Geoscience Education in the Mountain State:
CATS Environmental Earth Science Telecourse, Fall 1999,
Show 4 Transcript

CATS Telecourse
Environmental Earth Science
November 1, 1999

Dr. Bob: (Joined in progress) Within 24 or 48 hours the weather is going to change dramatically. We'll be talking about that, in weather and climate and so forth. Bob Behling here and Deb Hemler along with me. (Technical difficulties here, missing conversation)

Lava flows there but it's into a valley that had been long since evacuated so there's no problems there. No one has lived there for quite some time. But over 2,000 years or so Mount Etna ranks as one of the great active volcanoes in the past 2 millennium. Also in Ecuador, volcanic activity, one has closed down for a time, a resort area because of an imminent eruption. A great natural disaster, sad to tell, out in the Bay of Bengal a super cyclone with wind velocities of a hundred and sixty miles an hour, sustained, struck south and west along the coast of India, south of Calcutta. It's too soon to speak of the number of fatalities but they expect perhaps in terms of thousands. In 1991 a similar event in that general area may have taken a hundred and thirty thousand lives. Early comments are that there may be an excess of one million people displaced by wind driven waves in excess of 10 feet maybe even 15 feet above normal sea level and along that region it is a deltaic type low environment above sea level in any event. So it is a terrible local disaster in India and we're going to be talking about coastal environments, coastal change, and hurricanes later in the show today.

First of all, however, we have lots of the bookkeeping to take care of. Deb you've got a lot of the information. What are we facing now with respect to the timing? We're half way through and we need to be sure we understand the aspects of the next exploratory. If you would give us that information please.

Dr. Deb: What we need from the facilitators by Thursday of this week is who is going to be attending the exploratories on November 12th and 13th which would be a Friday/Saturday. Starting at noon on Friday and ending on noon on Saturday. Those of you who that will be attending the exploratory from Saturday noon, the 13th and 14th to Sunday noon. If the facilitators could get the names of those people at your sites that would be attending which day and mail those to Tom Repine by Thursday. We can firm up exactly how many rooms we need and what hotel we'll be staying at. At this point we know we'll be staying in the Summersville area but depending on the number of rooms that will determine what hotel we stay at. The facilitators will then receive a message as to what hotel will be housing us and then they'll get that word out to you.

Dr. Bob: Ok. For quizzes, and quiz #1 and #2. Quiz #1 will be sent back to the facilitators so that you will have it the next time we meet and quiz #2 for those who have met deadline dates we'll try to get both of those back to you, graded, by the time we meet again in two weeks. If you need an extra day or two, Wednesday or Friday of this week, just be sure to get quiz #2 in. We're back on track since we were out of touch and not available. We're all back in the office now after two hectic weeks of great field trips that we'll talk about in part tonight and also some aspects of the meetings that we went to. The quizzes are due back on Friday.

Dr. Deb: Quiz #3 will be due on Friday. The reason we're giving you that extension is because of the technological problems that we had, most of the unit on tape. Whenever you view any of our broadcast on tape, remember that these due dates will have to be a little bit flexible for you. If you observe a tape late and don't think you have enough time to get in a quiz, please call Tom and negotiate a due date with him.

Dr. Bob: What we're after is for you to look at those. For example in quiz #2 there was concerns, "What if there are no environmental problems right at the school?" You can choose in your community something that is a focus to you. The youngsters are either riding the bus or they're aware of some of the other things. I use the school as a general focal point but you can start scribing arcs around it. Some of the folks out there aren't teaching at a specific school, they may be substituting or a variety of things, just a good choice is a very good choice on your part. Use it in the terms of a focal point for my discussion and then expand it. Whenever you get these types of questions that seem to perplex you give a call, we'll ease your mind. It's just an opportunity to try to focus some of the discussion that we've had.

