9.0 Earthquake and Tsunami hit Japan

CNBC host Larry Kudlow proudly displays those "ugly American" attitudes which are so in demand today in our broadcast media. My brother lives in Japan, so perhaps I am overly sensitive. My brother is fine but he did say that this is the worst earthquake that he has experienced. He has lived in Japan for at least 25 years now, since the late 1980's.

Hajigak Iron Ore Deposit

France to repay Haiti

Yesterday (July 14th) was Bastille Day, marking a popular uprising which gave birth to the modern French state. According to the website for the Ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes, France chose Bastille Day to announce an Outline Agreement for the Rebuilding of Haiti (ACRH). The Agreement calls for cancellation of Haiti's international debt, which has retarded the development of Haiti during recent decades and contributed to the impact of the recent earthquake and other natural disasters. France acknowledges with the announcement of ACRH that the disaster which befell the Haitian people is not simply the result of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake but is partly the result of economic and social policies including the legacy of French colonization.

(The above is my own translation of the text posted on the website for the Ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes.) Hat-tip to The Independent, Democracy Now!, and The People's Forum for excellent and timely coverage of the story in English.

Lead Toxicity and Nigerian Gold

Yvonne Ndege reports on severe health effects due to lead exposure among villagers in Zamfara province, northern Nigeria. Six villages have been affected according to Marcel Lagenbach of Medecins Sans Frontieres. The villagers say they will continue to mine for gold despite lead in the dust that is killing their children. Critics accuse the government officials of turning a blind eye and focusing instead on signing lucrative mining deals with China.

Deepwater Horizon Spill

John Wathen, who blogs as the Hurricane Creek Riverkeeper (hccreekeeper), has put up a new blog entirely dedicated to the oil spill from the BP Deepwater Horizon. A video filmed during a flyover of the spill on Tuesday, May 4, 2010 can be streamed both on the new blog, Gulf Oil Slick, and on YouTube.

Less Ass from Iceland


Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson explains the effects of the Eyjafjallajokull eruption on air traffic in Europe to Neil Cavuto of Fox News. His thick accent leads him to pronounce ash as "ass," leading to some comical remarks about ass falls and ass clouds sent to Europe. Hat tip for the link to Martin Eisenstadt of the Harding Institute.

Volcano Song



I've a Fiat. Yogurt, Merkel?

Eyjafjallajokull

Congo's Bloody Coltan

Coltan is a dull metallic ore containing both columbite and tantalite minerals. Common in the eastern Congo, the exploitation of these mineral resources is intricately connected with ethnic strife and national politics among Congolese and with their neighbors in Rwanda and Uganda.

Earthquake shakes southern Japan

3.2 M Earthquake in TN, GA

A minor earthquake with a 3.2 moment magnitude occurred about 11 AM this Saturday, August 1st in the mountains of Tennessee and Georgia. The epicenter was near Ducktown, Tennessee, about 55 miles east of Chattanooga. Although I did not feel any effects down here in south Georgia, an intensity map prepared by the USGS shows light to moderate shaking in the northern suburbs of Atlanta.

Atlanta loses Lake Lanier

Last Friday, July 17th, Judge Paul Magnuson ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been improperly tapping Lake Lanier as a municipal water source for Atlanta. I have yet to read the entire decision, but according to newspaper accounts it hinged on the idea that current use of the reservoir deviates from the initial purpose of impounding federally protected waters of the Chattahoochee River.

The Lake Lanier case involved the state governments of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. It was tried before a judge from the federal district of Minnesota, presumably to insure impartiality. Judge Magnuson's decision has implications for many other localities where lakes originally constructed for flood control or irrigation have been converted to municipal water supplies or some other purpose than that for which the waters were originally impounded.

Many environmentalists are already applauding this decision, particularly in Alabama and Florida. However, it is likely that Georgia will now instead move forward on new dam construction. New dams, particularly if built within the "ACF" (Appalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint) system, could have even more deleterious impacts on both local Georgia environments and downstream fisheries and hydrology.

Earthquake on South Island, NZ

An earthquake occurred at 9:22 PM (9:22 AM GMT) on the evening of Wednesday, July 16th in the Fiordland region of southern New Zealand. At this writing , the earthquake's moment magnitude is reported as 7.6 by the USGS but as 7.8 by the New Zealand's Institute of Nuclear and Geological Sciences. Fiordland is near the southern tip of South Island, where the Australian Plate moves to the northeast at a rate of 35-45 mm/yr relative to the Pacific plate. The yellow area in the above "beach ball" pattern shows the predominantly eastward component of the current thrust within the northeastward plate movement.

The tremor lasted at least a minute and was felt as a rolling motion across New Zealand's South Island, according to the BBC. New Zealand issued a tsunami warning for a string of its coastal towns and cities, but later cancelled it. A tsunami was detected in the Tasman Sea, heading towards the southeast coast of Australia. About an hour after a tsunami warning was issued, Australian officials downgraded it to a "small boat alert" and there was little or no evidence for coastal flooding as a result of the quake.

Excellent Blog Awards

I received my E over a year ago from George, the Decrepit Old Fool, but I apparently neglected to pass the award on as requested. I am certain that I would have chosen a completely different set had I attended to this right away. The list below suggests that I have become a bit more focused on geology, which is only partially true. There really are quite a lot of excellent geologists who are also excellent bloggers.

Ron Schott
Volcanista
Clastic Detritus (Brian Romans)
Lounge of the Lab Lemming

Evolution... not just a theory anymore (Greg Laden)
De Rerum Natura (Reed Cartwright)
Grrlscientist (Devorah Bennu)
Imnakoya's Grandiose Parlor
Loomnie
Cup O'Joe

The "Excellent Blog" Award appears to have originated with Project Mommy, a blog written by Shannymar about her daughter Kayla. Brandy Betz, creator of Moue Magazine, described the spirit of the award when she passed hers on back in February of 2008.

I will have more to say about each of my excellent bloggers later. If you have read this far, please do yourself a favor and support Grrlscientist Devorah Bennu in her campaign to blog an expedition to Antarctica. She has 715 votes and is only a few hundred away from winning.

The Rio Tinto debacle

Shares of Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto (RTP) sank on July 8th following the news of the arrest of their employee Stern Hu for bribery and espionage by Chinese authorities. Hu is an Australian national of Chinese ancestry. Australian blogger and economist angel80 adeptly chronicles an intricate merger war between Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton (BHP), and Chinalco (ACH) which led up to Hu's arrest. Stock prices for BHP Billiton and Chinalco do not appear to have been affected by the Rio Tinto debacle, at least on the boards in London or New York. The above chart compares RTP against the PHLX index for gold and silver (^XAU) for the past month.

Geoscientists arrested in Brazil

Three graduate students from the United States were arrested while conducting fieldwork in the Pantanal region of western Brazil. Two Brazilian students were arrested at the same time, and the entire team had studied and trained at the University of Arizona under Andy Cohen. I am still reading up on this myself, but there is a petition up for us all to sign at the Arizona Geology blog. I came across the news originally in a post by Chuck at Lounge of the Lab Lemming, one of the ten (10) blogs which I just selected to award an "Excellent Blog" award to.

P.S. An earlier post on the Arizona Geology blog indicated that the students were released but are going to have to stand trial in Brazil. According to an article in USA Today authored by Andrea Stone, the students could be stuck in Brazil for months.

Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia

We presented our research on the geoarcheology of stratified alluvium of the Susquehanna River on Saturday in Atlanta. The spot where we put the poster up was a bit dark, but we did have quite a lot of visitors. My colleagues standing to the right are Michael Aiuvalasit and Joseph Schuldenrein of Geoarcheology Research Associates. We had a fourth co-author, Suanna Selby-Crowley, who wrote a dissertation based upon the archaeological sites which we investigated.

ASTEROID IMPACT!

Phoenix studies soil on Mars

The unmanned Phoenix rover has generated results that convince even skeptics like myself that Mars does have soil. Mildly alkaline (pH range from 8-9) and containing both water vapor and carbon dioxide gas, the material shown on the scoop in the above photograph should certainly be "capable of supporting plants out of doors."

There is even a snazzy video to please the masses. Now all we need to find out is whether the soil has in fact supported plants, microbes, or other critters at some point in the past.

Millennium Pipeline through New York's Black Dirt

I am temporarily employed as a consultant on a paleoenvironmental study in southern New York. We are obtaining complete stratigraphic columns with block excavations and piston cores into the "black dirt" of the Wallkill Valley. The funds for the study are coming from natural gas companies which are constructing a 425 mile pipeline running all the way from Lake Erie to New York City. Because this pipeline was originally scheduled to be in operation by the start of the year 2000, it was called "Millennium." Environmental review as well as a variety of other causes for opposition from local citizens have been a major factor in the delay. I also believe, however, that the current construction is timed to take advantage of the rising price for the product to be delivered.