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Geo Sci 148

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Rising Sea level
Sea level was about 120 meters lower than current level during last glacial maximum, about 20,000 years ago

- 19th century rose about 12 centemiters
- 20 th century, rose about 25 centimeters
- Increasing due to some combination of thermal expansion of the oceans and the melting of midlattitude mountain, Alaskan, Greenland, and Antarctic glaciers
- Rises on average of .51mm per year, but from 94 to 03 that rate almost doubled to .93 mm
- Meltwater goes directly to ocean, and warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapor and cause more snow to fall in polar regions
Desertification
Deluges of blowing sand. Productive land changing to deserts.
- Attributed to human abuse, overgrazing of sparse vegetation, trampling and compacting soil by livestock, clearing land of trees and brush for fuel without reforesting, rapid growth of desert cities such as vegas and phoenix, and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, depeletion of groundwater for desert irrigation and urban growth, replacement of native vegetation in arid and semiarid regions with cultivated crops, and salinization due to evaporation of irrigation water have all been attributed to root causes of desertification
Most common minerals for human contact
sand and gravel
Most abundant elements in earths crust
Aluminum and iron
Mining problems
- Surface coal mining and land reclamation is regulared by federal law, the Surface mining control and Reclamation Act. No similar federal law regulates hardrock minin and land reclamation
- SMCRA requires surface coal-mine pits to be backfilled with the mine waste (spoil) and then covered with topsoil and landscaped. Some states in which hardrock mining is conducted require similar handling of waste rock and tailings at currently operating mines
- Ground subsidence due to underground coal mining is less common than in the past because of the required backfilling. Surface collapse from hardrock mining is not common, and stabalization may be expensive
- Acid mine drainage may be a problem at active and abandonded coal and sulfide-ore mines. Pit water in surface coal mines is required to be held and treated before it is released to streams or rivers. Sealing abandoned mines, covering waste rock with soil and landscaping, and installing drainage courses to direct surface drainage off tailings and waste-rock piles are some methods of controlling AMD formation. Wells are installed below waste-rock and tailings dumps to monitor water quality
- Scarcified ground, deposited landscapes, and disrupted drainage that remain after deredging and hydrauling mining can be reclaimed by reshaping, adding topsoil, and landscaping
- Abdandoned open pits with oversteepened side walls despoil the landscape and may pollute hydraulic systems. They are difficult r impossible to reclaim. The public is protected by surrounding the pits with chain-link fencing and posting warning signes. The pit floor may be partially backfilled and sealed with imprtmeable clay to protect groundwater from pollution
- Cyanide heap-leach gold-extraction methods normally cause minimal environmental problems because they are strictly regulated. Occasional leaks happen. Wildlife losses have been mitigated by placing nets over the lethal ponds. Surface waters amd groundwaters are monitored by sampling and monitoring wells, respectively.
- The main concerns associated with heavy metal contaminated mill and smelter waster are the environmental impacts resulting from stormwater runoff into nearby surface waters and the human health problems caused by inhaling or ingesting the heavy metals in dust. Superfun cleansups require either removal or in place remediation by encapsuling the heavy-metal sources. Clean toxins with water treatment plants,








Contour Mining
o •typical in the hilly areas of the eastern US
o •Mining is accomplished by cutting into the hillside to expose the coal and then following the coal seam around the perimeter of the hill
o •At each level of mining is a highwall, a clifflike, excavated face of exposed overburden coal that remains after mining is completed
o •The SMCRA requires that the sites must be reclaimed, that is, returned to the original contour, and highwalls must be covered and stabilized after contour mining is completed
o —Accomplished by backfilling spoil, the broken fragments of waste rock removed in order to mine the coal
Area mining
—used to mine coal in flat and gently rolling terrain, principally in the Midwestern and western states
—Enormous equipment is used to remove the coal and reclaim the land
—Often, the land is more productive after reclamation than before mining
Mountaintop-removal mining
primarily in the eastern US to recover coal that underlies the tops of mountains
—After the coal is removed, the mined area is returned to its approx original shape or is left as flat terrain
—Involves removal and disposal of all rock and soil materials above a coal bed and allows nearly complete removal of the coal bed
—Problem: disposal of the waste rock, which includes chemicals used to wash the coal for market and toxic metals such as mercury and arsenic
—The waste is simply dumped in hollows and valleys and in some instances, whole communities and the ppl whose families have lived for generations along the now-nonexistent stream banks are displaced with little or no financial compensation
—Legal action charged that waste-disposal practices in mountaintop removal coal mining violates the Clean Water Act and various mining regulations that prohibit unnecessary and undue degradation of the public’s land and water
Energy Gases and the future
Natural gas= reasonably plentiful, burns cleaner than coal, gas, or heating oil
–Accounts for 75% of total US energy used in space heating and cooking, wide us in electric power plants
–1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) fills a cube 2 miles on each side→ we use 17 Tcf a year→ have reserves of 177 Tcf→we will run out in 10.4 years without new discoveries
–Transition from oil to gas called the “methane economy”

