Tuesday, April 24, 2012


Understanding life through the traces left behind

By Javan Rivera

Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler slowly brush sand from around a perfectly preserved Velociraptor skeleton. The bones lie in perfect harmony, aligned as if the dinosaur simply laid down and died, unmoved by the forces of nature.

While it certainly makes for a good scene, the reality of paleontology is far from what is depicted in Hollywood’s “Jurassic Park.” In fact, it’s less about digging up perfectly preserved skeletal structures and more about making informed guesses about what life was like more than 200 million years ago.

This is exactly the type of work University of Utah graduate researcher Tommy Good does on a regular basis. It’s these educated guesses that form a more informed knowledge base than traditional fossils ever could.

Studying in the field of Ichnology, Good’s work revolves around the much more common trace fossils that are scattered around the Nugget Sandstone near Dinosaur National Monument here in Utah.

Trace fossils are simple impressions left by ancient life; including fossilized burrows, track patterns, and occasionally a footprint or two. While this might not seem like much, according to Good, trace fossils are often more informing about the past than traditional fossilized bones could ever be.

“They [trace fossils] give you clues to what could have been there even with the absence of body fossils,” Good said. “Organisms that don’t have bones usually don’t get preserved in the fossil record, but they do leave traces behind.”

So what exactly is Good studying?

For the most part, Nugget Sandstone is filled with small burrow traces and preserved track patterns left behind by 200 million year old invertebrates, such as insects, scorpions and spiders.

Having spent approximately 25 days in the field last year, Good was able to gather and study a number of trace fossils. Even the simplest of these fossils can often shed light on what life was like back then, something Good feels greatly adds to traditional paleontology.

“For all we know those dinosaurs [represented by preserved bones] just laid there until they died,” Good said. “Trace fossils give us an idea about what these creatures did. How they behaved while they were alive. Body fossils are only part of the story.”

Good explained that much can be gleaned from simple traces preserved in stone, but it’s difficult work trying to present findings about creatures that have been dead for hundreds of millions of years. Nonetheless, Good said he enjoys the freedom his field of study offers.

“Working with little more than educated guesses is extremely hard,” Good said. “There are so many animals that have gone extinct that a modern-day analogue may not even exist.”

It’s those modern day analogues that make Good’s work more than just random shots in the dark. Good said he does a lot of reading on modern-day ecology in order to better inform his studies. “The present is key to the past.” That’s the mantra of geology that regularly informs Good’s research.

However it’s not just the present that can inform the past, but the opposite can be true as well. One particular area of research is paleoclimate studies of which Good is interested in publishing.

Good explained that by studying things like the composition of the stone in which the trace fossils were left, he might be able to discern what the environment and even the climate was like. This may not seem like much, but when the possibility of tracking ancient climate change and comparing it to modern day weather patterns, the results could be truly enlightening.

Even beyond the specifics of beneficial findings, Good said he believes Ichnology, and paleontology in general, can act as a gateway for people to understand life, both past and present.

“By understanding and studying ancient life, I think people get a better understanding of life in general and where they come from,” Good said. “The history of life is a fascinating thing.”

With the summer months quickly approaching, Good intends to jump right back into the field to continue the field research he began last year.

Tommy Good standing next to an unnamed set of fossilized burrows in Dinosaur National Monument. Photo taken by Dan Chure.

Good, examining a set of another set of unnamed burrows in Dinosaur National Monument. Photo taken by Dan Chure.

Small synapsid reptile footprint traces found just outside Dinosaur National monument. Photo courtesy of Tommy Good.

Monday, April 23, 2012


U of U Grad Student Researches Factors in Order to Understand Climate Change

By Fiona Marcelino

Paul Staten, University of Utah atmospheric sciences graduate student.
Average global temperatures are increasing and 2000-2009 was recorded as the warmest decade worldwide.

Increases in global temperatures have researchers concerned about future climate changes and their effects on the environment.

University of Utah atmospheric sciences graduate student, Paul Staten, is studying large-scale atmospheric circulation change. His interest lies in climate changes over long periods of time and understanding why these changes happen.

Staten’s research proves to be important in understanding the processes of climate change and is critical in estimating vulnerabilities and how future climate change will impact human health, society and the environment.

“We currently have a good picture with CO2, but once you get to smaller scales, that’s what we still have to work out,” said Staten. “We can make projections, but understanding how accurate we are requires better knowledge of climate change factors.”

