Geology News from The Bible, Genesis & Geology

Magmatic Plumbing Of A Large Permian Caldera Exposed To A Depth Of 25 Kilometers

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 10:01:07 +0300

Large volcanic calderas, aka supervolcanoes, are enormous craters tens of kilometers in diameter produced by giant, explosive eruptions that rank among the most violent geologic events. Geophysical studies of recently active calderas and investigations of their eruption products suggest that their magmatic systems are driven by intrusion of mantle-derived basalt in the deep crust, a process commonly referred to as magmatic underplating.(ScienceDaily)

New dinosaurs found in Australia

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:59:28 +0300

Australian palaeontologists say they have discovered three new dinosaur species after examining fossils dug up in Queensland.(BBC)

Scientists lower Alaska volcano threat level

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:57:52 +0300

Alaskans can put away their dust masks and spare air filters, for now, because Mount Redoubt seems to have cooled off since its last major eruption nearly three months ago.(AP)

How Earth Got its Oxygen

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:55:24 +0300

The first half of Earth's history was devoid of oxygen, but it was far from lifeless. There is ongoing debate over who the main biological players were in this pre-oxygen world, but researchers are digging up clues in some of the oldest sedimentary rocks on the planet.(LiveScience)

Ice on fire: The next fossil fuel

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:26:08 +0300

DEEP in the Arctic Circle, in the Messoyakha gas field of western Siberia, lies a mystery. Back in 1970, Russian engineers began pumping natural gas from beneath the permafrost and piping it east across the tundra to the Norilsk metal smelter, the biggest industrial enterprise in the Arctic.(NewScientist)

Work begins on world's deepest underground lab

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:12:47 +0300

Far below the Black Hills of South Dakota, crews are building the world's deepest underground science lab at a depth equivalent to more than six Empire State buildings — a place uniquely suited to scientists' quest for mysterious particles known as dark matter.(AP)

Volcanic blasts kicked off modern ice ages

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:11:17 +0300

A series of cataclysmic volcanic eruptions gave the planet its polar ice caps, and started a freeze-thaw cycle of ice ages that persists to this day, according to a new theory.(ABC.net.au)

Earthquake trigger found in ancient rock

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:08:13 +0300

Researchers have shed light on how certain types of earthquakes can be triggered deep beneath the earth's crust.(ABC.net.au)

Earth's poles may be tugged around by oceans

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:45:49 +0300

Ocean currents push floating rafts, plastic trash, and warm air around the planet – now the Earth's magnetic field can also be added to the list, according to a controversial new hypothesis.(NewScientist)

Drilling might be culprit behind Texas earthquakes

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:17:35 +0300

CLEBURNE, Texas – The earth moved here on June 2. It was the first recorded earthquake in this Texas town's 140-year history — but not the last.(AP)

Supervolcano may be brewing beneath Mount St Helens

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:25:56 +0300

S A supervolcano brewing beneath Mount St Helens? Peering under the volcano has revealed what may be an extraordinarily large zone of semi-molten rock, which would be capable of feeding a giant eruption.(NewScientist)

Typhoons trigger earthquakes on Taiwan: scientists

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:06:57 +0300

Surprised scientists say that typhoons which hit Taiwan unleash long, slow earthquakes, a phenomenon that may save the island from devastating temblors.(AFP)

Early rocks to reveal their ages

Mon, 8 Jun 2009 05:24:55 +0300

A new technique has been helping scientists piece together how the Earth's continents were arranged 2.5 billion years ago.(BBC)

Scientists eye glowing volcano crater in Hawaii

Sun, 7 Jun 2009 06:32:44 +0300

The summit of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano is glowing brightly as molten lava swirls 300 feet below its crater's floor, bubbling near the surface after years of spewing from the volcano's side.(AP)

Scientists find more dinosaur bones at Utah quarry

Sat, 6 Jun 2009 09:35:52 +0300

Scientists at one of Utah's major new dinosaur quarries have found 60 to 70 new bones this spring, including what appears to be a 20-foot-long neck bone discovered this week. The latest finds are fresh evidence that the site near Hanksville could be a large and important source of bones in the coming years.(AP)

June 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 05:26:05 +0300

GEOLOGY includes details on the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake; a natural gas-hydrate system offshore of Korea; findings that abiogenic methane emissions may be more prevalent than originally thought; two studies on the nature of mud; and three fossil studies, one finding evidence for lush forests and rich animal life in the Eocene High Arctic, and two concentrating on bones in Montana, Madagascar, and Sharktooth Hill, California. GSA TODAY examines Greenland's contribution to sea-level change.(EurekAlert)

