http://www.populate.net/ Articles at Populate.NET en-us http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/blue-roses-blue-is-the-colour.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/blue-roses-blue-is-the-colour.html Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:18:36 -0700 Roses are red. Yellow, Pink, White and even Orange., But have you ever heard of blue roses!? No. That’s because blue roses just don’t exist. Indeed, it would have made a great addition to the incredible beauty of the rose family. In fact, it will. Advancement in biotechnology research has made growing blue roses a reality. You could probably be sending a bunch of fresh blue roses to your special some one for Valentine’s Day, Birthday, Wedding Anniversary, Engagement or for those special romantic occasions soon!

Roses for a long time have been an epitome of love and beauty. It is an extraordinary flower of delicate grace and enchantment. Roses have so many different shades and each of these shades symbolises specific meanings. While red roses signify romance, white roses are for innocence and purity, pink is for happiness and joy, orange suggests passion and enthusiasm and yellow is for friendship. Now what does blue rose stand for?

Apparently, as with the enigma associated with growing the flower, it stands for mystery!!! But the real mystery is will there ever be blue roses in the bouquets you send out to your loved ones? Probably! Thanks to the industrious collaboration of Suntory, a Japanese Distiller and Australian Biotechnology firm Florigene, a subsidiary of Suntory, blue roses could be a commercial reality.

The quest for producing blue roses has been a holy grail to rose breeders for many years. Although, it is possible to buy blue roses in the market, these flowers just don’t exist in nature. Often, it is a bunch of white roses which are dyed to achieve the special blue colour. But think about the environmental impact of buying dyed roses rather than fresh flowers. Nevertheless, rapid progress in the field of biotechnology has helped researchers from Suntory and Florigene to genetically modify the gene of an enzyme called “delphinidin” which is found to be missing in roses. Florigene has managed to infuse this particular enzyme to the rose plant, thereby growing 100 percent fresh blue roses.

With a bloom available to celebrate every emotion, it probably explains roses’ giant market share of $10 billion a year in the fresh-cut flower industry. Now the newer addition of blue roses, might just fuel up the market share to soar to further high levels.

]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/15-green-tips-to-save-money-and-the-planet.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/15-green-tips-to-save-money-and-the-planet.html Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:31:03 -0800
1. Super power!
Switch energy supplier to one that generates renewable electricity through wind, water or solar power. The more people who do so, the cheaper it will become.

2. No sweat
Turn your thermostat down by just ONE degree and you can cut your heating bills by up to four per cent.

3. Turn off
Switch appliances off properly. Left on standby, appliances such as TVs can sap up to 85 per cent of the power they do while in use.

4. Free of charge
Once you’ve powered up your iPod or mobile, unplug them. Most gadget chargers eat up electricity even when they’re not in use.

5. See the light
Switch off all the lights in rooms you’re not using - even the Queen does this!

6. Flash bulbs
Use low energy light bulbs. They’re more expensive but can last up to 12 years. It is reckoned that if every household in the UK used just one energy saving bulb, enough juice would be saved to shut down a whole power station.

7. Perfect protection
Cut your gas and electricity bills by properly insulating your loft space, cavity walls, hot water pipes and boiler. Eco friendly options include insulation blown in cellulose, sheep’s wool, recycled cotton fibres and foams like Icynene. You will notice a difference in your energy bills in no time.

8. Third degree
Wash clothes at a lower temperature - ideally 30 degrees and air-dry them whenever possible.

9. Pull the plug
Take a shower rather than a bath. You’ll save almost half the water and by cutting your shower time by just one minute you could save more than 2,000 litres of water each year.

10. Drink up
Enjoy a carbon-friendly cuppa. Kettles love guzzling energy as much as you love drinking tea or coffee. So, boil a cup's worth and no more.

11. Whizz-kid
Pay your energy bills online. Some estimates reckon that around 81,000 trees are felled annually just to make the paper required to send everyone in the UK their phone bills. Energy companies often give a discount for paperless billing.

12. Bag it
Use your own carrier bag. Each year, supermarkets hand out 13 billion plastic bags.

13. Go public
One bus can carry the same number of people as fifty cars. Tube carriages and trains hold even more.

14. Great outdoors
Or even better…cycle or walk whenever you can. Not only will you save money and have trimmer thighs, you’ll give the planet a much-needed break from CO2 emissions.

