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Geology News
Environment Current Events

Beijing, China has a long-standing reputation for air that is thick with pollution and haze. In the past few years they claim to have spent about $17 billion trying to clean it up. A GEOTIMES article takes a look at the problem and the progress.

An increase in the number of mines is facing some resistance in the western United States. Lots of new people have been attracted to these states, primarily motivated by the environment. After they arrive they are not happy when a new mine is proposed.

National Geographic has an article that explores how the warming of global climates appears to be linked to a decline in dissolved oxygen levels in world oceans. This leads to the expansion of hypoxic zones - areas where oxygen levels are so low that fish and other organisms find it difficult to thrive.

NASA Image

An archive of NASA news releases, image galleries and articles on a variety of topics related to planetary geology, earth observation, global climate change, monitoring volcanoes, looking beyond our solar system, monitoring the oceans and more. A few of the most popular ones are:

• Monitoring Volcanoes from Space
• Photograph of Avalanches on Mars
• Glacial Sediments Add to Louisiana Coastal Subsidence
• Satellite Images of Marine Phytoplankton Blooms
• Sahara Dust Storms Lower Sea Surface Temperatures
• Satellite Measures Pollution From East Asia to North America

Urban coastal flood exposure will increase enormously if sea levels rise as expected. This article at Strategic Risk explores the geographic distribution of this problem along with some mitigation and adaptation that might accompany it.

By studying the landscape around the Chesapeake, NASA spacecraft such as Landsat, Terra and Aqua are helping land managers figure out how to battle the harmful pollutants that have added to the destruction of the bay’s once legendary productivity. Many of these harmful pollutants come from the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed, an area of about 64,000 square miles that covers parts of six states.

“At the end of March, India’s spring crops were ripening in advance of harvest in April. With the harvest in the spring of 2008, the country’s rice and corn production were set to reach record levels according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory release.

Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, America’s top car dealer, says that the biggest lie in the country is to say that you care about global warming and advocate for the price of gasoline to go down. This article explores some of the benefits of high gas prices and why current prices have not resulted in the same conservation efforts that were seen when oil prices spiked in the 1970’s.

Here’s a Google map that serves USGS topo map tiles. You can browse topo maps in any of the 48 states and Canada and print a copy of these maps from a PDF document.

Nestlé Waters North America, a subsidiary of the famous Swiss consumer foods company, Nestlé, plans to operate a 1 million-square-foot bottling facility in northern California. This facility would employ over 200 people and contribute $350,000 of taxes per year to local government. The local residents are strongly opposed.

Today is Earth Day 2008! Visit The Nature Conservancy’s website for ideas on how you can make a positive impact on our environment - today and every day.

More Earthday information…

• Greener Living @ Smithsonian.com
• EarthDay.gov for Kids
• EPA Celebrate Earth Day

Here’s a source of printable polar coordinate graph paper that can be used to plot things like joint and fracture orientations, current directions, fossil orientations or any type of data that is collected in degrees. These are .pdf files that you can easily download and print. Bookmark it for easy access when you need it.

“The U.S. economy wastes 55% of the energy it consumes.” If that waste can be reduced or captured a lot of energy and environmental problems can be significantly reduced. This article explores energy waste and the potential climate benefits of reducing it.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has a slide show titled: “The Hunt for Red Hot Hydrothermal Vents”. It tells the story about their search for the vents on the sea floor of the Arctic and the animals that live around them.

Wyoming is a top producer of coal, oil and natural gas. It is also a state that has a lot of pristine land. These often come into conflict as explored in this New York Times article.

At only 13 feet tall (4 meters), the world’s oldest known living tree doesn’t look very imposing. But its root system has been growing since the end of the last Ice Age, scientists say. They place the tree’s age at around 9,550 years old. Sweden is home to other ancient trees, which are being studied to provide clues as to how and when trees colonized Scandinavia after deglaciation. This research may help scientists predict how vegetation will respond to future climate change.

National Geographic recently aired a show called “Human Footprint”, which shows the impact that one human has on the Earth over a lifetime. Visit the show’s companion webpage to learn how you can make a world of difference with simple actions. If you missed the show, it is scheduled to air again on Sunday, April 20 at 4 PM EST.

