Looking for Earth Day story ideas? We’ve got you covered---from African dust to bulging ground to carbon sequestration to ancient shaking in L.A. This monthly collection of science stories can help you cover ongoing earth and natural science research and investigations at USGS---photos and web links are provided to enhance your story.

LEADS
If L.A.’s Saber-Tooth Cats Could Talk…- Long before the La Brea tar pits were a tourist attraction, when saber-tooth cats and mastodons roamed the area that is now metropolitan Los Angeles, frequent major earthquakes shook the ground. There is now strong scientific evidence, funded through a grant from the USGS, that downtown L.A. has been the site of several greater than magnitude 7 earthquakes in the past 11,000 years – raising the expected hazard for the City of Angels significantly higher than previously thought. And while it might seem a rare occurrence, a large earthquake every 2,000 years is relatively frequent – at least geologically speaking. In the 1970’s when many buildings were built, scientists thought the largest earthquake that would occur directly beneath the city would be in the magnitude 5 range. A magnitude 7 earthquake would produce much more significant damage. The USC and Harvard researchers, under an earthquake hazards grant from USGS, drilled boreholes southeast of LA to determine the earthquake history of the Puente Hills fault using a technique called paleoseismology that looks at geologic evidence to tell the story of past earthquakes. (Kathleen Gohn, 703-648-4242, kgohn@usgs.gov)

Revealing Bulges in Mother Earth - With a powerful new tool called Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar or (mercifully) InSAR for short, scientists are using radar signals from satellites to measure the up and down movement of the Earth’s crust at an unprecedented level of accuracy. Under ideal conditions, it is possible to measure changes in elevation on the order of 0.2 to 0.4 inches over areas of hundreds of square miles. What’s cool to scientists about InSAR is that it doesn’t need equipment on the ground so it can tell them stuff like the movement of magma that is related to earthquakes and volcanoes even in the remotest areas of the planet. InSAR can also map land subsidence – the sinking of the Earth's surface following the removal of earth materials, such as oil, gas or water. To learn more, visit http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/research/deformation/modeling/InSAR/index.html. (Jon Campbell, 703-648-4180, joncampbell@usgs.gov)

Carbon Sequestration? Way Cool, Dude - As concerns over global climate change grow, USGS scientists are investigating novel ways that may eventually help the Earth keep its cool. The concept, known as carbon sequestration, involves capturing the carbon dioxide byproducts of burning fossil fuels from power plants and other sources and storing it deep below the Earth’s surface. Sounds like the ultimate storage solution, doesn’t it? The carbon dioxide would be stored in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, coal seams that can’t be mined or salty aquifers. USGS researchers are looking at how carbon dioxide could interact with other components in those reservoirs and which reservoirs could provide the best possible storage solution. A second area of research involves assessing just how much carbon dioxide could be stored. By answering questions posed by this research, scientists will have a better handle on the scientific and economic viability of such a solution. Because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and has been implicated in trapping the Sun’s heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, industry and government are working closely to find ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. (A.B. Wade, 703-648-4460, abwade@usgs.gov)

Dust on the Wind - African dust is being carried half way around the world by riding the trade winds across the Atlantic Ocean. And it's full of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that are wreaking havoc on human health and the environment. By studying satellite images, USGS scientists are investigating how millions of tons of African dust may be contributing to the demise of coral reefs and causing diseases in manatees, sea turtles and dolphins. It may also be a factor in the rise of childhood asthma in the Caribbean. Learn more about the effects of dust on humans and ecosystems at http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/african_dust (A.B. Wade, 703-648-4460, abwade@usgs.gov)

FEEDS
Where can you find eye of newt? Well, that depends on what kind of newt you want for your cauldron. A new USGS Web site identifies the places where different types of amphibians—frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts—dwell across the United States. The ARMI National Atlas for Amphibian Distributions (ARMI is short for the Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative) can be found at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/armiatlas/. Once you’re there, simply select one out of approximately 280 species of amphibians currently known to occur in the United States. Click on the species you’re interested in and a map shows where that species is found. And aren’t you glad we didn’t give in to the headline “No Newts is Bad News,” oops, we just did. (Heather Friesen, 703-648-4469, hfriesen@usgs.gov)

What’s up with DRASTIC, Monte Carlo Simulations and Darcy’s Law - Are we talking about a new reality TV show…a way to beat the casinos…or a legal wrangle on Law and Order? No, these are all scientific methods used by USGS scientists and others to figure out how vulnerable ground-water resources are to contamination. But this isn’t just esoteric research that sits on some scientist’s bookshelf, these methods can help make sure laws and regulations work in the real world. In a new publication (http://water.usgs.gov/pubs/circ/2002/circ1224/html/new.htm), USGS scientists explain the various scientific methods and show how these assessments can be used by those who have to make tough decisions about what happens with the water that serves the needs of more than half the people in the United States. (Gail Wendt, 703-648-5604, gwendt@usgs.gov)

STORY SEEDS
Before You Hit the Beach, Check the (Bacteria) Forecast - Just a few weeks ago, USGS announced the development of a new tool for predicting water safety at several test beaches in Ohio that might be applied to beaches across the nation. Using models to forecast E. coli, an indicator of contamination that can make swimmers ill, scientists have reduced the time needed to evaluate the test beaches from 18 hours to within 2 hours of data collection, giving beachgoers current information, not yesterday’s information. During the study, scientists found that sand in the swash zone, the part of the beach that is washed by waves or tides where young children are likely to play, contained significantly higher levels of E. coli than sediments in deeper water. See http://oh.water.usgs.gov/beaches/photo.html. (A.B. Wade, 703-648-4460, abwade@usgs.gov)

USGS Photos Are Us - More than 16,000 photos related to the USGS from the years 1868 through 1992 are now available online where they may be easily searched, viewed and downloaded free of charge at http://libraryphoto.er.usgs.gov. Representing a small fraction of the USGS Photo Library holdings, this digital collection has been culled from more than half a million photographs held by the library from USGS publications and field work. The online archive has subcategories that include, for example: National Parks and Monuments; Mount St. Helens volcanic eruptions; and pioneer photographers, such as W.H. Jackson, J.K. Hillers, T.H. O'Sullivan, A.J. Russell, and others. (Kathleen Gohn, 703-648-4242, kgohn@usgs.gov)

And the Perennial Favorite for Earth Day - the Whole USGS Web site! Check it out at: http://www.usgs.gov