Visiting Scholar Talks about Navy ELF Transmitter

The Michigan Tech Archival Speaker Series will feature visiting
scholar Dr. Louis Slesin at 6:30pm on Thursday, October 18 in the East
Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library on the Michigan Tech
campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Louis Slesin, editor and publisher of Microwave News, will discuss
scientific research and local response to two United States Navy radio
transmission installations in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and northern
Wisconsin. Dr. Slesin’s research visit is supported by a travel award
from the Friends of the Van Pelt Library, a program which encourages
out-of-town scholars to visit Houghton to undertake research using the
collections of the Michigan Tech Archives.

Developed under the project names “Sanguine” and “Seafarer,” the U.S.
Navy sites operated extra low frequency (ELF) transmitters for
communication with naval submarines from 1989 to 2004. Concerns about
potential ecological and health effects of electromagnetic field (EMF)
radiation prompted a series of scientific studies, some conducted by
researchers at Michigan Technological University. Slesin, who holds a
PhD in environmental policy from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, intends to produce a book-length study of ELF-EMF effects
from the submarine transmitter as well as power lines providing
electricity to the facilities.

Since 1998, the Friends of the Van Pelt Library have supported more
than 25 scholars and researchers from across the United States,
Canada, and Europe to access the Archives’ collections. Books,
articles, presentations and web content have resulted from the work of
travel grant recipients, helping to draw attention to the holdings of
the Michigan Tech Archives and the history of Michigan’s Copper
Country and Upper Peninsula.

For more information contact the Michigan Tech Archives at 487-2505,
copper@mtu.edu, or on the web at http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives