in Water: H2O=Life at the American Museum of Natural History. |
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Water, earth's life giving substance, can be found in solid, liquid, and gaseous phases on earth's surface. Now, museum goers can touch and feel all three phases with this hands-on, water-cycle sculpture (left). Learn how NCED collaborated with the Science Museum of Minnesota in their effort to create the traveling exhibit Water: H2O=Life with the American Museum of Natural History.
NCED (the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics) is a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. We began operation in August, 2002; we're headquartered at the St. Anthony Falls Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. Our purpose is to predict the coupled dynamics and evolution of landscapes and their ecosystems, in order to transform management and restoration of the Earth-surface environment. In concert with our integrative research efforts, we strive to bring our methods and results to students, the public, and practitioners in agencies and industry.
RCEM2009 Deadline Fast Approaching
Interested in attending RCEM2009 (September 21–25) in Santa Fe, Argentina? May 30 is the deadline for early registration and preconference short courses (September 14–19). NCED PI Gary Parker will lead a short course September 18 and 19 that concentrates on aspects of lowland sand-bed rivers: Characteristics of Morphology and Sediment Transport in Lowland Sand-bed Rivers. Visit the RCEM2009 website for short course and conference details.
CSDMS and NCED Working Together
NCED provides the research—process understanding and initial algorithm development. The Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS), an NSF-funded project, focuses on modeling with an emphasis on large-scale modular numerical modeling. Currently, NCED’s work with CSDMS includes organizing the transfer of models and data from NCED to CSDMS. CSDMS supports a wide range of programming languages, but contributions need some further processing and metadata tagging to be fully CSDMS compatible. Enrica Viparelli, an NCED postdoc, is playing the role of NCED liaison to CSDMS and is coordinating this effort. Viparelli will begin by converting the codes that are part of NCED PI Gary Parker’s e-book and toolbox into the programming platform supported by CSDMS. Then, these versions will be tested against the originals to ensure accuracy. Moreover, other NCED-developed models, such as Ripple, will also be slightly transformed and made CSDMS compatible. In addition to the above, NCED is also involved with CSDMS in several other ways. NCED External Advisory Board member, Rudy Slingerland, is Chair of the CSDMS Steering Committee, NCED Education Director Karen Campbell is the chairperson of the Education and Knowledge Transfer (EKT) Working Group, and several NCEDians are involved with the terrestrial, marine, coastal, and hydrology working groups
MAY NEWSLETTER HIGHLIGHT
Collaborative Work on Granular Flows in the Big Wheel
Scientists visiting from Austria and Switzerland are working with NCED researchers to study the dynamics of granular flows, acquiring data that can be used to parameterize numerical models for flow behavior and hazard mapping. This work, conducted in the 4-meter vertically rotating flume (drum)—Big Wheel—at the University of California, Berkeley, Richmond Field Station (RFS), is a continuation of an initial set of debris flow erosion experiments and will involve debris flows and rock-ice avalanches. Research by Roland Kaitna, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (also known as BOKU University), Vienna, focuses on the pore pressure fluctuations at the base of muddy debris flows. The dynamic evolution of pore fluid pressure is considered to be a key parameter for debris flow mobility. Demian Schneider, from the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research (or WSL), is performing experiments with rock-ice mixtures to investigate the influence of ice on the mobility of rock-ice avalanches. Schneider is testing the hypothesis that ice affects friction depending on the proportions of the ice and gravel components and the increasing pore pressure due to melting ice during rock-ice flows. All of these experiments include the use of new instruments: pore pressure transducers, thermocouples, and in-flow temperature sensors. Additionally, sensor probes for measuring the velocity field within a flow are currently under development. The research conducted in the Big Wheel adds to the body of experimental data on granular flows done at a large scale using natural materials and provides NCED researchers with a better understanding of the mechanistic processes occurring within these flows.
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| Above: Visiting researchers, Kaitna (left) and Schneider (right), are continuing research on the dynamics of granular flows using the Big Wheel at RFS. |
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OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS
Visitor Program Award Winners Announced
Visitor Program funds are divided between two research areas: general and critical. This year, NCED has awarded the general research area funds to Vivian Leung from the University of Washington. Critical research area of funds have gone to a group of NCED visitors who will collaborate with several NCED researchers. Read more.
View Dietrich Langbein Lecture
NCED PI Bill Dietrich gave the 2008 Langbein Lecture at the Fall 2008 American Geophysical Union Meeting. View a webcast of Dietrich's lecture: "Geomorphology: The Shock of the Familiar."
________________________________________________________________ NCED is funded by the Office of Integrative Activities, National Science Foundation, under agreement Number EAR- 0120914. |
