Current Geology News and
Earth Science Articles

Geology news and current earth science articles from around the world. Stories are archived monthly.

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August 31, 2009

The well hasn't run dry for careers in the oil and gas industry
Despite the current dip in natural gas prices, officials anticipate the stepped up demand from emerging markets in China and India will drive up prices. Although this appears to be promising news for Albertans hoping to embark on careers in the oil and gas industry, Alberta's leading private career training provider insists that a skills-based education is essential for students eager to enter this competitive job market.

120,000-year-old ice yields clues to climate of a warmer Earth
More than a mile of ice core was pulled from the Greenland ice sheet by scientists this summer, setting a new record for single-season deep ice-core drilling. The researchers, from 14 countries and led by the University of Copenhagen, are on a quest to recover ice formed 120,000 years ago, the last time our planet was in a period of warm climate such as the one many scientists think we are now entering.

Solar-powered hammer on display at Ace diamond mine
A solar-powered hammer created by a local artist will be looking to shine as it performs its work at an area diamond mine. The work was initially conceived from the geology of diamonds and the development of their worth.

August 28, 2009

Seven earthquakes rumble Oklahoma and Arkansas
The shake, rattle and roll of earthquakes are usually found on the West Coast.   It's not as common in the south-central part of the country. But on Thursday, seven earthquakes shook central Oklahoma and central Arkansas. All but one of them had a magnitude of around 2.5.  

Oil find increases geology graduate turn-out
Oil discovery in Ghana has sparked a huge increase in the turn out of Geology graduates at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, an oil industry official said on Thursday. Ghana discovered oil two years ago off the shores of the Western Region. In June 2007, Tullow Oil of UK officially announced that it had found 600 million barrels of oil at Cape Three Point, now Jubilee Fields, stating this is one of the biggest oil discoveries in Africa in recent times.

Scientists find great Pacific Ocean garbage patch
Scientists have just completed an unprecedented journey into the vast and little-explored "Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch." Researchers got the first detailed view of plastic debris floating in a remote ocean region. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Watermelon power may one day juice your car
Watermelons are not just a favourite summer treat, - according to new research by the US Department of Agriculture, they may soon fuel our cars. Research reveals that watermelon juice has a relatively high concentration of directly fermentable sugars, which may be a valuable source for biofuel due to the ease with which they can be fermented into ethanol.

August 27, 2009

Australia's emissions storage under fire
Environment Minister Peter Garrett has given the $50 billion Gorgon gas project the green light but the consortium's plan to bury millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions remains in doubt. Technical experts working on the carbon capture project at Barrow Island off the Western Australian coast found it was possible gas could leak from the geological formation.

Kenyan police arrest suspected mastermind in respected Scottish geologist's death
Alfred Makogo Njiruka, the chairman of a small miners association, was arrested Wednesday in Taveta, about 225 miles (360 kilometers) from the capital, Nairobi. About a dozen people attacked 72-year-old Campbell Bridges last week after he stopped to remove a log blocking a road, police said. Bridges had been driving to a mining camp by Tsavo West National Park, near where he lived.

A solar-powered oil field?
BrightSource Energy has broken ground on a 29-megawatt solar steam plant at a Chevron oil field in Coalinga, California. The 100-acre project’s 7000 mirrors will focus sunlight on a water-filled boiler that sits atop a 323-foot tower to produce hot, high-pressure steam.

Scientists find planet that shouldn't exist
The finding could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago. Completing an orbit in less than an Earth day, planet Wasp-18b should have burned up, according to accepted theory.

August 26, 2009

U.S. Chamber of Commerce seeks trial on global warming
The nation's largest business lobby wants to put the science of global warming on trial. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, trying to ward off potentially sweeping federal emissions regulations, is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to hold a rare public hearing on the scientific evidence for man-made climate change.

U.S. needs balanced offshore energy portfolio
The new head of the U.S. Minerals Management Service said on Thursday that all forms of energy should be harvested from the nation's offshore areas - including wind and waves as well as oil and natural gas. The nation should continue to develop as much offshore oil and gas as can be produced in an environmentally responsible way, Liz Birnbaum, who became MMS director in July, told Reuters in a telephone interview. Birnbaum said she also sees an expanded role for renewable sources of energy offshore.

August 24, 2009

More than half of world's population exposed to one or more major natural hazards
New report indicates that 3.4 billion people, more than half the world's population, live in areas where at least one hazard could significantly affect them.

Warming oceans may shift Earth's pole
Human-induced warming of the oceans could shift Earth's axis up to 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) by the end of the century. In a new study due to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a team of researchers has found that sea level rise caused by warming oceans also plays a significant role in pushing the poles around.