Coal-Bed Methane
•Easy to extract by drilled well, as opposed to destructive surface mining
–The gas production degrades the environment
–Requires wells, roads, disposal of salt water, pipelines, methane leakage
•Example: Powder River Basin
–Large drainage basin where coal bed methane producers pump salty groundwater to release the gas
–Water is discharged into streams, ponds, dry washes= salt becomes threat to crops and aquatic life and pumping depletes water aquifers
–Wyoming-Montana border= Montana requires producers to re-inject water into ground or remove salt and pollutants
•Both require expenditure of energy which cuts into the profits of developers
–Wyoming accuses Montana of targeting their state’s thriving coal-bed methane industry

Hydrogen
•Considered a potential new fuel
•Energy of the future- burns without pollutants, only emits water vapor
•No large source reservoirs
•Not a primary fuel source= must be manufactured using fossil fuel which leads to pollution from coal or gas-run power plant
•Promise as fuel for airplanes and cars

–Methanol
•Can be converted to gasoline using a mineral catalyst
•Its combustion generates little nitric oxide and ozone
•Used to fuel race cars and high-compression engines
–High octane number (110)
•Burns efficiently, but greater emissions of CO2

Tar Sands
•Contain oil that is too thick and viscous to flow at normal temperatures
–Found in Canada, Venezuela, Madagascar and the US
–Surface-mined or drilled, using steam to mobilize and recover the oil
•Canada’s Athabasca sands
–1.7 trillion barrels of oil—more than all Saudi Arabia

Tar sands and oil shales
•Canada provides the US with 9 percent of US daily oil needs in tar sands
•Oil Shales are sedimentary rocks that yield petroleum when they are heated.
•Rock oil used in kerosene lamps were produced from black Oil Shales
•Kerogen
–Source of oil in the rock when heated to 500°C
Coalificiation
o Accumalation of large amounts of plant debris under conditions that will preserve it
o Requires high plant production in a low oxygen depositional environment
o Accumalated plant matter must then be buried to a depth sufficient for the heat and pressure to expel water and volatile matter
o Degree of metamorphism is determined by rank
o Lowest to highest rank
⬢ Peat, lignite, subbituminous, bituminous, anthracite
o Accompanied by increased carbon and heat content, and decreasing amount of quickly burned volatile material
o Once ignited the carbon burns and gives off heat
o Highest rank of coal occurs in places of plate convergence
Solar energy
Costs a lot, Direct Solar energy – Solar heat collectors warm a fluid, which is then put to work
- Photovoltaic cells convert light directly into electricity, Solar-thermal methods utilize panels to warm a fluid, which is then used for heating or for generating electricity
Indirect solar energy
- Wind is produced by unequal heating of Earth’s surface
Nuclear energy
- 16 percent of world and 20 percent of U.S. energy needs is nuclear energy
- Heat is generated by fission of uranium isotopes and their daughter isotopes such as plutonium is converted to electricity.
- There are 104 commercial nuclear power plants operating in the U.S.
- Problems
o Mining, transportation, and disposal of high level nuclear materials are the most dangerous aspects of the nuclear energy cycle. If the chain reaction runs out of control, the heat generated may lead to a central-core meltdown such as occurred at Chernobyl.
- Geological considerations
o Very careful geological site studies and investigations are performed to assess hazards from earthquakes, mass-wasting, subsidence, and coastal and riverine floods
- Ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, electricity, hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, and compressed natural gas, leading the pack is ethanol – made from sugar cane has been used in Brazil for many years as an auto fuel, biomass is a form of stored solar energy that has been captured by growing plants, methanol is second uses natural gas as feedstock, some turn coal waste into diesel fuel but releases large emissions of CO2
Wave energy
Wave energy-which happens when the energy from waves is captured and converted into electricity—this is becoming a more practical option for the future as more powerbouys are being put to work and seeing good results
*less space and money than solar power


