Geofluids
greengabbro | January 13, 2009One of my New Year's blogolutions was to clear out my to-blog folder, and bring closure to my unfinished drafts by simply posting them as-is. This is one of those drafts. Disorganized paragraphs, unfinished sentences, and general incoherence enhance the natural character and beauty of a half-written blog post and should not be considered flaws or defects.
Draft date: November 19, 2008
I stopped writing this post because I convinced myself that I was probably maybe sorta wrong, and not just because we are mining the Ogallala... but now I can't remember my own argument. So I'll punt to…
greengabbro | June 17, 2008From the perspective of this paper's publication, my cross-country move was badly timed. Since my email access has been so sporadic over the past couple weeks, I missed chances to help edit the press release and do a couple of interviews.
The press seems to have done just fine without me (except that no reporters have found my blog - or at least, no reporters have found it interesting). The Boston Globe has a nice photo set. What's weird, though, is watching the quotes from various officials at the company whose borehole we claim is responsible for the disaster.
In an article in the Financial…
greengabbro | June 12, 2008 I don't actually know what underlies the Middle Devonian brachiopods of my childhood, but I might get to find out soon. Iowa City is experiencing its second "500 year" flood in 15 years, and Coralville Lake has overtopped its dam... again. And the river hasn't crested yet. Fortunately, my family is on high ground, and playing host to some friends who've been evacuated from the flood zone.
Buildings in Iowa City must have floors that are at least 1 foot (or 1.4 of your Earth football diameters) above a designated "100 year" flood elevation. These elevations are determined by FEMA; climate…
greengabbro | May 31, 2008 It's been two years* since the ground opened near Sidoarjo, Indonesia, spewing mud over the homes, farms, and businesses of tens of thousands of people. The disaster quickly acquired the rather endearing name of "Lusi", which is short for "lumpur" (Indonesian for mud) and "Sidoarjo". The two-year anniversary media bonanza has focused on the continuing plight of the refugees and the publication of a new paper analyzing GPS data around the mud volcano to determine that there is, indeed, going to be a big hole in the ground where the mud used to be. Chris Rowan has already blogged about that…
greengabbro | April 3, 2008 There is a village in Taiwan trying to build a reputation for tofu flavored with the local mud volcano. On the face of it, this is a horrible idea - blecch, mud! - although there is probably some money to be made by importing the stuff to the U.S. and selling it to gullible New Agers who can be convinced of the spiritual healing properties of ancient Oriental geology.
After thinking about it, though, I think mud volcano tofu might actually be pretty tasty.
Mud volcanoes occur when sediment is (a) deposited very fast, so that there's no time for its water to gracefully ooze out while it…
greengabbro | February 25, 2008 I didn't manage to get myself scraped off onto this month's Accretionary Wedge - oh, noes! While I am tragically subducted into the mantle, though, the rest of you can read about the many open questions currently puzzling the geoblogosphere.
Perhaps I can make it into the volcanic arc or something with a late entry about what's making me go "hmm" this afternoon. It's related to volcanoes, too: the behavior of glass beads suspended in a zinc iodide solution, spun between two cylinders.
The picture adorning this post is from an article by Völtz et al. in Physical Review E. They spun a…