(Goes to overhead) I'll try to keep things in perspective here. We've talked about exploratory and other things including the quizzes. The first half we'll talk about ground water. Fundamental concepts, we'll talk about a great number resources that are available for you and the term exploitation, perhaps, is a charged word, but it's meant to mean ground water withdrawal and utilization of the ground water. Then we'll talk about contamination from the surface and along coastal environments from below. Ground water in West Virginia, an important component. Some of you draw pond ground water, others didn't know that you draw on ground water even though your living along the banks of the Ohio River for example. Then, after the break we'll come back and talk about some basic information on coastline change and then the climate extremes and change through time. We'll just touch issues on deserts and semi arid lands, glaciation and then talk about El Nino and La Nina. Terms that have been very much in the news over the past two and a half years and again this winter we apparently we are going to be under the influence of La Nina. The assignments for reading in Pipkin and Trent, three chapters...10, 11, and 12. The ground waters, 10. Coastlines, 11. Climate, 12 and also we now have all the copies and sets and we're getting them out there to you of Cadillac Desert. I hold in my hand with the one with the picture on the front, this is Cadillac Desert Show #1. About 85 minutes in length. The title is "Water and Transformation of Nature." It reflects what this gentleman did back at the turn of the century, 85 years ago, to bring water into California. Additionally in this set is the movie "Chinatown" and his actions and activities are reflected in a fictional portrayal in the movie so that is an interesting video to package along with it. We will be looking especially throughout the rest of the semester at this, number 1, and then number 2 is an "American Nile" by title that talks about the Colorado River. We will be working on that.

Deb, let's start out with ground water. We talked about rivers the last time we met and surface water. In general we talked about the aspects of problems in the surface water but one thing we want to reemphasize is flooding. It's flooding that causes all kinds of change as the viewing of Cadillac Desert will demonstrate, it is flooding of the Colorado River, surprisingly, that put a great deal of pressure, farmers, agricultural utilization in the valley of the Colorado, it would flood almost every year and they wanted to contain that. You've got some resources I see about flooding in about very local. Could you share with us that information?

Dr. Deb: One thing that we like to encourage in high school or even upper junior high classroom is reading. I always have, especially in an environmental geology, reading outside of the text on a pertinent bit of information that we might have covered during the environmental geology class. One of the books that happen to be on that list that was pertinent to our area or at least close to northern West Virginia was "The Johnstown Flood." This is written by David McCulla. If you don't know about the Johnstown Flood it's probably one of the worst "natural" disaster.

Dr. Bob: Human induced.

Dr. Deb: Although no one was ever found guilty in a court of law, public opinion certainly differed, 2,209 people lost their lives when an earthen dam gave way. An earthen dam that was associated with such names as Henry Clay Frick, Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Mellon, and South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club, it was poorly maintained and the dam gave way and it gave rise to an awful, awful tragedy in the town of Johnstown on May 31, 1889. If you want an interesting book for students to read it certainly has all the gore that they like to read about and it has a lot of nice pictures. If you're in the northern West Virginia area, I highly recommend a field trip to that area if at all possible. The dam is still there or the remnants of the dam. You can see where it broke and they'll have a railroad line running through it. The National Park Service has a really nice visitors center there that has actual accounts that were taped by people that survived the flood. Johnstown itself has a really nice museum with academy award winning film.

Dr. Bob: The PBS show narrated by David McCulla, it's outstanding. He is outstanding. He has the voice for that.

Dr. Deb: The other book that I encourage you to read is anything by John McFee. It is a good earth science topic. This particular book is called "Control of Nature." It ties into what we were talking about because it's talking about the control of the Mississippi or rather the control of it path. It wants to go down the Atchafalaya. The Atchafalaya kept pirating a lot of the Mississippi flow which would have moved where most of the shipping would have gone. As it pirated it over the decades more and more water it gained up to about a third of the Mississippi's flow before they decided that this couldn't happen and decided to divert the water back into the main channel of the Mississippi. A third of the book deals with that and another third will deal with topics that you'll see in Cadillac Desert and that is moving water over to the Los Angeles area from across the mountains. If want ISBN numbers we'll put them on the overhead. The author of the Johnstown Flood also wrote the book "Truman."