EPA, NEPA, RCRA
Protect environment from pollution
Isolating
Encapsuling, burying, or in some other way removing waste from the environment
Attentuation
Dilluting, incinerating, or spreading trash or a pollutant so thinly that it has little impact
Incineration
Where combustion can convert water into steam to generate electricity
Combustion
pumping air into a fill, accerelerates decompostion and settlement
Secure landfills
Totally isolate waste from environment
Fusion
Ultimate clean nuclear energy source, whereby two nuclei merge to form a heavier nucelus and in the process give off tremendous amounts of heat
Eutrophoication
Problem if households are built near a lake or pond
1. Describe geologic/river processes that occur at River meander (example: Huron River)
When the moving water from the river erodes and widens the outer banks and widens its valley—this creates the snake like patter of the river. The inside of the curve the water moves slower and on the outside it has a great velocity.
2. Global sea level has risen in the last year because of?
Continental ice caps
Global sea level has⬦. (MC) - RISEN
9. How to combat coastal erosion
Groins, Jetties, concrete, walls, rock revetments
Greenhouse Effect
The warming of the atmosphere by an increase in the amount of certain gases in the atmosphere-primarily-c02 ch4, and h20-that increases the retention of hat that has been radiated
Types of floods
Upland-“flash” floods-water rises and falls in a matter of a few hours Lowland-inundates broad adjacent floodplains and may take many days or week or even months to complete the flood cycle
Desertification problems
Humans are the number one problem for desertification-Kuwait land mines—we are using the land but not helping (need to plant) modest drought can use it
Glaciers
RETREATING
How levees promote flooding
Once the levees let the water in the water cannot recede back into the ocean so the levees hold the water causing flooding
Main source of U.S. energy
Fossil Fuel
Best solution for depeleting resources
Recycle
Mitigation from poster
Tsunamis – create wide warning system, put into place the system that is in the Pacific ocean that is in the Indian Ocean, in the process of creating new sensitive instruments that will be able to detect tsunamis sooner and relay information faster to put into the Pacific ocean, improve building structures in hazardous areas (start buildings higher so water can pass through at the bottom), implementation of mangroves – creates swamps that mitigate tsunami water and debris
Petroleum
- Carbon
o .1 percent of earth’s crust
o Indispensible to life
• Principle source of energy and principal raw material of many manufactured products
o Petroleum is composed of many hydrocarbon compounds
• Occurs beneath earth’s surface in liquid and gaseous forms
• At surface as oil seeps, tar sands, solid bitumen, and oil shales
• Also used in producing plants, plastics, fertilizers, insecticides, soaps, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber
• Some 200 million hydrocarbon molecules have been identified to date
• The process of separating crude oil into various components is known as cracking or refining










Dams
- more than 75,000 dams more than two meters high
- every major river controlled by at least on dam
- Benefits
o Cheap electricity
o Flood control
o Recreation
o Reduction of fear of drought
- Negatives
o Loss of habitats
o Loss of natural cycles of flooding and sediment deposition
o Changes in aquatic and riverine biology
o Destruction of important spawning grounds for migratory fish such as slamon
Fuels
- Are warehouses for energy
- They can be trapped by some means and applied in some way to do work
- Examples are coal and oil
o Fossil fuels that have been storing solar energy in the lithosphere for millions of years
Renewable energy
- Some forms are renewable
o Replenished at a rate equal to or greater than the rate at which they are used
- Examples of energy in some resources that can be replenished
o Solar
o Water
o Wood
o Wind
o Ocean
o Lake thermal gradients
o Geothermal
o Tidal

Non-renewable resources
- Not replenished as fast as utilized
- Once consumed they are gone forever
- Examples
o Crude oil
o Oil shales
o Tar sands
o Coal
o Fissionable elements





















