Tag: Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Fast Company: How Google Cash Helped Find Geothermal Energy in West Virginia

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 21, 2010

The business innovation magazine Fast Company took note of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory‘s recent report on the large green-energy geothermal resource underground in West Virginia. The research was funded by Google.org.

SMU geologist David Blackwell leads the lab and its research.

The Oct. 8 article “How Google Cash Helped Find Geothermal Energy in West Virginia” by reporter Ariel Schwartz notes that Google.org’s foray into geothermal is the latest step in its renewable energy investments.

EXCERPT:

By Ariel Schwartz
Fast Company
Google has already spent a lot of money on renewable energy investments. Now the search giant can be credited with bringing green energy to a state that mostly relies on coal-fired power. A project from Southern Methodist University, funded by a $481,500 grant from Google.org, has found that West Virginia has 78% more geothermal energy than previously estimated. That means the state could double its electrical generation capacity without bringing more coal power online.

Now we know that West Virginia could produce up to 18,890 MW of clean energy if just two percent of its geothermal energy resources were used. The state currently has a generating capacity of 16,350 MW — and 97% of that comes from coal.

Read the full story.

Journalist Robert Wilonsky at The Dallas Observer also covered the SMU Geothermal Lab’s release of the West Virginia mother lode of geothermal resource in his Oct. 7 Unfair Park entry: Hot Hot Heat: SMU Researchers Find West Virginia’s Just Leaking Geothermal Energy.

Wilonsky quotes Maria Richards, coordinator of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory, saying “they’ve discovered what could be enough Earth-made energy to potentially support ‘commercial baseload geothermal energy production.'”

EXCERPT:

By Robert Wilonsky
The Dallas Observer
At month’s end, researchers from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory — among ’em, David Blackwell, Hamilton Professor of Geophysics and director of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory — will go to Sacramento for the 2010 Geothermal Resources Council annual meeting. There, the trio will present a much more detailed version of this report just posted to the Hilltop’s website, in which Blackwell, grad student Zachary Frone and geothermal expert Maria Richards say that in the western part of the Appalachian Mountains, they’ve discovered what could be enough Earth-made energy to potentially support “commercial baseload geothermal energy production.”

Read the full story.

The international news wire service Reuters also covered the report’s release with a story by Danny Bradbury of GreenBiz.com: “Google Warms to West Virginia’s Vast Geothermal Potential.”

EXCERPT:

By Danny Bradbury
GreenBiz.com
A Google-funded project has discovered a large geothermal resource under West Virginia that could more than double the electrical generation capacity of the high-profile coal state.

The research, carried out by the Southern Methodist University and funded with a $481,500 grant from Google’s philanthropic arm, found that there is 78 percent more geothermal energy under the state than originally estimated.

The researchers calculated that if 2 percent of the available geothermal energy could be harnessed, the state could produce up to 18,890 megawatts (MW) of clean energy.

The study was conducted with more detailed mapping and more data points than had been used in previous research. For example, 1,455 new thermal data points were added to existing geothermal maps using oil, gas and water wells.

The research team found that most of the high-temperature points are located in the eastern part of the state.

“The presence of a large, baseload, carbon-neutral and sustainable energy resource in West Virginia could make an important contribution to enhancing the U.S. energy security and for decreasing CO2 emissions,” the report concluded.

Read the full story.

Other coverage:

The Charleston Gazette: “SMU study shows West Virginia as a geothermal hot spot”
Geothermal Energy: “It’s hot in West Virginia: Researchers discover 1,450 geothermal wells”
Renewable Energy World: “New research suggests that West Virginia could be an East Coast leader in utility-scale geothermal”

Tags David Blackwell, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, SMU Geothermal Lab

Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news Slideshows

Ancient Africa mysteries: Evidence is weak for tropical rainforest 65 million years ago in Africa’s low-latitudes

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 20, 2010

Evidence is weak for tropical rainforest 65 million years ago in Africa’s low-latitudes

The landscape of Central Africa 65 million years ago was a low-elevation tropical belt, but the jury is still out on whether the region’s mammals browsed and hunted beneath the canopy of a lush rainforest.

