Experts from OSU’s ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL) present their pioneering work using ultra-wideband radar and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) reflectometry to measure a wide range of hydrological properties from air and space, including freshwater inundation and flooding, soil moisture, permafrost active layer thickness, as well as ice sheet temperature, snow and sea ice thickness and ocean altimetry.

Professor Durand and Research Scientist Jia from the School of Earth Sciences and the Byrd Center present a range of measurement capabilities for measuring terrestrial hydrology, snow and ocean properties. These methods include both active and passive microwave remote sensing, gravimetry, visible and infrared imagery, with potential applications in agriculture, drought, floods, and water management.

Professor Bryan Mark from the Department of Geography and the Byrd Center, is faculty adviser of the Center’s student-led “Mountain Drone Team”, which has developed and applied drones to surveying a range of hydrological, ecological and geological properties in high-altitude watersheds. He and his team will present on the surveying capabilities of drones and methods for analyzing and fusing drone-based measurements.

Recent advances in satellite observational capabilities and computational power are greatly expanding our ability to monitor the Earth's changing surface. Machine Learning algorithms,  first developed for medical imaging, can be trained to automatically detect any feature of interest at the pixel-level, down to sub-meter resolutions and repeated over time. Obvious features of interest are roads, human infrastructure, rivers and other water bodies; but applications abound across disciplines: agricultural land use, energy resources, forestry/deforestation/wildfires, rock outcrops, glaciers and landslides, faulting, contaminant spills, tracking large (herds of) animals, etc. Professor Joachim Moortgat from the School of Earth Sciences develops and applies new deep learning algorithms that are optimized for vast collections of satellite imagery to tackle such problems in collaboration with a broad range of domain experts. He provides an overview of Earth and Climate science applications and capabilities, but also discuss the significant challenges associated with supervised deep learning.

Ohio State boasts state-of-the art facilities and world-leading expertise in Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS), one of the most versatile tools for elemental quantification, and with possible applications over a broad range of Earth, environmental and health sciences. John Olesik, leader of OSU's Trace Element Research Laboratory in the School of Earth Sciences, presents the capabilities of single particle ICP-MS, which allows measurement of individual nanoparticles and microparticles, ICP-collision/reaction cell MS, which improves measurement of ultra-trace elements, and laser ablation ICP-MS, which allows spot analysis or elemental mapping of solid samples including thin sections. Paolo Gabrielli, a researcher in the Byrd Center's Ice Core Paleoclimatology Group, presents techniques for conducting ultra-trace element analysis in aqueous samples down to the sub-femtogram per gram level, and direct determination of ultra-low Rare Earth Elements concentrations in water matrices.

Analysis of Earth's fluids and gases are essential for understanding the processes controlling geochemical cycles, water quality and ecological changes, and subsurfaces resources. Berry Lyons presents his laboratory capabilities in measuring nutrient, ionic, and isotopic composition in aquatic ecosystems for determination of water chemistries and quality. Tom Darrah presents his laboratory capabilities for providing comprehensive molecular and stable isotopic composition of gas fluxes, sources, biodegradation, and formation in deep earth, crust, and critical zone, as well as Noble Gases analyses for source, fate, migration, and residence time of fluids, including water, CO2, CH4, and natural hydrogen, in the subsurface.