Staten equates his research to a room of children. One moment the room may be quiet then next, it’s full of noise. His focus is deciphering the cause of the noise be it a specific child, the addition of a new child to the room, or one child’s influence on another.

“There are so many factors involved, and when climate changes, it’s a combination of all these factors and figuring out the combination can be hard. My job is to understand why and what causes specific changes,” said Staten.

Scientists have found that changes in climate have lead to ice sheets melting, a rise in ocean levels and snow melting sooner, which could lead to more extreme weather conditions that could put entire ecosystems in danger.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s research has well established that these changes are happening and will continue to do so. The trick is to understanding what causes these changes.

“It’s important to understand the climate change processes that are responsible for all this. Then, we can look at future projections better and why global warming causes specific changes,” said Staten.

Monday, April 2, 2012


University of Utah Research Could Mean Millions of Dollars to Weather Sensitive Investments

By Javan Rivera

Ryan Oates
When people associate weather patterns with money, they almost always think of crops first.

Farmers and agriculture investors are always hedging their agrarian investments to insure against droughts, floods and more. Weather, fickle as it often is, could mean the difference between a bountiful harvest and healthy economic income, and a dead field with little more than pennies to show for a season’s worth of work.

And while these are all fine examples of the importance weather plays in economic investments, few seem to realize that there is an entire season of economic betting that takes place during the winter months.

Ryan Oates, graduate researcher at the University of Utah, is currently studying atmospheric influences on weather that can have an economic influence during the winter months.

For example, the energy that people use to heat their homes every winter isn’t free. It’s part of a multi-billion dollar industry that, much like the agricultural industry, is greatly subject to global weather patterns. The real question on all these investor’s minds isn’t why the weather changes, but rather, how far out can that weather be forecast, and what else can be done to extend that lead time?

This is one of the most important questions that could be addressed by Oates’ work.

“There’s currently a two to three week lead time between forecasting mid-latitude weather and stratospheric events,” Oates said.

What would happen if that lead time could be extended, with greater understanding of stratospheric patterns during the winter?

Oates, along with his research advisor, Thomas Reichler, are running a series of computer models in the University’s atmospheric sciences department in an attempt to understand the changes of global weather patterns as climate change begins to take affect. More specifically, Oates is studying the effects of CO2 increase on the polar vortex.

The polar vortex is a well-documented massive circulation of the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere. The circulation, which takes place in the stratosphere, directly influences winter weather in the mid-latitudes according to Oates, meaning the importance of what happens in the vortex can’t be understated for energy investors.

Oates said that due to the direct correlation between the polar vortex and global weather patterns, the vortex can not only affect tropospheric weather, but tropospheric weather can affect it as well. Any time large-scale tropospheric weather destabilizes the vortex, it can stop spinning, or even reverse as part of an event known as “Stratospheric Sudden Warming” (SSW). These SSW events can significantly change weather patterns in the mid-latitudes.

“The troposphere affects the polar vortex, but it also works the other way,” Oates said. “So when you have these sudden warming events, that impacts storm tracks. When you have a sudden warming event, that tends to push those storms farther south towards the mid-latitudes.”

Oates uses a global climate model in order to simulate advanced states of global climates containing large-scale CO2 increase in order to observe what effects that has on the polar vortex.

“Since CO2 is expected to readily increase throughout this century, what would happen to our global climate model if we doubled CO2 in it?” Oates said.

The preliminary results, according to Oates, are that an increase in greenhouse gases means an increase in SSW events.

“This means that our winters will be more variable,” Oates said. “That’s obviously important, because you will potentially have more instances where you have periods of above and below average weather.”
What does this mean for investors in energy supplies? Oates said, this research could be a significant driving force behind the “opportunity and risk” these investors face going forward.

As global climate change marches on, the significance of SSW events is likely to only increase for these investors.

This correlation between his work and real world economic consequences is something that drives Oates.

“For me, science ties into everyday things,” Oates said. “You can’t isolate it to just one thing. It always has real life implications.”

With his graduate studies coming to an end, Oates expects to graduate with a master’s degree this fall, and hopes to apply his research to the real life consequences he finds so fascinating.

“Ideally, I’d like to work with a company that deals with weather sensitive commodities,” Oates said.
In the end, regardless of where Oates ends up, his research represents a step forward in understanding and forecasting storm and weather patterns across the globe.