http://geology.rockbandit.net The latest and greatest news in geology, from around the world. Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:11:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Wow, June starts up and many of us are thrust right outdoors. It's definitely the season for field work! I know I've been pretty busy the past month, which has left little time to do anything else. We've also been trying to prep for a server change. Our hosting contract ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/06/23/tis-the-season-for-fieldwork/ In 2006, a drilling accident near the city of Sidoarjo, Indonesia caused a large and rapidly growing mud volcano to form. The volcano, named Lusi, eventually went on to become the fastest growing mud volcano in the world, engulfing upwards of 7 square kilometers and forcing 30,000 people from their ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/29/indonesian-mud-volcano-is-collapsing/ My apologies for apparently spamming the geoblogosphere RSS feed this weekend. I've been having some issues with the blog. The first issue deals with some weird sort of remote injection flaw in Wordpress. Basically, some bot came by and inserted hundreds of hidden spam links into the footer of my ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/27/bad-luck-with-the-blog/ Phoenix landed on the surface of Mars at 4:35pm (PDT) earlier today. The NASA/JPL briefing is happening as I type this. First photos have been beamed back to Earth! Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona It will be exciting to see what this little "robot geologist" discovers when they start digging into the Martian ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/25/congrats-to-the-phoenix-mars-mission-team/ Kris Pankow, a seismologist at the University of Utah, analyzed 15 major M7.0 or greater earthquakes that have occurred since 1992 and found that in many cases, the quakes were directly responsible for causing smaller earthquakes hundreds or thousands of miles away. Source: Aaron Velasco, University of Texas at El Paso ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/25/earthquakes-can-cause-remote-events-worldwide/ The fourth episode of the Goodschist PodClast is out today. This episode features Chris Town and myself. Due to technical difficulties, Chris and I decided to each record a separate segment of the PodClast, dealing with topics we were planning on discussing. Show notes for Episode 4 are available on Chris’ ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/25/podclast-episode-4-sichuan-earthquake-and-mars-phoenix-lander/ NASA's online television service will be streaming live coverage of the Phoenix landing.  I do not know the extent of the coverage or how soon it will be beaming back live footage from Mars, but from 6–11 PM EST you can be on the cutting edge of Martian Science.  This ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/25/live-coverage-of-the-phoenix-landing/ The USGS releases mineral information essen­tial to the U.S. economy and national security. U.S. Geological Survey data on U.S. mineral production reflect the domestic housing market decline over the past year. The USGS study shows significant declines in domestic production for a number of construction materials, including cement, gypsum, construction sand ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/24/mineral-production-data-reflect-economic-slowdown/ Real time water-quality data are now easily accessible online through the USGS WaterQualityWatch website (http://water.usgs.gov/waterwatch/wqwatch/). Continuous real-time information on water quality is a vital asset that helps safeguard lives and property and ensures adequate water resources for a healthy economy. Real-time water quality measurements are available at more than 1,300 sites across ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/24/real-time-water-quality-information-available-across-the-nation-2/ Northern Idaho's Coeur d'Alene River has risen to its highest flood stage since 1996, according to information collected by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). As of 11:00 am, Mountain Daylight Time, today, the USGS streamflow gage on the Coeur d'Alene River near Cataldo, Idaho measured the height of the river ... http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/05/24/coeur-dalene-river-flooding-worst-since-1996/