Cause of waves
- Wind blowing over the water surface creates ripples, then stormy irregular seas, and finally regularly spaced swell that outruns the source area
Factors of wave size
- Wave size depends upon wind velocity, the length of time wind blows over the water, and fetch. A fully developed sea has the highest waves attainable for the three variables
Wave motion
- Water parcels move in circular paths to a depth of half the wavelength called wave base. This win causes movement of the waveform known as waves of oscillation. Water physically moves shoreard when waves break in the surf zone. These breaking waves are called waves of translation.
Wave refraction
- Waves generally approach the shore at some prevailing angle. This results in longshore currents that move sand along the beach. The transported sand is known as longshore drift. Groins act as dams to longshpre drift, causin sand to be deposited upcurrent and eroded downcurrent. Wave refraction concentrates wave energy on points and dissipates it in bays, thus tending to straighten an irregular shoreline.
Impulsively generated waves
- Also known as tsunamis, they are mostly generated by seismic activity, but also are generated by submarine volcanic action, landslides, or bolide impacts. They have long wave lengths and low amplitudes at sea, but transform to an impressive breaker or surge at the shoreline. Causes and death tolls over the last 2,000 years are given, as well as regions most susceptible to tsunamis. The 2004 Indonesian tsunami killed nearly a quarter million people.
Beaches
- Narrow strips of shore that are washed by the waves or tides, usually covered by sand or pebbles.
Beach erosion
Defined
- Less sand is supplied by longshore drift than is removed by wave action.
Natural Causes
1. Drought
2. Rising sea level

Human Causes
- Dams that impound sediment on rivers
- Groins, jetties, and breakwaters that impound sediment
- Hard structures such as seawalls and revetments
Mitigation
- Design of groins, breakwaters, and jetties can incorporate features that allow sand to pass through or around them. Seawalls, revetments, and artificial nourishment are only temporary solutions. Model studies of existing structures and shorelines help us better understand the problem and thus to effect remedies.












Sea cliffs
- Cliffs formed and/or maintained by wave action

Types
- Active and inactive
Erosion
- Annual rates between a centimeter and tens of centimeters, all about velocity and discharge
Mitigation
- Structures’ optimal setback from the edge of a cliff can be determined when the erosion rate is known.
Estuaries

Defined
- Basins open to the sea in which fresh water mixes with seawater
Types
- coastal-plain estuaries, drowned river walleys
- Fiords, drowned glacial valleys
- Fault-block estuaries
- Bar formed estuaries landward of barrier beaches
Importance
- Estuaries and their surrounding wetlands are areas of high biological productivity for marine life and waterfowl
Human impact
- Used for dumping sewage, commercial fishing, transportation, and recreation. Structures are built on filled marshland
Coastal flooding
Hurricanes
- Storms in the Atlantic Basin generated at sea and characterized by counterclockwise winds greater than 120 Killometers/hour. They travel across the sea at velocities of 10-35 knots.
Flood Danger
- A storm surge is a mound of water pushed up by high winds and low atmospheric pressure. It may be many meters above normal high-tide levels. Storm surges on low-lying deltas such as the Ganges River delta in Bangladesh are the greatest natural hazard to human life.
Case histories
- Camille
- Hugo
- Floyd
- Isabel
- Katrina
El Nino
- Associated with floods, landslides, and accelerated beach erosion. Also associated with decreased hurricane activity in the Atlantic, fewer tornadoes in the Midwest and fewer forest fires in the Southwest, and better fruit and vegetable crops. Hawaii experiences hurricanes only in ENSO years.












Hurricane prediction
- Utilizes models of steering winds and data on tropospheric winds, West African climate, El Nino, sea-surface temperature, and atmospheric pressure. Heat is the fuel that drives hurricanes
End moraine
o Ridge formed at the melting end of a glacier composed of glacially transported rocky debris
Kettle lakes
o Water filled, bowl-shaped depressions formed as glaciers retreated.
U-shaped canyons
o Remains after a valley glacier melts.
Fjord
o U-shaped canyon drowned by the sea.
Effects of pleistone glaciation
- Some soil conditions, including loess deposits transported by Ice Age winds and some areas of glacial till
- Local Groundwater conditions
- Shoreline configuration due to sea-level changes and isotatic rebound
- Human transportation routes
Wind
- Movement of air due to unequal heating of Earth’s surface
- Caused by
o Variations in the heating of Earth at different latitudes because they receive varying amounts of heat energy due to the differing angles of the sun’s rays
o Due to Earth’s rotation, the Coriolis effect deflects winds to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere
Air pressure, wind, and climate belts
- Polar highs
o Polar regions of high pressure; subsiding air produces variable winds and calms
- Westerlies
o Zones of generally consistent winds lying between 35 degrees and 60 degrees north and south latitutdes
- Subtropical highs
o Zones of high pressure and subsiding air masses lying between 30 and 35 degrees north and south latitudes; have variable winds and calms and, commonly, clear, and sunny skies. Often called horse latitudes, these zones are the regions in which most of Earth’s deserts are located
- Tradewind
o Belts of generally consistent easterly winds lying between 5 and 30 degrees north and south latitudes
- Equatorial low and intertropical convergence zone
o Zone of variable winds and calms lying between lattitdes 5 north and 5 south. Sometimes called doldrums.