The scientific evidence for a tropical rainforest at that time is weak and far from convincing, says paleobotanist Bonnie F. Jacobs, Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Fossil pollen from Central and West Africa provide no definitive evidence for communities of rainforest trees at the beginning of the Cenozoic, says Jacobs, an expert in the paleobotany of Africa soon after dinosaurs had gone extinct. It was the start of the age of mammals, and Africa was largely an island continent.

Many Cenozoic mysteries remain to be solved
The rainforest mystery is characteristic of the scientific uncertainty and unknowns surrounding Africa’s ancient flora during the period called the Cenozoic.

There are large gaps in the fossil record, says Jacobs, a co-author of “A Review of the Cenozoic Vegetation History of Africa.” She is an associate professor in SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences.

The analysis, a chapter in “Cenozoic Mammals of Africa” (University of California Press, 2010), is the first of its kind since 1978 to review and interpret the Cenozoic paleobotanical record of Africa, with paleogeographic maps showing paleobotanical site distributions through time. Jacobs co-authored the paper with Aaron D. Pan, a paleobotanist at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and Christopher R. Scotese, in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Texas at Arlington.

The 1008-page “Cenozoic Mammals of Africa” is the first scientific reference of its kind since 1978, comprising 48 chapters by 64 experts. The volume summarizes and interprets the published fossil research to date of Africa’s mammals, tectonics, geography, climate and flora of the past 65 million years.

Details sparse, but big picture emerges for past 65 million years
Paleobotanical data for Africa are generally meager and uneven for the Cenozoic, according to Jacobs and her co-authors.

In an original series of maps, they chart each Cenozoic Africa paleobotanical locale described in the published research to date. There are a mere 82 sites in all. Most of the sites date to 50 million years ago. Fewer date to 20 million, 30 million, 10 million and — perhaps most important — 2 million years ago, when the human family was evolving.

“Africa is disappointingly undersampled,” say Jacobs and her colleagues. “This vast continent, roughly three times the area of the United States, has so far been documented by only a handful of Paleogene plant and vertebrate localities, and it has a Neogene record heavily biased toward the depositional basins of the East African Rift.”

Shift from descriptive to analytic approach driven by holistic view

For a continent so important for its role in the evolution of mammals, the scarcity of plant fossil data stands in sharp contrast.

“As impressive as is the contemporary mammalian diversity of Africa, it is dwarfed by that of the Cenozoic,” write the volume’s editors, paleozoologist Lars Werdelin, the Swedish Museum of Natural History, and paleontologist William Joseph Sanders, the University of Michigan. Africa today represents 20 percent of the world’s land mass, is the only continent to occupy both the north and south temperate zones, and is home now to more than 1,100 mammalian species, they write in the introduction.

Africa’s paleobotanical record is key to a holistic understanding of ancient mammals, says H.B.S. Cooke in the preface. A mammal expert, Cooke was editor of the earlier 1978 scientific reference, “Evolution of African Mammals” (Harvard University Press).

“Most striking over the past years has been a shift in studying fossils from a largely descriptive taxonomy to a more analytical approach, including consideration of faunal associations, their distribution in time and space, and the environmental and climatic factors that prevailed and changed through time,” Cooke writes. ” … African prehistory has become more a study of paleobiology than mere paleontology.”

For images from Jacobs’ fieldwork in Africa go to SMU Research on Flickr.

More scientific exploration needed to fill gaps
Scientific exploration to learn more about Africa’s ancient vegetation is on the increase, say Jacobs and her co-authors. That should start to fill gaps in understanding, including the mystery of Africa’s palms.

While palm trees are common in wet tropical forests worldwide, that’s not the case in Africa today. Palm trees have not been found in abundance in Africa for the past 24 million years, regardless of whether the regional vegetation was forest, say the authors. Oddly, though, abundant palm samples have been found in some African locations dating between 65 million and 25 million years ago, including at Chilga in Ethiopia by Jacobs and Pan.

The implications of that difference are significant for the various endemic mammals of that time, many of which were absent by 23 million years ago, say the authors.

“We are fortunate that the sampling scale of most fossil localities is at the plant community level, and larger-scale changes took place one community at a time,” they write. “Thus, as Africa becomes better sampled, the uneven record will ultimately become a more complete narrative of dynamic change at the community and ecosystem levels.”

