GSCI340 - Environmental Geology

‘Foraminifera in Limestone steps of Girona Cathedral’

http://blackboard.fhsu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_2239_1

(photo link above)

Foraminifera are single celled protozoans known for their single or many chambered tests (and are named for the foramin connecting these chambers), they often look like microscopic sea shells; like shells, the tests are made of organic proteins, layers of excreted mineral or even glued sand grains, from which they can exude out hair like pseudopodia or reticuolipodia for locomotion and feeding, in the photograph these pseudo-appendages (called granulareticulose pseudopodia) appear in the photograph around the Protists as a faint halo.

Foraminifera are thought to have been ‘floating’ around since the Cambrian period about 550 mya, are confined to aquatic living, classified according to their lifestyle, living on the sea floor (benthic) or floating (Planktonic), they can accumulate on the sea floor and become fossilized as calcium carbonate rock(calcerous limestone). I couldn’t find much information on the layer found in Girona, only that deposits in northern spain are calcerous Benthic forms speculated to have been living in the warm Holocene period some 10,000 years ago.

Online References:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/hol.html

http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/403/

http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Foraminifera

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/foram/foramintro.html (Karen Wetmore, 1995)

http://blackboard.fhsu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_2239_1

Link above

Foraminfera in limestone steps of Girona Cathedral

Foraminifera are single celled protozoans known for their single or many chambered tests (and are named for the foramin connecting these chambers), they often look like microscopic sea shells; like shells, the tests are made of organic proteins, layers of excreted mineral or even glued sand grains, from which they can exude out hair like pseudopodia or reticuolipodia for locomotion and feeding, in the photograph these pseudo-appendages (called granulareticulose pseudopodia) appear in the photograph around the Protists as a faint halo.

Foraminifera are thought to have been ‘floating’ around since the Cambrian period about 550 mya, and they are esclusively aquatic. They can be classified according to their lifestyle, living on the sea floor (benthic) or floating (Planktonic), and they can accumulate on the sea floor and become fossilized as calcium carbonate rock(calcerous limestone) - I couldn’t find much information on the layer found in Girona, only that deposits of northern spain are calcerous Benthic forms speculated to have been living in the ‘warm’ Holocene period some 10,000 years ago.

Online References:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/hol.html

http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/403/

http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Foraminifera

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/foram/foramintro.html (Karen Wetmore, 1995)

[…] can be completed online in a reasonable amount of time (e.g., GeoChallenges #2, #3, and #7). All GeoChallenges must be completed by noon on Tuesday, December 11th. No […]

Sandstone Formations-01

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of quartz and feldspars. Particles are uniformly sized, and sandstones have a porosity. This makes them excellent for aquifers and storing water. Due to high, uniform porsity with little or no large cracks and crevaces, sandstones are great filterers. Due to the hardness of quartz and feldspar, a lot of sandstones resist weathering quite well.

Weatered Granite

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The granite in this picture endures a heavy, consistent beating from wind and sea water. These are the primary weathering processes for granite and rock along the coast. Granite is a relatively strong rock. The stone in the picture is relatively round and smooth with lines from water erosion. This tells me that this cliff has been there for a long time. Granite is a type of igneous rock. It is typically medium to course textured with a wide array of color.

With the advent of stimulation software and the ESSCC’s Altix computer, geologists around the world are able to predict, for the first time, where an earthquake might occur. Not dissimilar to volcanic predictions, this effort would save lives and help geologists to better understand earthquakes. Even with this new and exciting equipment the actions of the earth are still puzzling to geologists. The inverse relationship of magnitude and frequency aid geologists in predicting when the next earthquake could occur.

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Depending on what type of burying an organism goes through, it then goes through a mineralization process and eventually gets entombed into stone. Due to the most common types of burying an organism, the fossils tend to be solely “hard” materials such as bones, teeth, etc. Fortunately for paleontologists the discovery of not just the bones, but of the skin and tendons of a partially intact hadrosaur fossilized for 67 million years is giving a real insight as to how the dinosaur looked.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071203/ts_alt_afp/ussciencepaleontology

The geothermal energy article opened my eyes a little more to the resource. We learned in class that there is a lot of energy under the crust of our planet. However, I didn’t realize that we could make such large amounts of energy with geothermal processes. I also didn’t realize how hard it was to find a good spot to set up a geothermal station. A lot of potential energy is located below our feet. Unfortunately, it is so far under our feet that there are only a few places where using it is an option right now. The article also discusses the fact that in at least one place where they are doing this the ground has “run out of steam.” I don’t know exactly how bad this would be for Earth’s foundation, but they were able to pump waste water into the ground and make the station work again. Maybe this could someday turn into a major resource which we could renew by pumping certain waste waters into the ground. Then again, maybe that would just deplete two resources.

How can you tell how deep the water table is in a specific location?
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This article discusses the ‘how’ of determining water table depth, but not how the ground material affects it.

Aquifers refer to ground material that can provide groundwater to a well at a usable rate. The type of earth material has a profound effect on the rate of percolation of water through the underground zones, including vadose and saturation. Larger materials with large space between particles, such as gravel, sand, and fractured sandstone, work well as aquifers because water can percolate easier. Clay, on the other hand, inhibits water percolation due to its small particles with little space in between.

