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October 2009
Recent field test results showed that the SSIP approach is both feasible and practical for remote monitoring of microbial activity stimulated during microbiological reduction. Read more »
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September 2009
ESD scientists Terry Hazen and Kristen DeAngelis, aided by the award-winning Phylochip, are at the forefront of research into using microbial enzymes to produce the next generation of biofuels. Read more »
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September 8, 2009
ESD's Terry Hazen, Susan Hubbard and collaborator Judy Wall are investigating radioactive waste cleanup using a soil bacterium called Desulfovibrio vulgaris that metabolizes radioactive and heavy metals. Read more »
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August 18, 2009
"Art that educates or just inspires people to reuse, recyle, reduce, and remediate, to make our land and water less toxic and less toxic for generations to come makes us all better doesn’t it," says Hazen. Read more »
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August 4, 2009
Nigel Quinn, the Group Leader for HydroEcological Engineering Advanced Decision Support at the Berkeley National Laboratory, who has just started research on these types of issues, ...has also seen that “the results of studies by the R&D departments of these [algae fuel] companies are all over the map,” and “There are many claims being made, not all of which have been substantiated." Read more »
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As reported in the July 29th, 2009 edition of TABL
Chin-Fu Tsang (right) and Jonny Rutqvist of the Earth Sciences Division have been awarded the 2009 Applied Rock Mechanics Award by the American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA). The award was presented at the annual ARMA Conference at the beginning of this month in Ashville, North Carolina. They and their collaborator, Ki-Bok Min of the Seoul National University in Korea, were honored for their work in fractured rock hydrogeomechanics and its applications to a wide range of problems of international importance.
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July 22, 2009
Donald DePaolo, a Berkeley professor of geochemistry, is an expert at interpreting environmental tracers... to piece together the history of rocks, water, pollution, and even air. Read more »
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July 21, 2009
Climate change provides strong motivation to reduce CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide capture and storage involves the capture, compression, and transport of CO2 to geologically favorable areas, where it’s injected into porous rock more than one kilometer underground for permanent storage. Oldenburg, who heads Berkeley Lab’s Geologic Carbon Sequestration Program, will focus on the challenges, opportunities, and research needs of this innovative technology. Read more »
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July 17, 2009
Jim Bishop and his Earth Sciences Division (ESD) colleagues were first to capture important biological processes of the ocean carbon cycle using programmable Carbon Explorer floats, which measure carbon particles at depth and then resurface to report by satellite. Thanks to three-year funding from the National Science Foundation, improved Carbon Flux Explorers, capable of imaging particles and life forms in the ocean’s biological pump every 24 minutes, will be brought to full operational status. The new instruments are being developed by the Lab’s Engineering Division and ESD in collaboration with the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, with shipboard testing to resume in 2010. Read more »
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July 7, 2009
ESD scientists Hoi-Ying Holman, Eleanor Wozei, Zhang Lin, Luis Comolli, David Ball, Sharon Borglin, Matthew Fields, Terry Hazen, and Kenneth Downing used the Advanced Light Source to track chemical changes in individual cells as they adapt to extreme environments. Read more »
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June 5, 2009
The June issue of the oceanographic society’s magazine commemorates the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, which supported the work of Jim Bishop and colleagues in the Earth Sciences Division. Read more »
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June 3, 2009
With 71 percent of Earth's surface covered by ocean, it is clear why Earth is described as the "water planet".... With summer just around the corner, there's no better time to learn more about ocean and water. Read more »
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May 27, 2009
ESD's molecular microbial ecology group is using a variety of "omics" approaches (i.e., integrating a number of molecular disciplines) to gain a better understanding of complex microbial communities in the environment and in our own bodies. This recent review highlights some of the studies done by Janet Jansson and her colleagues within ESD on the human gut microbiome, and the role that intestinal microbes play in health and disease. Read more »
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May 8, 2009
Berkeley Lab earth scientist Michael Manga and colleagues suggest that energy released by massive collisions upset the heat flow in Mars’ iron core that produced the magnetic field. Read more »
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May 7, 2009
Jim Bishop and Todd Wood analyzed the data and found that most of the carbon from lush plankton blooms, whether artificially fertilized or natural, never reaches the deep ocean. Read more »
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April 28, 2009
“This new award will give our team of investigators an opportunity to probe the fundamental chemical, physical, and biological processes that control the movement of carbon dioxide fluids in the earth,” said DePaolo, who is also a professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California at Berkeley. Read more »
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April 14, 2009
The 30-minute television special, "California at the Tipping Point", will air at 7:30pm on Tuesday, April 14 on KQED 9 and KQED Comcast 709HD. The special features Bill Collins, Berkeley Lab's climate modeling expert. Read more »
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April 9, 2009
Decrepit pipes, lack of money and the growing severity of storms could all add up to a disaster of septic proportions. Berkeley Lab earth scientist Norm Miller is quoted in the story. Read more »
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April 7, 2009
McCallen takes leadership roles at LBNL/UC and for ESD as a Program Head for the energy side of Nuclear Energy & Waste. Read more »
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March 30, 2009
Joe Wang and Rohit Salve are in deep with DUSEL efforts at Berkeley Lab. A recent tour by DOE members, highlights the underground facility..."great things await those who work under ground. Read more »
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March 30, 2009
Norm Miller was one of eight experts to participate in the 2009 Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Swan and sponsored by BP to engage sixty next generation student leaders in energy security and climate change. Read more »
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March 27, 2009
Testu Tokunaga and Jiamin Wan are among a team of researchers who recently obtained data to question a popular potential Uranium bioremediation method involving the infusion of organic carbon. Read more »
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March 27, 2009
Susan Hubbard, a staff scientist in the Earth Sciences Division, has been chosen to serve as the 2010 Geological Society of America's (GSA) Birdsall-Dreiss Lecturer. The endowed lectureship is made to one person annually by the GSA Hydrogeology Division based on two criteria: the nominee must be a renowned scientist whose publication record and research have had national and international impact in the field of hydrogeology, and the nominee must be an outstanding speaker. Hubbard is the 32nd GSA Birdsall-Dreiss Lecturer, and the first from a national laboratory.
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March 10, 2009
Terry Hazen discusses when it's best to resort to engineered bioremediation of contaminated sites, and when it's best to rely on natural attenuation. Read more »
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March 6, 2009
Using state-of-the-art tools, Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division is tackling the challenges that inhibit the long-term remediation of subsurface metals and radionuclides. Read more »
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January 21, 2009
Inez Fung of the Earth Sciences Division, is a contributor to the research that concluded that global warming has caused the seasons to arrive two days sooner than in the past. Read more »
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January 13, 2009
[Popular Science] To predict the unpredictable: That’s the goal of a new government initiative on abrupt climate change. As the atmosphere reels under the influence of greenhouse gases, scientists fear the growing risk of dramatic environmental changes occurring within decades — far faster than current computer models predict. William Collins, head of the climate-science department at Berkeley Lab, calls the possibility of abrupt climate change “a huge threat to the security and stability of our nation and the world.” Read more »
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November 26, 2008
A technology originally invented to detect airborne terrorist pathogens could now help beach-goers, ranchers and shellfish growers throughout West Marin. Read more »
