Geology News
Soil Current Events

NASA’s Earth Observatory has a satellite image showing how strong winds in Argentina are removing dust from inland lake beds and streaming it out over the Atlantic.

“The team operating NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has selected a second target rock for drilling and sampling. The rover will set course to the drilling location in coming days.” Quoted from the NASA press release.

Most homeowners insurance policies have exclusions that make them worthless when the home is damaged by common geologic problems such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, mine subsidence, cavern collapse and expansive soils. When a home is damaged the homeowner often is surprised that his “all perils” policy has these exclusions.

The Environmental Protection Agency has published a new version of their publication: A Citizen’s Guide To Radon: The Guide To Protecting Yourself And Your Family From Radon.

“Carbon dioxide levels in fossil soils from the Late Jurassic confirm that climate, vegetation and animal richness varied across the planet 150 million years ago, suggesting future human changes to global climate will heavily impact plant and animal life.”

“The HazVu map provides a way to view many different geohazards in the state of Oregon. You can enter the address for your home, school, business, or public buildings in your area to see what hazards might affect you. You can print the map you create.

Geohazards include 100-year flooding; Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake shaking and tsunami; coastal erosion; volcano; landslide; active faults; earthquake soft soil; and more. Assets include state-owned/leased facilities and public buildings such as schools, police and fire stations, and hospitals, as well as links to seismic assessment reports for these public buildings.” Quoted from the HazVu website.

“A new analysis led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has estimated how much the growth of plants worldwide is limited by the amount of nutrients available in their soil.” Quoted from the NASA press release.

Radioactive Spring?

Drilling to Earth’s Mantle

Eruption at Shilveluch

Analysis of Martian Soil

Mars Geologic Map

The Size of the Next Yellowstone Eruption Second Week!

Drought-Induced Crop Lines

“Extreme drought conditions during the summer of 2012 resulted in the formation of crop lines, a rare feature that mimics underlying crevices that make up the karst bedrock aquifer in the Driftless Area, northwestern Illinois. Georeferenced aerial photographs of the lines are being used to map the crevice geometry of the aquifer, reveal the nature of lineaments only seen in LiDAR imagery, and are being used in conjunction with road cut and quarry mapping, to characterize the aquifer in three dimensions.” Description and photo courtesy of Samuel V. Panno.

“NASA’s Curiosity rover is in a position on Mars where scientists and engineers can begin preparing the rover to take its first scoop of soil for analysis.” Quoted from the NASA press release.

Image by Drought.gov

An Associated Press article explains how soil changes induced by severe drought conditions in the central United States are causing damage to homes. This damage is rarely covered by homeowner’s insurance.

The Ohio Division of Soil and Water Conservation has a website devoted to Ohio soils. It includes an introduction to soils, photos of soil types, maps, information about soil testing, GIS data, web soil survey and much more.

“Farmers across the United States hoped for rain in July 2012 as a drought of historic proportions parched key commodity crops, including corn, soybeans, and wheat. On July 11, the United States Department of Agriculture announced that more than 1,000 counties in 26 states qualified as natural disaster areas—the largest total area ever declared a disaster zone by the agency.” Quoted from the NASA image release.

A landslide on Mount Elgon in Uganda may have killed dozens of people. BBC has an image gallery.

“The study design included assessment of a variety of agricultural practices, especially cropping patterns and irrigation, so that the factors that contribute to phosphorus movement to groundwater, or sequestration of the phosphorus to soil could be compared and examined. This type of information could potentially be used to formulate best management practices to limit the transport of phosphorus from the agricultural fields.” Quoted from the USGS press release.