Geology News
Environment Current Events

An article on The Guardian website reports that 97% of peer-reviewed papers support a human cause for global climate change.

Why Natural Gas Cars are Selling Slowly

What is Sunstone?

Natural Gas Could Kill Fuel Diversity

Large Hurricane on Saturn

Who Becomes Dominant After a Mass Extinction?

Diamond Dust over Saskatoon

The Bone Worm

Honeybee populations have been falling rapidly as colony collapse disorder reduces the number of hives that commercial beekeepers have for pollinating essential food crops.

Carbon dioxide levels reported at Mauna Loa Observatory and several other locations are breaking the 400 PPM level. Researchers believe that carbon dioxide levels have not been this high for millions of years.

Google now has a website that uses satellite images to document landscape changes over time. With it you can see lakes shrinking, cities expanding, glaciers retreating and mining activities advancing.

Natural gas is cleaner and more economical as a fuel for passenger vehicles than gasoline, but sales of cars that run on natural gas have been very slow. A Washington Post article explains the problems.

“All the natural-gas industry needs is a gizmo in the basement of your house to convert your natural gas into electricity. “

Scripps Institution of Oceanography has an article about bone worms – tiny organisms that live on whale carcasses that have fallen to the seafloor. They are mouthless and gutless and drill into the bones of their host.

“Eight percent of more than 5,000 wells tested across Pennsylvania contain groundwater with levels of arsenic at or above federal standards set for public drinking water, while an additional 12 percent – though not exceeding standards – show elevated levels of arsenic.” Quoted from the USGS Newsroom.

“The most comprehensive evaluation of temperature change on Earth’s continents over the past 1,000 to 2,000 years indicates that a long-term cooling trend–caused by factors including fluctuations in the amount and distribution of heat from the sun, and increases in volcanic activity–ended late in the 19th century.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.

“Scientists found that reductions in four pollutants that cycle comparatively quickly through the atmosphere could temporarily forestall the rate of sea level rise by roughly 25 to 50 percent: [...] methane, tropospheric ozone, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.

The Association of American Geographers, the United States Geological Survey, NatureServe and The Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development are major contributors to a collection of standardized terrestrial ecosystem maps for the African continent.

“A new observational study that did not use temperature recordings from land stations has confirmed global land warming, according to a scientist at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. The finding refutes concerns that artifacts in land-based observing systems have led to an artificial global land warming trend.” Quoted from the CIRES press release.

“Temperature patterns during Earth’s last prolonged global “hot spell”–the Pliocene, some 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago–differed dramatically from those of modern times.” Quoted from the NSF press release.

“A 2011 record-breaking algae bloom in Lake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices coupled with extreme precipitation, followed by weak lake circulation and warm temperatures, scientists have discovered.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.

USGS authors have authored a book chapter titled: “Occurrence and mobility of mercury in groundwater”.

Noble Energy plans to build a small LNG plant in Colorado and use the liquefied gas in place of diesel fuel.

USGS authors have authored a book chapter titled: “Arsenic in groundwater: a summary of sources and the biogeochemical and hydrogeologic factors affecting arsenic occurrence and mobility”.

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania are discussing the use of water from abandoned coal mines for hydraulic fracturing of the Marcellus Shale.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences reports that chemical spills associated with Marcellus Shale drilling have not significantly impacted Pennsylvania waterways.

“Although they live in similarly extreme ecosystems at opposite ends of the world, Antarctic insects appear to employ entirely different methods at the genetic level to cope with extremely dry conditions than their counterparts that live north of the Arctic Circle.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.

A gallery on the Discovery.com website illustrates how warming climates in many parts of the world are pushing plant species

Nearly 200 manatees have been killed by a red tide off the coast of southwest Florida.

“Clouds are a critical element of the climate system, especially in the Arctic where surface energy budgets and precipitation can have dramatic impacts on the fate of sea ice and ice sheets.” Quoted from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences press release.

“Drill cuttings and other materials associated with oil and gas have occasionally triggered radiation monitors at landfills. DEP’s data indicates that less than half a percent of all drill cuttings produced by the Marcellus Shale industry in 2012 that were disposed of in landfills triggered radiation monitors. The cuttings did not contain levels of radioactivity that would be harmful to the public, and they were safely disposed of in the landfills.” Quoted from the DEP announcement.

As coral colonies in many parts of the world are suffering from warm water, pollution and human activity a few conservationists are working to reestablish by “planting” fast-growing species.

Ultraviolet light has been used to disinfect well water for decades. Now UV technology is being used to disinfect hospital rooms between patient stays.

NOAA Image

“A new cli­mate model pre­dicts an increase in snow­fall for the Earth’s polar regions and high­est alti­tudes, but an over­all drop in snow­fall for the globe, as car­bon diox­ide lev­els rise over the next century.” Quoted from the Princeton University press release.

SmithsonianMag.com has an interesting article titled: “The Lost Tribes of the Amazon”. It describes some recent encounters with indigenous people in the Colombian headwaters of the Amazon.

“The robustness of food webs of Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems has been compared for the first time, revealing that global warming can affect the biodiversity of these ecosystems in different ways despite the similarities between them.” Quoted from the University of Western Australia press release.