Free Republic

A group of University of Wyoming professors and students has identified an unusual belt of igneous rocks that stretches for over 2,000 miles from British Columbia, Canada, through Idaho, Montana, Nevada, southeast California and Arizona to Sonora, Mexico. “Geoscientists usually associate long belts of igneous rocks with chains of volcanoes at subduction zones, like Mount Shasta, Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainer,” says Jay Chapman, an assistant professor in UW’s Department of Geology and Geophysics. “What makes this finding so interesting and mysterious is that this belt of igneous rocks is located much farther inland, away from the...

Researchers will look for PCBs, DDT in samples from Mt. Rainier, Olympic, others in region TACOMA _ Scientists are packing blocks of snow from national parks into freezers for testing to determine whether airborne pollutants have fouled the areas that many people believe are unspoiled. The results should help determine whether long-term monitoring is necessary, said Tamara Blett, a Denver-based National Park Service ecologist who coordinates the project. The study focuses on national parks in the West because earlier research focused on parks in the Midwest and East. "We really know nothing about the West. It's just a blank slate,...