I n d ep en d en t
Issue no.
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V o ic e
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1933
46
March
2012
Volume 24
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Boise, Idaho
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Christina Marfice Journalist
Armed with only a friend and a flashlight app on her iPhone KaliKai DeClements, a 19-yearold freshman, navigated the pitch dark of Julia Davis Park on her way from WinCo back to campus. DeClements said she walks through Julia Davis after dark about once a week. “The bridge is a little scary,” she said and admits the entire walk makes her nervous. She said she always brings a friend or two and would never make the walk by herself after dark. Posted signs state park hours are from sunrise until midnight, making Julia Davis the only area park that stays open after sunset. According to Toby Norton, project manager with Idaho Parks and Recreation, Julia Davis extended its hours to accommodate Boise State students and events. “(The) issue we kept running into was events on campus that do not close at dusk,” Norton said. He said people in attendance at campus events often use the extra parking available in Julia Davis. However, parking tickets and towed vehicles led patrons to push for extended park hours. According to Norton, the extended park hours have only been in place for the last few years and have provided convenient parking near campus for students with classes after sunset. Julia Davis also offers a direct route for students who walk or bike to their off-campus homes after classes. However, many of the park’s paths lack any sort of lighting, and some students—such as DeClements—are nervous to use those walkways after night classes. Despite students’ concerns, information provided by the Boise Police Department (BPD) shows most crimes that occur in Julia Davis are of a nonviolent nature. Only one violent crime has been reported in the park in the last two years. “I think the big message here is that crimes that occur there are crimes of opportunity,” said Lynn Hightower, communications director for BPD. According to Hightower, officers receive many reports of bike theft and car burglary, but few reports of any sort of violence. The most recent violent crime reported in Julia Davis was a domestic dispute in August 2010. However, DeClements still has her doubts about the park’s safety. She still won’t walk there alone at night and wishes the walkways could be made safer for students. “Lights would be the only thing they could do to make it less scary,” she said. Bryan Talbot/THE ARBITER
Students use lasers to study fractures
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Thomas Blum, a geophysics Ph.D. student, has been working with a high-intensity laser to study fractures roughly the size of a penny. He is studying the properties of fractures themselves, but the research is so new that it hasn’t been applied outside the lab. The laser causes the fracture to vibrate and a study of the waves recorded enables Blum to look at the mechanical properties of the fracture. Although the realization that the laser could be focused inside the fracture didn’t happen accidentally, it wasn’t completely on purpose either. “We just realized we could focus it inside and we saw something when we looked at our data that told us it was the fracture inside vibrating because it was getting excited by the laser directly,” Blum said.
“This is a very interesting, exciting project so I’m pretty happy to be a part of it.” The fractures are encased in plastic cylinders smaller than a bottle of wine. However, the technique cannot be transferred from a laboratory setting to a larger, nontransparent, fault or fracture in the physical world. “Since we’re using light … (and) the piece of plastic is transparent, it’s not that straightforward to use the same technique, say, on rocks because they are not transparent, it wouldn’t work,” Blum explained. That is not to say the technique is without merit. The use of a laser to study fractures helps create lab experiments that mimic what can be found in the real world. Blum explained he can better understand how fractures work by studying small-scale fractures in a lab setting. There is also the possibility
of finding new ideas of how to use the data to understand properties of the fracture. Although the same applications can’t be made with rocks, it offers opportunites for similar data to be achieved in different ways. “It’s a single fracture in a very nice, controlled environment. It’s much easier to do experiments and test new ideas than you would be able to do in the real world,” Blum said. The use of lasers for the generation and detection of elastic waves is by no means new to the science world. Blum estimates lasers have been used for 20 or 30 years. However, the application usually varies. Other researchers have used a laser to create a small source somewhat similar to an earthquake. “But here we are focusing the laser inside of the fracture and it has a different effect,” Blum said.
mct campus
Studying small fractures in a lab setting could lend data to real world application, such as earthquakes. arbiteronline.com