15. Eco drive
If you are going to drive and want to use as little fuel as possible, take a look at Drive down your motoring costs. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/environmental-education-for-our-children-the-solution-to-planetary-survival.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/environmental-education-for-our-children-the-solution-to-planetary-survival.html Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:20:01 -0800
They push and push for Congress to enact new programs to protect the environment, as if any kind of government-run program is going to be efficient enough or effective enough to actually help the environmentalists achieve their goals.

Francis T. Perry Williams, author of "Pollen and the Ring of Harmony" (Greenleaf Publishing, www.pollengreenarmy.com), knows better. He believes that if we are going to make any significant impact toward preserving the environment, it’s going to come from independent individual action. People, not government, will make the difference. Perry takes the "Gandhi approach" to ecology – showing the way rather than legislating or protesting for it. In his book he shows the desirability of kindness and caring about the environment, with special attention to the younger generation.

Here are some tips to parents can use to get their kids interested and active in saving the environment:

• Identify Which Environmental Issues Interest You the Most. Figure out what you want to do to help save the planet (if you haven’t already.) Decide what area you most want to improve, whether it is global warming, energy waste, recycling, or hugging trees. The Internet is full of ideas – see which ones you agree with. Take a look at what you can contribute: time, intellect, money, or just willing hands.

• Now That You Have “Talking Points”, Talk! Education takes many forms; help spread the word. Find a group with similar interests, and start contributing! Sort out good data from bad and forward it to friends, family, local media – and don’t forget the children. They communicate incessantly, so give them information worth spreading.

• Don't Just "Talk the Talk", "Walk the Walk", Too! We can't all convert our homes to solar, or buy a hybrid car, but there are many simple ways to help. Turn off lights when not in use. Use power strips with a button you can easily push to shut down devices such as computers, cell phone chargers and entertainment equipment – they all use a lot of energy even when their “on” button is "off". Most power companies will do an energy home-audit to advise you of simple improvements you can make to save both energy and money.

• Invest Your Vote to Help Improve the Environment. In this political season you can find plenty of information about which candidates (local, state or national) feels pretty much the way you do. If you like a candidate, but are not sure of his or her viewpoint about the environment, check their voting record.

Perry wants to start a whole different movement addressing this task of getting people to care about our planet. He dedicates his book to the “Army of Green trying to protect our world,” Perry says, “Awareness leads to beauty, and beauty leads to harmony.” As an eco-advocate, Perry is actively teaching the younger generation to be more eco-friendly so they can live in harmony with nature and the world around them. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/snowboarders-buy-green.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/snowboarders-buy-green.html Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:46:52 -0800
Some resorts are passing their recycling and composting knowledge to their guests. Several also take a one dollar donation from guests to donate to organisations dedicated to helping the environment.

Bob Candler, snowboard rider and inventor, has gone further in his attempts to help the environment. Candler has spent the last 15 years designing the world's first fully recyclable snowboard - the Makboard.

'Taking care of our planet is something that should be important to all riders,' Candler said. 'I created a board that, instead of ending up in a landfill, could be melted down and reshaped into another snowboard when its life is over.'

'Ultimately, what we're trying to do is keep these things from ending up as pollution,' Candler said. 'As snowboarders, we've got to be on the front lines doing all we can to protect what we all love: the mountains, the environment and everything that makes snowboarding so much fun.'

With the combined efforts of ski resorts and skiers like Mr. Candler, our resorts and mountains will be much nicer places to spend free time.

Many ski shops also recycle ski holidays and snowboard equipment by taking in trades and selling used equipment for a fraction of the cost of new equipment. Recycling older ski or snowboard equipment offers someone else the opportunity to learn to ski or snowboard at discounted prices.

Getting closer - the number of snowboarders in North America is starting to catch the number of skiers. Many of the world's leading ski resorts welcome higher numbers of snowboarders year after year. Resorts that offer ski lessons are starting to include snowboard lessons for beginners and intermediate snowboarders as well. Snowboard rentals are readily available in the ski rental area of most resorts.

Associations like the United States of America Snowboard Association and the United States Ski and Snowboard Association promote snowboarding competitions throughout the ski season. Competitions include events like Rail Jam, Boardercross, Slalom and Giant Slalom. Competitors are divided into age categories and range in age from under 7 years to 22 years.

