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Geology News
Great Websites Current Events

NASA Image

Microsoft has created a tool which allows users to view objects in space from a “virtual telescope”. It is free to the general public.

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

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.

USGS has their Ground Water Atlas of the United States online. It describes the location, extent and geologic/hydrologic characteristics of the important aquifers of the United States.

Did you know that you can see the International Space Station orbiting the earth with your unaided eyes? It’s easy if you know when it is above your area and what part of the sky it will pass through. NASA has a website to help you see it.

Google has added contour lines to their terrain maps. They are not quite as detailed as USGS topos but for free-to-use maps they are very nice. Contour intervals vary depending upon local relief.

I really like to see publications like this placed on the web where citizens have free access to valuable information prepared by government agencies. This publication includes chapters on floods, earthquakes, problem soils, mass movements, subsidence and earth fissures, radon, karst, abandon mines, volcanic hazards and radon. Every state should have a publication like this on their website.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has an educational website for children. “FEMA for Kids” has educational materials and activities for children, parents and teachers to help children better understand hazards, disasters, mitigation and more.

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.

All waters can be expected to contain small amounts of contaminants. EPA sets standards for nearly 100 of the most common water contaminants. The standards are guides to be used in determining if water is safe for use.

The-Vug.com is a website owned by Justin Butt and Brandy Naugle. Their goal is to provide a portal to mineral dealers on the web and updates when dealers add new materials to their website. The Vug also has a large list of articles, links to mineral museums, a list of mineral clubs, mineral show announcements and much more. If you like minerals check out The Vug.

The Devonian shales of the Appalachian Basin have long been known to be a source of difficult-to-recover natural gas. A Fredonia State College professor has calculated that Marcellus Shale might contain more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Detailed article on the Marcellus Shale

USGS has a number of short courses online and on CD-ROM that are available for anyone to take. They cover a variety of surface water data collection methods.

Web-Based Classes

* Surface-Water Field Methods
* Measurement of Stream Discharge by Wading
* Stage-Discharge Relations - Basic Concepts
* Cableway Safety - Pre-use Inspection
* Overview of Data Collection at Gaging Stations
* Overview of roughness coefficients in western U.S. rivers

CD-Based Classes

* Stream Discharge Measurements Under Ice Cover
* Stream Discharge Measurements From Cableways
* Levels at Streamflow Gaging Stations- A CD-ROM Based Training Class
* Introduction to Suspended-Sediment Sampling

Yellowstone National Park has its first video web cam. You can use it to see Old Faithful Geyser erupt. When geysers such as Beehive, Lion, or Giantess are erupting, the camera will be aimed at them. Thanks to Rick Steele for sharing this information.

The Geothermal Laboratory at Southern Methodist University has an impressive collection of maps, databases and other information on the geothermal characteristics of North America. They also have information related to geothermal heat pumps for heating and cooling buildings.

Geologic Survey of Canada has put together a geothermal potential map of Canada. It classifies Canada into areas suitable for high temperature electrical generation (these are mainly in British Columbia and areas where warm water heat pumps/heat exchanges might be possible.

Here is a website that I have visited a few times that some readers of Geology.com might appreciate. This organization receives proposals for classroom projects, mainly from K-12 teachers, and posts them for review by anyone who would like to help.

This morning there were 18 projects returned in a search for “Geology” and scores of projects in searches for “Science”. Several were from teachers who would like to have mineral specimens, one teacher wanted a weather station (for years this teacher’s class graphed daily temperatures from a thermometer and students enjoyed learning that way), one teacher simply wanted paper and art supplies so students could draw as part of a science lesson.

Most were from schools in high needs areas. Some of the projects that I reviewed sounded great. If you would like to help, the support that you send goes to DonorsChoose.org. They purchase the materials and have them delivered to the school. You don’t have to pay for the entire project. You can contribute any amount.

Some enthusiastic K-12 teachers are trying to deliver the science that we enjoy to their students - and they hope to do it in a way that goes beyond the resources available. You might enjoy helping one of them.

The NASA Near Earth Object Program has a collection of animated orbit diagrams for the 911 known asteroids that have an orbit that is potentially hazardous to earth. Just click on the name of the asteroid to get a control panel that allows you to advance the orbit in increments or watch an animation.

The California Geological Survey has an area on their website where you can download a large number of geologic maps in .pdf format. There you can find 7.5 minute and 30×60 minute geologic maps, landslide maps, mineral production maps and more. A few other states are placing maps like these online and the USGS has an online National Geologic Map Database where you can do research and download some of the maps.

Lots of people are curious about meteorites or find an interesting rock that they suspect might be a meteorite. Here are links to some of the best-on-the web resources that you can use to get a preliminary answer. They can help you decide if your specimen might be a meteorite that is worth more detailed investigation.

Aerolite Meteorites
Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory
Meteorite Market
University of New Mexico

The U.S. Drought Monitor website has a lot of information on drought conditions throughout the United States. There you can find drought maps, statistics, historical data, photos and more. They also have change maps and animated maps that allow you to visualize the change in drought conditions over time.

