Mudslide blocks state route 188 NE of Phoenix

Arizona State Route 188 north of Roosevelt Lake was shut down for most of Wednesday due to a mud and rock slide that covered the road up to 6 feet deep with mud and rock, hitting some cars but not injuring anyone, according to news reports, including the most extensive story in the Arizona Republic.

ADOT had the road cleared by late afternoon.

Lidar data of El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake

ASU geoscience prof Ramon Arrowsmith was interviewed last week by local tv at the Southern Calif. Earthquake Center's annual meeting, where he talked about using lidar data to analyze the deformation resulting from the April 4 El Mayor - Cucapah earthquake. Ramon described the background on his blog.

Grand Canyon recovery project highlighted

Vice President Joe Biden today released a report on “100 Recovery Act Projects that are Changing America” including the Grand Canyon Park Upgrades project:

Grand Canyon National Park has received nearly $14 million in Recovery funds to make a myriad of repairs to their park facilities. This includes $550,000 to reconstruct the popular South Kaibab Trail. Reconstruction will include trail resurfacing; rebuilding steps; stabilizing and preventative maintenance treatments to retaining walls including replacing those that have been lost to floods, slides, or erosion; and repairing and a l i g n ing damaged w a t e r features. The reconstruction project will significantly improve conditions for the over 200,000 annual visitors that use the trail.

Also included in this funding are two other projects which is improving housing for the Havasupai tribe at Supai Camp, the tribe's ancestral home at the Grand Canyon. One project will improve housing and living conditions for tribal members by rehabilitating six communal buildings. This includes replacing roofing and windows, repainting, improving interior walls, and installing fire sprinkler systems. In addition, the National Park Service will build six new housing units for use by the tribe. The Park Service has a long‐standing legal agreement with the tribe for recognition and occupancy at Supai Camp, and upgrades to their housing were long overdue.

Funding approved to test low temperature carbon dioxide-based geothermal electric power generation plant near Springerville

The U.S. Dept. of Energy selected Utah-based Greenfire Energy for "field evaluations of a low temperature carbon dioxide-based geothermal electric power generation plant. In Phase I, it will set up and initiate seismic monitoring at an existing CO₂ production field, and collect and evaluate existing data. In Phase II, it will test several energy recovery techniques in existing shallow wells and the performance of CO₂ as a working fluid." The company will receive $2 million from DOE and use CO2 from the St. Johns-Springerville field, under development by Ridgeway Arizona Oil Corp [right].

The project is one of seven announced yesterday. DOE explained the basis of this round of funding:

Low temperature resources are widely available across the country and offer an opportunity to significantly expand the national geothermal portfolio. However, most low temperature geothermal resources are not hot enough to be harnessed through traditional geothermal processes, including dry steam or flash steam power plants, which typically use water at temperatures greater than 360°F (182°C). The projects announced today aim to take advantage of geothermal fluids that won't "flash" on their own for electricity generation, but could be used in binary-cycle power plants. In binary cycle technologies, the water from the geothermal reservoir is used to heat another "working fluid," which is vaporized and used to turn the turbine or generator units.

ASU's lunar camera press conference

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team (managed by ASU held a press conference yesterday to announce a couple of milestones. Another set of 68,000+ images were released, and the mission moved to the Science Mission Directorate for a 2-year science mission, after completing its work of identifying potential landing sites for humans to return to the moon. [right, view of Earth's western hemisphere from LROC. Credit, NASA/GFSC/ASU]

In addition, they discussed the publication of 3 articles today in Science. The reports on silicic volcanoes are generating some buzz in the community.

"Global Distribution of Large Lunar Craters: Implications for Resurfacing and Impactor Populations," by James W. Head and coauthors on the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter team;
• "Global Silicate Mineralogy of the Moon from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer," by Bejnamin Greenhagen and coauthors on the Diviner team; and
• "Highly Silicic Compositions on the Moon," by Timothy Glotch and coauthors on the Diviner team.

Thanks to the Planetary Society blog.

Arizona STEM Network launched

Arizona launched a statewide science education initiative on Thursday with widespread support from industry, government, and education communities. Science Foundation Arizona organized the kickoff in Phoenix with 30 of us originally invited but that quickly grew when 55 rsvp'd and 85+ showed up. [STEM = science, technology, engineering, math. Photo credit, SFA]

Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold is tossing in $500K to get the Arizona STEM Network rolling. Gov. Brewer announced $100K of federal stimulus funds will be allocated towards the project.

Simultaneously, President Obama announced a national science education effort called Change the Equation, headed by CEOs of major corporations.

Jay Labov from the National Academy of Sciences came out for the Phoenix meeting and laid out a vision of how science should be taught that fired up the educators in the audience.

Sand transport along Colorado River

New USGS report provides weather and aeolian sand transport data that "can be used to document the relation between physical processes, including weather and aeolian sand transport, and their effects on the physical integrity of archeological sites."


Ref: Draut, A.E., Sondossi, H.A., Dealy, T.P., Hazel, J.E. Jr., Fairley, H.C., and Brown, C.R., 2010, 2009 weather and aeolian sand-transport data from the Colorado River corridor, Grand Canyon, Arizona: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2010-1166, 98 p.