We only have a disconnected understanding of the complex interactions that go on in the dirt as water flow past soil and microbes . To gain fresh insight into the hydrologic process that make life on land potential , the University of Arizona has built a 3 of monolithic , man - made hillside labs .
Just recently , the $ 200 million Biosphere 2 project in Oracle , AZ , was on its last legs . Both of its high - profile dwelling house experiments in the 1990s had ended in failure , and the facility was slated for demolition to make way for a stamping ground . Then , in 2011 , the University of Arizona purchased it for use as a monumental laboratory commit to analyze mood change . As part of the project ’s X - farsighted programme to study how a warming atmosphere dissemble the motion of water , UA has constructed the world ’s largest ( well , only ) artificial body of water shed .
dub the Landscape Evolution Observatory ( LEO ) , this facility consists of three 100 - foot long , 40 - fundament wide troughs slant at a 10 - degree slant , domiciliate within a 53,000 straight foot sealed greenhouse . This earmark researcher to precisely control environmental variables in ways not possible in conventional big - scale observational subject field .
Each trough is filled with three feet of delicately - crush volcanic rock , a 600 - long ton layer that mimics Arizona ’s local geologic conditions in antiquity . As the low rock ‘n’ roll slowly convert into soil , more than 1,800 sensors in each side accurately value soil moisture , chemistry , temperature , and the types and quantities of gases emitted . cargo cells have also been installed at the foundation of these 1,100 - ton bodily structure to monitor changes in their total weightiness .
“ It ’s the first time anyone has built an instrument like that , ” Biosphere 2 Science Director Peter Troch said in a press statement . “ LEO provide the scientific community with a dick to learn about the landscape painting in ways we have n’t been able to before . It will avail us to really understand Earth ’s airfoil process . ”
The first three years of this experiment will study abiotic processes — how rain and overland flows remold the soil ’s control surface , how long it takes water to flux through various dirt densities , and how wet is distributed through them . After the first 36 months , researcher plan to install heat- and drouth - resistant vascular plants into the landscapes and observe how they affect these abiotic process along with the sleep of the arrangement .
“ In a laboratory , you may really control an experiment and understand everything that goes in and out , but it does n’t really severalise you much about how openhanded systems interact , ” said Stephen DeLong , the project ’s lead scientist articulate . “ Here we can see how handsome systems interact . ”
[ PhysOrg – Wikipedia – Biosphere 2 – LEO – UA News – Arizona Star – Image : UA School of Architecture ]
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