Funding for “Cenozoic Mammals of Africa” came from the Swedish Research Council; the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and the Museum of Paleontology; and the Regents of the University of California. — Margaret Allen

SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU’s seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

Tags Bonnie F. Jacobs, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Researcher news SMU In The News Technology

Science: West Virginia is geothermal hot spot, says SMU Geothermal Lab

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 4, 2010

Science, the international weekly science journal, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has covered the geothermal mapping research of Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Laboratory, led by SMU geologist David Blackwell and funded by Google.org.

The Oct. 4 article “West Virginia is a Geothermal Hot Spot” by science journalist Eli Kintisch quotes Maria Richards, coordinator of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory, saying discovery of vast geothermal bounty in the coal state was a unexpected. “Nobody expected West Virginia to show up as a hot spot,” Richards is quoted.

EXCERPT:

By Eli Kintisch
Science
Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of Earth, some as warm as 200 degrees Celsius and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region.

In 2004, researchers at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, and colleagues created the Geothermal Map of North America. The map charted the potential for geothermal energy nationwide. Two years ago Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the search engine giant, hired the SMU scientists to update the map.

The group analyzed temperature data from oil and gas firms that no one had bothered to map. Those data were collected via single thermometer readings on the end of drilling equipment, but the readings were artificially low because of water used to cool and wash the equipment. So the SMU team corrected the readings according to the rock type that was being drilled. Then the researchers estimated the temperatures of adjacent rock layers according to their geologic properties.

The work revealed surprising results for West Virginia, a state that had only four data points in the 2004 map. The Google.org-funded effort added measurements from more than 1450 wells in the state. The warm spots were found at depths of 3 to 8 kilometers over an 18,700-square-kilometer area. By comparison, geothermal hot spots in Nevada reach 200 degrees Celsius at 2 kilometers below the surface, and steam produced from them runs turbines to create electricity. Iceland, meanwhile, has 200 degrees Celsius temperatures just below the surface and uses warm water to heat buildings and showers throughout Reykjavik and elsewhere.

Read the full story.

Tags David Blackwell, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Maria Richards, SMU Geothermal Lab, Zachary Frone

Earth & Climate Energy & Matter Researcher news Technology

West Virginia is hot bed for geothermal resources: Green energy source in coal country, says Google-funded SMU research

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 4, 2010

New research produced by Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org, suggests that the temperature of the Earth beneath the state of West Virginia is significantly higher than previously estimated and capable of supporting commercial baseload geothermal energy production.

Geothermal energy is the use of the Earth’s heat to produce heat and electricity. “Geothermal is an extremely reliable form of energy, and it generates power 24/7, which makes it a baseload source like coal or nuclear,” said David Blackwell, Hamilton Professor of Geophysics and Director of the SMU Geothermal Laboratory.

The SMU Geothermal Laboratory has increased its estimate of West Virginia’s geothermal generation potential to 18,890 megawatts, assuming a conservative 2 percent thermal recovery rate. The new estimate represents a 75 percent increase over estimates in MIT’s 2006 “The Future of Geothermal Energy” report and exceeds the state’s total current generating capacity, primarily coal based, of 16,350 megawatts.

Researchers from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory will present a detailed report on the discovery at the 2010 Geothermal Resources Council annual meeting in Sacramento, Oct. 24-27. Summary of the report.

New heat discovered after adding data points to geologic model
The West Virginia discovery is the result of new detailed mapping and interpretation of temperature data derived from oil, gas, and thermal gradient wells — part of an ongoing project to update the Geothermal Map of North America that Blackwell produced with colleague Maria Richards in 2004. Temperatures below the earth almost always increase with depth, but the rate of increase (the thermal gradient) varies due to factors such as the thermal properties of the rock formations.

“By adding 1,455 new thermal data points from oil, gas, and water wells to our geologic model of West Virginia, we’ve discovered significantly more heat than previously thought,” Blackwell said. “The existing oil and gas fields in West Virginia provide a geological guide that could help reduce uncertainties associated with geothermal exploration and also present an opportunity for co-producing geothermal electricity from hot waste fluids generated by existing oil and gas wells.”

Eastern region of West Virginia hot enough for commercial production
The high temperature zones beneath West Virginia revealed by the new mapping are concentrated in the eastern portion of the state (Figure 1). Starting at depths of 4.5 km (greater than 15,000 feet), temperatures reach over 150°C (300°F), which is hot enough for commercial geothermal power production.

