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In the spring of 1988 an interagency consortium of Federal Land Managers and the Environmental Protection Agency initiated a national visibility and aerosol monitoring network to track spatial and temporal trends of visibility and visibility‐reducing particles. The monitoring network consists of 36 stations located mostly in the western United States. The major visibility‐reducing aerosol species, sulfates, nitrates, organics, light‐absorbing carbon, and wind‐blown dust are monitored as well as light scattering and extinction. Sulfates and organics are responsible for most of the extinction at most locations throughout the United States, while at sites in southern California nitrates are dominant. In the eastern United States, sulfates contribute to about two thirds of the extinction. In almost all cases, extinction and the major aerosol types are highest in the summer and lowest during the winter months.

A new magnetic material with appreciable optical transmission in the visible region at room temperature has been isolated as a gamma-Fe(2)O(3)/polymer nanocomposite. The synthesis is carried out in an ion-exchange resin at 60 degrees C. Magnetization and susceptibility data demonstrate loading-dependent saturation moments as high as 46 electromagnetic units per gram and superparamagnetism for lower loadings where particle sizes are less than 100 angstroms. Optical absorption studies show that the small-particle form of gamma-Fe(2)O(3) is considerably more transparent to visible light than the single-crystal form. The difference in absorption ranges from nearly an order of magnitude in the "red" spectral region to a factor of 3 at 5400 angstroms. The magnetization of the nanocomposite is greater by more than an order of magnitude than those of the strongest room-temperature transparent magnets, FeBO(3) and FeF(3).

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