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Geology News
Earth Science Current Events

The Perseid Meteor shower peaks on August 12. Mark your calendar now.

Also, “How to Observe a Meteor Shower” by David Lynch.

Dinosaur footprints in the village of Madar were the first to be discovered on the Arabian Peninsula. The residents have since become interested in learning more about dinosaurs, and hope that the site will gain UNESCO status.

If everyone switched to vehicles that run on hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, carbon emissions would be drastically reduced. However, there must be more research (and money) invested before hydrogen vehicles will be affordable for the general public.

The mountains of New Zealand, as seen in The Lord of the Rings movies, are some of the steepest in the world. However, they are not particularly prone to landslides. What makes them so strong?

Here are the ten most popular space photos posted on National Geographic last year. See comet McNaught, northern lights of Jupiter, the Pillars of Creation, a methane lake on Titan, a magnetar explosion, the Helix nebula, a dying star, and more.

“Hurricane Dolly intensified to a Category 2 storm in the Gulf of Mexico, just before it made landfall on South Padre Island off the South Texas coast. The storm’s winds reached sustained speeds of up to 100 miles per hour, with higher gusts. Shortly after noon local time Dolly had weakened to a Category 1 storm when part of the circulation was over land.” (NASA)

New York Governor David Patterson signed legislation today to allow horizontal drilling in New York. These wells will target the Marcellus Shale and also the Utica Shale. A horizontal well begins at the surface as a standard vertical well but then is deviated to drill horizontally through a gas-rich rock unit. This strategy provides a greater distance of well bore within the pay zone and often leads to larger production rates and more efficient natural gas yields.

The Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Federal Hydro-Meteorological Service has installed a number of weather stations in Antarctica to automatically collect weather data in areas of difficult access. The data collected will be transmitted out daily via satellite.

An unstable slope at a tailings facility of the Coricancha Mine in Peru presents a landslide hazard at the mine and puts the local water supply at risk. If failure occurs, the mine waste will go into the Rimac River, which is the water source for the city of Lima.

The American Geological Institute has published two interesting maps. One is titled: “Number of Geoscience Departments in 4-Year Universities per State” and the second is titled: “Average Geoscience Department Student to Tenure-track Faculty Ratio per State”.

This article in the Beaufort Gazette, online edition, explains how the federal government’s opening more areas for offshore drilling will not provide an immediate drop in gasoline prices - it takes too long to find and develop the resource.

This article has a little history about the Fort Stanton Cave, located in New Mexico. It also has a few details about “Snow River” which is supposed to be the single longest cave formation known in the world.

That’s how much plastic pipe will be placed under a lake near the Sherman Hospital in Elgin, Illinios. The pipe will be filled with an antifreeze solution that will be circulated through a geothermal heating/cooling system for the hospital.

Hurricane Dolly is expected to gain strength and dump heavy rain as it comes ashore on Wednesday morning. The path of the storm is expected to track right over Brownsville, Texas and 15 to 20 inches of rain is expected to cause flooding there.

Hurricane Dolly is moving towards a landfall on Wednesday morning on the Gulf of Mexico shoreline at the border between Texas and Mexico. Although oil companies evacuated a few rigs it looks like the storm will not cause severe damage to oil facilities.

See a Bloomberg News report.

A group of geologists on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia were seriously threatened by about 30 bears. Two geologists in the party were killed last week by one of the bears and as of Tuesday (July 22nd) morning the geologists were still not in the clear.

The Edwards Aquifer Authority has created a children’s educational website called “Doc Edwards’ Amazing Aquifer Adventure!” Its a highly interactive site with a goal to teach children about aquifers, geology, hydrology and wildlife.

Lots of people have leased their acreage for potential gas drilling and are curious about how much their royalties might amount to. We now have a tool to estimate gas royalty income based upon a few assumptions. You just type in your royalty rate, an assumed natural gas wellhead price, an assumed well production rate, the number of acres in the production unit and the number of production unit acres that belong to you - then push a button.

Lots of potential science teachers are taking jobs with industry instead of going into the classroom for $29,000 per year. The industry jobs often pay two to three times as much. There is a severe shortage of science teachers, but teachers in other subjects are also hard to get or keep in the classroom.

