Geology News - June 2009

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.

June 30, 2009

Geology and governance: How B.C. outclassed Alberta
Alberta has long benefited from high tax, union-friendly governance in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, which pushed investors toward the province in the middle. But for northwestern Albertans, despite their abundant oil and gas resources, times have changed with shocking speed.

Big oil field-services companies cut more jobs
Even with crude prices on the rise, three of the biggest oilfield services companies say they've cut more jobs as they adjust to sluggish exploration and drilling activity. The three companies combined have cut about 10,000 jobs already this year. Oilfield service companies have had to adapt to far lower spending by many oil and gas producers, which hire service providers for seismic work, reservoir management and other oilfield tasks.

Alberta ponying up $2 billion to make carbon capture and storage work
If a province were to be set up specifically for carbon capture and storage, it would look a lot like Alberta. Alberta has promised to divvy up $2 billion, with another billion from Ottawa, for a small number of CCS projects in the province. The recipients of that money are expected to be announced later this summer.

June 29, 2009

Rising sea level to submerge Louisiana coastline by 2100
Scientists say between 10,000 and 13,500 square kilometres of coastal land around New Orleans will go underwater due to rising sea levels and subsidence. A vast swath of the coastal lands around New Orleans will be underwater by the dawn of the next century because the rate of sediment deposit in the Mississippi delta can not keep up with rising sea levels, according to a study published today.

International oil companies are poised for a return to Iraq
More than three decades after they were booted from the country by Saddam Hussein, international oil companies are poised for a return to Iraq where next week they will bid for a slice of the country's vast crude reserves. Iraq needs the expertise of internationals that can develop its dilapidated oil and gas industry. The country lacks the oil revenues needed for reconstruction following a U.S.-led war that toppled Hussein and tipped the country into chaos.

June 25, 2009

Mercury in Mackenzie River delta dramatically higher than previously believed
University of Alberta researchers conducting a water study in the Mackenzie River Delta have found a dramatically higher delivery of mercury from the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean than determined in previous studies.

China claims Asia's largest iron ore discovery
China is reported to have discovered Asia's biggest iron ore deposit in the country's Northern Province of Liaoning, with estimated reserves of more than 3 billion metric tons, according to the Liaoning Provincial Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.

Geological study to determine Angola's resources potential
The Ministry of Geology and Mining will carry out in the next five years a study in the whole country, to find about the potential of the national territory in terms of mineral resources, in the ambit of the National Plan on Geology, which was approved last Wednesday by the Angolan government.

June 24, 2009

Mine may dump waste in lake, justices rule
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a U.S. government permit to dump rock waste from a gold mine in Alaska into a nearby lake, even though all its fish would be killed. By a 6-3 vote, the justices said a federal appeals court wrongly blocked the permit on environmental grounds.

Judge allows drilling in West Virginia park
A Houston-based oil and gas company should be allowed permits for five gas wells in Chief Logan State Park, a circuit judge said in a ruling that halted a state effort to block the drilling.

Old plutonium reveals new secrets
A glass bottle discovered in an old safe buried at the Hanford Site in eastern Washington turned out to contain crucial clues that could help scientists develop new ways to track the spread of nuclear materials.

June 23, 2009

Geologists unearth new turtle species
The fossil of a previously unknown turtle species from the Jurassic period has been unearthed near Phupan mountain in Mukdahan. The discovery confirms the geological importance of the northeastern region, where many other fossils of animals have been found.

Shell gas find in Norway may be biggest in 12 years
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, made a natural gas discovery at a record depth in the northern Norwegian Sea that may equal the size of Norway’s annual production of the fuel. The find was made in the Gro prospect 360 kilometres (224 miles) offshore Broennoeysund in Nordland and is estimated to hold 10 to 100 billion standard cubic meters of recoverable gas.

June 22, 2009

Ice sheets can retreat in a geological instant a study of prehistoric glacier shows
Modern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo.

Indonesia mud eruption may persist for 30 years, geologist says
An Indonesian mud eruption that displaced about 40,000 people and caused more than $4.9 billion of damage may keep flowing at its current rate for the next 30 years, according to a geologist in Australia. Land is sinking between 2 and 5 centimetres (2 inches) a day under the weight of as much as 30 metres of mud. At times, land has slumped as much as 3 metres in 12 hours.

June 19, 2009

Energy producers make $178-million bet on B.C. shale gas play
Amid a supply glut of natural gas, companies have slapped down a surprise $178-million bet in British Columbia on the long-term future of the commodity. In the first significant spend in Western Canada this year, the money is for new exploration rights to the hot Horn River play in northeastern B.C.