Radar reveals ancient Antarctic Alps

Thu, 4 Jun 2009 06:05:33 +0300

Millions of years ago, rivers ran in Antarctica through craggy mountain valleys that were strangely similar to the European Alps of today, say scientists.(ABC.net.au)

China volcano may have caused mass extinction

Fri, 29 May 2009 05:42:28 +0300

A mass extinction some 260 million years ago may have been caused by volcanic eruptions in what is now China, new research suggests.(AP)

7.1 earthquake topples homes in Honduras, Belize

Thu, 28 May 2009 20:04:02 +0300

A powerful earthquake toppled dozens of homes in Honduras and Belize early Thursday, killing at least six people and injuring 40 as terrified residents spilled from their homes across much of Central America.(AP)

Giant dinosaurs 'held heads high'

Wed, 27 May 2009 06:29:26 +0300

With Diplodocus's impressive necks aloft, like giraffes, the dinosaurs would have towered up to 15m above the ground.(BBC)

Five-million-year old sloth fossil found in Peru

Wed, 27 May 2009 06:24:26 +0300

The nearly intact fossil of an ancient sloth that lived 5 million years ago has been unearthed in Peru, a find about 4 million years older than similar ones discovered in the Americas.(Reuters)

Giant Blob Found Deep Beneath Nevada

Wed, 27 May 2009 06:19:43 +0300

Hidden beneath the U.S. West's Great Basin, scientists have spied a giant blob of rocky material dripping like honey.(LiveScience)

Magma pulses may reveal Earth's 'heartbeat'

Thu, 21 May 2009 06:11:53 +0300

EARTH may have a heartbeat. Evidence from Hawaii and Iceland hints that the planet's core may be dispatching simultaneous plumes of magma towards the surface every 15 million years or so.(NewScientist)

Saudi prepares fresh evacuation from volcano zone

Thu, 21 May 2009 05:20:59 +0300

Authorities were preparing to evacuate more people from a volcanic region in northwestern Saudi Arabia because tremors which have been shaking the area for weeks have been growing in strength.(Reuters)

Natural Petroleum Seeps Release Equivalent Of Up To 80 Exxon Valdez Oil Spills

Tue, 19 May 2009 06:03:33 +0300

According to new research by scientists from UC Santa Barbara and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), that's how much oil has made its way into sediments offshore from petroleum seeps near Coal Oil Point in the Santa Barbara Channel.(ScienceDaily)

Andes Mountains Are Older Than Previously Believed

Sat, 16 May 2009 08:14:18 +0300

The geologic faults responsible for the rise of the eastern Andes mountains in Colombia became active 25 million years ago—18 million years before the previously accepted start date for the Andes’ rise, according to researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, the University of Potsdam in Germany and Ecopetrol in Colombia.(PhysOrg)

How Oil Gets Stuck Underground In Inaccessible Places

Sat, 16 May 2009 08:11:35 +0300

It is a mystery to many people why the world is running out of oil when most of the world’s oilfields have only been half emptied. However some of the oil that has been located is trapped as droplets of oil in small cavities in the surrounding rock or is stuck to the walls of the underground cavity and cannot be accessed by the techniques currently used in the oil industry.(ScienceDaily)

First comprehensive geological Arctic map published

Sat, 16 May 2009 08:03:40 +0300

Canada has unveiled the first comprehensive Arctic atlas, detailing geological features that point to where oil and gas, gold and diamond deposits are likely hidden beneath snow and ice.(AFP)

Volcanic shutdown may have led to 'snowball Earth'

Sun, 10 May 2009 05:36:20 +0300

A 250-million-year shutdown of volcanic activity which is thought to have occurred early in Earth's history may be what turned the planet into a glacier-covered snowball. It could also have helped give rise to our oxygen-rich atmosphere.(NewScientist)

Giant trilobites had complex social lives

Fri, 8 May 2009 16:27:56 +0300

The discovery of giant trilobites in northern Portugal reveals the once ubiquitous marine creature mated en masse and used its numbers for protection, say European researchers.(ABC.net.au)

Scientist says volcanic eruption in Congo imminent

Fri, 8 May 2009 05:38:51 +0300

Scientists found evidence of intense volcanic activity — including tremors, pools of lava and plumes of smoke — at two volcanoes near a major city in eastern Congo, and said some residents had fled for fear of an eruption.(AP)

