Featured Articles

A selection of popular articles that have recently been posted on the Geology News blog.

Last Updated: September 25, 2008.

Eocene Yeast Used to Make Beer [Offbeat]
Extraterrestrial Volcanism on Io [Accretionary Wedge]
Titan Channels: What we know four and half years later. [Accretionary Wedge]
Experience Dealing With Oil Exploration Companies? [Mineral Rights]
Hurricane Ike Aftermath - Galveston Photos

Eocene Yeast Used to Make Beer [Offbeat]

Last modified on 2008-09-24 04:09:02 GMT. 3 comments. Top.

I’ll be honest. I’m really going out on a limb to associate this article with micro-paleontology, but I think it’s of practical value for anyone remotely interested in geology.

Source: Nature

About 15 years ago, Dr. Raul Cano, a scientist at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, decided to drill into a 45 million year old piece of amber that he had found. Inside the amber lay a small weevil that met an unfortunate end when it became stuck in sap in an ancient forest 45 million years ago.

Dr. Cano was even able to extract the DNA from the weevil. He made the announcement, coincidentally enough, one day before the movie Jurassic Park opened in 1993. However, Dr. Cano’s intentions were not to clone ancient weevils or other insects, they were to potentially extract ancient bacterias from the gut of such insects in order to discover potential new antibiotics.

Unfortunately, these experiments did not prove to be fruitful.

Recently, Dr. Cano decided to return to his collection of ancient specimens for a different purpose:

Making beer.

“I was going through my collection, going, ‘Gee whiz — this is pretty nifty. Maybe we could use it to make beer,’” says Cano.

After extracting yeast from the gut of the weevil and activating it, he realized he had a very unique idea. This lead to the creation of the California based Fossil Fuels Brewing Company.

From Discovery News:

Activating the ancient yeast, Cano now brews barrels (not bottles) of pale ale and German wheat beer through the Fossil Fuels Brewing Company.

“You can always buy brewing yeast, and your product will be based on the brewmaster’s recipes,” said Cano. “Our yeast has a double angle: We have yeast no one else has and our own beer recipes.”

The beer has received good reviews at the Russian River Beer Festival and from other reviewers. The Oakland Tribune beer critic, William Brand, says the beer has “a wierd spiciness at the finish,” and The Washington Post said the beer was “smooth and spicy.”

Part of that taste comes from the yeast’s unique metabolism. “The ancient yeast is restricted to a narrow band of carbohydrates, unlike more modern yeasts, which can consume just about any kind of sugar,” said Cano.

According to the Fossil Fuels Brewing Co. website, they have plans to distribute it to selected pubs in Northern California. I cannot wait to try it.

Thanks to my friend Alex for the tip.

More Information

Extraterrestrial Volcanism on Io [Accretionary Wedge]

Last modified on 2008-09-23 16:12:27 GMT. 6 comments. Top.

This post is for the monthly geoblogosphere carnival called the Accretionary Wedge. This month’s Accretionary Wedge is being hosted by Chris Town at Good Schist.

Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Prior to Voyager 1’s flyby of Io in March of 1979, geologists and other scientists back home on Earth had evidence that active volcanism was currently only taking place on our own planet. There was plenty of evidence that volcanism happened on other celestial bodies in the past, such as Olympus Mons on Mars and the large basalt flows on our own Moon.

Voyager 1’s flyby changed that by giving us direct evidence that extraterrestial volcanism was actively happening on other celestial bodies. An engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California was analyzing images from the recent flyby of Io and noticed a plume emanating from the surface.

Discovering plumes on Io, taken in March of 1979 by Voyager 1.
Source: NASA, www.nasaimages.org

Since scientists initially discovered those plumes nearly 30 years ago, Io has been the focus of much research and observation. We now know that it is one of the most volcanically active bodies in our solar system, having to deal with the gravitational tug of war subjected on it by Jupiter. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has an excellent explanation on why Io is so volcanically active:

Io is situated between Jupiter and two of Jupiter’s large moons - Europa and Ganymede. The gravitational force exerted by Jupiter and its moons creates a tidal bulge more than 100 meters (330 feet) high on Io’s surface. Remember, this is a tide created in the solid rock of Io’s crust! As Io rotates around Jupiter, the tidal bulge moves, Io’s crust is flexed, and tremendous heat is generated - much like the heat generated in a piece of wire when it is quickly bent back and forth. This heat drives the volcanic activity so prevalent on Io.

