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Dust - Climatic, Geomorphic, and Hydrologic Factors and Societal Effects

One area of focus for the project is eolian dust primarily because of its critical but poorly known roles in issues of human health and ecosystem dynamics. This work also bears on air quality and visibility standards, management of lands to minimize wind erosion, and transportation safety. The methods and models developed in the Southwest can be applied to arid lands elsewhere in the U.S. and the world to address the effects of mineral dust on humans and their environment.

We investigate geologic and ecologic aspects of eolian dust to:

Understand and monitor surface conditions leading to wind erosion and dust emission:

• Using remote sensing to detect active dust storms and map areas vulnerable to wind erosion
• Monitoring and modeling of dust emission
• Meteorological and wind-erosion monitoring

Identify dust sources - past, present, future

Track dust transport pathways

Determine controls on dust generation and accumulation:

• Sixteen-year Record of Eolian Dust in Southern Nevada and California, U.S.A.
• Composition of Aeolian Dust in Natural Traps on Isolated Surfaces of the Central Mojave Desert-Insights to Mixing, Sources, and Nutrient Inputs
• Relation of Dust Emission to ENSO in the Mojave Desert
• Dust emission and deposition — linking geomorphology, hydrology, and ecology

Evaluate effects of dust on human health:

• Health effects of dust from Owens (dry) Lake, California
• Dust and valley fever

Recognize eolian dust in soils and how it influences soil properties (including soil moisture), biogeochemical cycling, and plant communities:

• Plant and soil biogeochemistry
• Geologic development of arid landscapes - Canyonlands, Utah
• Dust and substrate geochemistry - links to ecosystem development
• Eolian dust in soil of the Colorado Plateau
  (See http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/13/7123 for more information.)
• Composition of Aeolian Dust in Natural Traps on Isolated Surfaces of the Central Mojave Desert-Insights to Mixing, Sources, and Nutrient Inputs

Assess wind-erosion vulnerability of dryland soil

Develop new methods to monitor dust emissions:

• Automated remote digital imaging system: Applications for monitoring dust emissions in the Mojave Desert, California
• Imaging dust storms using geostationary satellites