Geology
News - November 2008
Geology news and current earth science articles from around the world. Stories are archived monthly.
All links are to external sites. AGS does not endorse these sites or their opinions. If a link is broken, it is because the news source has removed it from its website.
November 28, 2008
An early illustration of what the lava lamp may look like. Photo: Brent Blake
Soap Lake in Washington – population 1,733 – hopes that a 50 ft illuminated lamp in the centre of the town will bring attention to the region's interesting geology, including beautiful basalt deposits.
Rockslide closes B.C. highway
One of the main highways in central British Columbia remained closed in both directions on Thursday after
a rockslide occurred northeast of Terrace. The rockslide, which occurred Wednesday around 5 p.m., brought 30 cubic metres of debris onto the road.
Widespread presence of certain minerals indicate wetter mars
Scientists have reported the extensive presence of hydrated silicas on Mars after analyzing data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been gathering information on the planet since 2006. The data, published in the November issue of the journal Geology, also show these water-bearing minerals in areas that were formed less than 2 billion years ago, well into the planet’s 4.5 billion year life.
Using
lasers to find meteor craters
A study in the current issue of Geology presents a newly discovered meteorite crater in Alberta, Canada. What makes this discovery interesting is both the size of the crater and the techniques used to find it. The crater is tiny, 36 metres in diameter, and a mere six metres deep. Craters this size are generally very difficult to find, although they should be rather common. The team used a technique known as LiDAR to map the topography as it would be without any plants on top of it.
Huge reserve of fuel ice in South China Sea verified
The total reserve of fuel ice (natural gas hydrate) on the northern continental slope of the South China Sea
has finally been verified. It reaches an equivalent of 18.5 billion tons of oil, which equals six times the
verified geological reserve of oil and gas in the deep waters of the South China Sea.
U.S.
may repeal oil-gas exemption
Energy companies can coax valuable oil and gas out of the ground by injecting a mix of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations - a process they say has never been shown to contaminate ground water. Others aren't convinced the technique is safe, and they hope new political leadership in Washington will lead to closer regulation of the practice.
The discovery of a meteorite crater near Whitecourt, 200 kilometres west of Edmonton, Alberta, prompted Chris Herd to examine the site from the air using existing aerial surveys. A computer program, applied to aerial images taken by a forestry company, stripped away the images of trees to expose the landscape, revealing the meteorite crater.
November 27, 2008
Hungary reveals underground thermal lake
An underground thermal lake that Hungarian officials say is one of the biggest in the world was unveiled this week after its discovery below a Turkish bath in the capital Budapest. The lake, discovered earlier this year, lies in a subterranean hall 86 metres long, 27 metres wide and 15 metres high and belongs to the Janos Molnar cave. Budapest is built above a labyrinth
of caves filled with warm thermal water, many of which have bee only partly explored.
New House chair
expected to oppose uranium mining
A political analysis (Mining will face formidable foe in Energy and Commerce Chair Waxman) published by Mineweb.com today predicts
that Henry Waxman (D-CA) the incoming chair of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee will 'go for
the jugular' on key mining issues. Among those jugulars Waxman is likely to sink his teeth into are the domestic
uranium industry, particularly those exploring on Navajo Nation lands.
November 26, 2008
Flood in Brazil.
Rescue workers desperately digging through the wreckage of homes engulfed by mudslides found more bodies on Tuesday in southern Brazil, raising the death toll from rain-spawned floods and hillside collapses to 68. At least 17 people were still missing in small cities and towns across Santa Catarina state, where torrential weekend rains far surpassed records going back to 1961.
Survival of the firmest
A landmark scientific study co-authored by a Canadian geologist has identified
a sudden explosion of mineral diversity after the emergence of life on Earth, and advanced a "revolutionary" theory
that rocks have been evolving - much like plants and animals - throughout the planet's history.
Global warming predictions are overestimated, suggests study on black carbon
A detailed analysis of black carbon - the residue of burned organic matter - in computer climate models
suggests that those models may be overestimating global warming predictions. A new Cornell study, published online in Nature Geosciences, quantified the amount of black carbon in Australian soils and found that there was far more than expected, said Johannes Lehmann, the paper's lead author and a Cornell professor of biogeochemistry. The survey was the largest of black carbon ever published.