Solar radiation
- Warming earth by ultraviolet radiation from sun
reradiated energy
- Infared energy from Earth that warms the atmosphere
Ocean circulation
Description
- Each ocean has a characteristic current pattern, the general pattern being clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere. Results in movement of cool water from polar areas to equator.
Importance
- Currents moderate coastal climate and weather, and coastal upwelling brings cool water and nutrients that are important for biologic productivity.


Ice Age Climate
Description
- Temperatures 4 to 10 degrees Celsius cooler than at present
Causes
- A number of interrelated factors contribute to climate changes in ways that are not clearly understood
- They include
o Obliquity of Earth’s axis
o Eccentricity of Earth’s orbit
o Precession of Earth’s axis
o Variations in content of atmospheric gases
o Changes in greenhouse gas effects
o Changes in landmass positions due to plate tectonics
o Tectonic changes in the elevation of continents
o Volume and temperature of the oceans
o Changes in ocean currents
o Changes in solar radiation
o Dust and aerosols
o Oceanic conveyor belt
Predictions of climate change
- Globally, average surface temperatures will increase
- Globally, average precipitation will increase, but its distribution is uncertain
Zone of flowage
Ice attains a certain thickness and begins to deform as a viscous fluid, flowing due to weight. Flows in this zone.
ablate
Glaciers waste away by melting or, if they terminate in the ocean, by calving.
calving
breaking off of a block of ice from the front of a glacier that produces an ice berg.
Glacial outwash
Sediemtn that was deposited by melt water rivers originating at the melting edge of a glacier.
Isotatic rebound
Crust beneath glaciers depress due to weight of glacier. This is the uplift of the crust.
Eskers
Sometimes glaciers facilitate transportation. In wet boggy regions the crest of eskers provided good travel routes. These are long, winding, steep-sided ridges of stratified sand and gravel deposited by subglacial or englacial streams the flowed in ice tunnels in or beneath a retreating glacier
proglacial lakes
Major disruptions in drainage produced large temporary ice marginal lakes called these.
Deserts
Regions where annual precipitation averages less than 25 centimeters and that are so lacking in vegetation as to be incapable of supporting abundant life.
Causes of deserts
- High-pressure belts of subsiding, warming air that absorbs water and precludes cloud formation
- Isolation from moist maritime air masses by position in deep continental interior
- Windward mountain barrier that blocks passage of maritime air
Types of deserts
- Polar deserts, cold and low precip
- Midlatitude deserts – found within interior of continents in the middle latitudes, remote in distance from the influence of oceans
- Subtropical deserts – Earth’s largest realm of arid regions, lie in and on equatorial side of subtropical zones of subsiding high-pressure air masses in the western and central portions of the continents
- Coastal deserts – occur on the coastal side of a land or mountain barrier in subtropical latitudes. Because they are bordered by ocean, they are cool, humid, and often foggy
Wind as a geologic agent
- Deflation – earth materials are lifted up and blown away
- Abrasion – mineral grains are blown against each other and into other objects
control of migrating sand
- Accomplished with sand fences, paving, windbreaks, and stabilizing plants

Igneous deposits
- Intrusive – occur as pegamite, an exceptionally coarasegained igneous rock with interlocking crystals, usually found as irregular dikes lenses or veins
- Disseminated – a mineral deposit, especially of a metal, in which the minerals occur as scattered particles in the but in sufficient quantity to make the deposit a worthwhile ore
- Hydrothermal – a mineral deposit precipitated from a hot aqueos solution with or without evidence of igneous process
- Volcanongenic – of volcanic origin




