News
June 5, 2015
June 5 is the World environment day. For the last 100 years, the face of the Earth has been essentially changed by human activity. The fruits of our labour have been showed on a special website NASA “Images of change” where satellite photos taken with an interval of 5-10-50-100 years show Earth’s landscapes changes. The melting of glaciers, drying up of lakes, coastal erosion, desert approaching...
May 13, 2015
When Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. opened an office in Poland in 2009, it had a reason to be optimistic: the shale boom was transforming the U.S. into the world’s largest producer of natural gas. To the companies rushing to imitate that success in Europe, Poland looked like the next Texas.
Six years later, the U.K. explorer has yet to drill its first Polish well -- and that’s in the country that’s most eager to allow hydraulic fracturing in Europe. The so-called super-majors like Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc have packed up and moved on.
April 28, 2015
What's orange, white, and big all over—and a potential harbinger of big changes in the Arctic if not the whole planet? The answer is Goliat, a mammoth, beer-glass-shaped, floating oil platform that’s set to become the northernmost in the world. Last week the 65,000-ton rig arrived for commissioning near the remote Norwegian town of Hammerfest.
April 27, 2015
Nepal's devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake on Saturday was primed over 80 years ago by its last massive earthquake in 1934, which razed around a quarter of Kathmandu to the ground and killed over 17,000 people.
This latest quake follows the same pattern as a duo of big tremors that occurred over 700 years ago, and results from a domino effect of strain transferring along the fault, geologists say.
The researchers discovered the likely existence of this doublet effect only in recent weeks, during field work in the region.
April 26, 2015
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has taken its first stab at quantifying the hazard from earthquakes associated with oil and gas development. The assessment, released in a preliminary report today, identifies 17 areas in eight states with elevated seismic hazard. And geologists now say that such induced earthquakes could potentially be large, up to magnitude 7, which is big enough to cause buildings to collapse and widespread damage.
April 9, 2015
An oilfield near Gatwick airport could hold up to 100bn barrels of oil, according to a British exploration firm, in possibly the biggest onshore oil discovery in England since the 1980s. UK Oil and Gas Investments revealed it had found a “world-class potential resource” after drilling 3,000ft below ground in West Sussex.
April 07, 2015
35 International Geological Congress News. Three main themes have been identified for the 35th IGC:
April 02, 2015
At least four people died after a fire broke out on an oil processing platform in the Gulf of Mexico early on Wednesday, leading to the evacuation of 302 workers, Mexican state-run oil company Pemex said. The fire, which burned throughout the day, erupted overnight on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Bay of Campeche. Forty-five people were treated for injuries and 16 of them were hospitalized, two with serious injuries, Pemex said.
March 22, 2015
Earth Hour 2015 is celebrated on March 28, 2015 between 20:15 and 21:15. Millions of people across the world switch lights off for an hour to raise awareness for the planet. Earth Hour is a worldwide movement for the planet organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
March 13, 2015
The International Symposium «Environmental safety and construction in karst areas» is planned to be held in Perm at the Perm State University on May 26-29, 2015. Perm is the most suitable place for hosting the Symposium due to the structural-geological, hydrogeological, geomorphological and technogenic uniqueness of this CisUral region.