100 meter tides that move through the solid crust of Io? That is ridiculous!

Active volcanism on Tvashtar, a volcano on Io. Captured by the New Horizons spacecraft in March of 2007.
Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

What is all the lava that erupts on Io composed of? Scientists do not know for certain the composition of the lava, but based on spectrometer data, Io’s surface is covered with a mix of hot, basaltic or ultramafic silicates and a sulfur dioxide frost.

Distribution of Sulfur Dioxide Frost on Io
Source: NASA, www.nasaimages.org

Potential Source of Sulfur Flow on Io
Source: NASA, www.nasaimages.org

The low gravity and atmospheric pressure on Io create a perfect recipe for large and spectacular eruptions. Eruption plumes on Io can range from a height of 38 miles to more than 250 miles above the surface of the moon! This is why the plumes are so easy to pick out in photos from the various space probes that have passed the moon.

New Horizons captured this unique view of Jupiter’s moon Io March 1, 2007.
Source: NASA, www.nasaimages.org

Voyager 1 acquired this image of Io on March 4, 1979.
Source: NASA, www.nasaimages.org

Voyager 1 image of Io showing active plume of Loki on limb.
Source: NASA, www.nasaimages.org

The temperature of lava flows and lakes on Io can be as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The fall out and deposits from these nearly continuous eruptions rapidly change the surface of Io and the resulting deposits create beautiful mosaics of color.

Pillan Patera - Arizona-sized Io Eruption
Source: NASA and JPL

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Titan Channels: What we know four and half years later. [Accretionary Wedge]

Last modified on 2008-09-24 00:42:00 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

This post is for the monthly geoblogosphere carnival called the Accretionary Wedge. This month’s Accretionary Wedge is being hosted by Chris Town at Good Schist.

One of the most fascinating things about the surface of Titan is that five years ago we knew nothing about it. But with the arrival of Cassini and Huygens that has all changed.

image courtesy of University of Arizona and JPL.

My research into Titan channels is driven by this simple premise: We kinda think we know how bedrock channels work on earth, what does that tell us about Titan? While Titan does not have any “bedrock” as we know it, it does have its own variety of bedrock. Titan is a balmy -200 °C, the surface is predominately water-ice with some hydrocarbons thrown in for good measure, what exactly those hydrocarbons are is hotly debated. There are several questions that can be asked about these channels. What process drives incision? At what rate does the incision occur? Is the incision active? Can we “Drill now!” to get those hydrocarbons? My research is trying to address the second question, how quickly does ice erode? Another way to ask this question is this: If we were to transport a river from Earth to Titan, keeping the physical characteristics the same (slope, discharge, alluvial cover, etc.) but changing the planetary conditions (gravity, fluid viscosity, density, bedrock type, etc.) how different would the incision rate be?

image courtesy of University of Arizona and JPL.

(And if before going on I can shamelessly advertise: If any of this interests you I will be presenting it at GSA in Houston on Monday, October 6th.)

Let me start out by saying that ice is a strange bird, it is arguably one of the most bizarre materials in our solar system, maybe even weirder than aerogel. We are addressing this problem in phases. The first phase is making the ice. This may sound like a simple thing to do, but we quickly realized that freezing water in your freezer makes monocrystalline ice, and once a fracture reaches a critical length it propagates through and shatters it. Instead we make polycrystalline ice using ice ground up with a Sno-Kone machine and near-freezing water, making the Titan equivalent of sandstone. The second phase is trying to measure what happens to a single clast as it impacts the stream bed. To do this we perform drop tests, where we mimic one collision between one clast and one section of “bedrock” over and over again. The result of this is measuring how much energy is required to erode a unit volume of bedrock. And presto, we have a Titan-Earth incisional ratio! See the images of our impact chamber and “eroded” ice disk below.