Traditionally, commercial geothermal energy production has depended on high temperatures in existing subsurface reservoirs to produce electricity, requiring unique geological conditions found almost exclusively in tectonically active regions of the world, such as the western United States.

New technologies, drilling methods for wider range of geologic conditions
Newer technologies and drilling methods can be used to develop resources in wider ranges of geologic conditions. Three non-conventional geothermal resources that can be developed in areas with little or no tectonic activity or volcanism such as West Virginia are:

Low-Temperature Hydrothermal — Energy is produced from areas with naturally occurring high fluid volumes at temperatures ranging from 80°C (165°F) to 150°C (300°F) using advanced binary cycle technology. Low-Temperature systems have been developed in Alaska, Oregon, and Utah.
Geopressure and Co-produced Fluids Geothermal — Oil and/or natural gas produced together with hot geothermal fluids drawn from the same well. Geopressure and Co-produced Fluids systems are currently operating or under development in Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) — Areas with low natural rock permeability but high temperatures of more than 150°C (300°F) are “enhanced” by injecting fluid and other reservoir engineering techniques. EGS resources are typically deeper than hydrothermal and represent the largest share of total geothermal resources. EGS is being pursued globally in Germany, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. EGS is being tested in deep sedimentary basins similar to West Virginia’s in Germany and Australia.

Next: More geological information needed to refine estimates
“The early West Virginia research is very promising,” Blackwell said, “but we still need more information about local geological conditions to refine estimates of the magnitude, distribution, and commercial significance of their geothermal resource.”

Zachary Frone, an SMU graduate student researching the area said, “More detailed research on subsurface characteristics like depth, fluids, structure and rock properties will help determine the best methods for harnessing geothermal energy in West Virginia.” The next step in evaluating the resource will be to locate specific target sites for focused investigations to validate the information used to calculate the geothermal energy potential in this study.

The team’s work may also shed light on other similar geothermal resources. “We now know that two zones of Appalachian age structures are hot — West Virginia and a large zone covering the intersection of Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana known as the Ouachita Mountain region,” said Blackwell. “Right now we don’t have the data to fill in the area in between,” Blackwell continued, “but it’s possible we could see similar results over an even larger area.”

Discovery could enhance U.S. energy security
Blackwell thinks the finding opens exciting possibilities for the region. “The proximity of West Virginia’s large geothermal resource to east coast population centers has the potential to enhance U.S. energy security, reduce CO2 emissions, and develop high paying clean energy jobs in West Virginia,” he said.

SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory conducted this research through funding provided by Google.org’s RE<C initiative, which is dedicated to using the power of information and innovation to advance breakthrough technologies in clean energy.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650. — Kimberly Cobb

Tags David Blackwell, Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Maria Richards, SMU Geothermal Lab, Zachary Frone

Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Researcher news

Italy honors supervolcano fossil discovery; Capellini Medal to SMU’s James Quick

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 1, 2010

Award recognizes a foreign geoscientist for significant contribution to Italian geology

BRIEFLY: Italian geologists in September will award the Capellini Medal to SMU scientist James E. Quick, recognizing discovery of an enormous 280 million-year-old fossil supervolcano in the Italian Alps.

The discovery has sparked worldwide scientific interest and a budding regional geotourism industry. Quick led scientists from the University of Trieste to make the discovery.

“There will be another supervolcano explosion. We don’t know where,” Quick says. “Sesia Valley could help us to predict the next event.”

Italian geologists in September will award the Capellini Medal to Southern Methodist University scientist James E. Quick, recognizing the discovery of an enormous 280 million-year-old fossil supervolcano in the Italian Alps with its magmatic plumbing system exposed to an unprecedented depth of 25 kilometers.

The discovery has sparked not only worldwide scientific interest but also a budding regional geotourism industry.

Quick and his colleagues at the University of Trieste — Silvano Sinigoi, Gabriella Peressini, Gabriella Dimarchi and Andrea Sbisa — discovered the unique fossil supervolcano in northern Italy’s picturesque Sesia Valley.

The Italian Geological Society, Italy’s oldest professional organization for geologists, awards its Capellini Medal to foreign geoscientists for a significant contribution to Italian geology.

Quick, who is a professor in the SMU Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, will be the second recipient of the award.

Supervolcanoes, also referred to as calderas, are enormous craters tens of kilometers in diameter produced by rare and massive explosive eruptions — among nature’s most violent events. Their eruptions are sparked by the explosive release of gas from molten rock, or magma, as it pushes its way to the Earth’s surface.

