A UC Davis nuclear physicist has reported finding biologicallydangerous metals in Kuwaiti oil at much higher concentrations than some experts previously believed existed. Thomas Cahill, director of the Air Quality Group at Crocker Nuclear Lab, and his colleagues recently analyzed samples from eight Kuwaiti oil fields. Using a cyclotron, the researchers measured the chemical elements of the crude oil and its byproducts when ignited in their lab. "Some of the earlier estimates of trace metals are grossly in error," Cahill says. "These metals will have biological impacts that last well after Kuwaiti oil fires are over." Possibly reaching as far as Hawaii, the toxic trace elements include vanadium, nickle, mercury and molybdenum, Cahill says. The analyzed samples represent approximately half of the country's oil fields, according to nuclear physicist Jeff Schweitzer, a scientific adviser for Schlumberger-Doll Research who provided the samples. At least three-quarters of the samples were drawn from fields with burning wells, Schweitzer says. Cahill presented the new oil aerosol data on at the recent Chemical Congress of North America. Protocols developed at UC Davis are being used to monitor air quality around the globe. The UC Davis team is known for its recent investigation of the effects of a coal-fired power plant on winter air quality in Grand Canyon National Park and assistance in the settlement that resulted in 90 percent control of the plant's emissions. Among its other projects, the group has just begun a study of the sources of summer air quality problems involving another power plant and other regional sources.