| Dirty Little Secrets: Foundations From the Past |
One 30-minute lesson In the early 1920s, construction began on a city complex in downtown Cleveland that is now known as Tower City. At the time, engineers were faced with building a 52-story tower that would become the tallest building outside of New York City. Not having the kinds of tools we use today to determine how to support such a structure, engineers used what was available to them: deep earth core samples. Recovered only recently by a team of local geologists, paleontologists and glaciologists from Cleveland State University and The University of Akron, these samples hold the region’s geologic record of events spanning a 20,000-year period. Dirty Little Secrets: Foundations From the Past reports on a joint scientific project by scientists from the two universities. The team’s research includes looking at how old the various layers are; studying variations in water levels of both Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River; and determining what clues the vegetation holds about climate, water temperatures and the greenhouse effect. |
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