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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May 28, 2009

First evidence of pre-industrial mercury pollution in the Andes
The study of ancient lake sediment from high altitude lakes in the Andes has revealed for the first time that mercury pollution occurred long before the start of the Industrial Revolution.

EnCana cuts costs for U.S. shale play
Advances in technology and more experience working in the red-hot U.S. Haynesville shale gas region have lowered costs in the complex play, and promise commerciality in the near future, EnCana Corp. said.

May 27, 2009

How to measure North Korea's nuclear blast
The U.S. Geological Survey yesterday reported an earthquake in North Korea that measured 4.7 on the Richter scale. That’s more powerful than the tremors that resulted from North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006 –  which the U.S. Geological Survey estimated at 4.2 (the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization gave it 4.0.

Australian mining geologists having a tough time
A North Queensland geologist says Australia's miners will suffer for the next decade from the exploration freeze currently hitting the sector. Nearly a third of mining geologists are currently out of work, as companies pull back exploration in a bid to ride out the global recession.

Arkansas high court allows oil and gas lawsuit
The Arkansas Supreme Court agreed that legal questions exist regarding what authority state environmental regulators have over activities associated with oil and gas drilling in the Fayetteville shale.

May 26, 2009

Obama’s taxes are a plus for Alberta oil sands
Barack Obama's climate-change strategy is looking so bad for the fossil fuels industry that processing heavy oil in Alberta is looking good again.

Imperial Oil approves $8B project in Alberta
In a rare bit of good news for Alberta's oil sands industry, Imperial Oil gave the go-ahead Monday for the first phase of its $8-billion Kearl mine project 70 kilometres northeast of Fort McMurray. Phase 1 will produce 110,000 barrels of bitumen a day, and production could top 300,000 barrels if all three phases are built.

Global demand will force U.S. to look at full range of energy options, all of which Colorado has in abundance
A ravenous appetite for resources by the Chinese and another billion-plus residents of India holds serious implications for the United States in general and Colorado in particular, says Matthews, director of the Colorado Geological Survey. Thanks to the increased global demand, American consumers can expect higher prices.

May 25, 2009

Giant trilobites from Portugal
Recent finds published in the journal Geology tell of more giant trilobites from Portugal. Fossils of Ogyginus forteyi and Hungioides bohemicus are found in slabs of rock from a slate quarry in groups numbering in the thousands. Most of the specimens are longer than 30 centimetres (1 foot). Elsewhere in Spain and Portugal, it is rare to find trilobites more than 10 centimetres long.

No gas price rebound seen in near term
Weakness in global natural gas markets will delay a recovery in US gas prices and rig counts. Exacerbating the weakness in gas demand has been a marked downturn in demand for electric power by both industrial and residential customers, analysts with the research and consulting firm Wood Mackenzie told reporters today.

France, Germany: A tale of two nuclear nations
With nuclear power on many Albertans' minds these days, those seeking insight before picking sides may find it instructive to look to Europe, where France and Germany have adopted opposing philosophies on the issue. Germany has legislation in place that calls for the shutdown of all of the country's nuclear reactors by 2022. France, which is slightly smaller than Alberta, is building its 59th reactor.

Shell and Chevron will tweet about hurricanes
Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron Corp. are joining the Twitterati. They aim to share 2009 hurricane season updates via Twitter in addition to e-mail and regular postings on its website. Chevron plans to do the same with a Twitter account it already uses for company news.

May 22, 2009

Experts urge oil exploration in Kashmir
Experts have strongly advocated undertaking petroleum exploration in Jammu and Kashmir, and asked the Oil And Natural Gas Corporation to resume its operations in the state that had suspended 22 years ago. The state is considered to have potentially rich rocks of two petroleum systems and geo-thermal energy which needed to be tapped, but were subject to focused research.