Report of abundant U.S. natural gas supplies rattles energy debate
The release of a major new study today that boosts estimates of U.S. natural gas resources is shaking debates over the use and regulation of a fuel that could help slow global warming but could create other environmental concerns. The report by the Potential Gas Committee, a nonprofit group that provides closely watched analyses of U.S. resources, shows a 35 per cent jump in domestic gas estimates.

Caribbean coral reefs flattened
Coral reefs throughout the Caribbean have been comprehensively 'flattened' over the last 40 years, according to a disturbing new study by the University of East Anglia. The collapse of reef structure has serious implications for biodiversity and coastal defences – a double whammy for fragile coastal communities in the region.

June 18, 2009

Huge pre-Stonehenge complex found via "crop circles"
Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise. A thousand years older than nearby Stonehenge, the site includes the remains of wooden temples and two massive, 6,000-year-old tombs that are among Britain's first architecture, according to archaeologist Helen Wickstead, leader of the Damerham Archaeology Project.

Energy fuels new great game in Europe
The giant Russian energy company, Gazprom, which controls the world's largest reserves of natural gas, has issued a stark warning to the European Union saying it must decide if it wants to continue receiving supplies of Russian gas. The threat comes as the EU scrambles to find alternative energy suppliers following the crisis in January, when Russia shut down the main pipeline into Europe for two weeks in a price dispute with the key transit country, Ukraine.

High-altitude wind machines could power cities
The first rigorous, worldwide study of high-altitude wind power estimates that there is enough wind energy at altitudes of about 1,600 to 40,000 feet to meet global electricity demand a hundred times over.

NASA heads to moon as panel weighs its future
As NASA prepared to launch its debut mission in a program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon, a presidential panel on Wednesday began looking at alternative ways to get there and whether the United States should even go. The United States is shifting the focus of its human space program from research and technology development in low-Earth orbit with the space shuttle and International Space Station to an exploration initiative. That would culminate in the return of U.S. astronauts to the moon in 2020 -- a half-century after the pioneering Apollo lunar landings of 1969 to 1972.

June 17, 2009

Geologists demonstrate extent of ancient ice age
Geologists at the University of Leicester have shown that an ancient Ice Age, once regarded as a brief blip, in fact lasted for 30 million years. Their research suggests that during this ancient Ice Age, global warming was curbed through the burial of organic carbon that eventually lead to the formation of oil - including the hot shales of north Africa and Arabia which constitute the world’s most productive oil source rock.

U.S. gas hydrates find has worldwide implications
The U.S. Geological Survey, in addition to a host of other industry experts, have located and drilled the most prospective gas hydrates reservoirs. The 21-day expedition proved that under the U.S. Gulf of Mexico is a new source of energy. Gas hydrate is an icy combination of water and natural gas, which is thought to be found in abundance in both marine environments and the Arctic, but has been historically difficult to find in commercial quantities.

Natural gas producers seek balance
Natural gas producers have been idling rigs for six months, trying to reduce output and boost prices that fell sharply amid bloated inventories and recession-shrunken demand. That sweet spot remains elusive, despite a 56 per cent reduction in the number of rigs drilling for natural gas, to 700 from the September peak of more than 1,600.

Earthquake detector installed in Cleburne, Texas
Southern Methodist University (SMU) representatives installed a seismograph in Cleburne on Monday morning and plan to install three more around town later this week. The occurrence of five low-magnitude quakes recorded in or near Cleburne over the last two weeks prompted SMU officials to install the devices.

June 16, 2009

Understanding the Earth through geology in India
With India's largest zinc mine at Udaipur and exploration of huge oil reserves in western Rajasthan, the state is a goldmine for geologists. While there are six institutes in the state offering post-graduate degree in geology, the department of geology, Rajasthan University, is the only institute in the city, with a limited number of seats, to provide a master's degree in the subject.

Jobs dry up for skilled mine workers in Australia
Australia may have dodged a technical recession but mine workers who were receiving big salaries just 12 months ago are feeling the pinch. At the height of the boom the six-figure salary became a staple diet for most skilled workers in the mining industry. But the good times have gone and the jobs are drying up.

New study closes in on geological history of Earth's deep interior
By using a super-computer to virtually squeeze and heat iron-bearing minerals under conditions that would have existed when the Earth crystallized from an ocean of magma to its solid form 4.5 billion years ago, two University of California Davis geochemists have produced the first picture of how different isotopes of iron were initially distributed in the solid Earth.

