Stories tagged geology
Literally dig deeper into the earth surface and discover what is lying right under your feet.
Geology at work: Famous stone arch collapses in Utah national park
One of the iconic images of Arches National Park in Utah, the Wall Arch, collapsed last week. Global warming is not to blame for this, just regular old geologic forces of erosion and gravity working against the beauty of the rock formation. Click here for the full story and before and after photos. The last major arch to collapse at the park went down in 1991.
Tags : Here's the USGS data on the earthquake, and CNN's developing story.
Geological processes don't always occur over long stretches of time. Landslides triggered by recent 7.9 magnitude earthquake in China have blocked rivers causing new - and perhaps unstable - lakes to form in the devastated landscape.
Satellite photos taken of the region around Beichuan County show formation of a lake in one of the worst hit areas. Twenty other lakes have formed in Beichuan because of the massive tremor and are being monitored closely according to a story in Chinese Daily.
Death estimates are nearing 60,000, and the quake is thought to have destroyed more than 5 million buildings.
Dinosaurs coming to St. Paul
in Earth and Space Science, Diversity of Organisms, Earth Structure and Processes, and History and Nature of Science
Goodness, gracious, here they come!: No reason to panic. Just think of them as giant parakeets that could swallow you whole.
Courtesy Mark RyanNo, this isn’t about the herds of conventioneers descending upon the Saintly City for the Republican National Convention next fall. That would be disrespectful. I’m talking about the dinosaurs coming in June for five days at the Xcel Energy Center in a show called “Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience“.
These aren't the same dinos that overran the Twin Cities last year during the Science Museum's 100th anniversary celebration. These latest dinosaurs are from Immersion Edutainment, an Australian company that uses a mix of computers, hydraulics, puppets, and actors to create a live show based on the highly acclaimed BBC television series by the same name.
And just in case you’re worried, these aren’t going to be cuddly and lame purple dinosaurs dancing about on ice, or jerky, hard-cased theme park animatronics, or even colorful plaster statues– no siree Bob – these are going to be scientifically accurate Mesozoic behemoths complete with life-like flexible skin, rippling muscles, swinging tails, snapping jaws, and heart-pounding sound-effects that will shake your popcorn right out of its box.
During the 90-minute show, a “paleontologist” serves as ringmaster and narrator, offering scientific insights into the world of these fantastic creatures. Geological concepts such as plate tectonics and continental drift help put things in perspective, as ten dinosaur species are presented in their proper order from the late Triassic to the late Cretaceous, including two enormous Brachiosaurs and everyone’s favorite, Tyrannosaurus rex. This is going to be one really BIG show!
Music and video projection will add to the dramatic content of the presentation and the program is deemed appropriate for all ages although some scenes could be a bit too intense for some very small kids.
Hoards of Australians evidently flocked to this thing when it toured sports arenas there. Performances here run June 11-15 at the Xcel Energy Center. And if 90 minutes of dinosaurs running amok aren’t enough for you, after the show, you can scoot across the street to the Science Museum and see the remains of some real dinosaurs. What could be better than that?
All the information you need about “Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience” can be found at the Immersion Edutainment website.
Red Rock Canyon: The gray Paleozoic limestones of the Spring Mountains loom over the younger Mesozoic sandstones.
Courtesy Mark RyanEven when I’m on vacation my attention is often drawn to things of science. Last week after a couple rigorous days in Las Vegas observing the various aspects of the Law of Attraction (“please make the next card an eight”) and my personal experiments in slot-machine probability and statistics, my wife and I took a break from all the razzle-dazzle to investigate a geological feature situated in the Spring Mountains about 20 miles west of the city.
Another view of Red Rock Canyon: The sandstones dwarf visitors in the distance.
Courtesy Mark RyanRed Rock Canyon National Conservation Area covers 197,000 acres within the Mojave Desert and the namesake formation stands out colorfully against the stark grayness of the basin and range topography for which Nevada is so well known. The park offers plenty to do and see: hiking, rock-climbing, petroglyphs, petrified wood, desert flora and fauna, and a 13 mile highway loop for driving or biking. Wild burros run free in the park but we didn’t see any while we were there.
Half a billion years ago the region was under a vast ocean densely populated with Paleozoic Era marine life. More than 9,000 feet of limestone and other carbonate rocks formed out of this environment and remained buried deep beneath the Earth for millions of years. Later when the oceans receded due to the seabed rising, swamps appeared and disappeared, and for a while the area was heavily forested as evidenced by petrified wood found there. Ephemeral waters left behind gypsum and salt as they evaporated. At some point, oxidation of iron-bearing minerals in the sediments took place producing the reddish colors apparent in the canyon today. On top of all this (following the Law of Superposition), massive windblown sand dunes shifted over the region at a time when it resembled today’s Sahara Desert. The dunes themselves were eventually buried and hardened into layers of sandstone.
During the Laramide Orogeny tectonic forces deep within the Earth’s crust began to crumple the landscape as predecessors to the Pacific Plate collided and subducted with the North American Plate and caused the older Paleozoic limestone to heave above the younger Mesozoic sandstone.