Dr. Bob: The "Control of Nature" is only about $10.00 at least when this was purchased and the other one was $11.00. They are not exorbitant costs.

In the context of this if someone had gone to the museum could they perhaps use that as their research paper?

Dr. Deb: Definitely. There's a lot of research there on human tragedy and neglect and failure to understand the importance of an earthen dam and what can actually happen when you put that much weight. When watching Cadillac Desert they'll talk about some failed dams. The book Cadillac Desert covers the failure of earthen dams. We think of this as a western thing when we read these books but it really did happen here in the east with devastating results.

Dr. Bob: They could pick up for example the Buffalo Creek disaster here in West Virginia. That would be another one for those in the southern part of the state or anywhere. You don't have to choose a research paper for your specific area. There was a natural high water event as a result of, much like the 1985 flood here in West Virginia, but keep it focused more on perhaps a stream that directly influences you or your neighbors friends or region. In the 1985 event, we are so often teaching kids that weren't even born in 1985 and when I see them in the University they have no recollection they were too young. A critical time that was for the state of West Virginia. That research paper can be about all kinds of these things in a large scope or it could be a research paper about a small scope situation. It ;might be a very interesting research paper about the well farm in Parkersburg that we saw at our first exploratory. A historical context of developing aspects of the ground water and the water quality. We ate at a restaurant and we all were served ice water and those of us who weren't from Parkersburg area wrinkled our noses immediately and said, "What is this?" The well farm and the water and the treatment of the water and the chlorination. It's water that has a little flavor to it and an aroma to it that we weren't quite familiar with. It isn't sulfur or iron, it's chlorine. A well head that is important to your community or a small reservoir that's used in conjunction with ground water resources and what happens when it floods. When a branch of the Potomac floods and all those chickens float. In some of those flood events in the Potomac Valley regions when the fowl wind up in the reservoir and they skim off the top I often wonder about the sinkers. That may take care of the floaters on top but what about the sinking carcasses. In any event, we won't always mention the research paper but we'll keep giving you little hints along the way just to keep that fresh in your memory.

In the water resources we've talked then about the runoff and we'll talk about climate change and just getting water to different places. One of the great components and great resources in the United States is ground water. Deb, you have ground water where you live? Tell us about some of the stories or the stories you can tell.

Dr. Deb: That's right. Anybody who has a spring this time of year is really realized what the drought has done for you. Fortunately we have a really nice spring even during the drought years manages to spit out about a gallon a minute which in drought times is pretty healthy. My first introduction to spring water was actually moving to Preston County and realizing that people pump into an old trough, cap it off, and then filter it right into their house. I actually have a well or spring house where water from the spring dumps directly into the spring house and gets pumped in and filtered.

Dr. Bob: Do they call it a cistern at times or is that for catching rain water?

Dr. Deb: Actually in Florida cisterns are typically those that catch rain water. They used to just catch it right off the roof.

Dr. Bob: I can remember very vividly my great grandparents catching it off the roof. My great grandmother swore by that water, really the softest water. Of course there weren't that many automobiles driving around at that time but in general, not going back too many decades, we didn't have in context much concern about what was in the atmosphere that might be washed out. We were just focusing on rain, it's got to be pure. Au contraire.

I have a chart here and we'll give you the reference later, but it's an attempt at a three dimensional figure to focus on the incredible use of ground water nationwide. They attempt to portray in three dimension relief what states use in a relative production of ground water. This is 1980, a little dated. West Virginia is here and this is in term of millions of gallons per day. That is an extraordinary situation. California in 1980 was using 21,000 million gallons per day. That is an incredible resource and so much of it was focused right in the Great Valley. That's what's in the Central Valley was a specific terminology there. In West Virginia in 1980 the number was 220 million gallons per day. So that great numbers of West Virginian's use ground water and dependent upon ground water. Probably in terms of just over 50% of the total population in West Virginia, in earlier figures in the 1980s and 93% of most rural folks are using...

Dr. Deb: Yeah, cause that's the only place you get it is ground water.

Dr. Bob: What sort of contamination problems in Preston County cause you also run head of horses and some other things?

