American paleoecologist Dr. Robert Dull believes he’s pretty much solved the mystery behind a catastrophic global climate change event from the sixth century. As the new History series “Perfect Storms” shows, Dull has found solid circumstantial evidence that an eruption at El Salvador’s Lake Ilopango volcano was the cause of the so-called Dust Veil of AD 536, when a thick dust and ash cloud over the Northern Hemisphere cooled parts of the Earth and led to millions of deaths.
The Canadian Press, April 5, 2013
Featuring: Robert Dull
2013 In the News
A tectonic plate that disappeared millions of years ago has turned up in Central California and Mexico. New research from Brown University found that part of the Baja region of Mexico and part of central California near the Sierra Nevada mountains sit upon slabs of this long-lost plate. It’s a big breakthrough in how we think about California’s 100-million-year-old geology. Sean Gulick, a geophysicist from the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics, gives Take Two a little lesson in plate tectonics to understand the discovery.
Take Two, Southern California Public Radio, March 20, 2013.
Featuring: Sean Gulick
Can magnetic nanoparticles injected deep underground with hydraulic fracturing liquids reveal detailed dimensions of shale rock fractures and track movements of gas molecules? Can other particles — that change form when they encounter oil — be “interrogated” for clues about the amounts of oil in dense shale formations? These are among the goals of the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC), headquartered at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, Austin.
EnergyWire, March 15, 2013
Featuring: Mohsen Ahmadian, Scott Tinker
U.S. natural-gas production will accelerate over the next three decades, new research indicates, providing the strongest evidence yet that the energy boom remaking America will last for a generation.
Wall Street Journal, NPR, Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg Businessweek, RigZone, Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle (Fuel Fix Blog), Ft. Worth Star Telegram, StateImpact (NPR/KUT), Feb. 28-Mar. 5, 2013
Featuring: Scott Tinker
LiveScience, Boston Globe (blog), Physics World, TG Daily, Feb. 21-22, 20313
Featuring: Jung-Fu “Afu” Lin
Will Venezuela continue to subsidize Cuban oil supplies post-Chavez? “The impact of Cuba losing that arrangement would be disastrous,” said Jorge Pinon, an oil expert at the University of Texas’ Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy.
Congress has now agreed to give some $60 billion to states damaged by Hurricane Sandy. A lot will go to Long Island, one of the hardest hit areas. Besides damages to homes and businesses, its system of protective barrier islands and beaches were partially washed away. Scientists are trying to find out where that sand and sediment went, and whether it can be used to rebuild Long Island’s defenses.
NPR, January 29, 2013
Featuring: John Goff, Jamie Austin, Cassandra Browne
Updated BEG study finds the amount of water used in fracking has risen in recent years but will level off sometime in the decade starting in 2020.