Impressive example of cross-bedding: Red Rock Canyon sandstone shows the effects of wind on the sand dunes from which it was formed.
Courtesy Mark RyanKnown as the Keystone Thrust Fault, it’s one of the best visible examples of such a geological feature, due to the stark color difference between the rock units involved.
The canyon’s calico-colored cliffs and boulders also display some really fine examples of cross-bedding, which can form in environments where water or wind flows over sand or gravel beds. The sand dunes that existed at Red Rock during the Jurassic Period were such an environment. We hiked up the rocks for a spell, and although, it’s fairly steep in places, the rough sandstone surface provided a very secure footing.
So, if you’re out Vegas way, I recommend you take some time away from all the artificial glitz and glitter to drive out and blow some cash ($5 per private vehicle) to view some of the dazzling natural glitz abundant at Red Rock Canyon.
LINKS
Red Rock webcam
More on thrust faults
More on the Keystone Thrust Fault
That's really old: Testing done in caves along the Grand Canyon has led to an increasing of the believed age of the western section of the canyon, pegging it at around 17 million years old.
Courtesy RealbrvhrtRegular readers of the Buzz may have noticed that there are some subjects I just can’t let slide by without comment, primarily anything having to do with Vikings, smoking, steroids and my all-time favorite topic, the Grand Canyon.
And news broke today that the Grand Canyon has been pulling one over on us when it came to its age. While no amount of Botox can even begin to cover up all its wrinkles and creases, we just might have been grossly underestimating its age all these years.
The commonly accepted age for the canyon has been set at around 6 million years, primarily based on geological clues in the rocks that form the canyon’s walls.
But researchers poking around in some of the canyon’s caves now figure that the carving of the western section of the canyon might have started as far back as 17 million years ago. Also, these same researchers think that the Grand Canyon may be the ultimate combination of two canyons that cut through northern Arizona at different times, with the eastern section of the canyon being “newer.”
The first thing you have to kick out of your head when comprehending all this is that the Colorado River – which currently snakes its way along the canyon’s base – was not the original river or water drainage system to carve out the canyon. So we can’t lock our thinking into that being a major factor in the canyon’s creation.
One of the big challenges in using geology to date a canyon is that erosion and canyon carving has continued on. So the clues we can find on the canyon’s surface or walls have themselves become compromised by the elements.
That’s why researchers from the University of New Mexico went into caves along the canyon to gather more geological clues. Those clues haven’t been altered by water run-off, wind or other eroding agents.
Rock samples were taken from ten different caves along the length of the canyon. And through the use of uranium-lead isotope testing, the section of the west canyon came out to being dated as 17 million years old.
Those tests also showed that the west canyon’s formation worked both east and west. It was a long, gradual process, with the canyon being cut at a rate of about two inches per 1,000 years.
That eastern, backward erosion eventually hooked up with the eastern canyon formation action about 5 or 6 million years ago to make one huge canyon. And with the bigger canyon, the carving pace accelerated to a rate of 8 to 12 inches each 1,000 years.
Mixed into all of that were geologic forces from under the earth that were pushing rock formations in the area up at the same time erosion forces were cutting down. And that, my friends, is how you get one impressive canyon.
Also, right now the Grand Canyon is in the midst of a three-day water release at the Glen Canyon Dam that is designed to redistribute sediment in the canyon and simulate the occasional spring floods the canyon received before the Colorado River was dammed. That process has occurred several times in the past and has controversies of its own to talk about.
Here are links to couple of the other Grand Canyon related Buzz content I’ve recently posted:
• Lake Meade dropping
• Grand Canyon Skywalk to open
Feel free to share your Grand Canyon thoughts here with other Science Buzz readers.
After years of negotiation with hundreds of governments and institutions, the first map showing the entire range of magnetic anomalies on Earth has finally been released.
More than 50 years of data gathered by aeromagnetic surveys, research vessels, and orbiting satellites by various agencies around the globe have been compiled onto one map that is available through the Commission of the Geological Map of the World.
You can read more about it at the BBC website as well as download a low-rez version of the map as a pdf file here.
Cracked up science: Rock samples recently collected along the San Andreas Fault in California could unlock some of the mysteries on what causes earthquakes. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey)What’s the secret ingredient for earthquakes? Scientists this week think they might have a new clue after getting rock samples from more than two miles deep in the San Andreas Fault.
It’s the first time researchers have been able to get geological samples from so far down in an active earthquake area and should give new insights into how faults and earthquakes actually work.
The big surprise was the significant amounts of the mineral serpentine that were found. It’s a soft mineral the geologists think plays a substantial role in the creation of earthquakes.
Some members of the research team describe the finds as the geologic equal to moon rocks. And they’re a hot property with hundreds of requests now coming in from universities and researchers wanting to get their hands, and eyes, on these specimens.
The collection process has extracted about a ton of rock. The samples are 135-foot-long cylinders that have a four-inch diameter and were bored out near Parkfield, Calif. That’s a region of the San Andreas Fault where earthquakes are common, but not too severe. Along with the serpentine, the samples also include large amounts of shale and sandstone.
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