The newest crop of 2010 Earth and Ocean Science Undergraduate Honours Theses and Reports are now available online on cIRcle, the UBC Library’s Digital Repository.

Below is a list of 2010 submissions.

Waste Solutions for Metro Vancouver
Ho, Anthony; MacDonald, Jessica; Lam, Clement; Dean, Monika; Lai, Joseph; Lu, Nan; Sim, Nari (2010-05-07)

Effects of Triclosan on a Detrital-Based, Aquatic Food Web
Chan, Carita (2010-05-07)

Ecosystem Services of the British Columbia Coast: Modeling the Impacts of Agriculture on the Provision of Shellfish
Solomon, Cody; Thompson, Allison (2010-05-05)

Slope Stability Analysis of Fly Ash Containment Dyke
Brisbin, Aaron (2010-04-27)

Mechanical strength of Anhydrite and its Role in the Seismicity of the Duke River Fault, Yukon Territory
Sampaleanu, Christian (2010-04-22)

Delineation of Groundwater Capture Zone for the Grum Pit, Faro Mine Complex, Yukon Territory
Yungyoo, Thiyapa (2010-04-19)

The Classification and Analysis of 300 Cycling Crashes that Resulted in Visits to Hospital Emergency Departments in Toronto and Vancouver. Frendo, Theresa (2010-04-15)

Sensitivity Analysis of UBCDFLOW and Debris Flow Travel Distance in Mountainous Forested Terrain around the Kootenay, British Columbia Region. Kurylo, John Bohdan (2010-04-13)

Investigation of Liquid Limit of Kamloops Silt by Soft-base Casagrande Apparatus and British Drop-Cone Penetrometer.
Lu, Alan Zhong (2010-04-12)

Identifying Landscapes and their Formation Timescales: Comparing Knowledge and Confidence of Beginner and Advanced Geoscience Undergraduate Students. Jolley, Alison Rae (2010-04-07)

Stability and Seepage Analysis of the Bralorne Gold Mines Tailings Dam Following a Change in Usage from Tailings Dam to Water Reservoir Dam. Lefrancois, Anne-Marie (2010-04-01)

An Assessment of the Greywater and Composting Toilet Tea Leach Field Geochemistry at the C.K. Choi Building, University of British Columbia Vancouver Campus. Larson, Leila (2010-02-17)

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia.

86 incidents are listed. Data from NOAA Office of Response and Restoration.

Access the Database

“Each year, oil and fuel spills are caused by accidents involving tankers, barges, pipelines, trucks and storage facilities. When oil leaks into water, it spreads out rapidly forming a thin layer called a sheen. It can be harmful to birds, mammals, fish and plant life, and it can foul beaches and coastal areas. Search here to see some of the cases handled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Emergency Response Division, which provides technical and scientific help when oil spills into waterways.”

More specific information would be available in some of our databases, e.g. Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management, GREENR or GreenFile

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/

Newsmaker Interview:
Imponderables Complicate Hunt For Intelligent Life Beyond Earth

Dr. Paul Davies a professor at Arizona State University, Tempe discusses his role in the search for intelligent life beyond Earth.

Read the full interview here.

Other articles published by Dr. Davies include Are ALIENS among Us? Davies, Paul, Scientific American, Dec2007, Vol. 297, Issue 6, p62-69.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia

In one of the classic understatements of aviation history, Eric Moody turned on the flight intercom of his British Airways 747 and reported to his 248 passengers:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.

The date was 24 June 1982, and Moody’s 747 was south of Java, en route from Heathrow to Auckland, amidst an ash cloud from Mount Galunggung in Indonesia. At first it looked as if the only hope was to ditch the plane in the ocean. However, the crew was able to glide the plane (let’s all nod now to engineers who managed to create a jumbo jet that descends only one meter for every 15 flown without power) until successfully restarting three of the four engines, but the damage from the cloud made for a harrowing landing over the mountainous terrain around Jakarta. In 1989, another 747 temporarily lost use of all four engines due to a volcanic plume (from Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt).

