Biosphere 2 - An Evolution

One of the more interesting places near Tucson is Biosphere 2, located in Oracle, Arizona, some 25 miles north of Tucson.  This was the site of the famous experiment in self-sustainable living that was carried out from 1991 to 1993.  The facility was constructed, with grants from Ed Bass, a private investor who is a Yale alumnus, on ranch land that had been donated by a wealthy American dowager who had married a British aristocrat.  You can read more about the history of the project here at Wikipedia.

After the experiments in self-sustainable living, Columbia University took over management of the facility as a southwestern campus from 1995 to 2003, halting closed-system research and changing the focus of the facility.  In 2003, the facility and its grounds were sold to a developer that planned a large development on the property, but in 2007, the University of Arizona acquired control of the site, taking on full ownership in 2011.  Today, the University of Arizona owns and operates the facility as a research complex focused on environmental and ecological questions.  Its research projects including research into the terrestrial water cycle and how it relates to ecology, atmospheric science, soil geochemistry, and climate change.

Here is a photo of Kathy at the entrance to the facility:

The complex is huge, consisting of one large building with five different ecological zones:  a tropical rainforest, an ocean, marsh, savanna, and a coastal fog desert.  The habitat is a separate building and was where the "biospherians" lived and worked during their 2-year stay.  Water and life experiments are currently carried out in a separate wing of the building near the habitat.  An "energy center" provides the energy to operate the complex.  Two "lungs" - the West Lung and South Lung - are large bellows that had two key purposes during the period that the complex was sealed off for the self-sustainability experiment:  (1) they each had a diaphragm which would move up and down to help equalize the air pressure throughout the complex as the air inside expanded and contracted due to changes in temperature from day to night and back; and (2) they helped circulate the air and keep it from getting stale.

Here is a photo of the complex with descriptive labels on various buildings:

Between the separate visitor center and the core complex lies a large residential area, which houses offices and apartments for visiting researchers.  As we walked from the visitor center over to the complex, we had a view of the main tetrahedron building from the residential area:

Inside the tetrahedral building is a body of water that duplicates an ocean environment.  It is currently being re-engineered to duplicate the conditions in the Cortez Sea.  Below you can see the ocean - and even a little beach which was used by the "biospherians":

Here is another view of the ocean, showing how it fits into the overall environment in the tetrahedral building:

The rainforest contains plants originally taken from South American rainforests.  Most of the vegetation in this environment has survived since the original construction of the complex in the mid-1980's:

The desert environment includes a flowering Century Plant:

In addition to a tour of the environmental zones and habitation areas, the tour also included the subterranean "guts" of the complex.  Here is a photo of the underground walkway between the main building and the South Lung:

The underground tunnels were sometimes cramped for space.  Here, David is observing the "low access" sign and demonstrating that it means what it says:

The South Lung is fascinating.  The central disc pictured below and sitting above the floor is the center of the large bellows.  It moves up as the air in the complex expands, and then down as the air cools.

This photo of the South Lung shows a better view of the bellows attached to the central disc:

One of the most interesting water and life experiments being conducted in the facility is a new project containing three sloped terrains - the largest of their kind in the world.  They are contained in these three arched spaces:

The experiments are supported by steel frames and are constructed to duplicated the structure of bedrock, rock and soil in a variety of environments.  Experiments will be run to observe the effect of water running down the various slopes, to determine rates of water flow and retention, and the impact of the water and its flow on the soil structure and environment:

We were not admitted to the energy facility, which is contained in these circular buildings nearby:

During the self-sustainability experiment in 1991-1993, the "biospherians" lived, cooked and ate together.  Here is their kitchen:

This is a photo of the typical apartment for a resident in the experiment:

As we finished the tour and returned to the visitor center, we again passed through the residential and office area of the current research facility.  We couldn't help thinking that this would be a pretty exciting place to spend a year or two running some ecological experiment:

This facility is the only one of its kind in the world.  The University of Arizona appears to have cornered the market in one very interesting type of research!