So what are we finding? Preliminary results show that ice doesn’t erode that much faster than rock, but there is much still to do. We still need to take these results, corroborate them with further experiments, and plug them into some fancy-dancy equations to tell us what a river on earth would look like if it were on Titan. But the moral of the story is that if we think we understand a process on earth, whether it be channel incision or mountain building, then we should be able to test our theory on other planetary bodies. The results won’t be exactly the same, but they should be similar and so far results are promising.

Cryogenic nitrogen vapor emissions from impact chamber. ©Peter Polito.

Ice disk after ~700 low-velocity impacts. © Peter Polito.

Experience Dealing With Oil Exploration Companies? [Mineral Rights]

Last modified on 2008-09-18 19:31:49 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

My family owns the minerals rights for a parcel of land in Kern County, California. In previous years, oil was extracted from the property. After all the economically viable oil was extracted, the wells were shut down and the oil companies moved on. Now, the price of crude oil is consistently over $100 a barrel and oil companies are looking at oil deposits that previously were not economically viable to recover.

Recently, a representative from an oil exploration company randomly dropped by my parents’ house unannounced. He had a wonderful opportunity related to renewed drilling on this parcel of land in Kern County. They were so excited to get things moving that the representative had a contract in hand, ready for my parents to sign at that instant. My parents said they needed time to read through the contract and the representative arranged to return the very next day to pick up the signed contract.

This had my parents flustered. The contract was a bunch of vague lawyer jumble and was not very easy to understand. Do they actually get royalties or not from anything extracted from the site? Does this contract really grant them them rights to drill on the land for over twenty-something years? Are they saying they want to rent the mineral rights for only $20 per acre, per year?

Obviously, they needed a lawyer to properly digest this information. And where could one find a lawyer in one day?

The suddenness of this proposition left my parents with a funny feeling in their stomachs. They turned to the internet to see if they could find out more. After searching Google for the company name, they found the website of another individual who recounted a similar experience.

He basically says that the same representative showed up unannounced at his and his relative’s houses with a contract for oil and gas leases. This would give the company rights to drill the land. The author goes on to talk about the history of these men in the American West and how their job has been to get people to sign these contracts by any means necessary, regardless of what the contracts said.

The website goes on to document some of the deception, smooth talking and even threats that occurred in trying to get his family members to sign. This pretty much sealed the deal for my parents. They were not going to sign it without more information and without contacting an attorney.

The next day, the same representative stopped by to pick up the contract. My parents told him they were not going to sign it at this time. Undoubtedly, he must have been rather annoyed to drive out all that way only to find that his sure-deal fell through.

When they mentioned the website they found relating to previous interactions with representatives from this same company, the representative standing in their yard told them that the author was a “nut case” who had been “blacklisted” from any future contracts with the company. He also mentioned that they would sue him, but it “wasn’t worth the trouble.” He went on to say that the author’s opposition to leasing the mineral rights was a moot issue because they could always “slant drill into the property.” (Slant drilling into another property that you don’t specifically have the mineral rights for is illegal. Unfortunately, this is hard to prove.)

“Regardless, we’ll drain [their property] dry,” he said.

Wow.

Has anyone else ever had any interaction with oil exploration companies, whether it was successful or not? What sorts of things are important to look for or do (i.e., hiring an attorney to sign any contract)?

(Note: Names have been intentionally left vague due to potential threats of libel/slander on behalf of said oil company.)

Hurricane Ike Aftermath - Galveston Photos

Last modified on 2008-09-17 01:49:13 GMT. 11 comments. Top.

This past weekend, Hurricane Ike slammed into Texas as a category 2 hurricane. Despite warnings to leave the area or face “certain death,” many did not evacuate from towns and cities in the hurricane’s path. Rescue operations are currently underway.

It will be a few days before we know the cost and extent of damage. Expect to see some incredible imagery from NASA and the USGS in the next few weeks showing drastic changes to the coastline and surrounding terrain from this hurricane’s awesome power. [Update: (09/16/2008) - The USGS has released before and after photos of the Bolivar Peninsula. See them here. ]

Here are some photos from the city of Galveston itself.

Source: AP