Sedimentary deposits
Mineral deposits resulting from the accumulation or precipitation of sediment
- Surficial marine and nonmarine precipitation
- Deep-ocean precipitation
- Placer deposits




weather deposits
- Latertic weatherin – concentrations of minerals due to the gradual chemical and physical breakdown of rocks in response to exposure at or near Earth’s surface
- Secondary enrichment – mineral development that occurred later than that of the enclosing rock, usually at the expense of earlier primary minerals by chemical weathering
Smelters
– large industrial plants, that process ore concentrates and extract the desired elements, produce more air pollution, in the form of flue dust
pegamites
small, tabular-shaped, very coarse-grained, intrusive igneous rocks
crystal setting
within a cooling magma chamber of ultramafic composition appears to be responsible for forming layers according to density, bottom to top is densest to least dense, crystallize at top
dredging
scooping up earth material below a body of water from a barge or raft equipped to process or transport materials
strip-mining
used most commonly when the resource lies parallel and close to the surface.
open-pit mining
only practical way to extract many minerals when they occur in a very large low-grade-ore body near the surface.
Anticline
An ideal structure for trapping gas and oil
–Convex-upward fold in stratified rock
–Holds a reservoir of gas and oil
•Crude oil floats on water and natural gas rises to the top of the reservoir
Salt domes
Create oil traps
–Valuable sources of salt and sulfur
–May be potential underground storage sites for petroleum and hazardous waste
–More than 500 salt domes have been located along the U.S. Gulf Coast
stratigraphic traps
•Any change in sedimentary rocks physical character that causes oil to accumulate
•Ex – if a stratum changes laterally from a permeable sandstone to an impermeable shale or mudstone (oil may be trapped in the stratum)
•Ancient coral reefs = ideal reservoirs
–b/c porous and biologically productive when they were living
–Oil may be trapped in the porous, permeable debris on the flanks of the reef
–Many oil fields of the Middle East are of this type
Slant drilling
Drill hole slants from the vertical to penetrate reservoir rocks far from the drilling site
–Desirable where the oil structure is offshore and must be “slant-drilled” from land or from a drilling platform
–Also employed for tapping reservoirs beneath developed land
horizontal drilling
Technique by which the drill bit and pipe follow gently inclined reservoir sands and limestones
–A single borehole can provide access to reservoirs beneath a much larger area than provided by vertical or slant drilling
–Method now superseded by multilateral drilling
•Multilateral drilling
–Enables operators to reach multiple oil bearing reservoirs by means of lateral extensions from one well
secondary recovery
⬢Extract oil that remains in the reservoir rock after normal withdrawal methods have ceased to be productive
⬢Can be grouped into 3 categories: thermal, chemical, and fluid-mixing
⬢All of these methods require injection wells for injecting a fluid or gas and extraction wells for removing the remobilized oil
Thremal
Include steam injection (makes the adhering oil less viscous and fire flooding) and fire flooding (air is injected into the reservoir in order to set fire to the oil and thus produce gases and heat that will increase the flow of oil)
Oil reserve stats
The US has about 5% of the world’s oil population, yet consumes 28% of the world’s energy supplies
•Americans use about 3,000 products derived from petroleum
•In 2006, Americans averaged 21.11 million barrels a day out of 80 million barrels a day used each year worldwide (about 12 of the 21.11 are imported)
•US = huge importer of oil

•Reserves = the amount of oil and gas that can be extracted at a profit
•Global scale – petroleum reserves in 2005 were estimated to be 1200 billion barrels of oil
•2/3 of the proved reserves are located in just 6 countries
•70% of the reserves are located in predominantly Islamic states
•The world discovers less than one barrel of oil for every 4 consumed
•Running on deficit since 1981

•On average, each individual in the US consumes
–4 tons of oil
–2.5 tons of coal
–Over 2 tons of natural gas
–Their own weight, in oil, once a week (every 7 days)
Tar sands and oil shales
Canada provides the US with 9 percent of US daily oil needs in tar sands
•Oil Shales are sedimentary rocks that yield petroleum when they are heated.
•Rock oil used in kerosene lamps were produced from black Oil Shales
•Kerogen
–Source of oil in the rock when heated to 500°C
fossil fuel problems
Air Pollution
–When burning fossil fuels enormous amounts of oxides of carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen are produced.
•Nitrogen oxides = Smog
–Acid rain
•Rain with increased acidity due to environmental factors such as atmospheric pollutants
•Sulfuric Acid mixed with nitric acid
clean air act of 1963
Specific standards for pollutant oxides and hydrocarbon emissions
⬢1980-new cars were 90 percent cleaner than 1970
⬢1992- fuel suppliers were required to sell only reformulated gasoline in winter areas
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