'—•-
Tuesday, June 30, 1987TThe Battalion/Page 3
T
State and Local
^Scientists from A&M board ship
to analyze ocean basin cores
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By Jade Boyd
Reporter
■The world’s most sophisticated
ocean-drilling research vessel,
JOIDES Resolution, which is oper-
[ ated by the Ocean Drilling Program
at Texas A&M, is in the Indian
ean searching for new informa-
In about some very old mysteries.
Tjoint Oceanographic Institutions
for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES
B pronounced joy-dees) is an inter-
itional group of 16 scientific orga-
ations formed to study the Earth’s
b$ean basins. JOIDES scientists set
earch goals for the Ocean Drilling
gram.
Ten major oceanographic institu-
donsfrom the United States, includ
ing A&M and the University of
Texas, form Joint Oceanographic
Institutions, Inc. (JOI), a nonprofit
consortium which manages the pro-
Funding for JOI’s Ocean Dril-
g Program is provided by the Na
tional Science Foundation, a federal
|ency. The foundation donates $ 15
Jllion to $20 million a year to the
jirram.
[The five foreign members of the
pgram are the United Kingdom,
nada, Japan, France and the Eu-
ean Science Foundation Consor-
m for the Ocean Drilling Program
ich represents 12 Western Euro-
Ian countries. Each of these five
mbers donates $2.5 million a year
Ithe program.
l ‘This is by far the largest funded
ic research program in Earth’s
an sciences today,” said Dr. Philip
D.|Rabinowitz, director of the Ocean
tiling Program at Texas A&M.
lA&M has the largest role in the
Brogram and receives most of the
Photo courtesy of Ocean Drilling Program at Texas A&M
The JOIDES Resolution, an ocean-drilling research ship
organization’s funds. As science op
erator of the program, A&M is re
sponsible for staf fing, operating and
maintaining JOIDES Resolution. In
addition, A&M retrieves, stores and
oversees scientific analysis of the
ocean basin core samples collected
by the ship.
The 470-foot JOIDES Resolution
is officially registered as SEDCO/BP
471. It is leased by the University
from Underseas Drilling, Inc. on a
45-month contract which expires in
September 1988. The ship was built
in Nova Scotia as an oil-research ves
sel and was refitted for ocean-basin
research in Pascagoula, Miss. The
$14.8 million conversion was funded
by the National Science Foundation
and completed in early January
Three inmates
receive stays
of execution
HUNTSVILLE (AP) — Three
Texas men convicted of capital
murder won court orders that
keep them from lethal injec-
ions scheduled for this week.
U.S. District Judge David
Hittner on Monday halted the ex
ecution of Edwara Ellis, 34, who
was scheduled to die today.
Ellis was convicted of killing
Bertie Eakens, 74, in her Hous
ton apartment in 1983. The
Woman was suffocated and
robbed and her body discovered
in her bathtub.
The postponed execution date
as the second for Ellis, who won
stay of execution last month
rom a state district judge in
Houston.
Meanwhile, Roger DeGarmo,
82, won a stay from the Texas
Court of Criminal Appeals, his at
torney, Greg Gladden, said Mon
day. DeGarmo, who also faced
execution before dawn today, was
onvicted of killing Kimberly
trickier, 20, a Houston medical
echnician, after abducting her
nd stealing her car in 1979.
The execution date was the
econd for DeGarmo. A date last
'ear was stayed by a federal dis
trict judge in Houston.
Warren Bridge, 26, another
;d fouro death-row inmate who faced exe-
elected
, Their
Tice and
id. Most
cation
luss),55l,
were NaJ
anst
coniprnf-
nination
:ution early Wednesday for the
1980 robbery-slaying of a Galves
ton convenience store clerk, also
ntr-sen 11 a sta y Bridge’s Wednesday
Id riseK ! : death date was his first.