Forests may play overlooked role in regulating climate
Scientists led by a team at the University of New
Hampshire show that forests may influence the Earth's climate in important ways that have not previously
been recognized. When sunlight reaches the Earth's surface it can either be absorbed and converted to heat
or reflected back to outer space, where it doesn't influence the Earth's temperature.
Of the total amount of sunlight that falls on forests, the fraction that gets reflected back to space
is directly related to levels of nitrogen in their foliage.
Evolution of turtles.
The 220 million-year-old find, described in Nature journal, shows that the turtle's breast plate developed earlier than the rest of it's shell. The breast plate of this fossil was an extension of its ribs, but only hardened skin covered its back. Researchers say the breast plate may have protected it while swimming.
Researcher narrows search for meteorite fragments
The space rocks, dark and dense and usually dimpled, could
be the size of a football or a field mouse. A University of Calgary researcher is urging people in a patch
of western Saskatchewan to watch for small meteorites that likely landed there after last Thursday's spectacular
fireball. As many as 1,000 meteorites may have hit the ground, said Alan Hildebrand, co-ordinator of the
Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre.
Free access to USGS LandSAT Images
In a breakthrough applauded today by the international Group on Earth Observations, scientists and decision-makers
will soon have unrestricted global access at no charge to the USGS Landsat archive, the world's most extensive
collection of continuously-acquired land imagery. By the end of this year, the full collection will, for
the first time, be freely available online to users around the globe under a policy initiated by U.S. Secretary
of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne.
November 24, 2008
Secret
advice to politicians: oil sands emissions hard to scrub
CBC News has obtained a government document that says reducing greenhouse gases
from Western Canada's oil sands will be much more difficult than some politicians
and the industry suggest. The oil sands are the fastest-growing source
of CO2 in the country, set to increase from five per cent to 16 per cent
of total emissions by 2020 under current plans. Capturing the gas and pumping
it underground has been the key public strategy for reducing the oil sands
Meteor seemed really close, many Western Canadians report
From Edmonton to Edgeley, Sask., and points in between, people reported
that the brilliant fireball streaking across western Canadian skies on
Thursday seemed mighty close. No meteorite fragments have been found yet, but some of the witnesses who
said they saw something fall are likely right, said Dr. Christopher Herd,
a University of Alberta earth and atmospheric sciences professor.
Weather impacting search for Prairie meteorite
Find it first and you could score some cold hard cash, but the search for the meteorite that lit up
Prairie skies is at the mercy of Mother Nature according to one scientist.
Famous American meteorite collector Robert Haag is offering a $10,000
reward to anyone who can locate the first one-kilogram chunk of the meteorite
that fell Thursday evening. But after the first snowfall that may get
a lot harder.
Volcano erupts in southern Colombia
Colombia's highest active volcano erupted late on Thursday and forced the evacuation of hundreds of nearby
settlers, the government and the Institute of Geology and Mining said. No casualties have been reported since the eruption of the snow-capped Huila volcano.
November 21, 2008
The
peak oil crisis: edging toward reality
Last week the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris released their annual report on the state of the world's
energy resources -- World Energy Review 2008. As the world's energy situation
becomes more and more confused, with prices gyrating wildly, and with more
voices warning of unprecedented problems just ahead, this 569-page report
stands as the most authoritative description of what will happen to the world's
energy supply. The energy policies of the 28 countries that are members of
the IEA in theory hinge on the report's findings - and that is where the trouble comes in.
Concealed glaciers discovered on Mars at mid-latitudes
Vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris persist today at
much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on Mars, says new
research using ground-penetrating radar on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The concealed glaciers extend for tens of miles from edges of mountains
or cliffs and are up to one-half mile thick. A layer of rocky debris covering
the ice may have preserved the glaciers as remnants from an ice sheet covering
middle latitudes during a past ice age.
Gas drilling contaminating water supply in Colorado, geology expert says
A geological consultant says increased methane in domestic wells near natural gas development in Garfield County is part of a much larger problem of drilling-related water contamination that’s just starting to come to light. Thyne, a geology
professor consulting for Garfield County, said he thinks evidence is piling
up in Colorado and elsewhere in regard to water contamination related to oil and gas development.
November 20, 2008
$1.8B oil royalty rollback
Province offers companies break on payments over five years in wake of economic downturn. Oil companies will get to
choose their royalty rate on some new wells, resulting in a $1.8-billion
government loss over five years, Premier Ed Stelmach announced Wednesday.
