Geology News - July 2009

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

All links are to external sites. We do not endorse these sites or their opinions. If a link is broken, it is because the news source has removed it from its website.

July 29, 2009

Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites
Geologist Ian Plimer takes a contrary view, arguing that man-made climate change is a con trick perpetuated by environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians and government officials who love nothing more than an issue that causes public anxiety. The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human behaviour.

Extinction crisis looms in Oceania
Governments must act urgently to halt loss of habitats and invading species that are posing major threats to biodiversity and causing species extinctions across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, according to a landmark new study.

Sea turbines for Florida
The answer to easing the energy crunch in one of the nation's most populous states could lie underwater. Researchers at Florida Atlantic University are in the early stages of turning that idea into reality in the powerful Gulf Stream off the state's eastern shore.

July 28, 2009

U.S. releases unclassified spy images of Arctic ice
The United States released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice to help scientists study the impact of climate change, within hours of a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences. Some 700 images show swatches of sea ice from six sites around the Arctic Ocean, with an additional 500 images of 22 sites in the United States. The images can be seen online at gfl.usgs.gov.

Estimate places natural gas reserves 35% higher
Thanks to new drilling technologies that are unlocking substantial amounts of natural gas from shale rocks, the U.S. estimated gas reserves have surged by 35 per cent. The report by the Potential Gas Committee, the authority on gas supplies, shows the United States holds far larger reserves than previously thought. The jump is the largest increase in the 44-year history of reports from the committee.

Glacier thawing speeds up in Yangtze River sources
Glaciers covering almost 233 square kilometres have melted over the past 30 years in the source area of the Yangtze River, China's longest waterway, due to global warming and the melting is accelerating, experts said. By last year, the total area of glaciers had decreased to 1,051 square kilometres from 1,283 square kilometres in 1971.

100 more geeky places to visit with your family, any time of the year
A list of mainly science-focused (including geology) places you should check out on your next vacation.

July 23, 2009

Earthquake moves New Zealand toward Australia
A massive earthquake last week has brought New Zealand closer to Australia, scientists say. The 7.8 magnitude quake in the Tasman Sea has expanded New Zealand's South Island westwards by about 30 cm (12 in).

New study could help identify signs of life on other planets
An MIT geologist and co-workers say they have found the underlying mechanism that explains repetitions of similar landforms and how they vary from one place to another. The fundamental understanding of the processes that lead to these parallel grooves is not just useful theoretically, but could ultimately allow geologists to predict how eroding landscapes will respond to a changing climate.

July 22, 2009

New, giant-clawed dinosaur unearthed in Utah
A multi-institutional team of scientists this week reports the discovery of a giant new dinosaur in Utah, Nothronychus graffami, which stood 13 feet tall and had nine-inch-long hand claws that looked like scythes. Its skeleton, described in the current issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, represents the most complete remains ever excavated of a therizinosaur, meaning "reaper lizard." It is one of only three such dinosaurs ever found in North America.

California company unveils its onion-powered electrical system
Tops and tails are becoming much more than garbage at Gills Onions, an onion processor in Oxnard, Calif. Today marks the unveiling of the company's onion-powered electrical system, a first-of-its-kind initiative to turn onion waste into energy. The onion waste goes in, it's shredded and pressed to squeeze all the juice out of the onions, which reduces the solid waste by 75 percent. The juice goes into the anaerobic digester, where microbes turn the juice into methane gas. The gas then goes to fuel cells, which is converted into electricity.

New study sheds light on the growing U.S. wind power market
For the fourth consecutive year, the U.S. was home to the fastest-growing wind power market in the world in 2008, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Specifically, U.S. wind power capacity additions increased by 60 per cent in 2008, representing a $16 billion investment in new wind projects. 

July 21, 2009

Earthquake and tsunami potential is high on west coast for Canada and the U.S.
Scientists have underestimated the potential for a giant quake and tsunami that could swamp much the U.S. northwest and Canadian west coasts, said British and U.S. researchers. Geological evidence suggests there have been earthquakes in the past that were even stronger than a magnitude 9.2 quake.

