Geology in the News, 2000

NOTE: I've eliminated outdated items: i.e., there was new information; or it wasn't very interesting; or the link was removed by journals/newspapers with a short archival time.

  • December 23, 2000. Asteroid just misses the Earth. BBC News OnLine. Only half a million miles nearer...

  • December 19, 2000. Increased recognition of the danger of sudden tsunami along the California coast. San Francisco Chronicle .

  • December 18, 2000. Why is the San Andreas Fault so cool? Story from the San Francisco Chronicle. (And very well written, by Keay Davidson.)

  • December 18, 2000. There is probably an ocean under the ice of Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. NASA press release. This is not really a surprise, since the same interpretation is already offered for Europa and Callisto. I think it should be called "a layer of salt water", but that's less sexy though more accurate than "ocean". You can find the same press release here.

  • December 5, 2000. Water-laid sediments on Mars (but VERY ancient ones). New York Times, story leaked before its publication in Science. And HERE ARE SOME IMAGES.

  • December 5, 2000. Collapse predicted for the Columbia Glacier in Alaska. Press release from the University of Colorado.

  • December 2, 2000. Tremendous bombardment of Moon (and Earth) at 3.9 billion years ago. From Science News, reporting on a paper in Science. We knew about this, but the new evidence makes the story stronger. Ron Cowen is no relation.

  • November 15, 2000. Two people killed on Kilauea. From the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Clearly, these two people were doing something stupid.

  • October 24, 2000. There are more dangerous asteroids out there than we thought. Story from BBC News OnLine.

  • October 20, 2000. Iron Mountain, California: cleaning up the world's worst water.

  • October 16, 2000. Huge merger: Chevron will buy Texaco to form the fourth-largest oil company in the world and the second in the United States behind Exxon-Mobil. From the San Francisco Chronicle. Presumably lots of geologists will be fired.

  • October 4, 2000. Asbestos miners at risk at yet another mine. . Story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which has been following the ghastly story of asbestos for some time. Follow links to related stories, or click here.

  • October 3, 2000. Renewed interest in Russia's Arctic oil- and gas-fields. From the New York Times. Please note that the Timan-Pechora field ALONE is said to have 126 billion barrels, while the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska may have 10 billion.

  • October 2, 2000. Yet another coal mine disaster in China. From BBC News OnLine. Previous stories, if you're feeling strong:

  • September 28, 2000. New faults found in southern Alaska oilfield. Story from the San Francisco Chronicle

  • September 20, 2000. New projections of the financial cost of earthquakes across the US.

  • September 6, 2000. Oil prices reach a new 10-year high: $35 a barrel. From BBC News Online.

  • August 30, 2000. New sonar survey of Crater Lake.

  • August 29, 2000. Venice is sinking: and the latest research gives little hope of stopping it. From the New York Times. Reference: Ammermann, A. J., and C. E. McClennen. 2000. Saving Venice. Science 289: 1301-1302.

  • August 18, 2000. The Hayward Fault may be a little less threatening than we thought. (But don't relax yet!)

  • July 21, 2000. Toxic mine waste in Oklahoma. Story from the New York Times.

  • July 21, 2000. The Greenland ice sheet is thinning significantly. Story from BBC News OnLine.

  • July 14, 2000. New evidence of tsunami threat to East Coast. Story from the New York Times. Earlier story: Tsunami risk in ...Virginia? Story from New York Times, May 3, 2000.

  • July 14, 2000. England's crumbling chalk cliffs. Story from BBC News OnLine on the doomed village of Birling Gap

  • July 12, 2000. Collapse of garbage dump in Manila: a geological, but man-made, disaster. BBC News OnLine, July 12, 2000

  • June 21-29, 2000. NASA announces the discovery of water-carved gullies on Mars, and they look fresh, therefore new. The media immediately jump on the "There-IS-water on Mars" aspect of the story.

  • June 14, 2000. Mount Etna continues to erupt. An Airbus airliner flew through the ash cloud and received heavy windshield damage, though the engines did not stop.

  • June 12, 2000. A gigantic geode, big enough to hold a dozen people, with enormous gypsum crystals lining it. Story from BBC News OnLine. The crystal cave is in Spain.

  • June 12, 2000. Canada is now the largest supplier of energy imported into the US. From the New York Times. That's the combination of oil, gas, and hydroelectric power.

  • June 8, 2000. Zag meteorite, which (astoundingly) has salt crystals in it. BBC News OnLine.

  • June 5-7, 2000. Large earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia.

  • June 6, 2000. How did the Grand Canyon form? We don't know. Story from the New York Times.

  • May 24, 2000. Brand-new volcanic island in the Pacific. BBC News OnLine. This is Kavachi, in the Solomon Islands. Other site: Images of Solomon Islands postage stamps showing Kavachi in eruption.

  • May 22, 2000. An active, erupting undersea volcano on a hot spot near Samoa. Vailulu'u volcano supports the idea that the Samoan islands, like Hawaii, were formed as a hot spot chain.
  • Press release from Science Daily.

  • May 19, 2000. World's deepest rocks discovered. BBC News OnLine.

  • May 18, 2000. Twenty year anniversary of Mount St. Helens eruption, 1980. Series in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  • May 10, 2000. Dredging up a black smoker. BBC News OnLine. Laced with gold, they say.

  • May 9, 2000. The end of the world is at hand! (Well three billion years is all we have left.) We are on a collision course with the Andromeda Nebula. Story from the New York Times.

  • May 5, 2000. The asteroid Kleopatra, shaped like a doggie bone. press release.

  • April 27, 2000. Earthquake threat to Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey. AP story from New York Times.

  • April 25, 2000. Large crater discovered in Australia. This one is BIG, and old. However, the age is very uncertain. It could be Permian, it could be Triassic, it could be Jurassic. That doesn't stop the New York Times writer from concentrating almost entirely on the chance that it could be a trigger for the Permo-Triassic extinction. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But just from the data he reports, the chance is much less than 10%. Lousy piece of science reporting.

  • April 9, 2000. Continuing danger at Mount Usu in Japan.

  • March 31, 2000. Potential groundwater tragedy in Willits, California. Story from the San Francisco Chronicle.

  • March 14, 2000. The first month of the NEAR spacecraft at the asteroid Eros. Press release. For more details on the mission, see the project home page.

  • March 2, 2000. Eruption of Mt. Hekla, Iceland. University of Hawaii Hilo site.

  • February 17, 2000. Huge cyanide spill from Romanian gold operation. In chronological order:

  • February 16, 2000. How the Moon got a tilt to its axis. Story from BBC News OnLine.

  • February 16, 2000. Oil prices hit a 9-year high.

  • February 16, 2000. California homes poised to fall into the Pacific Ocean. Westline Drive, Daly City. Story from the San Francisco Chronicle.

  • January 31, 2000. Martian meteorites found in Mojave Desert. BBC News OnLine. Don't hold your breath for great scientific information from these two . It sounds as if the dominant chemical in these meteorite will be rat urine.

  • January 28, 2000. Tracing the source of history's greatest emeralds. Here are three stories:

  • January 3, 2000. 17th birthday for the Hawaiian eruption. Report to mark the 17th anniversary of the current eruption in Hawaii.

    [All links checked by RC, June 2007]

    [For current items, see Geology in the News.

    [For news items archived from 2001, see Geology News from 2001.

    [For news items archived from 1999, see Geology News from 1999.

    [For Oceanography in the News, see Oceanography in the News

    [For Paleontology in the News, see Paleontology in the News

    [Return to Geology Department at UC Davis