Purdue News
Purdue News
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April 17, 1992 Purdue department keeps pulse on changing planetWEST LAFAYETTE, IND. — Global warming. Natural disasters. Ozone depletion. Energy resources. Water quality and availability. Friday (4/24) marks the silver anniversary of a Purdue University effort to find practical solutions to such problems in our changing world. On that day, the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences will turn 25 years old. "The department is uniquely positioned to respond to and study global change," says Ernest M. Agee, head of the department. When established in 1967, the department was one of a few in the nation to combine a broad number of disciplines in geosciences, including the atmospheric sciences. Research and instruction in the department cover a wide range of areas including geophysics, geochemistry, hydrogeology, engineering geology, paleontology, geology and the atmospheric sciences. "Looking back on it, Purdue was really a bit ahead of its time in establishing a department that took a global view of the world and the environment," he says. In recent years, researchers in the department have developed a number of new initiatives to address changing conditions of the earth system, ranging from the study of surface-land features and geologic formations to global cloud distribution and the effects of greenhouse gases. Others in the department also work hand-in-hand with various state agencies to help analyze and plan for changes on a more local level. For example, Indiana's Department of Natural Resources has drawn upon the expertise of researchers in the department to help with groundwater studies of local aquifers in the state and to study strip-mining land reclamation in southwest Indiana. The department also helps other state agencies such as Indiana's State Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Environmental Management, the Department of Transportation and the Indiana State Geological Survey. Agee notes that the faculty have also developed close ties with industry, as evidenced through successful partnerships with a number of petroleum and computing industries. Athough some of the department's research focuses on recent environmental or global changes, many of its scientific studies take a more historical perspective. "After all, the earth has been changing for more than 4 billion years," Agee says. "Some researchers have focused on a much longer period of time to assess where our planet has been and where it might be going." For example, field expeditions in Antarctica have added to a unique collection of rocks, minerals and fossils from the southern hemisphere. The geologic record in this collection could help explain the demise of dinosaurs. A deep-sea drilling expedition has produced materials that may help provide information on how the oceans evolved millions of years ago. The department has a number of unique facilities to support teaching and research on campus. These facilities include a highpressue, high-temperature rock physics laboratory; a tornado simulator; a sophisticated microprobe to analyze minerals within rocks; and an isotopic chemistry laboratory. The department also offers students and researchers modern computing facilities linked to powerful supercomputers. Recently, the department became part of a collaborative effort at Purdue with physics and chemistry to establish a research facility for accelerator mass spectrometry. The new facility, one of only three of its type in the nation, provides a sensitive and highly selective technique for measuring concentrations of rare isotopes in rock fragments. Other research facilties in the department include seismographs for detecting earthquakes and a remote-sensing laboratory to analyze information collected from satellites. The department also has a sophisticated software system capable of receiving forecasts and weather data as they occur throughout the world. Developed at Purdue, the software system is copyrighted and now sold to industry through the Purdue Research Foundation. While the department has built a solid reputation on its research accomplishments, Agee says, teaching will always remain a primary goal of the department. "Excellence in teaching and research go hand-inhand," he says. Each year, the department provides undergraduate- and graduate-level courses to more than 3,000 students. Through the years, undergraduate students in atmospheric sciences at Purdue have earned more scholarships and awards offered by the American Meteorological Society than any other university program in the nation. Purdue's department is also a recognized leader in earth and atmospheric sciences education at the elementary- and secondary-school levels. A relatively new involvement by the department is its participation in Purdue's School of Science outreach program, which works with students and teachers throughout the state to promote science education. Looking back on the past 25 years, Agee says there is a sense of pride surrounding the department's past and present accomplishments. "These accomplishments are best represented by the department's 1,000 alumni," he says. "We are now looking forward to future opportunities that will help us maintain our research and educational goals of excellence." Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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