| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | Contact Sandra Cleva: (703) 379-2480 |
| September 1, 1997 | E-mail: geotimes@agiweb.org |
In the September issue of Geotimes, Smith provides a primer on this complex phenomenon. His article, "Pushing the Boundaries of Turbulence," draws on recent engineering studies to explain how turbulence near a surface is generated and sustained, and how it interacts with that surface.
"Turbulence is difficult to understand and predict," Smith writes, "because it is dominated by the continual formation and interaction of a multitude of vortices highly rotational regions of fluid." Scientists, however, have learned that this process involves identifiable events and patterns of behavior that are repeated in time and space.
Also in this issue, Mark Cloos concludes his series on Indonesia's Grasberg Mine. In this third article, "Geology and the Grasberg: A Model for Joint Industry and Academic Research," Cloos describes the history of the successful partnership between the University of Texas (UT) at Austin and Freeport-McMoRan's mining subsidiary Freeport Indonesia. Supported by Freeport- McMoRan, students and faculty from UT have conducted research throughout the areas of Irian Jaya for which the company holds mining rights. The company benefits from their presence and the resulting reports and papers.
"We bring another set of eyes to examine and help interpret the geologic curiosities [that the company geologists] discover on outcrop or in core," Cloos writes. "We routinely survey the academic literature...and make the latest scientific research results available to our company colleagues." In turn, "steady long-term support means that we can publish completed studies rather than the 'progress reports' that so commonly result when scientists must seek extensions of short- term government grants." This unique long-term partnership shows us that industry and academic scientists can indeed find creative and productive ways to work together.
"High-Resolution Computed Tomography: A Breakthrough Technology for Earth Scientists," by Timothy Rowe, John Kappelman, William D. Carlson, Richard A. Ketcham, and Cambria Denison, rounds out the September issue. From its origins as a medical diagnostic tool, X-ray computed tomography (CT) has been adapted for use in the earth sciences. Without harming specimens, high-resolution X-ray CT can create images of tiny crystals and microfossils, offering researchers a new and exciting method for "the collection of otherwise unobtainable data."
This article describes in detail a range of applications, in such fields as metamorphic petrology, vertebrate paleontology, and physical anthropology. The digital data that result from CT permits three-dimensional reconstruction of biologic structures, cores, and crystal interiors, as well as of rare and delicate material, such as human and ape fossils. New high-resolution instruments are a dramatic improvement for CT imagery and for science.