Dr. Mason Hale - Using Lichens to Measure Lead Pollution

Summary

Dr. Mason Hale, a National Museum of Natural History botanist, sits beside a microscope and holds in his hand lichen that he is examining. He and his colleague from George Mason University, Dr. James Lawry, have been studying the effect of air pollution on lichens to see if the plants can be used for biological monitoring of atmospheric quality. The lichen, used in the study to see if lead fallout from auto exhausts significantly slow the growth rate, grow on Plummers Island, located immediately below the Cabin John Capital Beltway Bridge (Interstate 495) between Maryland and Virginia. A control group grows on Bear Island, a site located 3 miles upstream of Plummers Island, remote from area highways.

Subject

• Hale, Mason
• National Museum of Natural History (U.S.) Dept. of Botany
• National Museum of Natural History (U.S.)

Category

Historic Images of the Smithsonian

Notes

Smithsonian Institution Research Reports Summer 1979

Contained within

Smithsonian Institution Archives, Accession 98-016, Box 1, Folder: Research Reports Summer 1979

Contact information

Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Institution Archives, 600 Maryland Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20024-2520, SIHistory@si.edu

Date

1979

Restrictions & Rights

No restrictions

Topic

• Curators
• Lichens
• Employees
• Ecology
• Air Pollution
• Plants
• Pollution
• Scientific apparatus and instruments
• Botany
• Smithsonian Institution
• Personnel management
• Specimens
• Microscopes
• Botanists
• Smithsonian Institution--Employees

Form/Genre

• Photographic print
• Person, candid

ID Number

SIA2009-2208

Physical description

Color: Black and White; Size: 10w x 8h; Type of Image: Person, candid; Medium: Photographic print

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