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CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Pacific Northwest owes some of its most dramatic scenery to the majesty of Cascade volcanoes, but the real action lies out of sight underground.

At the March 9 Corvallis Science Pub, Adam Schultz, director of the National Geoelectromagnetic Facility at Oregon State University, will describe what scientists have discovered about the plumbing beneath Oregon and Washington.

Like an MRI of the human body, the technology known as magnetotellurics reveals contrasts in the electrical properties of the Earth. The resulting images illuminate the nature of subsurface structures, including their geometry and possible composition. When scientists apply this and other methods in the same location, they can improve interpretations of these features

A professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at OSU, Schultz also directs the magnetotelluric component of Earthscope. This National Science Foundation-funded program investigates North America's basement, the structure of the continental plate from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Schultz received his Ph.D. in 1986 from the University of Washington. He has taught at the University of Cambridge and Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and came to OSU in 2003.

The Science Pub presentation is free and open to the public. It begins at 6 p.m. at the Old World Deli, 341 S.W. 2nd St. in Corvallis. Sponsors of Science Pub include Terra magazine at OSU, the Downtown Corvallis Association and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.