In the years to come, skiers, snowboarders and other winter sports enthusiasts will benefit from the recycling efforts put forth by resorts and fellow skiers alike. Skiing families will learn more about recycling and protecting the environment. They will take that knowledge with them throughout other aspects of life. Their children will teach other children how to recycle and reuse items they may normally throw away. Small efforts by a lot of people can help make a difference in our national forests and mountains. Helping in the recycling efforts will ultimately lead to cleaner, safer environments for families to enjoy, whether they snowboard or not in the mountains. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/recycling.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/recycling.html Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:38:57 -0800
That "trash" could be full of things you can easily recycle instead! As a matter of fact, if your garbage is collected at the curb, chances are that the same collection service will also pick up your recyclables. It could be as easy as having 2 "garbage" cans, one for trash and one for recyclables.

Recyclable materials include aluminum and steel cans, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and containers, newspapers, office (copy) paper, magazines and catalogs, phone books, and cardboard. It only takes a few extra seconds to rinse that can or jar before you toss it into your recyclables bin, and it makes a world - the only world we have - of difference.

Even old appliances can be recycled. Your garbage collection service may offer this curbside as well for a minimal extra cost.

Recycling Benefits You

Recycling most items will not cost you any extra, in fact, it could save you money. If your garbage collection service charges extra for extra bags of trash, you may find that separating your recyclables will eliminate that problem. You may find that you need that plastic jug for some purpose after you have thrown it out - if you rinsed it and put it in your uncollected recyclables, it is clean and handy instead of covered in garbage. And best of all, you will gain personal satisfaction knowing that you and your family have reduced your negative impact on your community and on the environment.

Recycling Benefits Your Community and Country

When you choose to recycle, you conserve natural resources and energy, you help the environment, and you support the businesses that provide recycling services and the jobs they create. Just think:

One family can easily recycle a ton of paper and cardboard or more in a year - think of all those newspapers and magazines - saving 12 to 24 trees. If you recycle just 1 glass bottle, you have saved enough energy to power a light bulb for 4 hours.

Thanks to past and present recycling efforts, about 84,000 tons of trash are kept out of landfills each year. Greenhouse gases are reduced by the equivalent of taking millions of cars off the road. There is a reduction in air and water pollutants released into the environment.

The recycling business has created over one million jobs in the United States. It creates 4 jobs for every 1 job created by the waste disposal industry.

Recycling Benefits Your World

These benefits of recycling have a far larger impact than many people realize. By reducing the demand for natural resources, recycling efforts reduce the need for mining, an occupation with a reputation for being the world's deadliest. The motivation for wars fought over natural resources such as timber and minerals, which affect the lives of over 20 million people and raise billions of dollars for warlords and brutal dictatorships, can be reduced by recycling.

Check with your garbage collection service to learn what recyclable materials they accept, and make a world - the only world we have! - of difference. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/prince-albert-of-monaco-first-to-both-poles.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/prince-albert-of-monaco-first-to-both-poles.html Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:41:36 -0800
It's another attempt in Albert's campaign to raise awareness about the impact of global warming. Antarctica is primarily composed of ice. Ninety eight percent of the continent is frozen. The fact that 70 percent of the entire world's fresh water stores lie frozen within that ice covering has scientists worried. A major meltdown could lead to a rise of 60 meters in sea levels and a severe loss of fresh water.

Prince Albert II of Monaco took up the cause of global warming when he became Monaco's sovereign in 2005. One of his first official appointments in defence of the environment was as UN International Patron of the Year of the Dolphin in 2007. He represented the voice of the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species, which declared 2007 as the year to highlight the plight of the dolphin.

Dolphins are an important part of the marine ecosystem. The eradication of the dolphin is likely to lead to the eradication of numerous other marine species. The implications could be catastrophic. Prince Albert II launched the Year of the Dolphin with a promise to 'renew [his] firm commitment towards biodiversity.'

His current trip to Antarctica comes as no surprise to most. Prince Albert left in early January to witness first hand the complications of global warming. The monarch plans to visit a total of 26 scientific outposts during his month-long visit. Consultation with climate change experts from 18 different countries is also on his agenda. Scientists hope that the prince will use his influence to help bring about change and preservation in Antarctica.

