I'm not yelling Joe!
ARTICLE "EXACTLY" DESCRIBING LOCH (SUBSIDIARY CHEMTECH) AND THE SOON TO BE IMPLEMENTED LOCH ELF LANDMINE DETECTION TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!!
I HOPE YOU ARE ALL IN LOCH BY NOW!!!!!!!!!! WE'RE AT ROCK BOTTOM BEFORE THE IMPLEMENTION PRESS RELEASE HITS (EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON).
World: New Technology Helps Scientists Sniff Out Land MinesBy Julie Moffett
Washington, 26 January 1998 (RFE/RL) -- An American scientist says
exciting new technology under development at a U.S. laboratory will help
improve the detection and removal of land mines around the world.
Ron Woodfin, a de-mining expert at the Sandia National Laboratories in
the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico, told RFE/RL that special
high-tech equipment is being built at the lab which will be able to
chemically and electronically sniff out land mines.
Woodfin says the most promising technology under development at the lab,
which is run by the U.S. Department of Energy, is the chemical sensing
equipment.
Woodfin says that all land mines emit special chemical molecules as a
result of the explosive materials they contain. He says the lab has
developed a portable chemical sensing device that incorporates the
technology of "ion mobility spectrometry" -- or the detection and
classification of minute quantities of explosives. This is the same
technology used by security staff at airports to detect explosives.
Woodfin says chemical sensing technology takes a different approach than
the most common de-mining equipment in use today -- anomaly detectors.
Anomaly detectors are devices that notice something unusual or
unexpected in the environment. Chemical sensing devices, says Woodfin,
look for tiny chemical signatures of a land mine, rather than the
container holding the explosives.
Also under development at the lab, says Woodfin, is a mobile x-ray
machine that will be able to accurately detect land mines. The machine
will be so precise, he says, that it will be able to ascertain the type
of mine and even the location of its fuse, which is an important factor
for extracting it safely.
Woodfin says the lab is still about a year away from constructing a
prototype of the x-ray machine. However, he says that two prototypes of
the portable chemical sensing equipment have already been built and are
expected to start trial tests soon.
Woodfin says the chemical sensing machine is about the size of a large
notebook binder, and together with its batteries weighs under nine kilograms.
Says Woodfin: "It's definitely portable and easy to carry around."
Woodfin says he doesn't know how soon the prototypes could be
manufactured for worldwide distribution.
Says Woodfin: "We just do the science here. Now it is time for the
companies and manufacturers to step in."
Woodfin says the new technology will compliment the anomaly detectors,
not replace them.
Metal detectors are the most common form of mine detection, he says, but
unfortunately have a high rate of false alarms in battle zones filled
with all kinds of metal debris, including bullet casings. They are also
ineffective against many of today's more advanced plastic mines, he adds.
Woodfin says other types of anomaly detectors rely on microwave and
electrical conductivity, infrared and ground-penetrating radar. But he
adds that this equipment alone has proven to be costly with a low level
of accuracy.Says Woodfin: "The reason we are working on chemical detection, for
example, is that the only thing all of these mines have in common is
explosives. And the explosives are the dangerous part of the mine ....
So what we are trying to do is find a tool that you can use with some of
the other types of detectors -- to sort out the things that have
explosives in them from the things that do not."
Woodfin says to date, there is no one technology that can consistently
detect all types of mines under every condition. He says that kind of
specialized de-mining technology "just isn't there yet," and there are
too many different kinds of land mines hidden under enormously varied
conditions.In fact, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC), there are over 100 million land mines scattered across 70
countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas.
Among the most severely affected countries are: Angola, Afghanistan,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cambodia, Iraq (Kurdistan), Laos and Vietnam.
The ICRC estimates that 800 people worldwide are killed by land mines
every month, and another 1,200 are maimed.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the ICRC says that in 1996, an average of 50
persons worldwide were injured by mines and unexploded materials each
month, with 20 percent of the victims being children under the age of 18.
The U.S. Department of Defense believes that Bosnia has about 3 million
land mines, and Croatia another 3 million. NATO officials have said that
no more than 30 percent of them have been mapped.
The ICRC says that approximately 100,000 land mines are cleared around
the world each year, but another two million are laid.
In December, 121 countries signed an international anti-personnel land
mine treaty. The U.S. was not among the signatories, neither was Russia,
China and Israel.
U.S. President Bill Clinton said the most pressing reason for America
not to sign the treaty was the need for land mines on the border between
North and South Korea.
But despite the U.S.'s refusal to stop laying mines, Woodfin says he is
glad to be helping develop a technology that perhaps someday will help
rid the world of what he calls "a deadly pollutant."
Says Woodfin: "Even if everyone stopped laying mines today, it still
would take a thousand years to clear those now in the ground throughout
the world. In my mind, [land mines] are the worst form of pollution
mankind has ever come with, bar none."
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