Abandoned mines and quarries are dangerous places! Every year about 20 to 30 people die in accidents that occur in abandoned mines across the United States. The victims range in age from preschool children to an 85 year-old mining veteran.
A new technology for processing low-grade phosphate rock into phosphoric acid for fertilizer production without creating phosphogypsum could increase Florida’s useful phosphate rock resource.
The launch of a spacecraft owned by private company, SpaceX, has been rescheduled for Tuesday. If successful it will become the first commercial vehicle to transport supplies from Earth to the International Space Station.
“A plume of smoke stretched across the Bering Sea on May 11, 2012, just off of far eastern Russia. [...] The smoke may have arisen from wildfires in the region around Lake Baikal, where numerous wildfires burned in early May.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
“Potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs, are a subset of the larger group of near-Earth asteroids. The PHAs have the closest orbits to Earth’s, coming within five million miles, and they are big enough to survive passing through Earth’s atmosphere and cause damage on a regional, or greater, scale.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
Although Vermont is one of the last places that might be drilled for oil or natural gas, Governor Peter Shumlin signed a bill that will ban hydraulic fracturing.
At the same time a bill in the North Carolina legislature would legalize hydraulic fracturing.
Ten years ago a retired navy ship was converted into an artificial reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. An unexpected benefit of the reef is millions of tourist dollars per year from scuba divers.
Thanks to citizen-scientists around the country, the USA National Phenology Network hit a major milestone this week by reaching its one millionth nature observation.
North Dakota’s oil production has been rising rapidly for the past few years. Last month they produced 17.8 million barrels, surpassing Alaska to become the second-leading oil-producing state.
“The CO2 geological storage information in this Atlas was developed to provide a high-level overview of CO2 geological storage potential across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The location and areal extent of promising geological storage formations and the CO2 resource estimates presented in this Atlas are intended to be used as an initial assessment of potential geological storage opportunities.” Quote from the Atlas introduction.
“Using ice-penetrating radar instruments flown on aircraft, a team of scientists from the U.S. and U.K. have uncovered a previously unknown sub-glacial basin nearly the size of New Jersey beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet near the Weddell Sea. The location, shape and texture of the mile-deep basin suggest that this region of the ice sheet is at a greater risk of collapse than previously thought.” Quoted from the University of Texas at Austin press release.
Falling natural gas prices have reduced the value of acreage acquired with the intention of producing natural gas. Some companies could decide to write-down the value of those assets in their accounting statements.
“Vietnam is an important oil supplier to regional and domestic markets and may emerge as a significant natural gas supplier in the next decade. Vietnam’s oil production has declined overall since 2004, after several years of steady increases and became a net oil importer in 2011.” Quoted from the Energy Information Administration country analysis brief.
United States uranium exploration drilling was 5,441 holes covering 3.3 million feet in 2011. Development drilling was 5,156 holes and 3.0 million feet. Combined, total uranium drilling was 10,597 holes covering 6.3 million feet, 47 percent more holes than in 2010.
After a long moratorium on Marcellus Shale drilling in New York, a variety of proposed regulations and local bans on drilling could render millions of leased acres as worthless.
Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron may receive rights to develop shale gas fields in Ukraine. The country currently imports most of its natural gas from Russia.
NASA has published a .pdf document titled: “Exploring the Moon: a Teacher’s Guide with activities for Earth and Space Sciences”. It has lots of introductory content and several activities that can be done with students.
Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries could earn an estimated $1,154 billion of net oil export revenues in 2012 and $1,117 billion in 2013. Last year, OPEC earned $1,026 billion in net oil export revenues, a 33 percent increase from 2010. Quoted from the Energy Information Administration Fact Sheet.
“Our study describes a methodology to assimilate geologic, seismologic, and geodetic data surrounding a seismic fault to form a physical model of the cycle of earthquakes that has predictive power,” says Sylvain Barbot, a postdoctoral scholar in geology at Caltech. Quoted from the Caltech press release.
“Dawn’s residence at Vesta of nearly a year has made the asteroid’s planet-like qualities obvious and shown us our connection to that bright orb in our night sky. [...] Scientists now see Vesta as a layered, planetary building block with an iron core – the only one known to survive the earliest days of the solar system.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
A study done by Geoscience Australia estimates Australia’s natural gas resource at about 390 trillion cubic feet. The country’s offshore resources is being aggressively developed by projects that are expected to produce LNG that will be exported to Asia.
A submarine volcanic eruption at Monowai Seamount added 8.75 million cubic meters of rock in just five days. The volcano is located in the Pacific Ocean northeast of New Zealand at the southern end of the Tonga Ridge near Kermadec volcanoes.
“Stalagmites are the ice cores of the tropics,” says Jess Adkins, professor [...] at the California Institute of Technology. He and Kim Cobb of the Georgia Institute of Technology led a team that collected samples from stalagmites in caves in northern Borneo and measured their levels of oxygen isotopes to reconstruct a history of the tropical West Pacific’s climate over four glacial cycles during the late Pleistocene era.
“A new study, funded by the National Science Foundation, shows that the residents of [the Sumatra] region are at risk from yet another potentially deadly natural phenomenon – major volcanic eruptions.” Quoted from the Oregon State press release.
USGS is working on a national assessment of potential geologic storage resources for carbon dioxide. Their publication: Geologic Framework for the National Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Storage Resources─Bighorn Basin, Wyoming and Montana is part of that effort.
“Last year, images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured sand dunes and ripples moving across the surface of Mars — observations that challenged previously held beliefs that there was not a lot of movement on the red planet’s surface. Now, technology developed by a team at the California Institute of Technology has allowed scientists to measure these activities for the very first time.” Quoted from the Caltech press release.
“NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a “super-Earth” planet beyond our solar system for the first time. While the planet is not habitable, the detection is a historic step toward the eventual search for signs of life on other planets.” Quoted from the NASA press release.
Researchers monitored the response of wildlife and plants in parts of New Mexico where there is significant human activity and noise related to natural gas production.
The Oil On My Shoes website provides an introduction to petroleum geology and information about career opportunities in the oil and gas industry. Check it out.
“The Ouarkziz Impact Crater is located in northwestern Algeria, close to the border with Morocco. The crater was formed by a meteor impact less than 70 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era, or Age of Dinosaurs.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory image release.
Four geologic provinces along the east coast of Africa recently were assessed for undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids resources as part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) World Oil and Gas Assessment. Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the USGS estimated mean volumes of 27.6 billion barrels of oil, 441.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 13.77 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.
The Energy Information Administration expects electricity generation from coal to decline by about 15 percent in 2012 as generation from natural gas increases by about 24 percent.
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