Dr. Deb: You absolutely make sure you don't fertilize heavily right above your spring house. You also want to make sure you're not driving over an area where you're spring is feed in from. Our road that goes in to our house goes below the spring where the spring is tapped off and the reservoir is. If we decide to salt or cinder the road it's not going to seep down into the spring. I test the water periodically because we do have a farm above us although they aren't heavily into fertilizers and they don't have a lot of livestock. They only have two or three cows. I still check it for e-coli and other goodies.

Dr. Bob: Do you do that in the lab, at home, or at school?

Dr. Deb: I just do it at home. I have a little Lamont kit or hot kits work just as well. It's the same thing that you can use in your classrooms. You have to special order a e-coli kit, so you kind of dry those and bake them over night.

Dr. Bob: In your oven.

Dr. Deb: Yep.

Dr. Bob: Good, excellent. You get all those e-coli...

Dr. Deb: Hopefully not.

Dr. Bob: One thing I'd warn you about, don't fiddle around too much if there are flood conditions because surface water can really contaminate. We had done that a couple of years ago. We had just collected sediments after one of the January thaws on the Ohio River and we had gone into Martinsville and Sistersville and some of the others and collected some of the sediments. I just nonchalantly put them in the oven in the lab to dry over night and boy we opened up the door the next morning and we were nearly knocked over. Take great care in handling flood-type waters if you ever engage in some sampling. Well water you would hope has low e-coli levels.

One of the other things is useful is to understand some basic terminologies that are important. Maybe we should go over those first. You've got some information here.

Dr. Deb: You mentioned this last week, you would talking about drainage patterns and I wasn't sure that maybe everybody gathered what it was you were referring to. I want to just take a minute to clarify. When you talked about drainage patterns you mentioned some called dendritic and then you said that some weeds looked like it had dendritic patterns. Dendro actually refers to trees. The study of trees is dendrology. If you can think of it that way it's not hard to remember. You've got branching that occurs because the bed rock is pretty uniform, it's just kind of cutting down through and elevated area and dumping down into a major body of water, in this case I have a river. This would be called a dendritic drainage pattern. Something I actually wanted you to go back over because you went over it kind of quickly and that was you started naming these as primary, secondary, and tertiary streams. Review that pretty quickly.

