We present a simple method for estimation of long-term mean denudation rates using in situ-produced cosmogenic 10Be in fluvial sediments. Procedures are discussed to account for the effects of soil bioturbation, mass wasting and attenuation of cosmic rays by biomass and by local topography. Our analyses of 10Be in quartz from bedrock outcrops, soils, mass-wasting sites and riverine sediment from the Icacos River basin in the Luquillo Experimental Forest, Puerto Rico, are used to characterize denudation for major landform elements in that basin. The 10Be concentration of a discharge-weighted average of size classes of river sediment corresponds to a long-term average denudation of = 43 m Ma^-1, consistent with mass balance results.

The past three decades have seen major declines in populations of several species of amphibians at high elevations in eastern Puerto Rico, a region unique in the humid tropics because of the degree of environmental monitoring that has taken place through the efforts of U.S. government agencies. I examined changes in environmental conditions by examining time-series data sets that extend back at least into the 1980s, a period when frog populations were declining. The data include forest cover; annual mean, minimum, and maximum daily temperature; annual rainfall; rain and stream chemistry; and atmospheric-dust transport. I examined satellite imagery and air-chemistry samples from a single National Aeronautics and Space Administration aircraftflight across the Caribbean showing patches of pollutants, described as thin sheets or lenses, in the lower troposphere. The main source of these pollutants appeared to be fires from land clearing and deforestation, primarily in Africa. Some pollutant concentrations were high and, in the case of ozone, approached health limits set for urban air. Urban pollution impinging on Puerto Rico, dust generation from Africa (potential soil pathogens), and tropical forest burning (gaseous pollutants) have all increased during the last three decades, overlapping the timing of amphibian declines in eastern Puerto Rico. None of the data sets pointed directly to changes so extreme that they might be considered a direct lethal cause of amphibian declines in Puerto Rico. More experimental research is required to link any of these environmentalfactors to this problem.

The Luquillo mountains of eastern Puerto Rico are the site of U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) research into biogeochemical and geomorphic processes that control the movement and transformation of water, energy, bedrock weathering products, and nutrients in the earth-surface environment. This study was begun in 1990 and is scheduled to last three years, with the possibility of being extended for further data collection. The study area for this research effort includes the 113 square kilometers Luquillo Experimental Forest (LEF) that is administered by the U. S. Forest Service. The LEF has been the site of ongoing research since 1988 as part of the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research program. In addition, comparative studies are being conducted in the Río Grande de Loíza basin (Loíza basin), an urban and agriculturally developed 600 square kilometers watershed located immediately to the west of the LEF. The principal elements of the study described in the report are as follows: Determination of biogeochemical budgets: water, energy, carbon, nutrient, ion, sediment, and gas budgets will be calculated in two LEF watersheds instrumented with meteorologic, soil, hydrologic, and ground-water monitoring equipment. A biweekly time series of samples is being collected. In addition, intensive sampling is undertaken during selected storms. Study of weathering, erosion, and mass-wasting processes in undeveloped watersheds of contrasting lithology: chemical-weathering, erosion, and mass-wasting processes in watersheds underlain by the two dominant rock types, volcaniclastic and quartz diorite, are being compared. The effects of mass wasting on biogeochemical cycling in each rock type will be evaluated through a compilation of physical, chemical, and mineralogic properties for a chronosequence of landslides. Water and sediment budgets will be used to develop a conceptual model of hillslope hydrology and landform evolution. Comparison of weathering and gas flux in developed and forested watersheds: paired basins were selected and gaged in the relatively undisturbed LEF and in the agriculturally developed Loíza basin. Budgets of all aqueous constituents will be compared and contrasted in the developed and forested basins of similar lithology. Gas-flux differences (carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, methane) between developed and undeveloped areas will be evaluated using chamber techniques and the results related to land-use differences. Measurement of reservoir and agricultural pond gas fluxes: methane production is being measured in selected reservoirs and agricultural ponds in and near the Loíza basin and LEF. A regional methane budget will be calculated.