Alum Helps Build the Biggest Lab Experiment in Earth Sciences

According to CEEM alumnus Allan Ortega-Gutiérrez, the Landscape Evolution Observatory at UA's Biosphere 2 "breaks some of the rules" of traditional structural engineering. "LEO is one of those things that becomes a marriage between science and engineering." 

Researchers use the three huge slopes – consisting of approximately 500 metric tons of crushed basalt – to observe the interactions between air, water, soil, plants and microbes. 

Ortega-Gutiérrez, who received his master's degree in civil engineering in 2003, explains some of the unique challenges of the project in a YouTube video by UANews.