Entire region of Mars likely shaped by water
NASA's intrepid rover Opportunity spent two years exploring the geology of Mars' Victoria crater, often perched perilously on the crater's edge. They've given scientists a clear view of some of the processes that have sculpted the Martian surface, including evidence that water shaped much of the entire region where the crater is found.

May 21, 2009

New tool for next-generation cancer treatments using nanodiamonds
A research team at Northwestern University has created a probe that acts like a fountain pen, wherein drug-coated nanodiamonds serve as the ink, allowing researchers to create devices by writing with it.

Arctic river deltas may hold clues to future global climate
Scientists struggling to understand how Earth's climate will change in the next few decades have neglected a potential treasure trove of information—sediments deposited in the ocean by major Arctic rivers such as the Colville and Mackenzie rivers—according to geoscientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.

May 19, 2009

Report weighs fallout of Canada's oil sands
Canada has the second-largest petroleum deposits after Saudi Arabia and the biggest in the Western hemisphere. Its oil sands produce 1.3 million barrels of oil a day, up from 600,000 a day in 2000. As a result, Canada has become the biggest foreign oil supplier to the United States, accounting for 19 per cent of imports in 2008. The report recommends more research to reduce the use of natural gas in the production of oil from sands, as well as investing in technology that captures and stores carbon dioxide underground instead of emitting it into the atmosphere.

Cuba's undersea oil could help thaw trade with the U.S.
Oil, up to 20 billion barrels of it, sits off Cuba's northwest coast in territorial waters, according to the Cuban government - enough to turn the island into the Qatar of the Caribbean. At a minimum, estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey place Cuba's potential deep-water reserves at 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, stores that would rank the island among the region's top producers.

As Alaska glaciers melt, it's land that's rising
Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat. The geology is complex, but it boils down to this: Relieved of billions of tons of glacial weight, the land has risen much as a cushion regains its shape after someone gets up from a couch.

U.S. Department of Energy stimulus drops $2.4 billion on carbon sequestration
Steven Chu, head of the Department of Energy, has announced the latest plans to spend its share of the stimulus money: $2.4 billion to pilot various forms of carbon capture and storage, including some money to train a generation of engineers and geologists to work in the field.

May 14, 2009

Scientists say eruption in Congo imminent
Scientists found evidence of intense volcanic activity — including tremors, pools of lava and plumes of smoke — at two volcanoes near a major city in eastern Congo, and said some residents had fled for fear of an eruption. The volcanoes in the central African nation could be about to erupt, threatening Goma, which has a population of more than half a million people, scientists said.

May 13, 2009

Seismic activity makes nuclear power unsafe, says geologist
Calgary geologist Jack Century from J.R. Century Petroleum Consultants Ltd. was invited by the Peace River Environmental Society to speak at four local meetings about the risks of earthquakes in the region and how that could affect a nuclear plant.

Rare blue diamond sells for record $9.5 million
A flawless vivid blue diamond weighing 7.03 carats sold on Tuesday for a record 10.5 million Swiss francs (6.2 million pounds), the highest price paid per carat for any gemstone at auction, Sotheby's said.

US-Canadian shale could neutralize Russian energy threat to Europeans
Rising shale gas production in the United States and Canada as well as potential natural gas supplies from Iraq could be pivotal in curbing Russia’s ability to organize an “energy weapon” against European consumers, according to a new study released today by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

RAND says cost of oil supply disruption worst threat
The greatest threat to the United States from crude oil imports is a long-term disruption of world supply and the higher costs associated with that loss of imports, according to a RAND Corp study issued Monday.

May 12, 2009

Sponge-like creature found in N.W.T. may be Earth's oldest animal
Researchers say they've found what may be the Earth's oldest animal in the Mackenzie Mountains of the Northwest Territories. The primitive sponge-like creature, traces of which were discovered by paleontologist Elizabeth Turner and two other scientists, may well push back the earliest geological signs of animals by more than 200 million years.