USGS has a page on their website that links to a lot of rich materials. You can download and view many different animations, videos and PowerPoint presentations from this page on astrogeology, biology, climate change, coastal and marine environments, earthquakes, landslides, geomagnetism, landslides, plate tectonics, tsunami, urban growth and landuse, volcanoes, water and more.

USGS has an online repository of geologic maps. There you can search for geologic map by state, by geologic name, by format (paper, digital), scale, author, title and more. Includes maps published by USGS and also maps from state geological surveys.

NOAA Image

Here’s the place to go if you want to check for a tsunami warning anywhere in the world. PTWC provides warnings for Pacific basin teletsunamis (tsunamis that can cause damage far away from their source) to almost every country around the Pacific rim and to most of the Pacific island states.

NOAA Image

NOAA has a website called “Tides Online” where you can view graphs of near real-time tide information. Shown here are recent graphs of observed/predicted tide water levels and a graph of wind speed and direction over time. Information availability varies by station but I saw water level, wind speed, wind direction, air pressure, air temperature, water temperature and other types of data in the chart.

This information would be valuable if you are going to the coast but it is also of enormous value for student investigation. For example… the charts here show windspeed and water levels for Bermuda. Open a new browser window and check out the water level patterns for the Texas coast. Ask students to explain the difference.

NASA Image

For the past couple of years I have received Mark Francek’s weekly emails of Earth Science websites. Once each week during the academic year he will send a message that points you to several websites of value for earth science or geography instruction. The website features all of the websites that he has recommended for the past few years. Instructions for receiving his weekly messages are posted at the site.

NOAA Image

NOAA has a website that they call the “Carbon Tracker”. The website integrates with a data system that calculates carbon dioxide uptake and release at the Earth’s surface over time. It allows you to access the information in a variety of ways, customized to your curiosity or research project. The site is so interesting to use that I’ll post two graphics below (you can customize these with dates and locations to your liking).

Here’s a carbon dioxide time sequence for Alert, Nunavut, Canada.

Here’s a carbon flux map for North America - blue areas are where carbon uptake occurs (not many places) and red is where emission occurs.

NASA Image

NASA has a website where you can go to get updates on the ozone hole over the South Pole. There you can find animations, graphs, historical ozone maps, materials for educators and a large amount of data that details what is known about this atmospheric feature.

NOAA has a website named the “All-Hazards Monitor”. There you can see the NOAA communications for a variety of hazards and environmental topics. These include: air quality, coral bleaching, droughts, earthquakes, excessive heat, fire weather, flooding, harmful algal blooms, hurricanes, oil spills, rip currents, severe weather, space weather, tsunamis, volcanoes and more.

NOAA Image

We just found a way to make historic preciptation maps at the National Weather Service website. There you can make precipitation maps for the continental US or any of the 48 states. Time ranges available are today, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 180 days, month to date, year to date and water year to date.

AVO Webcam Image

The Alaska Volcano Observatory monitors volcanoes in Alaska, the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia and the Kurile Islands. They provide weekly updates and status reports of volcanic activity in their area, maintain a library of information and images and have webcams aimed at a number of volcanoes. If you visit the webcams during daylight hours you can see a volcanic peak and sometimes activity.

The National Hurricane Center monitors the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico for tropical storms and hurricanes. They then make maps, forecasts, satellite images, and other information available to the public online. Their website also has a variety of hurricane awareness and history information.

USDA Image

The Web Soil Survey is a website where you can access the same information that is published in the paper USDA County Soil Surveys. Available online are seamless low altitude aerial photos that you can select and plot soil type boundaries upon them. The same soil characteristics charts and other data from the paper survey are all online.

An online version of “Geomorphology from Space”, a 1986 NASA publication by Nicholas M. Short, Sr. and Robert W. Bair, Jr. designed for use by the remote sensing and educational communities to study landforms and landscapes. It has a gallery of space images consisting of 237 plates, each showing a different geographic region where a particular landform theme is exemplified.

NOAA Image

Sea surface temperatures are important determinants of hurricane formation and the data is valuable for a variety of studies. NOAA has a website where you can view sea surface temperature maps for US Atlantic, US Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Equatorial Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of California, Gulf of Alaska, Great Lakes, Hawaii, Bering Strait, Global and many more.

CIA Image

Earth and Sky has recordings of underwater sounds from Antarctica posted on their website. Go there to hear the sound of an underwater earthquake or a passing humpback whale. These are quicktime files that will click and play on most computers. These sounds were obtained by hydrophones operated by researchers from Oregon State University and NOAA.

USGS Image

USGS is adding more information to the International Polar Year Website. According to their fact sheet important IPY activities include: a glacier studies project; sea-ice change and Antarctic life studies; Arctic Petroleum Resource Assessment; a new Landsat 7 image mosaic of Antarctica; a study of Arctic permafrost thawing in the Yukon River Basin; release of the U.S. Antarctic Photography Collection; and the Benchmark Glaciers Program.