Environment and Sustainability

A geology professor at the University at Buffalo recently took graduate students enrolled in his advanced field methods class to western Mexico to study Colima -- the most active volcano in North America -- and its eruptive patterns, and to learn from residents what it's like to live beneath "el Volcan de Fuego," or "volcano of fire," as Colima is known.

A team of researchers led by University at Buffalo physicists reported today that they have created semiconducting materials that exhibit the key properties that are essential to the development of semiconductor spintronic devices.

Though the damage was relatively minor, Saturday's earthquake in Au Sable Falls, N.Y., points out the need for upgrading structures throughout New York State so they are better able to withstand future earthquakes, says an earthquake-engineering researcher at the University at Buffalo.

A University at Buffalo scientist is leading an all-female research team that will be living and working deep under the surface of the ocean and studying the parentage of a coral reef off the coast of Key Largo, Fla.

In his 30 years of studying freeze-thaw cycles of lakes in New York State, Kenton Stewart, Ph.D., has never seen some lakes in his lake-ice network stay unfrozen for an entire winter unless it was an El Nino year. But things changed with the winter that officially ended on Wednesday. While the majority of lakes still froze, the professor emeritus of biological sciences says "a surprising number" that developed ice covers in previous winters, had only a partial skim of ice this winter, or did not freeze at all during the winter of 2001-02.

Technologies ranging from mathematical modeling, geologic simulation and geographic information science to scientific computing and virtual reality are being combined by University at Buffalo researchers for the first time to provide the most accurate information on geologic dangers to scientists, civil-defense authorities and citizens who live in the shadow of volcanoes.

University at Buffalo volcanologists, leaders worldwide in using advanced technologies to safeguard populations from dangerous geologic events, are pioneering the automation of the time-consuming and expensive process of developing volcanic hazard maps.

University at Buffalo researchers have received a five-year, $1.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to assess environmental pollutants and their relationship to the prevalence of autoimmune disease, particularly lupus, and asthma in two Buffalo neighborhoods.

The University at Buffalo's Toxicology Research Center will receive $1.3 million over the next five years as a participant in a new six-member children's environmental health research center formed to study the effects of eating large quantities of contaminated Great Lakes fish on Laotian and Hmong refugees.

A new risk map that reveals the hazards most likely to occur in the future on Popocatepetl -- located just 60 kilometers from Mexico City and considered the planet's riskiest volcano -- has been developed by University at Buffalo volcanologist Michael F. Sheridan, Ph.D., and colleagues at UB and the National University of Mexico (UNAM).