USGS astrogeologists contribute to Google's moon project
Astrogeologists at the U.S. Geological Survey provided critical datasets in the latest release of planetary exploration tools from Google, Inc.  The updated software enables users to explore the moon in high detail, including the Apollo 11 landing site. Google Inc. and NASA Ames Research Center consulted USGS scientists, cartographers, technicians and programmers from the Astrogeology Science Center in preparing the new release. "Moon in Google Earth" provides easy access to lunar data for researchers and enthusiasts alike.

July 20, 2009

Mars rover will investigate new, life-related geology
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found clay-bearing rocks lying directly in the path ahead for the Mars rover Opportunity, giving the rover the unexpected chance to sample a totally new rock type that could have provided a wet, warm, and non acidic habitat for the formation of early life on Mars.

Moon landing anniversary
Some of the best multimedia experiences NASA has to offer for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.

Natural gas has a future in Alberta
Alberta natural gas has been out of favour for years, but Thursday's Bonavista Energy Trust's $694-million purchase of predominantly natural gas assets in Central Alberta from EnCana Corp. shows sentiment may be turning. Natural gas has been the worst-performing commodity in North America in 2009 because of lower industrial demand and growing supplies from new shale discoveries.

Coil-shooting method improves imaging of complex geology
Basically, coil shooting is a new, single-vessel method developed by the company Geco for acquiring seismic data over a wide range of azimuths to improve imaging of complex geology. By sailing in overlapping circles, a very large number of shot/receiver positions can be created and a single source/receiver boat can produce unprecedented offset and azimuth sampling which leads to higher quality images with superior noise suppression.

New kind of undersea eruption defined: Neptunian
Two Australian researchers have defined a newly recognized kind of explosive eruption, termed "neptunian," that is restricted to sea floor volcanoes. These eruptions are sustained and driven by gas exsolved from magma. The explosions inject large volumes of hot pumice clasts into the seawater above the vent. The hot pumice clasts rapidly absorb water and sink, forming density currents that flow across the sea floor.

July 17, 2009

Dow Chemicals to test algae ethanol
There are dozens of companies in the market trying to produce biofuels from algae, but most to date have focused on growing and harvesting the microorganisms to extract their oil, and then refining that oil into biodiesel or jet fuel. Instead, Algenol has chosen to genetically enhance certain strains of blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, to convert as much carbon dioxide as possible into ethanol using a process that doesn't require harvesting to collect the fuel.

Countries betting technology can clean up coal by using carbon capture and storage
In the high-stakes game of climate change, the United States and other countries are betting on the idea that technology can make dirty coal cleaner. Some CCS advocates say that new investments in the emissions-reducing technology will push it off the drawing boards and into reality.

UK nuclear waste strategy in jeopardy
The UK government's strategy for dealing with deadly nuclear waste is in jeopardy three years after it accepted the idea of disposing of it deep underground. Just two local councils in one region, west Cumbria, have shown any interest in hosting the £13.8 billion underground facility.

July 16, 2009

Oil industry profits expected to fall sharply
For the second straight quarter, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and most of the world's largest oil companies are poised to report quarterly earnings that pale in comparison to a year ago, when results were buoyed by crude prices that topped out near $150 a barrel.

New Zealand map details volcanic history
A new geological map covering the Taranaki and Central North Island area has been completed by a team of geologists following six years of fieldwork. It is the latest of a series of geological maps covering the whole of New Zealand, published by GNS Science.

Florida State University's Antarctic lab nabs $2.5 million federal grant
Florida State’s Department of Geological Sciences, scheduled to lose six of 13 full-time faculty members due to drastic university-wide budget cuts, has received a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant is earmarked for the department’s Antarctic Marine Geology Research Facility.

July 15, 2009

Global warming: scientists' best predictions may be wrong
No one knows exactly how much Earth's climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study suggests scientists' best predictions about global warming might be incorrect. The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past.

11 volcanoes in the Americas you can climb
A list of accessible volcanoes for your hiking and viewing pleasure in the Americas, including photos and website links.