We recently updated our geology jobs page adding links to over 200 employers, headhunters and articles relevant to the job market for geologists. If you know anyone looking for earth science employement or anyone who advises geology students we invite you to share the URL with them.
http://geology.com/jobs.htm

In a new NASA study, researchers taking advantage of improvements in satellite sensor capabilities, offer the first measurement-based estimate of the amount of pollution from East Asian forest fires, urban exhaust, and industrial production that makes its way to western North America. (NASA Image)

Using the latest satellite observations, NASA researchers and others report that the Arctic is still on “thin ice” when it comes to the condition of sea ice cover in the region. A colder-than-average winter in some regions of the Arctic this year has yielded an increase in the area of new sea ice, while the older sea ice that lasts for several years has continued to decline.

An article at Wired Science features a detailed carbon footprint map prepared by researchers at Purdue. It plots estimated carbon emissions at a 100 square kilometer resolution. It improves on previous geographic estimates that are based upon population statistics.

The North Pacific right whale is the world’s most endangered species of whales, with an estimated remaining population of only 50-100. The Bush administration has proposed to allow oil and gas drilling in the whales’ critical habitat off the Alaskan coast.

Researchers have announced that they are now able to directly convert plant cellulose into a liquid containing many chemical compounds found in gasoline. The “green gasoline” is made from sustainable resources like switchgrass and poplar trees, leaves almost no carbon footprint, and can be used in existing engines, making it an attractive alternative to corn ethanol and soy biodiesel fuels.

There is no doubt that greenhouse gas emissions are destroying our planet. Which industries are the worst offenders? CNN has a picture slideshow that compares the emission percentages of various sectors.

It’s a Great Time to Be a Geologist! Starting salaries for geologists in the petroleum and mineral sectors are over $80,000 and there are far more positions than qualified people to fill them.

Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake is home to a number of rare water birds. In the late 1990s, rampant poaching had threatened their colonies with extinction. Since then, a conservation project has been implemented to convert poachers into park rangers…and has met with surprising results.

“Researchers at Texas A&M University have confirmed for the first time that a “dead zone” has existed off the Texas coast for at least the past 23 years and will likely remain there, causing potential harmful effects to marine life in the area.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory release.

NASA and its partners have begun the most extensive field campaign ever to study the chemistry of the Arctic’s lower atmosphere.

The United Nations is leading a weeklong meeting in Thailand, where representatives from 163 countries are discussing replacing the Kyoto global warming pact of 1997. There is disagreement among the different nations about who should reduce their emissions the most.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have new regulations for the restoration of wetlands and streams. These regulations have already stirred a lot of discussion on how wetlands will be treated during construction and development projects.

This is not news but instead an interesting article on the Oak Ridge National Labs website. It tells about extremophiles (organisms that can live under extremely harsh conditions) living two miles below the ground in a South African gold mine. They live with no light, no oxygen and no organic input.

“The ubiquity of tiny particles of minerals–mineral nanoparticles–in oceans and rivers, atmosphere and soils, and in living cells are providing scientists with new ways of understanding Earth’s workings. Our planet’s physical, chemical, and biological processes are influenced or driven by the properties of these minerals.” Quoted from the NSF release.

Researchers have determined that soot (black carbon) is the second leading contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. For example: soot settles on ice and its black color absorbs heat, melting the ice. Most soot comes from alterable practices such as burning fuels and forests.

The Soil Science Society of America has a publication on the use of ground penetrating radar to do the following and more: identify soil layering, locate water tables, follow wetting front movement, estimate soil water content, assist in subsurface hydraulic parameter identification, assess soil salinity, and support the monitoring of contaminants.

“A dust storm struck central Mexico on March 18, 2008, and winds transported the dust into southern Texas. Dust from Mexico mixed in the atmosphere with rain showers, raining mud over the city and creating what some described as “a car wash owner’s dream,” according to San Antonio’s KSAT.com.” Quoted from the Earth Observatory Report.

BBC has a special page dedicated to the topic of climate change. There you can find frequently updated news, research reports, features, video/audio clips, fact sheets, carbon calculator and more.

An article on the BBC website says that “improving the environmental performance of buildings in North America can cut the region’s carbon emissions more than any other measure.”

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past few decades has been associated with increasing soybean yields. How does it relate to the organic matter content of the soil? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are finding some surprises.

Last week, Arizona’s Grand Canyon was flooded in an effort to improve the area’s ecosystem. Now that the waters have subsided, we can begin to see the effects.

Amphibians in South America have been dying off at an alarming rate. The Carrikeri harlequin frog hasn’t been seen for 14 years until just recently, when biologists found it living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains. The discovery suggests that these mountains may be a safe haven for the rare frogs.