While critics are calling the move overkill, Stelmach described it as
the best shot in the arm for junior oil producers to ensure they invest
their profits in new exploration as the world economy slows.
Seattle urges steps to cut landslides
Seattle Public Utilities officials held a news conference, using a recently shored-up area in West Seattle
as a backdrop to emphasize the city's basic slide recipe: heavy rainfall,
saturated ground, weakened soils, storms. Climate change and its impacts
on landslides still are not understood fully, but there is little to
indicate global warming will spare Seattle.
November 19, 2008
Oil price plunge leaves Alberta $6.5B poorer
Plummeting oil prices have slashed $6.5 billion from what was expected to be a near-record breaking
Alberta surplus. The province still expects a $2-billion surplus, mostly
because of summer oil prices that surged to $147 US per barrel. Provincial
projects already underway won't be cut. And the two surplus-funded projects
announced in August will still move forward -- $1.8 billion for public
transportation and $2 billion for researching carbon capture and storage.
The additional cash will come from an extra $1 billion found at the end
of last fiscal year, as well as another $1 billion from a non-cash loss
in the Heritage Fund's value that was originally factored into the surplus.
Government
of Alberta and Syncrude reach new Crown agreement (press release)
The Government of Alberta and the Syncrude joint venture owners have reached
an agreement that will see the owners pay $975 million in additional royalties
beginning in 2010 through 2015. This provides for full implementation of
the New Royalty Framework by 2009 and meets the government’s objectives
for negotiated revisions to Crown agreements.
Provincial
funds support watershed stewardship groups (press release)
A $250,000 instalment to the Alberta Stewardship Network’s Watershed Stewardship
Grant Program will help with community-level action to safeguard Alberta’s
water resources. Watershed stewardship groups are community, volunteer-based
partnerships actively engaged in environmental stewardship of their watershed.
They include individuals, organizations, agriculture, industry, municipalities
and other local governments.
Canada's highest point seems to be higher, new readings say
Canada's highest point - the ice-covered peak of Yukon's soaring Mount Logan - may be due
for an official re-measurement after an American researcher on a neighbourly
flyby took readings that suggest our country's superlative summit has
experienced a growth spurt. The University of Alaska aerial survey, conducted
last summer with a laser altimeter by Fairbanks-based geoscientist Sandy
Zirnheld, pegged Canada's geographic zenith at 5,966 metres. That's seven
metres higher than the official height of 5,959 metres, determined in
1992 after a celebrated climb to the top by a team of Canadian researchers
led by Mike Schmidt of the Geological Survey of Canada.
The Grand Canyon - how old is it?
The
Grand Canyon seems to be fixed in time, but it is hardly permanent, and
lately, neither are geologists' estimates for its age, sparking what one
scientist calls "the Grand Canyon Wars." A recent
study in the journal Science suggests that the Grand
Canyon is about 16 million to 17 million years old (much older than
previously thought); however, a new study, detailed in the journal Geology,
argues that geological evidence still supports the long-standing age of 6
million years.
North Dakota OKs spraying oil wastewater on roads
North Dakota's health department will allow salty oil field wastewater
to be sprayed on roads as a deicer or for dust control even though oil
companies and environmental groups have questioned the practice. The Health
Department said Monday that its studies found the briny water left from
oil production was no more toxic than commercial road salt when applied
to state highways. But oil companies so far are reluctant to give away
the water and government road crews are hesitant to use it, fearing liability
issues, said Dave Glatt, director of the state Health Department's environmental
health section.
ExxonMobil nears Black Sea deal
Turkish state oil company TPAO and US supermajor ExxonMobil are close to striking an exploration deal covering the Turkish
sector of the Black Sea, state energy sources said.
1 dead, 33 rescued at flooded coal mine in China
Flooding at a mine in central China killed one miner but rescuers pulled 33 other trapped workers
to safety Tuesday after a 23-hour ordeal, a state news agency said. The
miners were lifted out of a flooded shaft around dawn, the official Xinhua
News Agency said. It was the third mine accident in as many weeks to
hit the resource-rich central Henan province, with an overall toll of
at least six people killed.
Bolivian farmer leads to dinosaur discovery
Bolivian farmer Primo Rivera had long wondered about the dents in a rocky hill near his home. Paleontologists
solved the mystery this month: they are fossilized dinosaur footprints
- the oldest in Bolivia. The fossilized footsteps that intrigued Rivera
for two decades are thought to be about 140 million years old, much older
than other dinosaur prints found in the Andean country.
