site: Yogi has a two-toned surface. About 1/3 of the rock as seen from the lander is blue- gray, the other 2/3 has a red, rust-colored sur face. The red material on ...
Eos, Vol. 78, No. 31, August 5, 1997 Acknowledgments
Fig. 2. Sketch map of Sicily showing the location of the multis pectral infrared and visible imaging spec trometer test sites (dashed circles).
We thank the following for their contribu tions to this article: R. M. Cavalli, C. M. Ma rino, S. Pignatti, S. Salvi, M. P. Bogliolo, S. Teggi, S. Pugnaghi, D. C. Pieri, V. J . Realmuto, T. Caltabiano, G. C e c c h i , L. Pantani, M. T. Pareschi, S. Calvo, F. Azzaro, and O. Belve dere. Funding for work reported here was provided by CNR (Progetto LARA), Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica ( R o m e ) , Istituto Internazionale di V u l c a n o l o g i a ( C a t a n i a ) , IROE ( F l o r e n c e ) , Gruppo Nazionale di V u l c a n o l o gia; work by M. J . Abrams, D. C. Pieri, and V. J . Realmuto was performed at the J e t Propul sion Laboratory/California Institute of T e c h nology under a NASA contract.
References
cient Halaesa, through an intensive survey, following the information given by the tables. Archaeological investigation will b e c o m bined with a g e o m o r p h o l o g i c a l and pedological survey to study the evolution of the environmental setting of the sites discovered, from a n c i e n t times up to today. R e m o t e sens ing analysis will support the a r c h a e o l o g i c a l investigation. The goal is to build a picture of rural settle ment in the hinterland of the city, with a view to attaining c o m p l e t e knowledge of the re gion. Information obtained by MIVIS will con tribute ultimately to research on the relationship a m o n g a n c i e n t rural settlement, soil division, agricultural and e c o n o m i c po tential of the territory, and the methods of re s o u r c e exploitation used.
Conclusions By c o m b i n i n g four imaging spectrometers (visible, near-infrared, infrared, and thermal infrared) in a single bore-sighted instrument,
Week 3:
Red, White, and Somewhat Blue at the Pathfinder Site PAGES 3 1 7 - 3 1 8 ARES VALLIS, MARS—In keeping with the t h e m e of its Fourth of July landing, Mars Path finder s e e m s to have found itself in a red, white, and "blue" l a n d s c a p e . While Mars is known as the "Red Planet," it is the white and somewhat-blue stuff that is grabbing the at tention of the s c i e n c e team. At a press briefing on July 22, the team s h o w e d an e n h a n c e d c o l o r image of the re
MIVIS represents a significant step forward in the ability to simultaneously acquire multiband data in a calibrated and registered for mat. In addition, this multisite, multipurpose deployment demonstrates the utility of a multidisciplinary approach, not only from the standpoint of scientific synergism (for e x a m ple, coordinated atmospheric and volc a n o l o g i c a l m e a s u r e m e n t s ) but also from the standpoint of e c o n o m i c s . Preliminary data analyses show that data quality is ac c e p t a b l e for nearly all the original project goals, not only from the point of view of sig nal-to-noise ratio, but with regard to spatial and spectral resolutions s e l e c t e d for the vari ous tasks. Detailed analyses and results will b e reported in appropriate disciplinary jour nals. To inquire about MIVIS deployment pro grams and LARA Project activity, please c o n tact CNR LARA PROJECT, Test Sites Office, Via Monte D'Oro, 11, 0 0 0 4 0 Pomezia, R o m e , Italy, tel. +39-6-910-0312; fax+39-6-9160-1614; e-mail tso@lara01 .lara.rm.cnr.it.
