Abstract

Nebraska is situated near the geographic center of the United States. Its landscape is generally flat with a declining trend running from west to east as the land transitions from foothills in the west to vast plains eastward. The state possesses valuable natural resources in the form of weather and dihydrogen monoxide. These resources, combined with the state's geomorphic features, make Nebraska an ideal site for use as a real-scale field laboratory.

Introduction

To the untrained eye, it would seem folly to select Nebraska as a site for geologic study. As it arises from the rain shadow of the American Rocky Mountains, there is little precipitation thus yielding short and scrubby vegetation. As a result, the soil is not nearly as rich as the dark Mollisols of the tall grass prairies to the east. The land is generally flat, lacking the dramatic topography of its western neighbours. Yet, it is precisely this subtlety and this poverty of "interesting" surface features that make Nebraska the perfect location for study.

Nebraska is centrally located in the United States. The state encompasses 199,113 sq. kilometers (76,878 sq. miles). Roughly two-thirds of its 1.6 million residents live in urban areas ¹.

Nebraska is a large easel upon which NebCorp may paint stunning vistas and create breathetaking landscapes. It is uncluttered by any excess of naturally occuring anything. For it would be a shame to remove an abundance of flora and fauna in order to perform experiments.

Overview of Resources

What few precious resources the state possesses it possesses in great abundance. Below the surface of Nebraska lies a giant store of dihydrogen monoxide dHMO. This abundant, naturally-occuring chemical is essential to life on earth, yet it is also a destructive chemical in any quantity, depending on its application ². Its proper management, extraction, and utilization is key to promoting the goals of NebCorp's Master Plan.

The diagram in Figure 1 (below) indicates the abundance of dHMO wells in the state. From this diagram, a qualitative assessment of well density may be obtained. From the diagram it can be seen clearly that Nebraska sits atop a veritable motherlode of the chemical dHMO.

Figure 1. State map of Nebraska showing locations of registered dHMO wells. (Five digit numbers indicate Dihydrogen Monoxide Monitoring Districts)

Secondly, the general topography of Nebraska is key to understanding much of the natural phenomena which occur in much of the rest of the country. Nebraska is at the nexus of the development of weather systems. The open landscape allows weather systems coming off of the Rockies to interact with weather systems coming out of Canada to the north and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Such interaction facilitates the formation of large, and often severe, weather patterns.

Most of these weather patterns move from west to east. In Nebraska, this motion is aided by the state's topography. At its western border with Wyoming the area has an elevation of approximately 5000 (4709 ft in Kimball, NE) feet above sea level. As the state rolls eastward, the elevation gradually drops. At Omaha -- on its easternmost edge -- the elevation is barely over 1000 (1040 ft) feet above sea level ³ Given the state measures 460 miles accross from west to east, we are yielded a gradient of 7.976 feet drop per mile. It is no wonder, then, that weather systems move easterly with such propensity.

Logically following, understanding what happens in Nebraska can give us a fairly accurate forecast model for what may happen in the Midwest and, subsequently, on the Eastern Seaboard. If NebCorp can get to the weather when it first happens, it can better influence what occurs in the rest of the nation.

Closer to the ground, Nebraska offers a myriad of opportunities to study geomorphic principles. Examine the diagram below; it is a diagram of major streams in Nebraska. One can easily discern the general direction of flow of most of the rivers in the state: easterly or southeasterly. This, of course, coincides with the aforementioned topographic trends of the state. Furthermore, notice that many streams possess their headwaters in Nebraska. Most of these streams eventually discharge their flow into the Missouri river, which subsequently discharges into the Mississippi. Nebraska, then, represents a relatively large basin from which non-point-source mind-altering and life-enhancing chemicals may be added into the water supply of a significant segment of the U.S. population, especially the Southern American Research District.

Figure 2. State map of Nebraska showing positions of major streams in the state. (Five-digit numbers indicate NCGS Research Stations)

Additionally, Nebraska offers scientists ample opportunity to study unique natural features. For example, much study in the field of fluvial geomorphology has been devoted to the stable, meandering streams that comprise the majority of streams found in the world. Nebcorp scientists, however, like to also devote attention to the less stable, anastomosing streams such as the Platte River. The striking characteristic of Nebraska's Platte River is the fact that it doesn not possess a singular, fixed channel. Rather, it consists of numerous, braided channels which shift constantly. Contained within these channels are bars, point bars and islands that also shift position. Anastomosing rivers such as the Platte shift so much due to incredible variations in sediment load, discharge rates, flow volumes, and unstable beds among other variables.