Dr. Bob: Oh, sure thing. I'm also going to investigate this now with respect to the ground water. I've put a dashed line around the pattern and it reflects the water shed and the ground water is also within this water shed. There are possibilities, of course, that there is a confined level where water might be exiting out from that water shed into an adjacent water shed under ground. The surface water is all coming in this pattern. What we do from time to time, we can do an analysis and say that all these that I'm putting a little tick mark on are streams that have no tributaries. They are either perennial streams, they flow all the time or they are intermittent streams meaning that there may be a flow a number of months of the year. Then there are some that only carry water, little trenches on the topography, that will only carry snow melt or heavy rainfall. Ephemeral (sp) is the word. Perennial and intermittent are shown with blue lines on topographic. If its solid it's perennial. If it's dashed or dash and a dot it's intermittent. Then if there is no blue at all then it is ephemeral. It is only flowing only when there are great quantities of water running off on the surface. Two first order streams when they join create a second order stream. Some first order streams join a second order stream but it doesn't change it. The only way there could be a third order stream if two second order streams join. Then more second order streams can join but it doesn't change. We're saving the discussion on mountain top removal and valley fill in great detail until next week's adjunct tape. You realize that there's been a flurry of activity, a short story on this is that Judge Hayden said, you are within a hundred feet of a ephemeral or perennial stream you can't do that. Therefore no more issuance of permits. On Friday he put a stay to that decision meaning the state can go on until it is appealed in a higher appellate court. It will be interesting the watch the dynamics now this week. It may well be that the backlog of requests to extend the surface area may come through now and move through the system. We'll wait and see. Using this type of analysis can be used for floods in the community if there is a community in this area or somewhere in this water shed. You're looking for the number of streams, the type of collection area. Notice that there seems to be a collection ring where there are many first order streams are the ones that collect the water. A transportation ring in the central portion of the valley, that's where all these low order streams dump their material. It's usually the lower order streams on which flash flooding is the greatest problem. Then a distribution. It goes out in this case to another larger river that this water shed is tributary to. So in the lower portions you seldom get any first order streams, or any other streams, collecting. It's very narrow right down here where it finally distributes it into another source. Then, we talked about another pattern, that was trellis. This trellis can go on for miles and miles and miles. The branches of the Potomac are excellent examples of trellis where the mountain tops are between the valleys and the mountains serve to shunt water down either side and it collects in a long tributary stream. If we were to do the same stream analysis here where we have order and number we find that first order streams are great in number...eight. Second order streams, just on this little stretch we've got...three. That is a third order stream but this is only a fraction, this might go for tens and tens and tens of miles and this then would increase the number of first and second order streams and never get above a third order stream. There could easily be another stream segment with many other first and second order streams. You could get dozens of first order streams and never get above a third order streams. You've got to watch out for these. These have created very rapid runoff from mountains especially when there's orographic uplift and even though it's only a third order stream the water shed area is quite significant and flash flooding is a real concern. Furthermore in this type of drainage when you do this analysis down in here you're seeing the junction of this tributary to a much larger one and what's happening here is that there's a cut, a water gap in the mountain. This is an attempt to portray the topography. The mountain continues on either side of the ridge and this is a water gap. In times of flood, the debris might block at the near end, especially if there's a lot of debris and there hasn't been a flood in many tens of years, brush, logs, dead trees, and all kinds of flotsam can dam up and temporarily cause a plug. That plug is eventually going to break by the back water pressure and it's going to shoot through here and if any one is down on the banks they are at enormous risk. That's the flood pattern and the study there. A third pattern we don't see in West Virginia, radial. But you would see that off Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, Mount Baker, a good volcanic cone would have this type of a pattern. It distributes the water in directions away from the central peak, however, in this case ;you would do an analysis if this is a volcanic peak and you're living in Tacoma, Washington, is there a potential for a lahare to move down or Armeral (sp) in Columbia. You may live in a low radiant stream many many tens of miles from the volcano but a lahare mobilized by the melting of snow on the volcanic peak and the rain that inevitably comes with the eruption of a volcano because of all the water vapors and gases and the electrical discharge in the storm you can get a lahare mobilizing the ash a long, long distance. You want to do a stream analysis and find out where is all that coming from. You may live on a stream so far away but it is really being fed from that volcano. It's the volcano that poses the greatest threat. In any of these drainage patterns that in West Virginia the river valley might look something like this (draws on overhead). There's two things to remember that we had droughty conditions in West Virginia for a long period of time this summer and many streams continued to flow. Where did that water come from? It wasn't precipitation. It was during the summer so it had no other source but from the water table. After the prolonged lack of precipitation, weeks with very little precipitation, if you go down and measure the flow in water as we do then you'd find out that the flow of the water reflects how much ground water is being contributed to any particular stream. You can test the water and find out what the quality of the ground water is. Below the surface almost parallel to the surface, the water table. Below there's a zone of saturation. Let's look at this as a homogeneous material. This isn't what we'll find in West Virginia but we're going to argue that for the moment. Above is the zone of aeration. The pore spaces may have some water present but it's only it's coating. The same holds true on the other side. The flow of the ground water is like having two opposing water towers on either side of the hill. The water then meets because of equalized pressure and it comes up into the stream. This is an effluent condition in West Virginia. The stream gains from the water table. Out west it's influent. It goes into the ground from the river. This is in the pattern of the dendritic pattern or the trellis pattern. You have the hillsides, the water table, the zone of saturation, and the water is moving. The two terms that we need to talk about is an aquifer. A unit that supplies water. Deb, in West Virginia what are some aquifers? Do you know what your aquifer is in Preston County?

Dr. Deb: The aquifer that we have is a sandstone. The locals would tell you it's a shale.

