Geology News
China Current Events

As rising temperatures melt the ice and snow in the Himalayas the threat of glacial lake outbursts increases.

A fossil named Aurornis xui of a feathered creature similar to Archaeopteryx was discovered in the 160-million-year-old rocks of northeastern China.

A RigZone.com article explains why the natural gas from shale boom that has occurred in the United States is not making much of a bang in many other countries.

China has more oil and natural gas in shale than the United States but they have produced very little. Instead they are joint venturing with companies working in the United States to learn about the technology.

A magnitude 6.6 earthquake in China killed over 150 people and injured more than 5,000 on Saturday morning. USGS reports that the earthquake is likely to have occurred on the Longmenshan Fault or a tectonically related fault.

Since 2008, foreign companies have entered into 21 joint ventures with U.S. acreage holders and operators, investing more than $26 billion in tight oil and shale gas plays.

A collection of 100-million-year-old bird fossils from China reveal that the birds had feathers on their legs. Were these birds with four wings?

A Russian satellite was damaged and knocked from its orbit by a piece of space junk produced by a Chinese missile test in 2007.

The Chinese government believes that their country has about 25 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in shale formations. Although their present production rate is very low, they hope to be producing 60 billion cubic meters per year by 2020.

An article in Scientific American reports that time lapse cameras, placed by a U.S. geologist from the University of Colorado at Boulder to record glacial melting in the Himalayas, were confiscated with the accusation that they were being used to “spy on China”. See some of the videos here.

Many of the world’s most important energy trade routes pass through the South China Sea. The sea is underlain by significant oil and natural gas deposits, some of which are undeveloped.

Many of the islands in the South China Sea have competing claims of ownership, primarily because ownership of the island brings with it a claim to resources beneath the surrounding seafloor.

A large sinkhole under buildings in Guangzhou, China triggers their collapse.

Coal consumption in China has been rising rapidly. Soon the country will be using more coal than the rest of the world combined.

Articles in the news about a proposal to construct a rare earth elements mine at Bokan Mountain has generated a lot of interest in the rare earth element resources of Alaska. This publication by the Alaska Geological Survey provides an overview of resources and occurrences in Alaska.

NASA has a satellite image showing a rare snow-covering of the Taklimakan Desert of western China – normally one of Earth’s hottest deserts.

Both China and Japan claim they own the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. But China has just submitted geological evidence to the United Nations that they believe will prove their ownership.

“A recent NASA study compared satellite rain data to landslides in central eastern China, Central America and the Himalayan Arc, three regions with diverse climates and topography where rainfall-triggered landslides are frequent and destructive hazards to the local populations.” Quoted from the NASA press release. The release includes a DigitalGlobe image of a mudslide in China that killed 1765 people and caused over $700 million in damage.

Prospect Global Resources has a contract to supply over $2 billion of potash to China’s Sichuan Chemical Industry Holding Group. The potash will come from a mine being developed near Holbrook, Arizona.

Exxon Mobil is targeting natural gas development projects in Canada where they can freely export the gas as LNG to Asian markets.

An interview on Platts Commodity Plus program explores how hydrocarbons might be fueling the dispute between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea and possible compromises that offer a solution.

Image by NationsReportCard.gov

“The growth of high topography on the Tibetan Plateau in Sichuan, China, began much earlier than previously thought, according to an international team of geologists who looked at mountain ranges along the eastern edge of the plateau.” Quoted from the Penn State Live press release.

The Chinga meteorite fell near the border of what is now Siberia and Mongolia at least 10,000 years ago. Researchers have recently linked a 10.6 kilogram sculpture to the meteorite through geochemical testing and to a culture of the eleventh century located in the fall area through ethnological analysis. Interesting even if you think it is somewhat speculative.

Taking a rare course of action, President Obama has blocked a Chinese company from building a wind farm near a U.S. Navy test site in Oregon.

Staff of the British Geological Survey filmed recurrent slope failures at the site of a massive landslide at Wang Shan, China.

The East China Sea is thought to contain more natural gas than all of Europe. This is the reason why adjacent countries are engaged in vigorous disputes over uninhabited islands. Each of those islands has an exclusive economic zone that extends far beyond its coastline.

Last week there were reports of China’s Yangtze River flowing red. The Landslide Blog reports on some of the speculations.

Map from CIA Factbook

Rocky, uninhabited islands that have been infrequently thought about in the past are now getting a lot of attention thanks to the potential exclusive economic zone (meaning claim to oil, natural gas, gas hydrate, mineral and biological resources) that might surround them under the United Nations treaty known as the “Law of the Sea”. This video on the CNN site features two island clusters that have triggered international squabbles – multiple nations declare that they own them.

Squabblers: The map at right is a public domain document from the CIA Factbook. If you don’t like the names that are used on it write to the CIA, not to us.

Will Fuji Erupt?

What Happens to Pumice Rafts?

The Next Natural Gas Game Changer

Map: Earthquakes and Faults in Southern California

Earthquakes Within the Antarctic Ice Sheet

Red Water in the Yangtze River?

No one seems to know why the Yangtze River is flowing red for the past few days.

“China is the world’s most populous country and has a rapidly growing economy, which has driven the country’s high overall energy demand and the quest for securing energy resources. [...] China is the world’s second largest oil consumer behind the United States, and the largest global energy consumer.” Quoted from the Energy Information Administration.