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Geology News
Nevada Current Events

Over 1000 small earthquakes have occurred below the Reno, Nevada suburb of Mogul during the past two months. Some of these have been strong enough to do minor damage and the intensity and frequency of the quakes are increasing. Now local residents are worried and scientists ponder the meaning of these earthquakes.

At least two dozen earthquakes have been felt in Reno since Thursday morning. The strongest was a magnitude 4.7 about six miles northwest of Reno. No injuries or major damage have been reported.

Latest USA Earthquakes from USGS

“A report published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) contains a regional map and associated database that inventory 121 locations of reported natural asbestos and fibrous amphibole occurrences in the Southwestern United States, including Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.” Quoted from the USGS release.

The ground-water systems underlying many of the valleys in eastern Nevada and western Utah are not isolated but rather contribute or receive flow from adjoining basins. USGS has a new report detailing White Pine County, Nevada, as a critical recharge area for several major regional flow systems that extend north to the Great Salt Lake and, south to the Colorado River.

This article by Joel Pederson explores the path of the pre–Grand Canyon Colorado River and how it came to its present course.

A strong earthquake shook a sparsely populated area in northeast Nevada this morning. The “did you feel it” map on the USGS website shows intensity VI effects felt near the epicenter with reports of ground shaking in adjacent areas of Utah, Idaho and Oregon. Early news reports include some damaged buildings but no casualties.

A break in an earthen levee resulted in the flooding of much of the town of Fernley, Nevada. Parts of the town were under as much as eight feet of water. The break in the levee was repaired but much of the water has no drainage route out of the town. Freezing weather makes this a difficult situation.

“Fish tissue samples taken from rainbow trout collected from four Idaho and Nevada reservoirs revealed elevated concentrations of methylmercury, according to data released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.”

Helium gas has been discovered leaking from the ground near the Dixie Valley geothermal plant in central Nevada. This discovery led to a survey of Helium-3 and Helium-4 in the area and the publication of a helium map of the Basin and Range Province.

Pictographs are a form of “rock art” in which people paint an image on the rock. Explore a worldwide collection of ancient pictograph images from Arizona, Aruba, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Namibia, Nevada and Utah.

In August, USGS told 25 households in the Lahontan Valley, Churchill County, Nevada, that their water supply well contained radioactive polonium-210. Thirteen of these wells exceeded the EPA maximum contaminant level for a public water supply well. A GEOTIMES article reports on this issue.

The U.S. Geological Survey has documented the occurrence of elevated polonium levels in 17 wells near the town of Fallon, Churchill County, Nevada. Evidence available suggests that the elevated levels are from natural causes and not human actions.

I don’t think I believe this one, but once in a while I am surprised…. A guy in Gardnerville, Nevada says that he found an 1800 pound meteorite with a device that detects radio signals emitted from minerals. He says that he was two miles away when he picked up the signal.

The Angora Fire burned over 3000 acres on the California-Nevada border just south of Lake Tahoe during the last week of June. This wildfire was started by an illegal campfire, destroyed over 250 homes and charred the landscape. Earth Observatory has several satellite images of the fire taken on different days. Lake Tahoe, the fire area and a northeast-moving smoke plume can be seen in the thumbnail image here.