Dr. Bob: A shale is the opposite of an aquifer it's an aquiclude. It does not allow water to readily to move through it. Porosity and permeability. Porosity is simply a measure of the pore space but permeability, a necessary condition, is that the pore space is interconnected so that the fluid, gas or water, moves through. It has to be an interconnected situation. There are three other important aquifers in West Virginia.

Dr. Deb: You mentioned one on the Ohio. It would be the sands and the gravels.

Dr. Bob: Sand and gravel.

Dr. Deb: Acting as a natural filtration system.

Dr. Bob: Except after a while it's overwhelmed so it can't filter everything out. There's another rock, those good folks in Greenbrier County and Monroe County...limestone. Sometimes in limestone terrains they talk about underground rivers. Can water actually flow underground in limestone terrain? Yeah. It's solution cavities and rivers. You can go in some commercial caves and you can hear it. Some commercial caves you can go in a boat underground. In the southern part of the state, south central and south western, the curious fourth is coal. There are some communities even draw their water from old abandoned coal mines. The coal cracks and is jointed. That what I call a secondary permeability. If the rock has it's own permeability but then if its cracked and there are openings then the water is going to flow through it. Coal is especially that way because it has many faces and a perpendicular set of joints and also in the bedding planes. Coal is marvelous. The reason that coal is not used as an aquifer in the north is because of acid mine drainage. The water in the limestone is a problem too because you don't know where that water is coming from. Herbicides and insecticides, point source pollution or broad non point source pollution can get into that ground water system from feedlots, from cattle. One of the great places of ground water contamination in Pennsylvania is in Lancaster County where the number of dairy cattle is ferocious. Both the surface water and the ground water can get a great slug of nitrogen.

We're going on to our break now. Do you want to mention our web site now?

Dr. Deb: Sure. If you go to www. fema.gov, this is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There is some really interesting things here for students to check out. You can check out the map section, Library map room, you can get a hold of some recent disaster maps. You can see the distribution of disasters that have happened in this particular year. If you're doing any kind of research there's a key there. What is particularly interesting for elementary and lower middle school they have this nice FEMA site for kids. It tells you what's happening now, how to get yourself ready for a disaster. The kid's can come up with their own disaster kit. In West Virginia this is important in areas that are prone to flooding. It tells the kids what they can bring in a particular disaster event. There is also information on how to protect your homes from disaster and flooding is included. What to do with your pets. There's also a quiz there. There is also games, quizzes, challenges, a library, how you can get your school ready for particular types of disaster. Kid's who have experienced any kind of disaster can get on line and then communicate with other kids. It's a nice web site for the kids and as a resource there are many, many things that you can access. There are articles here that deals with getting houses ready for hurricanes. Things such as safe rooms. Have your students check it out.

Dr. Bob: The rationale for that is that there are so many federal agencies and state agencies and private groups, American Red Cross and so forth, that there needs to be some attempt of an over arching umbrella to try to address the enormous needs of individuals. By and large, you can almost not win in this situation. FEMA has always come under great criticism because of the lag time in trying to be sure that the people who are asking for help and money really are deserving of such.

Dr. Deb: This Project Impact which is a focus of this web site talks about mitigation, things that you can do to prevent these things from happening to your house. They're trying to nip it in the bud before it happens. Trying to get people to raise their homes to higher elevations, not build in flood plains, things that communities can do.

(BREAK)

Dr. Bob: (Joined in progress) level was at least at an elevation of 1,080 feet. You can find some information on this in the WVGES pages of "Ask Us!" questions. We've put together a little statement here. This event of glacialate Monongahela at a 1,080 feet was present a long time ago. One of the very early glaciations. We know this, that the glacial lake Monongahela was present before 780,000 before present. The very first one. The reason that we know this is that the lake clays along lake bottom, there are places where there are a great deal of clay still present, little grains of magnetite are oriented in the reverse magnetization. The last time it was reversed was 780,000 years ago, prior to 780,000 years ago. Meaning in the last 780,000 years it's all been the same orientation of the earth's magnetic field. This is a very, very ancient lake. One grand case of problems, Lake Monongahela and the Monongahela River, the statement river has it that in Native American Mononghala means banks that slide into the river. Don't they though? There's also cases where they attempted to drive a railroad heading to take coal out through lake sediments and the whole railroad track moved because once they cut into the lake sediments all that clay just continued to flow. You don't want to build in those areas or if you do you want to make sure that you drain around your basement.