Venezuela seizes assets of 60 oil services companies
The Venezuelan government has seized the assets of 60 local and foreign-owned oil services firms. The takeovers come as Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA, tries to renegotiate contracts with foreign and domestic oil companies in a bid to lower costs.  

May 11, 2009

Carbon-dioxide emission storage sites considered in Pennsylvania
Depleted oil and gas wells, unmineable coal beds and salt caverns in northcentral and western Pennsylvania are likely candidates to store carbon dioxide emissions, a key step in developing clean coal technology, according to a new state report. The report by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources provides a fuller picture of how Pennsylvania would develop a carbon sequestration system to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and thus make coal less polluting.

Volcano that produces solid CO2
Carbon dioxide completely disappears into the atmosphere at all other volcanoes on Earth. However, in the ancient East African Rift at a place known to local Maasai people as the Mountain of God, Oldoinyo Lengai spews forth carbon dioxide-laden lava called carbonatites. The carbonatites line the volcano's flanks like snowballs.

May 8, 2009

New map of Arctic could point to Canadian gas and minerals
A recently completed map of Arctic geology across Greenland, Norway, Russia and other polar nations offers new hints about where Canada might find energy and mineral deposits across its vast north, says the geologist who co-led the mapping project.

Rise of oxygen caused Earth's earliest Ice Age
Geologists may have uncovered the answer to an age-old question - an ice-age-old question, that is. It appears that Earth's earliest ice ages may have been due to the rise of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which consumed atmospheric greenhouse gases and chilled the earth.

May 7, 2009

Obama faces climate test with EPA rule on ethanol
President Barack Obama's administration will face a big test on fighting climate change when it seeks to determine if ethanol, the top U.S. alternative motor fuel, cuts greenhouse gas emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release a draft rule as early as this week that measures carbon dioxide emissions from biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel.

May 6, 2009

New Antarctic seabed sonar images reveal clues to sea-level rise
Motorway-sized troughs and channels carved into Antarctica's continental shelves by glaciers thousands of years ago could help scientists to predict future sea-level rise, according to a report in the May issue of the journal Geology.

U.S. energy independence? Get real, oil execs say in survey
Most oil-industry executives scoff at the idea that the U.S. can wean itself off foreign crude in the next couple of decades, a survey showed. Only 16 per cent of oil and natural-gas executives said that by 2030 the U.S. will be able to depend solely on its own energy supplies, according to a survey by KPMG LLP’s Global Energy Institute. A majority said it will be after 2015 before it’s viable to mass-produce alternative energy.

Pennsylvania's geology could support storing carbon dioxide underground
A recently issued report from the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources shows Pennsylvania's underground geology may hold the key to protecting the environment against climate change while leading to new opportunities for the state's coal industry. Acting DNCR Secretary John Quigley said the report found that Pennsylvania's subsurface geologic formations can support the development of a carbon sequestration network that could store climate changing greenhouse gases, help reduce the environmental impact of coal-fired electricity generators, and create jobs in the process.

Rare blue diamond goes on display
A rare blue diamond which could set a world record price per carat when it is sold in May has gone on show in London. It weighs 7.03 carats and is one of only a handful of blue diamonds in existence in the world. The stones get their colour when the chemical boron is present during formation.

May 1, 2009

Big Sky State makes play to be a CO2 importer
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has some big ideas for the role the Big Sky State could play in helping to create cleaner skies in a carbon-limited future. If the unorthodox statesman gets his way, Montana could become a repository for vast amounts of carbon dioxide currently being spewed into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources, not just in Montana but in neighbouring states and Canada, as well.

U.S. county may drill Marcellus shale to cut energy costs
Marcellus shale, a rock formation seated deep beneath the ground all over Allegheny County and much of Pennsylvania, is reportedly one of the biggest natural gas reserves in the country. Allegheny County Council President Rich Fitzgerald believes the Marcellus shale could be the answer not only to the county's budgetary woes but also to relieving the tax burden on cash-strapped county homeowners in these tough economic times.