Scientists to collect climate records from glaciers
Scientists from three countries will camp out high in Mt Cook National Park for the next three weeks collecting ice cores from glaciers for climate research. During daylight hours they will use a special drill with a hollow barrel to recover ice cores right down to the bedrock. After dark they will hunker down at high altitude in nylon tents built to Antarctic standards.

June 15, 2009

Geothermal data system being built
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) is building a National Geothermal Data System, which will become the data system for DOE's geothermal energy program. This 5-year, $5 million project is headed by the Intermountain West Geothermal Center at Boise State University. Other members of the coalition are Univ. of Utah, Oregon Institute of Tech - Geo-Heat Center, Stanford Univ., US Bureau of Land Management, USGS, Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy, the Geothermal Energy Assoc and the Arizona Geological Survey.

Periodic table gets a new element
The ubiquitous periodic table will soon have a new addition - the super-heavy element 112. More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of the element, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery.

Draining of barrier lake in Chongqing, China, underway
Two powerful pumps are being used to drain a lake created by a landslide in Chongqing. That comes as the race to rescue 27 miners trapped in an underground shaft continues. The water level in the barrier lake is slowly falling, and it's expected that it could be drained in about a week.

June 11, 2009

Cleburne, Texas, hires geologist after its fourth earthquake
A fourth earthquake prompted city officials to hire a geologist and then another earthquake happened about an hour before the emergency meeting. The fifth earthquake took place Tuesday at 6:19 p.m. and the U.S. Geological Survey measured it at a 2.1-magnitude. Cleburne officials called for an 8 p.m. emergency meeting Tuesday after the fourth earthquake, measuring a 2.6, happened that same day at 5:10 p.m.

Geologists say rebuilding could further harm Bolivar
Allowing houses to be built on the eroding Bolivar shoreline means they eventually will be in the Gulf of Mexico, geologists say. Any walls or bulkheads connected with houses could cause erosion at the site and tend to accelerate erosion, said Jim Westgate, a Lamar University geology professor.

June 10, 2009

Scientists map quake faults in Reno
Scientists in Reno are using a machine that emits vibrations to map underground rock layers and earthquake faults. The information will help identify the city's most quake-prone areas, allowing better use of resources, such as funding to retrofit older buildings, the scientists said.

Texas quakes probably related to gas drilling
Three small earthquakes that rattled Cleburne in the past six days were probably caused by intense natural-gas drilling, the state's leading expert on earthquakes. Other scientists, however, were not so certain that any connection could be confirmed.

Enormous elephant fossil discovered in East Java
Australian and Indonesian researchers have excavated the 200,000-year-old skeleton of a giant elephant which remained preserved in east Java thanks to its extraordinary death. A research team from the University of Wollongong and Indonesia's Geological Survey Institute was assembled in late April after a sand quarry collapse killed two workers and exposed the bones of the prehistoric elephant.

June 9, 2009

Mammoth skeleton unearthed in Serbia
A well-preserved skeleton of a mammoth that is believed to be about one million years old has been unearthed in eastern Serbia. The discovery was made during excavation two days ago at an open-pit coal mine near Kostolac power plant.

Rise in taxes on U.S. gas not feasible
Steven Chu, U.S. secretary of energy, said it would not be politically feasible for the country to lower its reliance on oil by raising gas prices to Europe’s levels through higher taxes or regulation.

June 8, 2009

USGS: 30 per cent of undiscovered gas and 12 per cent of oil in the Arctic
The USGS says there may be 83 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 1,550 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas in the Arctic, volumes that the agency says represent 13 per cent of worldwide remaining undiscovered oil and 30 per cent of remaining undiscovered gas. They lie within a total area of land and ocean amounting to about 6 per cent of the total area of the Earth’s surface.

Peak coal: What do tighter coal supplies mean for 'clean coal'?
U.S. energy officials have scaled back their estimates of U.S. coal reserves. Recent government surveys of coal resources suggest that coal isn't so abundant after all - with plenty of implications for a country heavily dependent on coal for generating its electricity.

Second eruption rattles Colombia's Galeras volcano
Colombia's Galeras volcano erupted on Monday for the second time in 24 hours, showering villages in the surrounding area with ash, but causing no damage or injuries, authorities said.

Solar plant uses salt for energy
The mineral is a key part of a Santa Monica firm's proposed alternative energy project in the desert. The technology was proved workable in a pilot project near Barstow in the 1990s.

