News

John P. Greenhouse

R.V. Nicholson

Shortly after joining an environmental consulting firm in the summer of 1984, I naively bid, on and won, a contract from Environment Canada to provide an "Assessment of Ground Water Contamination in Canada". This seemed to be a good opportunity at the time to learn about the character of contamination and summarize the "major" problems found to date in Canada. This overambitious project with an underachieving budget, needless to say, was not a complete success, but it was a classic learning experience.

Reprinted by permission from Geotimes, May 1990, p. 26

In addition to providing entertainment to millions around the world, movies help develop the general public’s perception of the world. Knowledge of how the earth sciences, and earth scientists, are portrayed in films can help the geoscientific community in presenting important messages to the public on such topics as global change, volvanic- and earthquake-hazard mitigation, land use, and the environment.

By Patrick Pringle

From Washington Geologic Newsletter

Vol. 18, No. 2, May 1990

Quarterly publication of the Washington State Department of Natural Resources

Mario Coniglio

Specific gravity 2.9 – 3.4

Oceanic crust is dark coloured lava, containing large quantities of iron and magnesium. The iron and magnesium content makes the lava weather easily and gives oceanic crust a greater specific gravity than continental crust. The lavas are fluid and the volcanoes have low angles (sheild volcanoes) – examples in Hawaii and Iceland.

Richard E. Meyer, Picher, Okla. from the Los Angeles Times

Acid water from abandoned mines creates peril for thousands in four southern states.

Water boiled out of a red wound in the pasture and spilled across the grass. It flecked the ragweed with rusty foam. George Mayer knew in an instant what it was.

"The damn mines," he said to himself. "The mines are full, and the water’s finally coming out."

Brian Bell, Brent Duse and Tim Venne
Chelmsford Valley District Composite School
Sudbury Region

Paul Karrow

H.H. Helmstaedt. W.A. Gorman & S.L. McBride, Department of Geological Sciences, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6

With proper acknowledgement all diagrams may be reproduced for teaching purposes.