The Pennsylvania Geological Survey has an informative publication on sinkholes that provides useful information that can be applied in areas far beyond the state. It includes information about how sinkholes form, where they might occur, how to identify them, the types of problems that they cause, remediation and lots of photos.
In this video CONSOL Energy CEO, Brett Harvey, talks about the company’s purchase of natural gas assets from Dominion Resources. He seems to think highly of the potential for natural gas. A quote: “Natural Gas will be the chosen fuel.” (Consol already owns a lot of coal mines between the surface and the Marcellus Shale which create conflicting land use problems when drilling for natural gas.)
How could a 300 million-year-old amphibian get a name like “FedEx”? Because he was found on land owned by the package carrier. The rare amphibian was found near Pittsburgh by an amateur fossil hunter.
Statoil has a deal with Tennessee Gas Pipeline to transport natural gas produced from the Marcellus Shale beneath Pennsylvania to New York City and parts of New Jersey. This connection to high population areas along the east coast is part of what makes the Marcellus Shale gas play so important.
Many people are using the term “snow hurricane” for the strong storm that is bringing heavy snow, freezing rain and strong winds onto the Atlantic coastline. The storm is dumping heavy snow on parts of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia and New England.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection completed an investigation that blames longwall mining for damage suffered by a dam in Ryerson Station State Park; it required the lake behind the dam to be drained.
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell proposes a five percent severance tax on natural gas produced from the Marcellus Shale. Although natural gas producers are strongly opposed to the tax, many other states collect similar taxes on resource production.
Rapid development of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania has state government working to field more inspectors and pass new regulations intended to protect the environment from potential impact of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
“NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this view of the Chesapeake Bay region as the clouds were clearing on December 20.
The Mid-Atlantic states were completely white in the wake of a record-breaking snow storm. The storm deposited between 12 and 30 inches of snow in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. on December 19. Snowfall totals broke records in many locations.” Quoted from Earth Observatory.
This article in the Washington Post reviews the ongoing debate over the environmental and human impact of hydraulic fracturing, in the development of natural gas reservoirs in shales such as the Marcellus of the Appalachian Basin.
The books in the Roadside Geology series will help you learn about the geology of your favorite state. These books are great to take on a trip but they work even better if you use them in advance to plan your trip wisely.
120 years ago in 1889, a dam failure caused the disastrous inundation of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Geology professor Dr. Davis Todd set out to investigate the historic flood that killed over 2,000 people.
Over the past year a small area in Pennsylvania has experienced over 600 small earthquakes. Many of them are strong enough for humans to feel and they have been cause for considerable concern.
An article on the PennLive.com website reports that a landowners group negotiated a deal with Chesapeake Energy that will pay them $5750 per acre plus royalties for a 37,000 acre package. This is the highest per acre Marcellus Shale payment that we have seen.
Geologists and other outdoor workers should know how to recognize ticks, avoid tick bites and recognize the early signs of Lyme disease. Early treatment with antibiotics can produce a rapid and complete recovery. If you miss the early symptoms Lyme disease can cause chronic neurological problems and joint pain that can persist for years.
The Benld Elementary School in Benld, Illinois has been damaged by mine subsidence. An article on the Boston.com website tells several stories about mine subsidence in Illinois, Kentucky, Pennsylvania states.
Homicide Map
September 8, 2009 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
This isn’t geology, but instead an interesting mapping application. A Pittsburgh newspaper provides a map of recent homicides that have occurred in the city. Using the map you can see geographic trends in homicides by cause, race and gender. Similar maps are being made for other types of crime and they share the geographic trends of crime with the public. The maps are relatively easy to make and could be a good communication tool for sharing the location of geologic hazards with the public – if you have a latitude/longitude database of incidences.
An article on the Pittsburgh Live website reports that 1067 Marcellus Shale drilling permits were issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection between January 1 and August 21 of this year compared to 476 permits for all of 2008. Low gas prices have not slowed permitting activity.
The Pennsylvania Geological Survey has a news page dedicated to carbon sequestration in Pennsylvania. A quote from their page: “Pennsylvania has an estimated carbon storage capacity – including croplands, forest lands, minelands, and wetlands, and most prominently in geologic formations – to store hundreds of years worth of carbon emissions at present rates.”
You can now download a detailed geologic map of Pennsylvania as a .pdf document. This is a scanned copy of the paper 1:250,000-scale bedrock geology map in three sheets (each as a separate .pdf document). State geologic map GIS datasets are also available.
In a recent news release from Chesapeake Energy, data was provided on their expected yield for wells in the various shale plays. They expect the total yield from their Haynesville wells to be 6.5 bcfe, Fayetteville 2.4 bcfe, and Marcellus wells to yield 4.2 bcfe. These numbers might increase as technology improves.
The city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has introduced 500 solar-powered trash compactors to its downtown sidewalks. The “BigBelly” machine can crush and accumulate four times as much garbage as a standard bin, which is saving the city collection money as well as space.
Stormwater runoff and sewage contaminate many US beaches. A study done by the Natural Resources Defense Council sampled, tested and rated 200 of the most popular beaches in the United States – both ocean and freshwater beaches were included in the study. Some of them had consistently high water quality and some had consistently low. You can view the report and a listing of the beaches on their website.
You can see what might be the world’s first photograph of a meteor taken through a telescope at Mike’s Astro Photos. Instead of being a single streak there are multiple streaks of different size.
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Hobart King
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