gion in front of the rock, Yogi. (A gray-scale version of this image is s e e n in Figure 1). T h e most exciting feature in the image is a white patch of subsurface material revealed by a d e e p s c o u r in the soil that was c a u s e d by the rover wheels as it turned to e x a m i n e Yogi. The white patch has a visible r e f l e c t a n c e spectrum similar to the white, crusty material e x p o s e d by wind a b o u t 2.5 m away. T e a m m e m b e r Mike Malin talked about these crusts during the first w e e k of the mission. He interpreted them as e v i d e n c e for the past p r e s e n c e of water that left b e h i n d dried mud a n d / o r evaporite material. Also revealed by the n e w c o l o r perspective on the landing site: Yogi has a two-toned surface. About 1/3 of the rock as s e e n from the lander is bluegray, the other 2/3 has a red, rust-colored sur face. T h e red material on Yogi and everywhere else at the landing site c o n t a i n s
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Abrams, M , R. Bianchi, a n d D. Pieri, Revised mapping of lava flows on Mt. Etna, Italy, Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens., 62, 1 3 5 3 1359, 1996. Bianchi, R., C. M. Marino, a n d S. Pignatti, Air b o r n e Hyperspectral R e m o t e Sensing in It aly: CNR-LARA Project, in Proceedings of Recent Advances in Remote Sensing and Hyperspectral Remote Sensing, EUROPTO S e ries, SPIE Vol. 2 3 1 8 , pp. 2 9 - 3 7 , 1994. Bianchi, R., R. Casacchia, A. Coradini, A. Dun can, J . Guest, A. Kahle, P. Lanciano, D. Pieri, and M. Poscolieri, R e m o t e sensing of Italian volcanoes, Eos Trans., AGU, 71, 1 7 8 9 - 1 7 9 1 , 1990. Calvo S., C. Frada' Orestano, a n d P. Abadessa, An integrated approach to the car tography of Posidonia o c e a n i c a meadows in the B a y of Mondello (Sicily, Italy), Oceanol. Acta, 16, 2 7 3 - 2 7 8 , 1 9 9 3 . C e c c h i G. , I. Pantani, M. Bazzani, V. Raimondi, P. Mazzinghi, a n d R. Valentini, Li dar remote sensing of vegetation status: The link to plant physiology, in Laser in Remote Sensing, edited by C.Warner a n d W. Waidelich, pp. 75-77, Springer Verlag, New York, 1994. Realmuto, V., M. Abrams, F. Buongiorno, a n d D. Pieri, T h e use of multispectral thermal in frared image data to estimate the SO2 flux from v o l c a n o e s : A c a s e study from Mount Etna, Sicily, J . Geophys. Res., 99, 4 8 1 - 4 8 8 , 1994.
oxidized iron. T h e blue-gray surface on this rock is thought to contain unoxidized iron. The s c i e n c e team provided two possible interpretations for the sharp c o n t a c t b e t w e e n the "red" and "blue" portions of Yogi: either it is a geologic c o n t a c t b e t w e e n two layered rock units; or it is the result of preferential wind deposition of bright, red dust on o n e portion of the rock but not the other. T h e wind interpretation s e e m s m o r e likely, with either the blue face being swept c l e a n of red dust, or with the red face being the site of wind "plastering" red dust onto its surface. It is the bluish surfaces on rocks like Yogi that the s c i e n c e team is most interested in— the assumption is that these are dust-free and weathering-free surfaces upon w h i c h the al pha proton X ray s p e c t r o m e t e r (APXS) c o u l d best determine the composition of the rocks. Unfortunately, in the c a s e of Yogi it appears
Eos, Vol. 78, No. 31, August 5, 1997 that the APXS was p l a c e d on the dusty, red side (Figure 1); thus the team is working on subtracting the dust spectrum from the APXS results for Yogi that were described earlier in the mission. Bluish rocks are not the only o n e s grab bing the team's attention. White rocks are in triguing, as well. A "white" rock, S c o o b y Doo, was the c e n t e r of attention early in the week. The Sojourner rover took an APXS spectrum, then drove its wheels on the rock to s e e if it would crumble or flake. The rock was unaf fected by Sojourner's scraping; and by the end of the w e e k the team a n n o u n c e d that S c o o b y Doo has a chemistry similar to that of the soils at the landing site, but initial analy sis shows that it contains slightly higher amounts of c a l c i u m and silicon. Despite h o p e s that S c o o b y Doo would prove to b e a c a r b o n a t e or evaporite mate rial, it appears that this hard, flat rock still pro vides a curious mystery yet to b e solved. After S c o o b y Doo, Sojourner's APXS looked at s o m e dark soil near the rock Lamb, then trucked a full 3 m across the flat area in front of Yogi, to end the w e e k with its APXS placed on a rock that looks like a Souffle (Figure 1). The n u m b e r of press briefings has dropped to only 1 per week, as the Pathfinder team shifted emphasis toward collecting maximum amounts of data as quickly as pos sible. After s o m e glitches in the c o m m u n i c a tion stream between Earth and Mars early in W e e k 3, data began to pour in as if from a fire hose. By the end of the week, the team was reading b a c k portions of the "Super Pan"—a
Fig. 1. Center stage of Sojourner's activities during the first 3 weeks on Mars. In this image, ob tained about 11/2 weeks into the mission, Sojourner can be seen with its alpha proton Xray spec trometer up against the rock, Yogi. On its way to Yogi, the rover wheels exposed white material (box) that occurs beneath the smooth patch of soil in front of Yogi. This white material is prob ably the same as exposed by wind further to the right, labeled "white crust." Sojourner examined the dark soil next to rock, Lamb, on its 20th Martian day, then traveled 3 m to Souffle. Week 3 ended with the APXS placed on the rock, Souffle'. Yogi is about 1 m high and located west of the lander. full-color, stereo p a n o r a m i c view of the land ing site taken using the 12 visible/near-infra red filters of the IMP imager built by a team at the University of Arizona. "This Super Pan will b e the ultimate data set that we will all work with for years and years," said team m e m b e r Jim Bell of Cornell University. T h e IMP has 12 filters in e a c h of its two c a m e r a "eyes"—These bands range be tween 443 nm ( n a n o m e t e r s ) and 1003 nm, ideal for identification of s o m e iron- and OHbearing minerals.
