Development of a database that will be able to track potential impacts of Marcellus Shale activity on water quality is the focus of a new $750,000 research collaboration led by Penn State researchers.

Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Marcellus Shale Research Network will consolidate and routinely update water data being collected by watershed groups, government agencies, industry stakeholders and universities as a searchable database. The project also will facilitate and train additional community groups in how to organize, collect and interpret water data.

April in central Pennsylvania: Against the brilliant blue sky, the new leaves of oak, maple, and beech shine gold-green. Yellow flowers of cinquefoil and hot-pink blooms of gaywings dot the forest floor. Somewhere higher up in the watershed, a red-bellied woodpecker gives its rattling call.

Benjamin Franklin was the first to connect volcanoes and climate change. During the summer of 1783, he noticed "a constant fog" over Europe and parts of North America.

This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it. . . . They were indeed rendered so faint in passing through it that, when collected in the focus of a burning-glass, they would scarce kindle brown paper. Of course, their summer effect in heating the earth was exceedingly diminished.