November 18, 2008
The Geoweb is remaking mapping, the Web and perhaps your own corporate
website
It’s not just that the satellite images of Google Earth and Virtual
Earth are sharper, more accurate and accessible from the street level up,
it’s also that rich data and details are being incorporated. These new
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) let us do and see things we never
could before. Coupling that with search technology has spawned a new iteration:
the Geoweb.
Yosemite rockslides are happening more often
For a decade, the National
Park Service has known that the 3,000-foot granite cliff hanging over a
tourist village at Yosemite is susceptible to colossal rockslides like
one last month that crushed cabins and sent schoolchildren running for
their lives. And yet, the park service has repeatedly rebuilt and repaired
the lodgings rather than bar the public or post warnings.
As
much as a third of Mars could have been underwater
An international team of scientists who analyzed data from the Gamma Ray Spectrometer onboard
NASA’s Mars Odyssey reports new evidence for the controversial idea that
oceans once covered about a third of ancient Mars.
Russians ready for Spitsbergen petroleum
Russian geologists believe there is a good chances of finding oil and gas outside the coast of Spitsbergen
in the Arctic. However, Norwegian authorities are unlikely to allow such activity.
Seized tanker anchors off Somalia
A huge Saudi oil tanker hijacked in the Indian Ocean on Saturday
is believed to have anchored off the coast of Somalia, its operators
have said. The Sirius Star is the biggest tanker ever hijacked, with
a cargo of 2m barrels - a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output - worth more than $100 M.
Drill for Natural Gas, Pollute Water
The natural gas industry refuses to reveal what is in the mixture of chemicals
used to drill for the fossil fuel. The contamination in Sublette County,
Wyoming, is significant because it is the first to be documented by a federal
agency, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. But more than 1,000 other cases
of contamination have been documented by courts and state and local governments
in Colorado, New Mexico, Alabama, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In one case, a house
exploded after hydraulic fracturing created underground passageways and methane
seeped into the residential water supply. In other cases, the contamination
occurred not from actual drilling below ground, but on the surface, where
accidental spills and leaky tanks, trucks and waste pits allowed benzene
and other chemicals to leach into streams, springs and water wells.
November 17, 2008
Indonesia cancels tsunami warning after 7.7-magnitude quake
Indonesia briefly issued tsunami warning after a 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake
struck early Monday off the country's North Sulawesi province and nearby
regions, triggering panic among residents. The tsunami alert was cancelled
about an hour later, after no tidal waves materialized, seismologists
said. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Book review: Don McKay's poetry collection mixes fairy tales and geology
This is poetry at its most articulate and striking. The poems use the language
of geology and nature to examine the various ages of rock and man. They
are filled with word play and memorable sounds "in the various
dialects of gravity." Different poetic forms appear and allusions to
classical myths step alongside everyday speech. McKay mixes fairy tales and
geology, images of cables with Laocoon. He gives us birds, leaves, water
and stone.
Leading geologists warns some regions are quake prone
Pointing to the geology of the Indian subcontinent, a leading geologist on Friday warned
that some regions of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh near
Nepal could be prone to an earthquake.
November 13, 2008
Deep heat solution to 500-million-year-old fossil mystery
Scientists from the universities of Leicester and Cambridge and from the British Geological
Survey have published new research in the journal Geology
shedding new light on a 500-million year old mystery. The 500 million year-old
fossils of the Burgess Shale in Canada, discovered over a century ago,
still provide one of the most remarkable insights into the dawn of animal
life. The beautiful silvery fossils show the true nature of the life
of that time, just after the “Cambrian explosion” of animal life.
November 12, 2008
New kimberlite discovered
Shear Minerals Ltd. has discovered the Killiq kimberlite at the Churchill Diamond Project
in Nunavut. The Killiq kimberlite was discovered during reverse-circulation drilling
in a high-interest, mineral chemistry area within the Sedna Corridor.
Based on geophysical data, the Killiq kimberlite is a magnetic-high,
dyke-like kimberlite 1.1 km long trending north-south.
Lithium mining in Bolivia
High in the Andes, in a remote corner of Bolivia, lies more than half the world's reserves of a mineral that
could radically reduce our reliance on dwindling fossil fuels.
