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Geology News
Arkansas Current Events

There is broad agreement in the scientific community that a continuing concern exists for a major destructive earthquake in the New Madrid seismic zone. Many structures in Memphis, Tenn., St. Louis, Mo., and other communities in the central Mississippi River Valley region are vulnerable and at risk from severe ground shaking.

Scott Kleine of Great Basin Minerals shares a few photos from his 2005 trip to numerous mineral collecting sites in Alabama and Arkansas. You might not believe the diversity of rocks and minerals that can be found at the locations he visited on this trip… rutile, cacoxenite, rockbridgeite, wavellite, beraunite, dufrenite, strengite, syenite, natrolite, apophyllite, pegmatite, joaquinite, narsarsukite, stilbite, chabazite, orthoclase, analcime, aegirine, rhodochrosite, carbonatite, brookite, cacoxenite, rockbridgeite and more.

CNN has an article about how six people found a fortune. One of the stories is about a person finding a 40.23 carat diamond at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas – the only diamond mine in the world where you can look for diamonds and keep what you find.

In a recent news release from Chesapeake Energy, data was provided on their expected yield for wells in the various shale plays. They expect the total yield from their Haynesville wells to be 6.5 bcfe, Fayetteville 2.4 bcfe, and Marcellus wells to yield 4.2 bcfe. These numbers might increase as technology improves.

The U.S. Global Change Research Program released a report that explains how climate change might impact Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Stronger hurricanes, drought, heat waves and crop losses are a few of the featured problems.

Raven Maps are the most beautiful state wall maps that I have ever seen. They show the elevation and relief of a complete state through a skillful use of vibrant colors and topographic shading. Maps are available for individual states, the Conterminous United States, North America, Mexico and the world.

With the difficult economy only a few state geological surveys are being well supported by their state budget process. Many are suffering large cuts in state appropriations. One state survey has been told that their appropriation will be zeroed out next fiscal year.

The only producing diamond mine in the United States is the Crater of Diamonds Mine near Murfreesboro, Arkansas. It is also the only diamond mine in the world where you can be the miner.

A group of gas drillers in Arkansas is attempting to sue the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality over permitting methods for wastewater handling at drill sites over the Fayetteville Gas Play.

The-Vug.com has a comprehensive listing of mineral and lapidary clubs from across the United States. It could be the most complete and up-to-date listing on the web. Included are hundreds of clubs and organizations located in all 50 states.

Researchers at Purdue University have been analyzing motion within the New Madrid Fault System and find that it is much less than expected for the frequency of major earthquakes produced.

Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, says that the Haynesville Shale might set a record as the world’s largest gas field. He believes that it could produce 1.5 quadrillion cubic feet.

A satellite image of the heavy blanket of ice and snow in the central United States. Power and other services are still not restored to hundreds of thousands of people. Steve Beshear, Governor of Kentucky says the storm was “the biggest natural disaster that this state has ever experienced in modern history.”

A new fault discovered in eastern Arkansas is believed to have generated ancient earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or more. If an event of that magnitude were to occur today the potential for damage is very high.

Here is an interesting article in Smithsonian Magazine that blends a lot of history from the only working diamond mine in the United States, the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, with a recent mystery of suspicious diamond discoveries. Stones from the Crater of Diamonds are worth ten times the price of stones of equivalent size and quality in the market – because many people want to patronize the Arkansas locality. Here is an earlier report on this story at FakeMinerals.com.

The Arkansas Geological Survey (formerly the Arkansas Geological Commission) has a new website. Information on their site that should be of interest to many Geology.com visitors include: Fayetteville Shale Gas Play, Arkansas Pipeline Map, Minerals Leasing Manual and information about Arkansas minerals.

Richard Burke was searching for diamonds at the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas when he found a 4.68 carat diamond. Crater of Diamonds is a search for fee park operated by Arkansas state government. Anyone can pay a fee to search there and a few people find diamonds.

BP America is buying a 25% stake in the Fayetteville Shale holdings of Chesapeake Energy in Arkansas for $1.9 billion. The Fayetteville Shale is a deep natural gas-bearing rock unit that has recently been made productive by the technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

More on the geology of the Fayetteville Shale. Fayetteville Shale news.

A homeowner in Arkansas ordered a couple pallets of rock for a landscaping project. While unloading the rocks he discovered one with a great fish fossil.

Dennis Tyrrell found a white diamond of about 4.42 carats at the Crater of Diamonds State Park near Murfreesboro, Arkansas.

The Fayetteville Shale is an organic-rich shale that is being tapped to produce natural gas in northern Arkansas. This article on the Daily Citizen website explains some of the concerns that the Sierra Club and State Agencies have with the rapid development of this resource.

The Haynesville Formation in northwestern Louisiana has attracted a lot of attention from gas production companies and landmen. Over 6000 property owners there have banded together to negotiate as a block for leases and royalties. They have an offer that includes a $27,200 signing bonus and a 26% royalty. (VIDEO)

Over the past few years there has been a big surge in interest in natural gas from shales. Another deep (10,000 feet) shale reservoir that is getting attention is the Jurassic Haynesville Shale of northern Louisiana.

See our Haynesville Shale Information Page

At least 18 people were killed and many more were injured when tornadoes tore across the Oklahoma / Missouri border on Saturday. The storms also caused property damage in Arkansas.

Early this month there was significant flooding on the White River of Arkansas. These two Landsat images, available in greater detail at Earth Observatory, clearly show the extent of the flooding on April 7th, 2008 (top image) compared to April 14th, 2006 (bottom image).

This has been an exceptional year for flooding in this area. The river reached its fifth highest crest of 33.78 feet on April 19, 2008, and its sixth highest crest of 33.04 feet on March 29, 2008.

There is only one active diamond mine in the United States – at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. The mine yields a few hundred carats per year, mostly found by pay-to-dig visitors. A report at FakeMinerals.com says that a person has been sneaking look-alike diamonds from an Indian mine into the park and claiming that they were found there. The stones are then sold to people willing to pay high prices for stones that represent the Arkansas locality.

“A major wintertime tornado outbreak ripped through Arkansas, western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, northern Alabama, and western Kentucky on February 5, 2008.” Earth Observatory has a precipitation map for the storms and details on why they happened.

Dozens of people have been killed by tornadoes that ripped across Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Alabama late Tuesday.