June 5, 2009

Scientists are decoding the geological secrets of banded iron formations
New research is shedding some light on when, and how, some of Earth’s most voluminous banded iron formations developed. Most of the largest formations date from the late Archean eon, which ended around 2.5 billion years ago, and the early part of the eon following it, the Proterozoic.

Geology is necessary for basic science understanding
Earth's 4.6 billion-year geological history is part of basic science literacy, concludes a National Science Foundation report. The report summarizes the key facts about geological processes on Earth.

First uranium mine in 30 years permitted in southern Utah
It's expected to be one of only a few uranium mines in the world to go into production in 2009. First production is expected by September. Mining and environmental interests will probably examine this closely, given the controversy over uranium exploration in the Arizona Strip, just south of the Utah border.

June 4, 2009

The Quaternary period is here to stay
Geoscientists have cut the Gordian knot of geologic timekeeping. Pending an almost certain ratification by the ultimate authority - the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) - the Quaternary will officially take over the past 2.6 million years of the geologic time scale, when humans took up tools and the world began slipping in and out of the ice ages.

Technology will solve the environmental issue of Canada's oil sands
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Monday he believes technology can solve environmental problems associated with Canada's oil sands and that the huge nearby resource contributes to U.S. energy security. Environmental groups have mounted major campaigns to get the message out to Americans that the expansion of Canada's oil sands industry threatens to intensify global warming, deforestation and damage to water resources.

June 3, 2009

U.S. geologist and his wife were on Air France plane
The two Americans on board an Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean were a geologist and his wife headed to Europe for work and vacation, a spokesman for his employer said Tuesday.

Prehistoric Arctic 'hippo' teeth offer clues to mammal evolution
An analysis of the 53-million-year-old fossilized teeth of huge, hippo-like animals found on Canada’s once-temperate Ellesmere Island has produced what scientists are calling a "smoking gun" discovery about the migration and evolution of large mammals in ancient North America.

Scientists create metal that pumps liquid uphill
Scientists at the University of Rochester have created a simple slab of metal that lifts liquid using the same principle—but does so at a speed that would make nature envious. The metal, revealed in an upcoming issue of Applied Physics Letters, may prove invaluable in pumping microscopic amounts of liquid around a medical diagnostic chip, cooling a computer's processor, or turning almost any simple metal into an anti-bacterial surface.

Photo gallery of Indonesia's volcano miners
The Ijen volcano crater on Indonesia's Java island is one of the world's largest craters. Sulphur mining is a major industry in the region, made possible by an active vent at the edge of a lake, but the work is not without risks.

June 2, 2009

Stellar explosion displays massive carbon footprint
While humans are still struggling to get rid of unwanted carbon it appears that the heavens are really rather good at it. New research by astrophysicists at the University of Warwick has discovered that a mystery stellar explosion recorded in 2006 may have marked the unusual death of an equally unusually carbon-rich star.

Ailing dollar sets gold on track for $1,000 mark
Dollar weakness could prove a boon to gold, pushing prices to new highs for the year above $1,000, as the influence from stock markets and attitudes toward risk wane in favour of its traditional driver.

June 1, 2009

Ancient volcanic eruptions caused global mass extinction
A previously unknown giant volcanic eruption that led to global mass extinction 260 million years ago has been uncovered by scientists at the University of Leeds. The eruption in the Emeishan province of southwest China unleashed around half a million cubic kilometres of lava, covering an area 5 times the size of Wales, and wiping out marine life around the world.

New worries on Arctic permafrost thaw
A rise in concentrations of a powerful greenhouse gas over the Arctic after a decade of stability is stirring worries about a possible thaw of vast stores trapped in permafrost, experts said. Levels of methane in the atmosphere rose 0.6 per cent in 2008, according to preliminary data from the Zeppelin station on a remote island in the Norwegian Arctic, after a similar 0.6 per cent gain in 2007, Norwegian officials said.

Meteoroid bombardment may have made Earth more habitable
Large bombardments of meteoroids approximately four billion years ago could have helped to make the early Earth and Mars more habitable for life by modifying their atmospheres, suggests the results of a new study.

Artificial sweeteners linger in groundwater
After tickling the tongue, artificial sweeteners pass through our bodies and end up in wastewater virtually unchanged. Some sweeteners are particularly widespread in the environment, according to a new study, making them ideal markers for following pollution from treatment plants and other sources into the environment.