Exxon spends $600 million to research algae-based biofuels
Oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is making a major jump into renewable energy with a $600 million investment in algae-based biofuels. Exxon is joining a biotech company, Synthetic Genomics Inc., to research and develop next-generation biofuels produced from sunlight, water and waste carbon dioxide by photosynthetic pond scum.

Australian town has banned bottled water to be more green
An Australian town has banned bottled water, claiming to be the first in the country to revert to the tap for the sake of the environment and prompting the nation's largest state government to stop buying bottled water. Local businesses in the town of 2,500 people have agreed to replace all single-use bottles with reusable bottles that can be filled from water fountains and to bear the loss of sales.

July 14, 2009

Fog catchers bring water to parched villages
The annual precipitation in Lima is about half an inch (1.5 centimetres), and the city gets its water from far-off Andean lakes. But every winter, from June to November, dense fog sweeps in from the Pacific Ocean. With a few thousand dollars and some volunteer labour, a village can set up fog-collecting nets that gather hundreds of gallons of water a day—without a single drop of rain falling.

New map hints at Venus’ wet, volcanic past
Venus Express has charted the first map of Venus’ southern hemisphere at infrared wavelengths. The new map hints that our neighbouring world may once have been more Earth-like, with a plate tectonics system and an ocean of water. The map comprises more than a thousand individual images, recorded between May 2006 and December 2007. Because Venus is covered in clouds, normal cameras cannot see the surface, but Venus Express used a particular infrared wavelength that can see through them.

July 13, 2009

After Yucca Mountain: How to store US nuclear waste
With the planned Yucca Mountain storage facility now out of the picture, a policy paper in this week's edition of Science suggests that the US should consider planning for several regional storage facilities instead.

Greening the Internet: How much CO2 does this article produce?
Every second someone spends browsing a simple website generates roughly 20 milligrams of C02. Whether downloading a song, sending an email or streaming a video, almost every single activity that takes place in the virtual environment has an impact on the real one. As millions more go online each year, some researchers say the need to create a green Internet ecosystem is not only imperative but urgent.

July 10, 2009

Exxon finds big shale-gas potential in British Columbia
Exxon Mobil Corp. has been scouring the globe for natural gas locked inside shale formations, and said it thinks it may have a world-class find in Canada. Exxon is most encouraged by the exploration of 250,000 acres it has leased in the Horn River Basin, in northern British Columbia. The results from the first four wells lead the company to conclude that each well will produce between 16 million and 18 million cubic feet of gas a day.

July 9, 2009

Amazon River estimated to be 11 million years old
A new study, published in the journal Geology, estimates the age of the Amazon river at 11 million years. Conducting analysis of sedimentological and paleontological data obtained by drilling deep boreholes (up to 4.5 kilometres or 2.8 miles deep) near the mouth of the Amazon, a team of scientists from University of Amsterdam, the University of Liverpool and the Brazil's national oil company Petrobras constructed a historical record for Earth's mightiest river.

July 8, 2009

Benin declares state of emergency over floods
Benin has declared a state of emergency and called for international humanitarian aid after floods hit the south of the West African country. The government estimates that some 2,000 families have already been displaced by flooding caused by heavy rains and it appealed late Monday for immediate help to prevent the imminent spread of epidemics.

FEMA to create more accurate flood maps
FEMA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration asked the Research Council to examine the factors that affect flood map accuracy; assess the costs and benefits of producing more accurate maps; and recommend ways to improve mapping, communication, and management of flood-related data.  In response, the committee that wrote the report collected and analyzed information on selected streams in Florida and North Carolina and on the economic costs and benefits of creating new digital flood maps in North Carolina. 

July 7, 2009

Arctic oil and gas on hold from lawsuits and by the economy
The global recession and lawsuits from environmental groups have slowed the scramble for previously unattainable oil and gas reserves and shipping routes in the Arctic caused by climate change, and have provided a window to resolve complicated ecological and security concerns, specialists say.

