News archive - 1997

Saturday, May 24, 1997

Cauldron subsidence

Caldera eruptions such as the one which produced Crater Lake, Oregon, were originally thought to be massive explosions which blew the top off the original volcano. Ferdinand Fouque, a French geologist, showed that the caldera could not have been formed by destruction of an earlier cone, since there was not enough material from the original cone in the deposits formed by the eruption. In his 1879 book on the eruption of Santorini, Greece in 1628 B.C. he concluded that the missing part of the volcano had sunk below sea level.

Saturday, May 24, 1997

Oil mining in Sumatra

Richard B. Wells National Drillers Buyers Guide, March 1997.

One of the advantages of being a geologist is that you often get to travel to places and see things being done in ways that are vastly different from back home. One example, that might be of interest to some of our readers, is the oil-mining operations of South Sumatra, Indonesia.

Saturday, May 24, 1997

The Earth system: Geology lessons for our future

Alan V. Morgan

Ontario Science Centre, North York, Metropolitan Toronto.

Saturday, May 24, 1997

Precious opal from British Columbia?

Paul B. Downing

Reprinted from and article in Rock and Gem Magazine, 1991.
Reprinted with permission.

Precious opal from British Columbia? Impossible! Except that, as I write this, I hold a specimen in my hand which shows bright flashes of red, green and orange fire. This is the first recorded find of precious opal in British Columbia - or anywhere in Canada. It is beautiful.

Saturday, May 24, 1997