The world's coldest continent is home to just a small handful of humans. Most are scientists and researchers studying everything from geology, to biology, to climate and weather. Up to 5,000 researchers staff Antarctica's outposts and research centers, depending on the season. Prince Albert's visit will undoubtedly be a welcome and warm visit in the frigid region.

The most important residents of the continent are its unique flora and fauna, along with its oxygen-breathing species like seals and penguins. Should a major meltdown occur in Antarctica, the results could be catastrophic for such species.

Monaco became the 47th signatory of the Antarctic Treaty in May of 2008. The Antarctic Treaty is an agreement between nations to protect the interests of Antarctica, the world's only continent with no native human population.

Prince Albert undertook a similar expedition in 2006 when he left Monaco and Monte Carlo's Casino Square to visit the North Pole. His visit to Antarctica appears to be further evidence of his commitment to the environment. He has become, in his young reign, a vocal advocate for stewardship of the environment and for marine biodiversity in particular.

Prince Albert will no doubt continue on his quest to curb global warming. Royal watchers and environmentalists continue to carefully monitor his influence and speculate where he might turn up next on his campaign trail. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/natural-bridge-caverns.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/natural-bridge-caverns.html Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:11:12 -0800
The cavern was discovered back in 1960 when a few college students were exploring the surrounding area. The cavern was actually formed by an underground river that moves slowly cutting through the limestone. Over time the limestone broke down and the cavern was formed. There are many passages through the cavern and it is a very beautiful and interesting place to visit.

The most popular tour is the "Discovery Tour." Visitors go about 180 feet below the ground in this awesome tour, which is about a half mile long. On the tour you will see many beautiful and wondrous things that formed millions of years ago and are still forming. You can take pictures, so be sure to take a camera.

Another popular tour at Natural Bridge Caverns is the "Illuminations Tour." On this tour, the staff uses lights to light up certain parts of the cavern. At one part of the tour, all lights are turned completely off and you are in total darkness, 180 feet under the earth.

One of the favorite spots on the tour is the mining company and rock shop. Here you get to pan for precious rocks and fossils, even arrowheads. The best part is you get to keep whatever it is you find! If you are not sure what kind of treasure you have found, the have charts available so you can see just what you found.

For the more adventurous spelunkers, you can take the "Adventure Tours," where you climb, rappel, hike and explore the cavern just like the explorers did when they found the cavern. All you have to rely on is the guides, ropes and gear. Plan for the tour to take about 3-4 hours, it is meant for the more serious cave goers.

When you are done plunging 160 feet into a dark cave, why not head to the Watch tower. It is a 50 foot tower that you can climb and use a zip line to get down. Plunging at 25 miles per hour back towards the earth, this is definitely a ride you will not forget.

Natural Bridge Caverns is a nice place for a one day trip. The cavern stays a cool 70 degrees year round, with relative humidity at 99%. Some of the other attractions hours depend upon Mother Nature, so you may want to call or visit their website before you head out.

There is something for the entire family to enjoy at Natural Bridge Caverns. If you really love the caverns, you can take a group there. The Natural Bridge caverns is interesting in that its a good place to have some fun and learn about the environment. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/colorado-usa-goes-green-for-skiing.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/colorado-usa-goes-green-for-skiing.html Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:07:39 -0800
Vail Colorado for example operates one of the largest recycling programmes of any ski resort in North America, and their on-mountain recycling programme is the largest of its kind in North America.

Vail Resorts who are the owners responsible for the initiative, have five mountain resorts. Each ski holidays resort receives monetary contributions of $1 from each skier per season pass, online lift ticket transaction and night spent at the resort in the Colorado and California locations. Since the programme began, Vail has received more than $550,000 in guest contributions. The National Forest Foundation (NFF) has matched the contributions by more than $275,000. All funds are used for projects that aim to restore, improve and protect Vail's neighboring National Forests.

The effort put forth by Vail Resorts owners, employees and skiers alike gives a glimpse into the number of skiers who are concerned about the environment. The preservation of National Forests is a major factor in the success of not only Vail Resorts but other ski resorts worldwide. The environment that the skiers are helping protect is the same environment that attracts them to Vail Resorts to begin with.

Vail's five major ski resorts are some of the most visited and most family friendly resorts in North America. Families can learn very valuable lessons about wildlife preservation, recycling and environmental issues. Currently, Vail's recycling programme recycles an impressive about 70 percent of on-mountain waste. The amount of waste recycled equals nearly one pound per guest. About 100 tons of material per month are recycled during an average ski season.