Kentucky Geological Survey releases terrain map
The topography and landforms in Kentucky vary widely across the state. There are a number of distinct
regions. Kentucky Terrain, a 43
x 33-inch illustrated map by Dan Carey and Terry Hounshell explains this
variety and describes the regions using maps, photos, diagrams, and text.
The map was created to help educators, students and the general public
gain a better understanding of the geology of Kentucky and how the rocks
beneath our feet shape the land and how we use it.
November 7, 2008
Geothermal energy could provide 15% of Dublin's heat
As much as 15 per cent of Dublin's hot water and heating could be provided by geothermal
energy within the next five to seven years. Early results of testing at
Newcastle in southwest Dublin showed 10,000 homes in that area could
benefit from a geothermal system extracting heat from 4,000 m to 5,000
m below ground.
Transmitter helps search for minerals in B.C.
Searching B.C.'s West Kootenay for minerals such as copper, lead and zinc used to start with visiting
fields and examining data. But a helicopter flying out of the Trail Airport
in recent weeks is taking the mineral exploration process into the future
by dragging a 14-metre-wide electromagnetic transmitter and receiver
along as it surveys neighbouring valleys.
November 5, 2008
Geothermal project in Australia
Australia' Petratherm plans to start drilling to recover geothermal energy in South Australia in May 2009. The project
covers more than 500 square kilometres of known "hot
rock" granite resources in the Flinders Ranges north of Adelaide, South Australia.
Rainforest fungus naturally synthesizes diesel
A fungus that lives inside trees in the Patagonian rain forest naturally makes a mix of hydrocarbons
that bears a striking resemblance to diesel, biologists announced today.
And the fungus can grow on cellulose, a major component of tree trunks,
blades of grass and stalks that is the most abundant carbon-based plant
material on Earth.
Many challenges to Cambodia's oil upstream hopes
Cambodia is facing a wide
range of challenges in developing its oil and gas upstream sector, even
as it moves cautiously ahead with an offshore exploration project led by
U.S. oil major Chevron Corp. The Cambodian National Petroleum Authority
is also pushing for construction of the country's first oil refinery
and mulling the establishment of a national oil company, but global interest
in the country's hydrocarbons potential is lacking, progress on a petroleum
law has been slow, and a long-running maritime acreage dispute with neighbouring
Thailand has yet to be settled.
Mars minerals signal water presence
Still puzzling over how warm and wet Mars may have once been, scientists are now seeing global mineralogical signs that the planet was at least occasionally wet for the first two billion years of its existence.
November 4, 2008
Marcellus shale gas yield could be even bigger
A geologist says the Marcellus shale region of the Appalachians could yield seven times as much
natural gas as he earlier estimated, meaning it could meet the entire U.S.'s
natural gas needs for at least 14 years.
November 3, 2008
Geologists say drilling caused Indonesian mud volcano
A majority of the scientists meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, at a conference of the American
Association of Petroleum Geologists concluded the drilling in the Banjar-Panji-1
well was the cause of the May 29, 2006, eruption of the volcano, located
in East Java, Indonesia.
Shell latest to delay oil sands expansion in Alberta
Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's largest oil company, is delaying a planned expansion of its oil sands project
in northern Alberta, joining many other oil sands operators who have delayed
similar projects because of soaring costs and weaker oil prices.
China discovers gold and iron ore deposits in Jiaojia belt
Geologists with Shandong Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources found
a gold ore deposit with a proven reserve of 103 tonnes at the southern
section of the Jiaojia gold belt in Laizhou City. The deposits were estimated
to have an economic value of more than USD 2.92 billion.
Magnetic fields record the early histories of planets
Meteorites that are among the oldest rocks ever found have provided new clues about the conditions
that existed at the beginning of the solar system, solving a longstanding
mystery and overturning some accepted ideas about the way planets form.
Weak
foundations threaten stability of high-story buildings in Vietnam capital
A survey of Ha Noi’s weak foundations, conducted by the Federation of Hydrography and Construction Geology, found that Linh
Dam and Thanh Cong areas were unsafe for high-story buildings or full exploitation of underground water sources.
First
encyclopedia ‘Minerals of Azerbaijan’ has been issued in Azerbaijan
The Institute of Geology of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan
has released its first encyclopedia on the minerals of Azerbaijan. Information
includes a broad range of mineral species, their genetic interpretation
and an estimate of their possibility economic use for mineral
resources.
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