Discussion

At this point, the important question of the wisdom of studying anastomosing rivers should be addressed. After all, most of the streams in the world are the more stable, meandering, single-channel variety. These streams have been studied exhaustively and time-consuming and costly measures have been installed to channel these rivers and control flooding. Yet, despite other agencies' best efforts, NebCorp scientists have succeeded time after time to aid nature in unleashing devastating floods. On the other hand, the response of the anastomosing streams is much less understood. Furthermore, these types of streams occur in settings where some instability -- or combination of instabilities -- create a quickly changing dynamic environment. It is, thus, in these unstable environments where human control and meddling is least effective.

Should NebCorp find itself at the forefront of being able to utilize such systems to further the realization of its Master Plan, then study of such systems must proceed with haste. This is especially important as such stream systems pertain to glaciers. Streams carrying glacial outwash most closely resemble these braided streams. Given NebCorp's continued commitment to global warming, it is evident that glacial margins will become important sites of the dynamic changes the Corporation has planned. Therefore, studying such systems now will aid NebCorp scientists in ascertaining how they will impact the landscape once the plan commences aggressively.

Conclusions -- the Wider View

Though outside the scope of this survey, other NebCorp efforts should be briefly mentioned in any discussion of Nebraska. Foremost of all reasons stands the fact that NebCorp has already invested considerable resources to use the state for research purposes. The Omaha metro area -- in which we are including the Lincoln area -- serves as an excellent laboratory for studying urban behavior. First, it is a large and thoroughly modern urban area with all the amenities and features of any large U.S. city. Secondly, it is innocuous; residents never suspect that anything peculiar would be going on in their part of the country, for such things only happen in the larger, more populous American cities. And thirdly, NebCorp experiments here occur on a pure, unadulterated population sample. The populations of cities such New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles are already unacceptably tainted for many experiments due to the long-range trials run by agencies such as FBI, NSA, and the BBC.

It should be noted that Nebraska's legislature, unique among the States, is not a fluke. The Unicameral -- a singular legislative body -- is a result of the tireless experiments of political scientists working in conjunction with U.S. Senator George W. Norris to create a highly-efficient political body in which all cogs were located within the same political gearbox. Under such a system, one Corporation could more easily shift the gears of government to propogate its own ideals. The proposal to move to a unicameral system passed in 1934 and Nebraska has been running as a well-oiled machine ever since.

Yet Nebraska is much more than urban sprawl and the greasy wheels of politics. Indeed, most of the state's area is open land. Here, efforts proceed with the same zeal that is seen in the cities, whether it concerns tainting beef with the latest strains of resistant bacteria or innoculating crops with specialized fungi to make them rot faster once the customer brings them home. Nutritionists have also had stunning success in Nebraska passing off fried chicken and white rice as Chinese fried rice dishes to weary, long-range interstate travellers and residents alike ⁴.

Clearly, it becomes apparent that there exists not only a precedent for clandestine involvement in matters Nebraskan, but there also exists a large body of knowledge aquired from that involvement. With a stable social, political, economic, and nutritional infrastructure already in place, establishing new research endeavors should proceed with little problem.

Logically, then, it follows that Nebraska should be established as a real-time and real-scale laboratory. The vast natural resources possessed by the state serve as the passport to invite NCGS involvement. It's abundance of dihydrogen monoxide and weather opens up a myriad of reseach opportunities. The important role that those elements play in the lives of people exacerbates both the scope of and the need for such research.

Finally, and perhaps most pressingly, it should be noted that Nebraska is a real-scale laboratory. The knowledge obtained here supercedes any of the inferior results derived from small-scale, closed-system experiments. Such experiments have margins of error which are often unacceptable due to the unrealistic absence of important variables, variables which are ever-present in nature. The state of Nebraska, then, is a thoroughly modern facility in which all variables apply, all scales are taken into account, and in which all axes -- including the important z-axis -- are accounted.

References

1.	Nebraska Department of Economic Development. The Nebraska Databook. http://info.ded.state.ne.us/stathand/contents.htm
2.	Doyle, Joseph. "That Red Gunk." UseNet post to newsgroup uiuc.general, 19 Dec 1998
3.	Rand McNally & Company. Deluxe Motor Carrier's Road Atlas. 1999
4.	Dobrowolsky, Thomas Robert Lars Mary Lunarwolf, Jr. XXIII. Personal travel journal. 1998. http://www.thespleenpress.org/manuscripts/journal/pnw_nov1998/19981209-chinesefood.html