John Boehner is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who recently made a trip to the Alaska North Slope to learn about oil, pipelines, wildlife and other topics. He has written an article to explain what he observed and learned from the trip.

Here’s a question and answer session with T. Boone Pickens that gives some personal answers beyond what you can read in his “Pickens Plan”. Another interview with Pickens on CNN.

On July 19th, 2008 Chile’s Chaitén Volcano continued releasing a plume of volcanic ash and steam. The volcano has been erupting since May 2nd.

The “Green New Deal” is named after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” plan to bring the United States out of The Great Depression. The goal of the Green New Deal is to promote programs and activities that are friendly to the planet.

About 74,000 acres of state forest land in northcentral Pennsylvania will be opened for natural gas lease bidding on September 2. This land is above the Marcellus Shale, a rock unit that has attracted enormous attention in the past months with recent lease prices of over $2000 per acre plus royalty rights being common in the northern part of the state.

The Shreveport Times has some good questions with answers that people in Louisiana are asking about the Haynesville Shale. These questions relate to the geographic extent of the shale, leasing, royalties, attorneys, where to get information and more. Most of these questions are also relevant for Fayetteville, Marcellus, Barnett and other gas shale properties.

Clearfield Borough Council is considering an open loop geothermal heat pump system that would draw water from the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. The system would pull heat from the water in the winter and deposit heat into the water in the summer.

Nevada’s System of Higher Education has a contractor out looking to buy water rights for the Walker Basin Project. The water could be used to sustain Walker Lake. The Walker Basin Project is managed by the University of Nevada, Reno; Desert Research Institute; and Nevada System of Higher Education.

Here is a PDF presentation titled “Overview of Unconventional Energy Resources of Oklahoma” by Brian Cardott of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. In it he details the unconventional oil and gas resources of Oklahoma. These include: coalbed methane, gas shales, oil shales, tight gas and ultra-deep reservoirs, and oil (tar) sands.

Chile’s location on the boundary between the South American and Nazca Plates gives that country more than a fair share of volcanoes. The National Geology Service announced that it will build three new centers to monitor the country’s 122 active volcanoes.

Every year a number of penguins wash ashore in Brazil, but this year the numbers are exceptional. Over 400 have washed ashore, most of them very young or dead. There are a few ideas of why this happens; some believe ocean currents are responsible.

Aredor, a subsidiary of Azure Resources Corporation, the largest diamond mining operator in Guinea, is being accused of sitting on their concessions and may have its diamond mining license cancelled.

West Indies Power Dominica Limited is researching the possibilities of developing a geothermal plant to generate electricity on the southern portion of the island.

North and South Carolina are receiving heavy rain with minor flooding from Tropical Storm Cristobal. The storm is expected to track parallel to the east coast through early next week.

Tropical Storm Cristobal Track at the National Hurricane Center.

Eruption warning levels at Okmok Volcano have been at orange and red for the past week. Elevated seismicity, an ash plume up to 30,000 feet, steam, sulfur dioxide and a RED volcano alert code have been seen.

Landslides are a common natural hazard in Oregon. The average annual damage is over $10 million. The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries has an online inventory of landslides in the form of a geographic information system.

Most of the leasing and drilling in the United States gas shale plays have been done by smaller independent companies, but now some of the international oil companies are starting to buy in. BP just purchased $1.75 billion of unconventional shale assets from Chesapeake Energy.

More info on gas shales: Marcellus, Haynesville, Fayetteville, Barnett.

Greenpeace and Queensland Energy Resources are trading statements regarding a proposed oil shale mine in north Queensland. Greenpeace is pointing to feared impacts that will hurt residents, tourism and environment.

The British Columbia government received a record $610 million from its most recent oil and gas lease sale. A lot of the attention is coming from the Montney Formation, a tight, fine-grained sandstone to coarse siltstone turbidite unit that yields natural gas.

There must be some optimism about the Montney because an oil service company is quadrupling its capital budget to gear up for new demand. This story at Canada.com.

Crude oil prices fell significantly last week - the largest one-week drop since December 2004. August delivery crude was down to $128 per barrel.

A strong earthquake occurred off of the east coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. Nearby cities: Iwaki (125 km / 75 miles) , Sendai (130 km / 80 miles), Fukushima (145 km / 90 miles), and Tokyo (300 km / 190 miles).

News report from Bloomberg.

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