Some of the most notably environment friendly parts of the ski holiday resorts are:

* Beaver Creek's Spruce Saddle Lodge. The lodge is the first ski holidays resort restaurant to become a Certified Green Restaurant by the Green Restaurant Association. The GRA is a national non-profit organization that dedicates its time to setting sustainable environmental standards within the restaurant industry. Spruce Saddle Lodge is one of the first resort restaurants to be recognised by the GRA for multiple environmental breakthroughs. The ski holidays restaurant uses recycled, tree-free, biodegradable and organic products throughout the lodge. It also maintains impressive water efficiency, energy and conservation levels and recycling and composting programs.

* Keystone Composting at Keystone Ranch Restaurant. Keystone's composting programme began in 2002 and has grown immensely over the years. More than 500 pounds of kitchen waste per week is being diverted from landfill. Combined with efforts from the Keystone Conference Center, food scraps and wood shavings create the soil used in landscaping throughout the resort. Similar composting programs are being established by other resorts.

* Heavenly Waste Reduction, in partnership with California's El Dorado County, diverts about 482 tons of recyclable waste from landfills each year. Surrounding communities are also encouraged to keep yard waste out of local landfills. An annual event, Compost Your Combustibles, educates and encourages citizens to participate in recycling and composting efforts.

* Vail Resorts and RockResorts. Recycling programmes are in place for all employees and guests of any Vail Resorts or RockResorts. They promote water conservation to guests by promoting the reuse of towels and linens for multi-night stays. Restaurants on the resorts use biodegradable, compostable and recycled food and beverage containers and flatware. The resorts recycle beverage and food containers and paper items used in all resort operations. All areas of the resorts use environmentally friendly cleaning products that are not only safer for the environment, but for guests and employees as well.

Resorts worldwide are becoming more environmentally aware and passing their knowledge on to their guests. With the help of their guests, they are able to conserve more water and recycle and compost more waste in a broader range of areas of resort operations. The efforts put forth by these resorts and others around the world help protect the environment and wildlife that attracts their visitors, and might just help the snow fall for a little while longer. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/whistler-canada-among-ski-resorts-gone-green.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/whistler-canada-among-ski-resorts-gone-green.html Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:50:00 -0800
In the United States the Sustainable Slopes Annual Report notes that 68 resorts are now purchasing renewable energy. Among the resorts purchasing renewable energy are Killington Resort in Vermont, Oregon's Mt.Bachelor Resort and the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort. Each of these resorts has set as their goals 100 percent renewable energy. In other words, they replace the energy used by their operations. Breckinridge in Colorado is purchasing wind energy, while Jiminy Peak in Western Massachusetts is the first North American resort to build its own wind turbines in order to supply their own energy.

Whistler Blackcomb in Canada has been particularly aggressive in moving to 100 percent renewable energy. It is especially notable because Whistler Blackcomb is the largest ski resort in North America. Vail is half the size of Whistler in area. Since 1997 Whistler ski resort and Blackcomb resort have gradually integrated their facilities. While the two mountains are connected at ground level, by the time this is published skiers will be able to traverse the mountains at the 6000 foot level. These and other improvements made by Intrawest, which owns Whistler Blackcomb, have made the ski resort one of the largest premier ski vacation destinations in North America.

Largely for this reason the Winter Olympics in 2010 will be held at Whistler Blackcomb. Whistler Mountain will host alpine skiing events as well as bobsled, luge, biathlon, cross country and ski jumping events. To facilitate the Olympic games Intrawest has invested over $600 million to improve the Sea to Sky highway drive from Vancouver to Whistler so that visitors will be able to reach the ski area in two hours. For Whistler Blackcomb enthusiasts the best news is that 90 percent of the area will remain open to skiers during the Olympics.

While all of these developments are good news for skiers, the decision to take Whistler Blackcomb green is like icing on the cake. Whistler committed to the Fitzsimmons Creek Hydro Project, and construction has already begun to bring it to fruition. The Hydro Project is a renewable energy project that will offset entirely the total annual energy consumption of the whole resort. With an anticipated production of 33.5 gigawatt hours of hydroelectricity each year, the Hydro Project will be able to power both the winter and summer operations. That includes all 38 lifts as well as 269 snowguns, 17 restaurants and all the surrounding buildings and the services each provides.