The eruptions — which spew hundreds to thousands of cubic kilometers of volcanic ash — generate devastation on a regional scale, possibly even triggering extreme climatic and environmental fluctuations on a global scale.

Rare uplift reveals supervolcano plumbing
The Sesia Valley fossil supervolcano lies near the villages of Gattinara and Borgosesia in northern Italy, a rural area known for fine textiles and fine wine — and increasingly the giant caldera.

As a result of the uplift of the Earth’s crust that formed the Alps, the Sesia Valley fossil reveals the never-before-seen “plumbing” of a supervolcano from the surface to the source of the magma deep within the Earth, says Quick.

The uplift reveals to an unprecedented depth of 25 kilometers rocks formed by the magma as it moved through the Earth’s crust. The Sesia Valley caldera will advance scientific understanding of active supervolcanoes, such as Yellowstone in the United States, which is the second-largest supervolcano in the world, Quick says. Yellowstone last erupted 630,000 years ago.

Sesia Valley’s caldera erupted during the “Permian” geologic time period 280 million years ago, says the discovery team. The caldera is more than 13 kilometers in diameter.

Capellini Medal recognizes scientific exchange
The Capellini Medal is named for Giovanni Capellini, founder and five-time president of the Geological Society of Italy and strong advocate of international scientific exchange.

Quick will accept the Capellini Medal at the Italian Geological Society’s annual meeting Sept. 6-8 in Pisa. On Sept. 6 he will make a scientific presentation about the discovery to society members at the conference.

“What’s new is to see the magmatic plumbing system all the way through the Earth’s crust,” says Quick, who previously served as program coordinator for the Volcano Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey. “Now we want to start to use this discovery. We want to understand the fundamental processes that influence eruptions: Where are magmas stored prior to these giant eruptions? From what depth do the eruptions emanate?”

A key to understanding active calderas
Sesia Valley’s unprecedented exposure of magmatic plumbing provides a model for interpreting geophysical profiles and magmatic processes beneath active calderas. The exposure also serves as direct confirmation of the cause-and-effect link between molten rock from the mantle invading Earth’s deep crust and explosive volcanism.

“It might lead to a better interpretation of monitoring data and improved prediction of eruptions,” says Quick. He is lead author of the scientific article that reported the discovery, “Magmatic plumbing of a large Permian caldera exposed to a depth of 25 km.,” which appeared in the journal “Geology.”

Calderas, which typically exhibit high levels of seismic and hydrothermal activity, often swell, suggesting movement of fluids beneath the surface.

“We want to better understand the tell-tale signs that a caldera is advancing to eruption so that we can improve warnings and avoid false alerts,” Quick says.

“Rosetta Stone” for supervolcanoes may help predict next explosion
To date, scientists have been able to study exposed caldera “plumbing” from the surface of the Earth to a depth of only about 5 kilometers. Because of that, scientific understanding has been limited to geophysical data and analysis of erupted volcanic rocks. Quick likens the relevance of Sesia Valley to seeing bones and muscle inside the human body for the first time after previously envisioning human anatomy on the basis of a sonogram only.

“We think of the Sesia Valley find as the ‘Rosetta Stone’ for supervolcanoes because the depth to which rocks are exposed will help us to link the geologic and geophysical data,” Quick says. “This is a very rare spot. The base of the Earth’s crust is turned up on edge. It was created when Africa and Europe began colliding about 30 million years ago and the crust of Italy was turned on end.”

Besides Yellowstone, other monumental explosions have included Lake Toba on Indonesia’s Sumatra island 74,000 years ago, which is believed to be the largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the past 25 million years.

Described as a massive climate-changing event, the Lake Toba eruption is thought to have killed an estimated 60 percent of humans alive at the time.

Another caldera, and one that remains active, Long Valley in California erupted about 760,000 years ago and spread volcanic ash for 600 cubic kilometers. The ash blanketed the southwestern United States, extending from California to Nebraska.

“There will be another supervolcano explosion. We don’t know where,” Quick says. “Sesia Valley could help us to predict the next event.”

Quick is also SMU’s associate vice president for research and dean of graduate studies. — Margaret Allen

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with James Quick or to book a live or taped interview in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

Tags Dedman College, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, James E. Quick

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