1. UNPRECEDENTED AEROSOL LEVELS FOUND AT WORLD TRADE CENTER
(Contact: tacahill@ucdavis.edu)

World Trade Center air samples collected last fall and analyzed in part at the ALS show extremely high spikes in the levels of very fine aerosols--particles between 0.09 and 0.25 micrometers in diameter that can remain suspended in air for long periods of time. According to Tom Cahill (Univ. of California, Davis), the levels of these tiny particulates exceeded those found on the worst air days in Beijing, downwind from coal-fired power plants, and from the Kuwaiti oil fires during the Gulf War. Cahill leads the DELTA Group (Detection and Evaluation of Long-Range Transport of Aerosols), a collaboration of aerosol scientists that has made detailed studies of aerosols from volcanic eruptions and global dust storms as well as from the 1991 Gulf War oil fires. The group's preliminary findings were reported last week for air samples taken October 2-31, 2001, about a mile north of ground zero. See http://delta.ucdavis.edu/WTC.htm for a sample of the data.

According to the study, the aerosols were found to contain high levels of sulfur and silicon and relatively high levels of iron, titanium, vanadium, nickel, copper, and zinc--all by-products of the crucible of construction materials, office paraphernalia, and fuel oil that smoldered for weeks at the disaster site. Fortunately, only low levels of the toxic metals lead and mercury were detected in the very fine particles, and relatively few asbestos fibers were found in the samples.

A suite of analytical techniques, including x-ray fluorescence at Beamline 10.3.1, combined with state-of-the-art collection technology gives the DELTA team the unequaled ability to comprehensively measure a wide range of particle sizes and compositions and their minute-by-minute fluctuations for periods of up to four weeks. In contrast, traditional techniques used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provide only averaged measurements that tend to smooth out the peaks of the smallest (and possibly most hazardous) particles, which can penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. The health consequences of breathing such high concentrations of very fine particulates are uncertain. An EPA standard establishes a 24-hour peak of 65 micrograms per cubic meter for particles 2.5 micrometers or less, but it is based on health studies of air samples where very fine particles (less than 0.25 micrometers) are only a small fraction of the total particulate mass. At one point, the DELTA team found a spike of 58 micrograms per cubic meter of very fine particles in a 45-minute period. The levels eventually dropped off toward the end of October.

Although the potential hazard in the air over New York City seems to have settled by now, Cahill warned that there is still the possibility that indoor cleanup efforts could resuspend very fine particles. His group has chosen to announce their preliminary results (the work has not yet been published or peer reviewed) at this time so that those in the affected area can take the proper precautions to protect their health. For more information, see http://delta.ucdavis.edu/news.htm.

2. MOLECULAR FOUNDRY INFORMATION NOW ONLINE
(Contact: MDAlper@lbl.gov)

Web pages devoted to the upcoming Berkeley Lab Molecular Foundry Workshop, to be held at the Lab April 4-5, 2002, are now online at http://foundry.lbl.gov/. The site includes a tentative workshop agenda, an online registration form, as well as housing and transportation information. Workshop attendees will have the opportunity to hear talks by leaders in this relatively new and important field and to provide input on how the Foundry's facilities can be designed and operated to be of greatest value to prospective users. The registration fee is $100.00 (regular) and $75.00 (student). The registration deadline is Friday, March 29; after that date, late registration will be accepted on an "as available" basis for $125.00 (regular) and $100.00 (student). Blocks of rooms at nearby hotels have been reserved and will be held until Tuesday, March 5.

3. WHO'S IN TOWN: A SAMPLING OF ALS USERS

Following are some of the experimenters who will be collecting data during the next three weeks at the ALS (which will continue operating in two-bunch mode until February 25).

Beamline 1.4.3
T.J. Wilkinson (Berkeley Lab)
Kelly Knutsen (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Upal Ghosh (Stanford Univ.)
Hoi-Ying Holman (Berkeley Lab)

Beamline 4.0.2
Reinhard Doerner (Univ. of Frankfurt, Germany)
Dan Waddill (Univ. of Missouri-Rolla)
Boris Sinkovic (Univ. of Connecticut)
Jo Stohr (Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory)

Beamline 6.3.1
Dennis Lindle (Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas)

Beamline 7.0.1
Steve Kevan (Univ. of Oregon)
Jim Tobin (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
Brian Tonner (Univ. of Central Florida)
Z.Q. Qiu (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

Beamline 8.0.1
Richard Saykally (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
Manfred Neumann (Univ. of Osnabrueck, Germany)

Beamline 9.3.2
Hendrik Bluhm (Fritz-Haber-Institute, Germany)
Reinhard Denecke (Max-lab, Lund Univ., Sweden)

Beamline 10.0.1
Yoshiro Azuma (Photon Factory, KEK, Japan)
Atsushi Fujimori (Univ. of Tokyo, Japan)
Ron Phaneuf (Univ. of Nevada, Reno)

Beamline 10.3.1
Tom Cahill, Steve Cliff, and colleagues (Univ. of California, Davis/DELTA Team)

Beamline 10.3.2
Frederic Panfili (French National Center for Scientific Research)

4. NEXT ALSNEWS: MARCH 13

Travel plans for ALS editorial staff members dictate that the next issue of ALSNews will be published in three weeks rather than two, on March 13, 2002.

5. OPERATIONS UPDATE
(Contact: Lampo@lbl.gov)

For the user runs of January 29 - February 3, February 5 - 10, and February 13 - 17 (two-bunch mode), the beam reliability (time delivered/time scheduled) was 95.9%. Of the scheduled beam, 90.1% was delivered to completion without interruption. There were no significant outages.

Long-term and weekly operations schedules are available on the Web (http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/accelinfo.html). Requests for special operations use of the "scrubbing" shift should be sent to Bruce Samuelson (BCSamuelson@lbl.gov, x4738) by 1:00 p.m. Friday. The Accelerator Status Hotline at (510) 486-6766 (ext. 6766 from Lab phones) features a recorded message giving up-to-date information on the operational status of the accelerator.

LBNL/PUB-863
Editors: lstamura@lbl.gov, alrobinson@lbl.gov, amgreiner@lbl.gov

This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098.