Nigerian oil company rejects damning Amnesty International report
Amnesty said Tuesday that pollution and environmental impacts from the oil industry in the Niger Delta are creating a human rights tragedy in which local people suffer poor health and loss of livelihood. Governments and oil companies are failing to be accountable for the problems, Amnesty said in its report, called Petroleum, Pollution and Poverty in the Niger Delta.

July 6, 2009

Earthquakes in Texas get the attention of Louisiana agency
A series of minor earthquakes recorded as recently as last week in Texas have raised the spectre of tremors in northwest Louisiana, where a natural gas discovery has launched a gold-rush style drilling boom. A similar rush hit north Texas several years ago, after geologists found vast stores of natural gas in the Barnett Shale, a layer of underground rock spanning 5,000 square miles. Thousands of wells have been drilled, and some scientists have blamed the recent earthquakes on the intense process used to extract gas from the shale, called fracturing.

Ancient drought and rapid cooling drastically altered climate
Two abrupt and drastic climate events, 700 years apart and more than 45 centuries ago, are teasing  scientists who are now trying to use ancient records to predict future world climate. The events – one, a massive, long-lived drought believed to have dried large portions of Africa and Asia, and the other, a rapid cooling that accelerated the growth of tropical glaciers – left signals in ice cores and other geological records from around the world.

States digging deep to monitor water
New Hampshire is drilling a series of wells to monitor groundwater in cracks in granite hundreds of feet below the surface. The goal is to allow scientists to check for contamination; learn about how long it takes for rainfall or melting snow to make its way into the supply; and keep tabs on how climate change, population growth and development affect the water.

Louisiana legislature prepares the way for carbon sequestration
The Louisiana Legislature adopted the Louisiana Geologic Sequestration of Carbon Dioxide Act. There are three major facets to the law: establishment of a comprehensive regulatory program for the control of injection, storage, and use of carbon dioxide under the auspices of the Office of Conservation within the Department of Natural Resources; establishment of liability limits for operators with transfer of liability for storage operations to the Geologic Storage Trust Fund (run by the state) after a specified time; and authority for expropriation of pipeline servitudes, storage facilities and other associated facilities necessary for carbon sequestration operations upon a determination of public convenience and necessity.

July 3, 2009

Carbon capture no silver bullet for climate change
The theory is simple, the debate divisive: To survive global warming, simply insert billions of dollars, suck, and blow. It's called carbon capture and storage, and Canada is ponying up to support what is effectively big-ticket enviro liposuction for a generation of consumers who can't — or won't — stop gobbling up fossil fuels.

Dead Sea peril: sinkholes swallow up the unwary
These underground craters can open up in an instant, sucking in whatever lies above and leaving the surrounding area looking like an earthquake zone. The parched moonscape, famous as the site of biblical Sodom and Gomorra, is the lowest point on earth and runs more than 60 miles through Israel and the West Bank.

Los Angeles will end use of coal-fired power
Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources. The elimination of coal-fired power will also mean higher electricity rates.

E.P.A. lists high-hazard coal-ash dumps
The Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of 44 high-hazard potential coal-ash waste dumps across the U.S. The high hazard rating is applied to sites where a dam failure would most likely result in a loss of human life.

Mars more like Earth than thought? New details about history of water on the Red Planet
Scientists offer new details about the history of water on Mars, gleaned from the 2008 NASA Phoenix Mars Mission that was operated from The University of Arizona.

July 2, 2009

Magmatic plumbing of a large Permian caldera exposed to a depth of 25 kilometres
Large volcanic calderas, aka super volcanoes, are enormous craters tens of kilometres in diameter produced by giant, explosive eruptions that rank among the most violent geologic events. Geophysical studies of recently active calderas and investigations of their eruption products suggest that their magmatic systems are driven by intrusion of mantle-derived basalt in the deep crust, a process commonly referred to as magmatic underplating.

Survival of U.S. state geological surveys
The annual meeting of the state geologists wrapped up Wednesday night and it’s clear that state geological surveys across the nation are generally hurting from the economic mess.