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Continue reading →: A Tragic Ignorance of Mineral Weathering
Rainwater harvesting offers a safe alternative to arsenic-tainted groundwater. Following up on a report from the British journal Lancet, global news agency AFP reports: “Up to 77 million Bangladeshis have been exposed to toxic levels of arsenic from contaminated drinking water, and even low-level exposure to the poison is not…
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Continue reading →: Luna Pier Beach Ordered Closed
UPDATE As of June 25, 2010 at 4:30 pm, the Total Body Direct Contact Advisory for Luna Pier has been lifted. There is no longer an advisory against using the waters at City of Luna Pier beach. Qi Gong class on the beach at Luna Pier, Michigan. Source: Mayor Mary…
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Continue reading →: Sharp Decrease in May Arctic Sea Ice Cover
May saw a sharp decrease in Arctic sea ice cover, based on satellite observations. The average ice cover for the month was about 13 million square kilometers, 500,000 square kilometers less than the 30-year average. The rate of icemelt averaged 46,000 kilometers per day, the fastest rate recorded. The graph…
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Continue reading →: Wetland Scientists Wade into Deepwater Horizon Disaster
Wetland Scintists call for inspection of all offshore oil operations, moratorium on new drilling and extraction. In response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the following is a statement released by the Society of Wetland Scientists. Statement from the Environmental Concerns Committee Society of Wetland Scientists Dennis F. Whigham, Chair Stephen…
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Continue reading →: No Wetlands, No Seafood
Oyster bed on Florida Gulf Coast. Base photo credit: USGS Any Questions?
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Continue reading →: April 14 Fireball
Last Wednesday’s fireball, meteorite, or space junk, whatever it was, lit up the sky over Iowa. At the time, I was standing in front of the AmercInn in downtown Ottumwa talking to a collegue who was outside chain-smoking in anticipation of spending the night in a non-smoking hotel. The fireball’s…
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Continue reading →: Coast of Alaska: Accelerated Erosion 2002-2007
A five-year study in Alaska led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found that shoreline erosion along a 40-mile stretch of the Beaufort Sea has been accelerating from about 20-feet per year fifty years ago, to 45-feet per year by 2007. The research makes obvious the importance of considering the…
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Continue reading →: A Look at Rivers from Space
The above photo is a false-color image taken from the Landsat 7 satellite in 2000. The Lena River Delta is frozen most of the year but, during the summer, thaws into an enormous wetland complex of about 11,000 square miles. It’s a wildlife refuge. The Lena River flows into the…
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Continue reading →: Red River Crests and Falls
They’re getting really good at it, fighting floods, that is. The National Weather Service predicted a crest of 38 feet and that’s the wall height the dike crews built. The River crested at 37-feet. The dike building crews, thousands of them, mostly high school and college kids, did it for…
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Continue reading →: More Sandbags: Fargo-Moorhead Braces for Major Flood
For the second year in a row, soils, geomorphology, and snowpack set up a major flood risk. The Red River of the North has “issues” that tend to make life “interesting” for those who live near it and depend on it. The Red is a fairly small river in a…
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