Group working to conserve
Texas grasslands, prairies
DALLAS (AP) — A conservation
organization, which in recent
months has bought thousands of
acres of native grassland across
Texas, wants to preserve the state’s
dwindling prairies, the group’s di
rector said.
Andy Sansom, who is also chief
fund-raiser of the Texas Nature
Conservancy, has traveled through
out the state to convince potential
donors the prairies are endangered
by development.
“We pretty much feel it’s a job that
has to get done in this decade, or
that’s it,” Sansom said.
He said development threatens
Texas’ once-great prairies in the
Blackland, the Cross Timbers, the
High Plains and the Coastal regions.
Texas was once a sea of “gor
geous, unbroken, tall grass,” Sansom
said. “It’s gone. It’s just flat gone.”
State officials and environmental
ists said the Blackland is closest to
extinction, with less than 1 percent
of the original prairie remaining in
small tracts along a line from Sher
man to San Antonio.
The band of rich soil, wildfiowers
and head-high grasses totaled 12
million acres before the turn of the
century, but has shrunk to about
2,000 acres.
“We have what amounts to a post
age stamp,” said Ken Steigman, cu
rator of natural science at the Heard
Natural Science Museum and Wild
life Sanctuary in McKinney.
“It may not be important to some
people, but there are a lot of us out
here who consider it a part of our
natural heritage and would like our
kids and grandkids to be able to
come out here and see what it looked
like before man came in and screwed
everything up,” he said.
The state’s prairies once teemed
with wildlife for hunters and, when
converted to prime agricultural
land, provided food for cattle.
Sansom said the San Antonio-
based Texas Nature Conservancy is
“There are a lot of us out
here who would like our
kids and grandkids to be
able to come out here and
see what it looked like be
fore man came in and
screwed everything up. ”
— Ken Steigman,
museum curator
“kind of like the Century 21 of the
environmental movement” because
of its businesslike approach.
The 22-year-old organization has
bought tens of thousands of acres
this year and owns more than
100,000 acres in Texas. Its prize deal
was a three-tract, 284-acre purchase
in Hunt County, east of McKinney.
The tracts are part of the 640-acre
Clymer’s Meadow, which Sansom
calls “the biggest piece of unplowed
Blackland Prairie” in the United
States.
He said the nature group bor
rowed $438,000 from its parent or
ganization, the Nature Conservancy,
to purchase the land. Sansom has
been on the road since October, try
ing to raise $575,000 to repay the
loan and cover various administra
tive expenses.
The Dallas-based Communities
Foundation of Texas kicked in the
initial $100,000. Sansom said he is
now only about $ 100,000 short of his
goal.
Sansom said the conservancy paid
more than $1,000 an acre for the
Clymer’s Meadow property.
“It’s probably one of the two or
three most important conservation
sites in North America,” he said.
“This is the rarest unbroken grass
land on the Great Plains. This is an
incredibly unique area. From a na
ture standpoint, this is like owning
the Sistine Chapel.”
Since the Texas Nature Conser
vancy began negotiating 18 months
ago, three houses have been built in
the immediate area, including one
on the meadow itself.
“We’re one step ahead of adverse
use,” Sansom said.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife De
partment is trying to restore and
maintain prairie remnants it finds
on the recreational lands it pur
chases.
The department is working on
about 60 acres of tall grass in Lake-
view State Park near Cedar Hill. The
most extensive restoration work to
date has been at Caprock Canyons
State Park.
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\A&M researchers work at controlling
flea infestations around pets, yards
lore
see
By Tricia Carroll
Reporter
‘ Baseball and hot dogs, apple pie
idallof 1 Md — fleas? The heavy spring
rains which drenched the Brazos
Valley and rising temperatures
have resulted in an unusual
amount of flea infestation this
the Cad’ | summer.
But an associate professor and a
graduate student at Texas A&M
are experimenting with a way to
protect pets from the plentiful
lOll pests.