Besides precipitation and season (high water table in winter, low water table in summer), the geologic aspects of the ground also affect water table depth.

In Indonesia a 5.4 magnitude earthquake occurred Friday December 7th, but no damages or injuries had been reported. The area where this earthquake occurred is located within what is called the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” This seismic area is known for its frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This “Ring of Fire” is a horseshoe-shaped area located in the Pacific Ocean. It is said that 90% of the world’s earthquakes occur within this area. These earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics and the movement of crustal plates. Plate tectonics is said to be the continents breaking apart and then colliding and rubbing together.

Sources:
http://www.crystalinks.com/rof.html
http://www.platetectonics.com/

This article talks about a massive landslide in Austria that is threatening houses as it moves down the side of the Traunstein mountain. It is classified a landslide because it is moving down as one big slab and it weighs one million tons. They trying to stop the slow moving landslide by digging channels in front of it to help drain the water from the landslide. By doing this they are trying to slow it down even further or stop it all together. When you remove moisture from the ground on a slope it is less likely there will be a landslide. The last massive landslide that descended from Traunstein mountain was in 1910.

Earthquake gives Upstate a wake-up call
A 3.1 magnitude earthquake struck North Carolina Friday, but caused little damage. At this time it has not been determined what caused the earthquake, but the East Tennessee Seismic Zone is suspected to be the culprit. This zone stretches from south west Virginia to north east Alabama. Although this area is said to be one of the most active areas in the southeast, the earthquakes that occur here usually cause little to no damage. Unlike earthquakes in other areas, very few earthquakes that occur in the East Tennessee Seismic Zone can be linked to a specific fault. Earthquakes that occur in this area are felt over a wider area because they occur closer to the earth’s surface.

Sources
http://www.greenvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071208/NEWS01/712080334

http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2003/eq_030429/

“Huge ‘Ocean’ Discovered Inside Earth” http://www.livescience.com/environment/070228_beijing_anomoly.html

According to the article, a large amount of water- the volume of the Arctic ocean- has been found underneith eastern Asia. The source of the water is rock, specifically water-saturated rock that has been subducted at a plate boundry. The water then “boils” off, and becomes trapped deep inside the mantle.

This is interesting, because it shows that the earth is more water-rich than previously thought. Finding an Arctic-ocean sized body of water is quite incredible. Imagine if that volume of water was suddenly added to the earth’s oceans. How much would that increase sea levels? Another thought… could water trapped in this state suddenly erupting volcano-fassion be the cause of the Biblical Flood? It is something to dwell upon.

This is also proof that validates the theory that water indeed gets trapped in subducted crust and eventually gets boiled out of the chemical structure of the rock as the rocks heat up.

“Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth’s Crust, Breakthrough to Mantle Looms” http://www.livescience.com/technology/050407_earth_drill.html

Not a Geology Pic, but I found the link on the above article and thought it was neat.

A breakthrough into the mantle would be an astonishing scientific achievment. This would be the first time scientists would be able to look at rocks taken directly from the earth’s mantle, and be able to analyze their geology and compare them to rocks of the crust. This was also the first time that rocks have been examined from the lower crust. As stated in the article, this has changed our view on the geology of the crust and its complexity.

As our technology increases, so does our ability to undergo and achieve such scientific breakthroughs, and we increase our knowledge in the inner workings of the earth.

Turrialba Volcano Acts Up

The Turrialba Volcano is an active volcano located in Costa Rica about 40 km east of San Jose. This volcano is one of Costa Rica’s largest volcanoes. The last time that this volcano erupted was in 1866. Park rangers have been keeping an eye on this volcano since they first noticed minor landslides, dying vegetation and sulfuric gas. The rangers have been watching this volcano since about April. Just recently the volcano shot gas and vapor about 2 km into the sky. The National Emergency Commission has stated that this is a common occurrence for active volcanoes and that no crops, humans or animals have been affected by the gas and vapor. Most of the eruptions of this volcano are said to be from the craters located at the summit.

Sources
http://www.costaricapages.com/blog/costa-rica-news/costa-rica-volcano-turrialba/414

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcano-tours/volcanoes/central_america/costa_rica/turrialba/

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1834&from=rss

The USGS is predicting another massive earthquake to happen along the Hayward Fault. This fault line runs through San Francisco. The last time a large earthquake struck was in 1868. It hit with Magnitude 7 force, and decimated much of San Francisco.
Since then, the population of San Francisco has increased as well as property value. If a massive quake were to hit now, the financial damage would be incredible. Another question that arises is how quake-resistant are most of the structures in San Francisco?
We haven’t seen a sizable quake in the United States for awhile, and I would hate to have to flip on the news some evening and see the many lives lost due to unpreparedness of the people that live in this area.

Mega Tsunamis

Mega Tsunamis are formed primarily from the type of fault that causes the large earthquakes that trigger the tsunami. The Japan fault in particular is a reverse fault making the up motion on the sea floor that causes tsunamis. This is the same kind of fault that runs along the sumatra, Indionisa area so it would be reasonable that it would create the same kind of effects considering the 2004 9.1 earthquake in Indionisa that created the large tsunami that killed 300 thousand people.