New technique advances carbon-fiber composites. A revised view
of continental tectonics is emerging from the research of an MIT
professor who has made the first statistical evaluation in the
West of long-secret gravity-field data for a large section of
the former Soviet Union. Dr. Marcia K. McNutt of the Department
of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, played a leading
role, in collaboration with Mikhail G. Kogan of the Institute of
Physics of the Earth, Moscow, in making the Russian data
available to colleagues throughout the world. They published
their findings in a recent issue of Science Magazine. Gravity-
field data help geologists understand the nature of the various
layers deep below the Earth's surface, giving clues to the
influence those layers have on the formation of mountain ranges
and other surface features, like the Tibetan Plateau. The data
also have important economic and strategic values which lead
many nations to keep information for their territories under
wraps. The information is o