Hawaii's "Gentle" Volcano More Dangerous Than Thought

Thu, 7 May 2009 06:27:32 +0300

Hawaii's tourist-friendly Kilauea volcano is famous for its lazy rivers of lava. But a new report says the volcano, known as the world's most active, has a violent alter ego.(NationalGeographic)

Earth Still Recovering From A Glacial Hangover

Tue, 5 May 2009 05:35:42 +0300

A new explanation for the cause of changes in the chemical makeup of the oceans through recent Earth history is put forward in a paper published in Nature.(ScienceDaily)

Ancient tsunami 'hit New York'

Tue, 5 May 2009 05:32:34 +0300

A huge wave crashed into the New York City region 2,300 years ago, dumping sediment and shells across Long Island and New Jersey and casting wood debris far up the Hudson River.(BBC)

Dynamite Used To Reveal New Layer Of Dinosaur Fossils

Fri, 1 May 2009 07:47:17 +0300

What do you do when you have a fossil quarry that has yielded some of the most important and rarest of dinosaur fossils in North America, but the fossil-bearing layer of rock is tilted at 70 degrees and there is so much rock that not even jackhammers can get you to the fossils any longer?(ScienceDaily)

Evidence of the 'Lost World' -- did dinosaurs survive the end Cretaceous extinctions?

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:59:07 +0300

New scientific evidence suggests that dinosaur bones from the Ojo Alamo Sandstone in the San Juan Basin, USA, date from after the extinction, and that dinosaurs may have survived in a remote area of what is now New Mexico and Colorado for up to half a million years.(EurekAlert)

New Blow Against Dinosaur-killing Asteroid Theory, Geologists Find

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:52:44 +0300

The enduringly popular theory that the Chicxulub crater holds the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some 65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, is challenged in a paper to be published in the Journal of the Geological Society on April 27, 2009.(ScienceDaily)

Dinosaurs Lived in the Arctic

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 03:54:14 +0300

You know the scenario: 65 million years ago, a big meteor crash sets off volcanoes galore, dust and smoke fill the air, dinosaurs go belly up.(LiveScience)

Complex life pushed back in time

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:39:16 +0300

Multicellular organisms existed on earth more than 400 million years earlier than previously thought, an international team of geologists has revealed.(ABC.net.au)

Ancestor of T rex found in China

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:33:01 +0300

Uncovered near the city of Jiayuguan, the fossil finds come from a novel tyrannosaur dubbed Xiongguanlong baimoensis. The fossils date from the middle of the Cretaceous period, and may be a "missing link", tying the familiar big T rex to its much smaller ancestors.(BBC)

Volcano 'poses tsunami threat' in Caribbean

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:30:05 +0300

Tsunami waves unleashed by the collapse of an unstable volcano on the Caribbean island of Dominica would hit the highly populated coast of nearby Guadeloupe within minutes, according to a new study.(AFP)

Vesuvius, the world's most closely watched volcano

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:25:50 +0300

Nearly 2,000 years after wiping out Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius is among the most closely monitored volcanoes in the world, its every shudder recorded.(AFP)

Digital Paleontology Reveals Dinosaur Details

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:57:15 +0300

The pick and shovel can go only so far in digging up details about dinosaurs. Now supercomputers are revealing knowledge about their anatomy otherwise lost to history.(LiveScience)

Earth shifted 15 cms in Italy quake: satellite images

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:49:39 +0300

The earth in the region of L'Aquila, the central Italian town hit by a major earthquake Monday, shifted by up to 15 centimetres (six inches), the Italian space agency says.(AFP)

Galapagos volcano erupts, could threaten wildlife

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:47:49 +0300

The Galapagos National Park says La Cumbre volcano began spewing lava, gas and smoke on uninhabited Fernandina Island on Saturday after four years of inactivity.(AP)

Deadly Pacific quake keeps surprising scientists

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:35:16 +0300

The 2007 earthquake in the Solomon Islands that launched a deadly tsunami is raising a host of challenges for scientists working to understand what happened.(AP)

USGS Announces 2009 Mineral Research Grants

Thu, 9 Apr 2009 05:40:06 +0300

Grant Projects Help Ensure a Sustainable Supply of Minerals for the Nation. Researchers will study a range of minerals essential to our economy and national security through grants awarded by the U.S. Geological Survey. (USGS)

Listening to the Earth's deepest secrets

Thu, 9 Apr 2009 05:36:51 +0300

Its name is USArray and its aim is to run what amounts to an ultrasound scan over the 48 contiguous states of the US. Through the seismic shudders and murmurs that rack Earth's innards, it will build up an unprecedented 3D picture of what lies beneath North America.(NewScientist)

