September 2009 on EARTH Magazine

Energy Notes: May 2008-2009

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 16:57:09 -0400

Credit: The American Geosciences Institute

U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (millions of barrels per day)

Oil and petroleum imports data are preliminary numbers taken from the American Petroleum Institute’s Monthly Statistical Report. For more information visit www.api.org.

Mineral Resource of the Month: Cobalt

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 15:55:13 -0400

Kim B. Shedd, a mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, compiled the following information on cobalt, a metal used to power cell phones, make gas turbine engines, and color glass and ceramics.

Cobalt is in gas turbine engines. Credit: © iStockphoto.com/Fertnig

Cobalt is a metal used in numerous commercial, industrial and military applications. On a global basis, the leading use of cobalt is in rechargeable lithium-ion, nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride battery electrodes. Cobalt use has grown rapidly since the early 1990s, with the development of new battery technologies and an increase in demand for portable electronics such as cell phones, laptop computers and cordless power tools.

Down to Earth With: Peter Brewer

Wed, 23 May 2018 15:21:29 -0400

Whether through deep-sea gas hydrate experiments, lasers or asphyxiating squid, Peter Brewer is always seeking new ways to understand the changing chemistry of the oceans. Brewer has embarked on a series of groundbreaking projects throughout his career. During his nearly 24 years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, he was the chief architect of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study, launched by the United States in the late 1980s to track the cycling of carbon and other chemical elements between the atmosphere, oceans and seafloor — and to understand human impacts on these cycles.

Benchmarks: September 16, 1987: Montreal Protocol Signed

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 10:26:04 -0400

Stratospheric clouds facilitate ozone depletion. The ice in these clouds provides a surface on which ozone-destroying chemical reactions occur. Credit: Photograph by Lamont Poole, NASA Langley Research Center.

Each year in late September to early October, atmospheric scientists watch with anticipation as ozone concentrations over Antarctica drop, opening a window in Earth’s defenses against harmful ultraviolet radiation. This ozone “hole” grew steadily in the 1990s and set a record for its size in 2006: At its peak, the hole covered an average area of 27 million square kilometers, approximately the size of North America. But scientists think that the overall ozone layer is on the slow road to recovery, thanks to the Montreal Protocol — one of the most successful international environmental agreements in history.

Art and dinosaurs

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

An ammonite in acrylic paint. Peter Bond

Paleo-artist Glendon Mellow's imaginary flying trilobite. Glendon Mellow

If the Permian-Triassic extinction had never happened, land-dwelling synapsids might have remained dominant - and new creatures such as the 'walrodont' might have evolved. Zachary Miller

Lillian the Albertosaur strolls through the halls of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, glancing sideways at the skeletal model of a T. rex. She’s much prettier than the skeleton, from her textured brown skin, adorned with bright purple spots, to her slightly superior smirk. Neither dinosaur is actually alive: One is a fossil, and the other is a computer graphic superimposed on a photograph of the actual museum. But somehow, Lillian does liven the place up.

Earth tides in A major

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Earth experiences small, millimeter-sized tides, called Earth tides. Using a dataset from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California from A.D. 1600 to A.D. 2200, Engebretson calculated the net gravitational force of the sun and the moon at particular intervals and then mapped them onto the A major scale.

Earthquake rocks Sumatra

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

A magnitude-7.6 earthquake rocked Sumatra, the westernmost island of Indonesia, on Wednesday. U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program

Updated on Oct. 1:

A second, magnitude-6.6 earthquake struck southern Sumatra, Indonesia, today at about 8:52 a.m. local time; this time, the epicenter was 215 kilometers southeast of Padang, West Sumatra. The death toll from both events has risen to at least 531 people.

Geology 101: Reading the story in the rocks

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

David Harwood’s field geology course gives future teachers an introduction to several of geology’s most fundamental principles, including the stratigraphic basics described by Nicholas Steno in 1669. Go to the head of the class with this quick primer.

Getting a master's in social geology

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Guatemalan teachers and John Lyons (left) conduct a workshop on earthquakes prior to conducting the first school-wide earthquake drill in locals schools near Fuego volcano. Courtesy of John Lyons

Peace Corps Master's International students Julie Herrick (left) and Karinne Knutsen and advisor Bill Rose (far right) examine an andesite lava flow from Volcán Baru in Panama. Courtesy of Julie Herrick

Jesse Silverman and several locals plant citaria grass as an erosion barrier in Tectitán, Guatemala. Courtesy of Jesse Silverman

York Lewis works with students in El Salvador to create a world map mural. Courtesy of York Lewis

At first glance, it seems like an obvious solution to a problem: Villagers need vegetables and an aid organization has money to buy tools and seeds. Striving to create a sustainable program, the aid organization develops a training plan to teach the villagers how to garden, invests in local workshops, and purchases tools to distribute to the participants. All plans seem in order and the project is poised for success. However, the project’s managers encounter the first of potentially many obstacles when they realize that shovels are impossible to use if you don’t have shoes.

Mars' ice is pure, not dirty

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Blogging on EARTH

Finding signs of water on Mars feels nearly old hat by now. We know Mars had a lot more water in its past, has polar ice deposits and even has a kind of water cycle, driven by the formation of water-ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere. Scientists have also found signs of "dirty ice" — a 50-50 mix of ice and soil — revealed to be lurking beneath the upper layers of Martian soil by the impacts of meteorites. So when the Phoenix lander recently discovered pure water ice in the subsurface, that was exciting — but it was still thought to be an anomaly.