August 21, 2009

Crashing comets not likely the cause of Earth's mass extinctions
Scientists have debated how many mass extinction events in Earth's history were triggered by a space body crashing into the planet's surface. Most agree that an asteroid collision 65 million years ago brought an end to the age of dinosaurs, but there is uncertainty about how many other extinctions might have resulted from asteroid or comet collisions with Earth.

United States funds nine shale gas and CBM technology efforts
The US Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory is supporting nine projects targeting environmental tools and technology for shale gas and coalbed methane production, DOE’s Fossil Energy Office announced. It said the NETL projects’ goals are to improve management of water resources, usage and disposal; and to support science that will help the shale gas development regulatory and permitting process. DOE’s share of the projects’ total $10.2 million cost will be $6.9 million, it indicated.

August 20, 2009

Third earthquake in four days hits Colorado
Colorado experienced its third earthquake since Sunday as a small 2.7 magnitude quake occurred early Wednesday morning. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest quake occurred in the same area as the temblor Monday night with the epicentre 11 miles north of Craig. Earthquakes in Colorado are not unusual as the USGS says nine were recorded this year and more than 100 in the last four years.

Plastics in oceans decompose, release hazardous chemicals, surprising new study says
In the first study to look at what happens over the years to the billions of pounds of plastic waste floating in the world's oceans, scientists are reporting that plastics — reputed to be virtually indestructible — decompose with surprising speed and release potentially toxic substances into the water.

A prehistoric ‘runway’ used by flying reptiles
A prehistoric runway for flying pterosaurs has been discovered for the first time. Scientists uncovered the first known landing tracks of one of these extinct flying reptiles at a site dubbed "Pterosaur Beach," in the fine-grained limestone deposits of an ancient lagoon in southwestern France dating back 140 million years to the Late Jurassic.

August 19, 2009

More attacks on B.C. pipelines are possible
A second letter allegedly penned by the person behind a half-dozen bomb attacks on natural-gas pipelines in northeastern B.C. is warning the energy firm targeted by the bombings to get out of the area — or else. The anonymous letter-writer mocks the efforts of the more than 200 RCMP investigators tasked with the case.

Satellites unlock secret to northern India's vanishing water
Using satellite data, UC Irvine and NASA hydrologists have found that groundwater beneath northern India has been receding by as much as 1 foot per year over the past decade – and they believe human consumption is almost entirely to blame. People are pumping northern India's underground water, mostly to irrigate cropland, faster than natural processes can replenish it.

Brazil seeks more control of oil beneath its seas
Faced with the world’s most important oil discovery in years, the Brazilian government is seeking to step back from more than a decade of close cooperation with foreign oil companies and more directly control the extraction itself. The move is part of a nationalistic drive to increase the country’s benefits from its natural resources and cement its position as a global power. But it could significantly slow the development of the oil fields at a time when the world is looking for new sources, energy and risk analysts said.

NASA researchers make first discovery of life's building block in comet
NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft. The discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.

August 18, 2009

NASA goes inside Mount St. Helens and monitors its activity
Scientists have placed high-tech "spiders" inside and around the mouth of Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Networks such as these could one day be used to respond rapidly to an impending eruption.

U.S. Rocky Mountain region's oil production to be boosted by CO2 injection
The Rocky Mountain region of the U.S. is to take advantage of newly available CO2 sources for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) purposes, such is the growing popularity of this gas application. In the US alone, CO2 injection has accounted for the recovery of around 1.5 billion bbl of oil and CO2 sales to EOR projects are thought to have reached an estimated 3 bcfd in 2008 - with about 83% of this derived from CO2 source fields.

August 17, 2009

Green energy from algae
Energy plants like rape or oil palm are being discussed fervently, as they may also be used for food production. Hence, cultivation of microalgae may contribute decisively to tomorrow’s energy supply. For energy production from microalgae, scientists are developing closed photo-bioreactors and novel cell disruption methods.

Malta's power station may collapse according to geologist
The Delimara power station is built on an excavated chalk cliff that may collapse and threaten the stability of Malta's main energy generating plant, a geologist has warned. Works, such as excavation, carried out during the planned extension to the power station may unsettle the already fragile rock and lead to disaster. However, an Enemalta spokesman insisted that the company's experts do not agree that the cliff face is unstable.

Geothermal power search in San Francisco holds promise and threat
The geothermal test could give the world another source of renewable energy, a valuable weapon in the fight against global warming. It could also trigger earthquakes in a corner of California that already shakes most every day, a prospect that is jangling the nerves of some nearby homeowners.