The last climate change, what about deserts and conditions of semi arid situations? In the United States we're talking about semi arid. True deserts as in Africa, in the Kalahari and areas in Australia, the Atacama of Chile and Peru. Those areas are the true arid environments but in semi arid environments there is rainfall and surprisingly then there's flood conditions. In the southwestern United States in the desertic environment the real problem is overgrazing as in Africa. Grazing takes away the vegetation. You take away the vegetation and when the rainfall does come then it's going to erode. The grasses don't diminish the runoff, don't hold some of the water and there is very rapid erosion. What you usually get are the washes. Sometimes these washes have very steep, 6 to 8 foot vertical walls. Unfortunately in areas where you find this, many people use this for transportation. If they get caught in a flood, that rain may have fallen in the mountain 10s of miles away, many people perish each year because they're caught in the flood waters with a 6 to 8 foot wall and they can't get back out and they drown. That water comes as a true flash flood condition. These types of conditions are very, very dangerous. Furthermore this overgrazing can cause desertification. The growth of deserts. It's not a problem as much here in the United States except for this overgrazing and erosion. In Africa there's a great problem. There's a term Sahel (sp) and in Arabic means shore. That's a funny term because it's well inland but it's the border line between the true desert and the semi arid region. That's Sahel shoreline. What's happening is that overgrazing is causing the Sahel to shrink very rapidly and if the vegetation is lost and the desert continues to grow in overall areal extent.

The last comment or two...El Nino and La Nina. Here's an interesting component of these situations, La Nina and El Nino. The conditions in La Nina are that in the important Equatorward belt where the hurricanes are forming there's more diminished winds from the west. Under La Nina the westerly high level winds are diminished. What that means is that high level winds from the west, the hurricanes overall are moving from the east to the west. If there are high level winds it cuts off the top of the hurricanes and it diminishes their intensity. In La Nina years there's a diminishing of the high level and therefore the intensity stays. That's why hurricane Floyd could develop and we had more level 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic this year then in many, many recent years because of the diminishing, La Nina conditions, of the upper jet stream flow so that we were not finding and seeing the cutting off of the tops of the hurricanes. It's a very interesting dynamic. We think we know a little more about El Nino then we do about La Nina. But you are going to be struck with this information, web sites and so forth. Great web sites in the El Nino year, you could watch it develop. One such hurricane was picked up and the surface water temperature in El Nino, that's not what's going to happen again, surface water temperatures were +11 degrees in the maximum extent and higher. It comes right against Peru. The warm water is blown over here and then comes down across Peru. Usually it's upwelling of cold waters, they had a piling up of warm water all the way from Australia and Indonesia moving along that latitude from the west to the east. Now in La Nina it's just the opposite. This now is the colder upwelling and the warm water is being pushed in the opposite direction towards Indonesia.

We've covered a variety of topics today and some of them, though not directly related to West Virginia such as semi arid or arid conditions. The climate change can be a dramatic environmental impulse. Our youngsters will be hearing a great deal about El Nino and La Nina and it's quite likely that the weather this winter will be very much affected by what La Nina can produce for us. Keep track of that as time moves we'll continue to inform you as to possible web sites. Until we meet again in two weeks we will have met for the second and final exploratory. Be sure to tell your facilitator as to whether or not you're coming so you can get all those logistics put together and hope for a great day in the field trip. It's always a great day for a field trip! Take care, see you in two weeks.

WVGES Education Specialist, Tom Repine (repine@wvgs.wvnet.edu)

Page last revised: November 1999

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Telephone:  1-800-WV-GEOLOgy (1-800-984-3656) or 304-594-2331
      FAX:  304-594-2575
    Hours:  8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. EST, Monday - Friday