Mini-T. rex fossil found in China

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

_Raptorex _closely resembled its descendent _T. rex_, but weighed as little as one-hundredth as much. Based on a fossil skeleton discovered in Inner Mongolia, China. Illustration: Todd Marshall

Long-legged predator _Raptorex _was entombed in the sediment of an ancient lake margin in northern China 125 million years ago. Photo by Mike Hettwer

The Tyrannosaurus rex — arguably the most famous dinosaur of all time — was also one of the most efficient predators to ever walk on Earth. With its powerful jaws, large eyes, strong hind limbs and even tiny arms, the T. rex was uniquely designed to swiftly run down and dispatch prey. But on Wednesday, scientists announced that those characteristic T. rex features were not as unique as once thought: A new fossil find shows that 60 million years earlier, a T. rex doppelganger — albeit much smaller — was using a very similar set of features to terrorize prey in China.

Moon much wetter than thought

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

The moon isn’t quite the bone-dry place scientists once thought; instead, its surface is covered in water, according to a landmark finding announced by scientists at NASA today. Teams from three different NASA missions — the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) mission that launched with the Indian Chandrayaan-1 satellite currently in orbit around the moon, the Deep Impact mission and the Cassini mission — pooled their data to confirm a finding that M3 principal investigator Carle Pieters said was “completely conclusive.”

Powerful earthquake strikes Samoa

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Updated on Sept. 30:

A tsunami spawned by Tuesday's earthquake, which struck in the Pacific Ocean between American Samoa and Samoa, swept across the islands on Tuesday, local authorities reported Wednesday. Authorities in the region are reporting that the death toll from the earthquake and tsunami has risen to at least 111 people, including 22 people in American Samoa, 82 people in Samoa and seven in Tonga, according to a report by CNN.

Putting Earth's history to sound

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Geologist Dave Engebretson of Western Washington University in Bellingham has made an amateur career out of turning scientific data into sound. George Muspot

Geophysicist Dave Engebretson of Western Washington University in Bellingham has struggled with his eyesight since birth. But when his vision took a serious downturn in 1996 — today he has difficulty recognizing faces up close — Engebretson grasped for the world of sound. He has made a considerable hobby out of audifying scientific data — taking numbers from datasets and setting them to sound frequencies to create seconds-long clips at his home studio. The result ranges from a series of differently pitched explosions that fast-forward through the last 20,000 years of eruptions along the Cascade Mountains, to haphazard movements up and down the music scale that represent changes in the tides.

Redefining Quaternary

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Blogging on EARTH

The Quaternary Period — the geologic time period that includes human evolution up to the present — is now a bit longer than it used to be.

A beloved term by many geologists, the Quaternary has long been used to refer to the two most recent epochs, the Pleistocene and the Holocene (the latter being the most recent 10,000 years). But some geologists (apparently, particularly marine stratigraphers) have considered Quaternary to be an outdated term that is part of a nearly extinct classification system for geologic time (remember the Primary and Secondary periods?) — and hoped to just fold it into the overall period "Neogene," which includes all of the last 23 million years.

Scores dead, injured following Indonesian earthquake

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program

A powerful magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck a few kilometers off the coast of West Java, Indonesia, at 2:55 p.m. local time on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the immediate region, but canceled it within an hour when no tsunami was detected.

Surviving field school: Better than reality TV

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Emily points to the embedded dinosaur fossil she discovered in an outcrop of the Morrison Formation. Clay Farris Naff

A closer look at Emily's fossil. Clay Farris Naff

In David Harwood's field course for future teachers, students learn the basics of geology. Kyle Thompson

At a road cut, David (foreground) and Ben ponder the 'layer cakes' above them. Kyle Thompson

David (middle) leads the discussion that solves the Mystery Rock puzzle. Aaron (right) and Chelsea also help. Kyle Thompson

David Harwood’s geology field course for future teachers is not a network reality show — but it should be. The three-week course has all the humor, drama, exacting challenges and bleepable moments of “Survivor.” But in contrast to the staged setups of TV “reality” shows, Geology 160 offers billions of years’ worth of authentic geological history that students see, taste and scrape from under their fingernails.

The cosmos on key

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Engebretson’s latest project involves taking the orbital periods of all eight planets in the solar system and turning them into corresponding frequencies: Planets that have short orbits like Mercury have higher frequencies, whereas more distant planets with longer orbits like Neptune have lower frequencies.

Travels in Geology: Arkansas: A geologic diamond in the rough

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

A mineral spring at Hot Springs National Park. Mary Caperton Morton

At Crater of Diamonds State Park near Murfreesboro, visitors can mine for diamonds in the open fields - and perhaps take home a giant diamond, like the 16.37-carat Amarillo Starlight, found in 1975. Mary Caperton Morton

If visitors don't mind the mud, they can pan for diamonds in Crater of Diamonds' wet sluicing station. Mary Caperton Morton

Visitors mining for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park. Mary Caperton Morton

The Ozark Diamond Mine and others have tried unsuccessfully to mine the Crater of Diamonds State Park site commercially over the years. Mary Caperton Morton

The historic Ozark Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Ark., closed its spa in 1977. It now houses the Hot Springs Museum of Contemporary Art. Mary Caperton Morton

Lake Ouachita hosts sports from kayaking to fishing to swimming. Doc Gibson

Hiking trails run through the Ozarks. Mary Caperton Morton

If the budget belt is a little tighter this year, consider packing your diamond-digging trowel, bathing suit and camping gear and heading to a little-known geologic hot spot in the middle of the United States. Arkansas, “the Natural State,” boasts the world’s only public diamond mine, uniquely heated mineral springs and the Ozark Mountains of Wilson Rawls’ “Where the Red Fern Grows” lore, all within a day’s drive from much of the United States. The state suits not only the budget-conscious traveler, but also the earth science-minded, offering enough geology for a great geo-centric trip to the south-central United States.