Whistler Blackcomb has been vetting and planning this project for six years. The commitment of the operating management and the thorough and careful project assessment and planning helped to move things along quickly. But Whistler also has conditions conducive to a small hydroelectric plant. Fitzsimmons Creek has all the water necessary and its vertical drop is crucial. Fortunately, the creek is not a fish-bearing stream, nor is it used recreationally. The ski area has been using Fitzsimmons Creek for years as part of their snow-making operation. All of this helps to make the area ideal for the project development and for the greening of the entire ski area.

With its Hydro Project, Whistler Blackcomb is one of the ski holidays in Canada resorts as well as ski resorts worldwide that have made the commitment to go green and reduce their carbon footprints. In the last year the number of ski resorts that have earned environmental management certification has increased by 75 percent. Acquiring certification requires an extremely high standard of environmental management. Patrick Thorne, the author of the Green Resort Guide notes that he has been awarding more and more 5 star ratings to ski resorts committed to reducing the environmental impact of their operations.

Thorne also notes that just a few years ago any discussion about going green was met with a great deal of skepticism from ski resort owners and management. That attitude has almost entirely disappeared. Resorts are much more interested in knowing what they can do to preserve the ski resort environment. Global warming is encroaching upon all aspects of life, and ski resort managers are as aware of the rapid changes as anyone else.

Skiers have a lot of good reasons to look to Whistler Blackcomb and other green resorts for their ski holiday. Just as ski resort managers are paying attention to preserving the environment, so too are the skiers who visit those resorts. It is a good guess that besides assessing the usual enticements in deciding where to ski, asking how green the resort is will become more and more a routine consideration in that selection of a ski holiday. ]]> http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/a-history-of-underground-electromagnetic-surveying.html http://www.populate.net/Environment/Nature/a-history-of-underground-electromagnetic-surveying.html Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:36:36 -0800
The earliest record of using electromagnetic technology to locate buried cables dates from around 1910. More portable locators were made over the next years and the Sharman Main Finder was just one example. The user instructions give a tinge of envy to anyone trying to trace gas pipes .. ..'just clip the generator to a gas bracket in the nearest house or onto a street lamp.'

American and German schools of design emerged during the years leading up to the Second World War. In North America roads were wide and wide cables hung on poles so the main requirement for a locator was to locate widely spaced buried pipes. The result was a simple, high frequency, low power and low cost locator.

In Germany, cables as well as pipes were buried under narrow streets, so elaborate low frequency and high power locators were developed that required considerable expertise to obtain satisfactory results.

Dr Gerhard Fisher of California designed the Metallascope, the first high performance buried pipe and cable locating set. His system made use of the latest scientific developments and his company exists today and still produces the M-scope, an up-to-date descendent of the original Metallascope.

One of the engineering sections of Bell Laboratories studied the problem of accurate location of newly buried cables and recognised that an antenna with twin sensing aerials would give more positive plan definition, and also measure the depth of a target cable. The subsequent design, called the Depthometer, was engineered and manufactured in 1964. It was another 12 years before the first commercial twin aerial antenna locator was made by the Electrolocation company in Bristol England.

The twin aerial system was found to have substantial advantages over single aerial locators. Twin sensing aerials combined the seemingly contradictory qualities of discrimination with sensitivity. For the first time it was possible to locate buried cables below an overhead power line and to sort out crowded utility services under a city street intersection.

The introduction of the twin aerial antenna coupled with miniaturised electronic circuitry coincided with a programme of extending and upgrading utility distribution systems. This growing demand and technical progress resulted in a series of advances and new features to make locating more certain and more simple. Some of these advances included:

• Combination of active and passive signal reception
• Multi-frequency locating sets enabling the user to select the most suitable frequency for each application
• Electronic depth measurement.
• Current measurement along the length of a pipe or cable to detect coating or insulation defects.
• Current direction recognition to verify the identity of a target line.
• Permanently installed signal transmitters to apply a signal tone to a telephone cable over distances up to 150km/100 miles.

Today, electromagnetic locators are the worldwide standard for locating buried pipes and cables. A number of specialised manufacturers offer a choice of locators ranging from simple equipment used to detect the presence of buried cables to sophisticated instruments for pinpointing, identifying and fault finding buried pipes and cables in the most complex situations.
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