Dr. Roger Meola, associate pro-
lessor of entomology and graduate
student Kathy Savage are testing a
growth regulator from the Dallas-
based Zoecon Corn, for controlling
the infestation of fleas in yards and
lawns.
1 The regulator is a synthetic ju
venile hormone called methoprene
which prevents flea larvae from
“pupating,” or transforming into
adults, Meola says.
It leaves a high concentration of
the hormone in the larva, which
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id that f:
prevents it from ever becoming a
pupa, he says.
“The hormone perpetuates lar
val characteristics,” Meola says.
“When the hormone is present
in the insect, it will molt to another
larval stage rather than the pupal
stage,” he says.
Meola says their research objec
tive is to apply the regulator to
yards to prevent the formation of
adult fleas.
Meola says the adult flea is a
problem for both cats and dogs in
this area.
“Wheh an adult flea feeds on
blood, the female uses that same
blood to produce eggs,” he says.
“The female flea then lays the
eggs on the coat of the dog or cat
and the eggs eventually fall off,”
Meola says.
Meola says that larval fleas feed
on various types of organic debris
until they reach the adult stage.
“The eggs hatch into larvae and
the larvae feed on skin scales from
animals, decaying plant tissue or
dried fecal matter,” he says.
“An essential ingredient in the
diet of the larval flea is blood ex
creted by fleas,” he says. “The
blood then dries up and falls off.”
Various faculty members and
students, most of whom are mem
bers of the Brazos County Kennel
Club, volunteered their yards for
the treatments administered by
Meola and Savage.
“We will check the yards each
week for adult fleas,” Meola says.
“Then we will bring soil samples
back to the lab where we will infest
the soil with fleas to see if they can
develop in the soil.”
Meola says he was not only con
cerned with the effect of metho
prene, but with how long the prod
uct will remain effective after
being put in the yards.
Methoprene has been relatively
successful in combating roaches,
but Meola says it works better on
fleas.
“It does have an effect on the
adult cockroach, but it doesn’t pre
vent it from developing into an
adult because there is no pupal
stage in the cockroach to inter
rupt,” he says.
“However, it does sterilize the
adult cockroach so it can no longer
reproduce,” Meola says.
Meola says this is the first time
methoprene has been tested out
doors, but the product already has
been proven very successful in
fighting indoor flea infestation.
“Our goal is to get results which
Zoecon can use to get government
approval to sell this product for
yard treatment,” Meola says.
YESTERDAYS
Daily Drink & Lunch Specials
Billiards & Darts
Near Luby s / House dress code
846-2625
1985. JOIDES Resolution’s maiden
voyage began later that month.
“The laboratories on the ship are
second to none,” Rabinowitz said.
Eleven laboratories are the heart
of the ship’s research facilities. The
ship houses a scanning electron mi
croscope, a library, a pair of VAX
computers which link 50 laboratory
microcomputers and accomodations
for 25 Ph.D.-level researchers. It has
a technical research staff of 25, most
of which are A&M employees, and a
65-man crew. Two researcher’s
berths are reserved for each non-
U.S. member of JOIDES.
JOIDES Resolution is on the 15th
leg of its ongoing mission. The ship
currently is drilling slightly north of
the Maldives, an island group 350
miles southwest of India.
“We’re basically looking at the
evolution of earth — how earth
evolved with time, how the ocean ba
sins evolved with time,” Rabinowitz
said.
“As the continents move apart,
the ocean basins change shape. As
the ocean basins change shape, the
currents change. As the ocean cur
rents change, the weather changes.”
While in the Maldives, JOIDES
scientists hope to learn more about
India’s past movements. They are
drilling along a “hot spot,” an area of
volcanic activity. Core samples from
the area should reveal much about
the history of India’s movement to
ward Asia, he said. This northward
movement formed and still is form
ing the Himalaya Mountains, Rabi
nowitz said.
JOIDES Resolution will be in the
Indian Ocean for the next 12 to 14
months.
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College Station, Texas 77840
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