Massive Quake Shakes Pacific Islands, No Tsunami Expected

Tue, 7 Apr 2009 18:12:00 +0300

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake has hit at sea near the Kuril island chain between northern Japan and Russia, but there have been no reports of damage or casualties.(FoxNews)

Complex Geology Behind the Italian Earthquake

Tue, 7 Apr 2009 05:45:31 +0300

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake that struck central Italy in the wee hours of Monday morning has a complicated geological story behind it.(LiveScience)

Chile volcano eruption revs up

Mon, 6 Apr 2009 05:07:58 +0300

Llaima, which is in Chile's picturesque lake region about 435 miles south of the capital Santiago, began spitting lava in a fresh bout of activity on Friday night. It erupted fiercely on January 1, 2008, and has expelled rock and ash sporadically since then.(Reuters)

New USGS Study Documents Rapid Disappearance of Antarctica’s Ice Shelves

Sun, 5 Apr 2009 06:03:27 +0300

Antarctica's glaciers are melting more rapidly than previously known because of climate change, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report prepared in close collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey. (USGS)

Alaska's Mount Redoubt Volcano Has Another Large Eruption After Quiet Week

Sun, 5 Apr 2009 05:10:22 +0300

The Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska has had another large eruption after being relatively quiet for nearly a week. This is the 19th major eruption in the last two weeks.(AP)

New Technology Gives New Hope to Deep Ocean Mining

Thu, 2 Apr 2009 05:17:26 +0300

There's gold in the sea floor. Silver, copper, zinc and lead, too. The problem is, it's a mile or two underwater and encased in massive mineral deposits that layer a dark, mysterious world.(AP)

Strong earthquake hits Papua New Guinea coast

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 17:49:43 +0300

A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea's northern coast on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or tsunami activity.(AFP)

April 2009 Geology and GSA Today media highlights

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 06:43:28 +0300

GEOLOGY covers multiple aspects of life on Earth, including extinctions and diversifications, "tool" use by the first creatures to walk on land, sirenians (manatees) in the Tethys-Mediterranean, the last refuge of the woolly mammoth, and Edwards Aquifer development as seen through cave spider DNA. Other topics include glaciation, mineralization, mineral decomposition, degassing, climate change, tectonics, volcanics, current velocity and seafloor structure, and giant earth-surface wind ripples. GSA TODAY focuses on the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.(EurekAlert)

Technique measures heat transport in the Earth's crust

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:09:55 +0300

Temperature is an important driver of many geological processes, including the generation of magmas (molten rocks) in the deepest parts of the Earth's crust, about 30-40 kilometers below the surface. Yet, until recently, temperatures deep inside the Earth's crust were uncertain, mainly because of difficulties associated with measuring thermal conductivity, or how much heat is flowing through the rocks that compose the crust.(EurekAlert)

Eastern Congo volcanoes show eruption warning signs

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:00:31 +0300

Scientists in Goma, capital of the border province of North Kivu, have in recent weeks registered high levels of seismic activity, considered an early warning sign of an impending eruption, around the Nyiragongo and Nyamulagira volcanoes.(Reuters)

The New California Gold Rush

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:44:54 +0300

Modern-day gold diggers party like it's 1849 (nbclosangeles)

Deep-sea Rocks Point To Early Oxygen On Earth

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:20:10 +0300

Red jasper cored from layers 3.46 billion years old suggests that not only did the oceans contain abundant oxygen then, but that the atmosphere was as oxygen rich as it is today, according to geologists.(ScienceDaily)

Midwest Fault System Could Be Shutting Down

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:08:24 +0300

A crack in the earth that resulted in the biggest quakes known in the center of the United States — and which have raised fears of a "big one" sometime this century — might actually be in the process of shutting down, scientists now suggest.(LiveScience)

Volcano Plumes Spin Like Tornadoes

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:06:40 +0300

The columns of ash and gas that spew from erupting volcanoes behave just like another force of nature, tornados, a new study suggests.(LiveScience)

Famed fossil hunter to admit dinosaur crimes

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 07:27:02 +0300

A famed paleontologist who discovered the world's best preserved dinosaur intends to plead guilty to stealing dinosaur bones from federal land.(AP)

'No living thing left' as Tonga volcano erupts

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:58:42 +0300

A volcanic eruption close to the South Pacific nation of Tonga has destroyed rich birdlife and vegetation, leaving a wasteland of black ash and tree stumps, witnesses said Friday.(AFP)