Scientific Data Cut Risks of Public Decision-Making PAGES 317, 319 When groundwater contamination was detected at landfill monitoring wells in Loudoun County, Va., in 1993, residents nearby b e c a m e c o n c e r n e d about the safety of their well water. T o avoid health risks, the county provided public water service to h o m e s surrounding the landfill, at a cost of $5.4 million. Had high-resolution geologic maps b e e n available, public coffers would have stayed s e c u r e . Considering the $ 1.2 mil lion cost of producing such a map, the county would have still saved millions of dol lars if it had bypassed highly conductive limestone formations when siting the landfill and a later extension. Just what is the value of scientific informa tion? Economist Richard L. Bernknopf, codirector of the Center for Earth S c i e n c e Information R e s e a r c h (CESIR), is attempting to find out. In the landfill c a s e , for example, Bernknopf estimated the benefit of using geo logic map information as the amount of loss
avoided, weighed against the cost of produc ing and disseminating the map. More and more, legislators want to know the value of e a c h research dollar spent. Out c o m e s of research funded by the federal gov ernment are being closely scrutinized under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). Moreover, legislators are look ing b e y o n d the quality of the results and ask ing how the scientific information is disseminated and w h o m it benefits. Translation, Please Policymakers who grapple with increas ingly c o m p l e x issues and limited funds want data they c a n trust and interpretations they c a n understand. Yet, even when suitable re search results are available, a c o m m u n i c a tion gap c a n stand in the way. "Scientists produce information for peo ple to use, and they m a k e the assumption that there are people on the [decisionmak ers'] staff w h o c a n interpret it," said
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Pictures and data p l a c e d on the Path finder w e b site (http://www.mpf.jpl. nasa.gov/) during W e e k 3 began to include lists of the c h e m i c a l elements detected at various locations by the APXS. T h e Path finder "Webmasters" reported that the most "hits" received in o n e day—46 million—oc curred on July 8th. This n u m b e r is double the previous record, which o c c u r r e d on the offi cial w e b site for the Olympic G a m e s in At lanta, Ga., last year.—Ken Edgett, Arizona State University, Tempe
Bernknopf. "Translating the information is just as important as creating it." Herman Karl, a U.S. Geological Survey ma rine geologist in Menlo Park, Calif., w h o col laborates with Bernknopf, agrees that research often goes unused b e c a u s e it is not in the form that policymakers c a n use. Yet, when it is translated to a useful form, "it has a great deal of value." Interpreting information into useful forms for decision-making is o n e of the primary missions of CESIR, a cooperative venture of the USGS and the S c h o o l of Earth S c i e n c e s at Stanford University. "An e c o n o m i s t ' s ap proach is to translate physical Earth s c i e n c e information into a probability of physical c h a n g e using a Geographic Information Sys tem (GIS) and then ask: what are the impacts of physical c h a n g e in terms of dollars?" said Bernknopf.
H o w Likely? Perhaps few people appreciate the value of scientific data in protecting lives and re sources more than California State Geologist Jim Davis, who directs the state Division of Mines and Geology. In approaching the de-