Not surprisingly, since the British Airways incident, volcanic plumes—previously studied more closely for their climatic effects—have become a preoccupation of weather forecasters. The world meteorological and aviation communities have collaborated on the International Airways Volcano Watch, whose advisories Thursday led to the cancellation of flights across northern Europe due to the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjalla volcano. It will be hard to overstate the consequence of this eruption for travelers around the world; it is already being compared to the no-fly days after 9/11.

For more information, read the full American Meteorological Society Blog Post

The Science and Engineering Library hosts a number of databases that will give you access to the peer-reviewed literature dealing with the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate and weather.

Have a look at

Geobase
MGA
Web of Science

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

For a complete list of impact factors, go to the Elsevier Earth Science link.

Earth-Science Reviews

2008 Impact Factor 6.558
2007 Impact Factor 4.310

Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta

2008 Impact Factor 4.235
2007 Impact Factor 3.665

Earth And Planetary Science Letters

2008 Impact Factor 3.955
2007 Impact Factor 3.873

Precambrian Research

2008 Impact Factor 3.736
2007 Impact Factor 3.247

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

I have a personal interest in geoengineering and I tend to read many publications that discuss these topics. Lat week Science had a short article about geoengineering that I found interesting:

The Latest on Geoengineering. Eli Kintisch (26 February 2010). Science 327 (5969), 1070-b. [DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5969.1070-b]

Moreover, here is a short list of books we have in UBC Library about environmental engineering

** photos by http://www.flickr.com/photos/courambel

BOULDER—Painting the roofs of buildings white has the potential to significantly cool cities and mitigate some impacts of global warming, a new study indicates. The new NCAR-led research suggests there may be merit to an idea advanced by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu that white roofs can be an important tool to help society adjust to climate change.

Read the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) news release here. The full article published in Geophysical Research Letters can be read here.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

The Street Level Forecast (SLF) is an interactive point forecast planning tool that brings customized forecasts to the user. SLF makes weather data accessible and user- friendly. Click on a specific location on an interactive map to receive personal forecasts such as wind and temperature that are provided on an easy-to-read graph.

The computer model that drives the SLF is run twice daily at a one kilometer resolution (a grid of points one kilometer apart across the region) and predicts conditions for the next 19 hours.

This SLF is an experimental prototype that Environment Canada will test during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games period. This version will be live until March 31, 2010.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Library for Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of British Columbia

Every year the Chemical Abstracts Service of the American Chemical Society publishes a wonderful calendar – the Colors of Chemistry. Starting in 2010 this calendar is now available either as a free download or as an online interactive calendar.

Go to 2010 Colors of Chemistry Calendar and choose your option.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of British Columbia.

There are currently two very useful journal rankings SCImago and JCR. These rankings allow you to display amongst other things the h-index for a specific journal or a grouping of journals based on subject

“The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database (Elsevier B.V.).” Scopus contains more than 15,000 journals from over 4,000 international publishers as well as over 1000 open access journals. There are also over 500 conference proceedings in the database.

For more information, go to SCImago

“Journal Citation Reports® is a comprehensive and unique resource that allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data drawn from over 7,500 scholarly and technical journals from more than 3,300 publishers in over 60 countries.”
JCR Science Edition contains data from over 5,900 journals in science and technology.
JCR Social Sciences Edition contains data from over 1,700 journals in the social sciences.

For more information, go to JCR (Journal Citation Reports)

It is important to be aware of the size of the body of literature (the number of journals and conference proceedings) being indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. Journals listed in JCR are indexed in the Web of Science The larger the database, the greater the possibility that articles will be discovered, read, and hopefully cited. This is especially important for open access journals, some of which have not yet been indexed in the Web of Science.

Eigenfactor ranking is based on Web of Science data.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Science and Engineering