ISGS - March 2011 Activity Highlights

Christopher Stohr (left) and Mary Seid (far right) listen as Donald Keefer asks Bill Haneberg a question following his lecture.

William C. Haneberg Lectures

The Richard H. Jahns Distinguished Lecturer William C. Haneberg gave three talks and participated in an informal discussion during his two-day visit from Cincinnati, Ohio, on March 14 and 15, 2011. The Illinois State Geological Survey hosted the international consultant and part-time professor at the University of Cincinnati who spoke on a landslide hazard assessment project comparing traditional methods with probabilistic computer modeling ("I Left My Probability Density Function in San Francisco"); and a landslide endangering a subsistence farming community in Nepal ("The Landslide That Ate Laprak"). He also discussed acquisition and applications of airborne laser scanning ("Livin' La Vida LiDAR"). A noted expert on the use of close range photogrammetry for slope stability analyses, Haneberg informally discussed the technique with a small group. The visit was cosponsored by the Civil Engineering, Urban and Regional Planning, Geology, and Geography Departments and the Center for Global Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Approximately 60 persons attended the talks. (Contact: Christopher Stohr)

Paleoclimate Change Studies

A new dune-wetland succession from Mason County, Illinois, revealed that during the last deglaciation, eolian dunes associated with dry conditions prevailed during Heinrich 1 and Younger Dryas cooling intervals, whereas wetlands inundated the dune field during Bølling/Allerød warming intervals. The preliminary results of the paleoclimate change studies led by Hong Wang, Andrew Stumpf, Xiaodong Miao (all of Illinois State Geological Survey), and Thomas Lowell (University of Cincinnati) suggest an inverse pattern of rain belt distribution between the northern and southern United States in response to temperature fluctuations in the Northern Hemisphere, which provided constrains for accurate locations of polar jet streams. Results also suggested that by 17,700 years ago atmospheric circulations near the retreating Laurentide ice margin were tightly integrated with the global circulation pattern and no longer controlled by ice sheet geometry. Moreover, atmospheric changes over North America responded to temperature fluctuations in the Southern Hemisphere more rapidly than meridional overturning circulations in the north Atlantic. (Contact: Hong Wang)

Innovations in Oil Recovery

The Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) conducted a day-long workshop on March 2, 2011, in Evansville, Indiana. The workshop, entitled "Innovations in Improved and Enhanced Oil Recovery in the Illinois Basin," was part of the ISGS commitment to the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council contract funded through the U.S. Department of Energy. The workshop was coordinated by ISGS geologist Joan Crockett. ISGS speakers included Scott Frailey, who discussed petroleum engineering and geology in two carbon dioxide improved and enhanced oil recovery pilot studies, and John Grube, Nathan Webb, James Damico, and Beverly Seyler, who spoke about hydrocarbon reservoir characterization. Other speakers were from oil companies in the Illinois Basin, and their talks featured their improved and enhanced oil recovery projects. The workshop had 92 attendees from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. Many positive evaluation responses were received from the registrants for meeting their needs and interests. (Contacts: Joan Crockett, Scott Frailey, John Grube)

New NRC Earthquake Resilience Report

The National Research Council has released its report, National Earthquake Resilience: Research, Implementation and Outreach. The report uses the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) strategic plan to recommend a road map of national needs in research, knowledge transfer, implementation, and outreach to provide the tools to make the United States more earthquake resilient. The 20-year road map identifies 18 specific task elements required to improve national earthquake resilience, and estimates the annual cost of implementing the roadmap to earthquake resilience at $306.5 million per year for the first five years. Engineering geologist Robert Bauer is one of the committee authors of this report. http://dels.nas.edu/Report/National-Earthquake-Resilience-Research-Implementation/13092
(Contact: Robert Bauer)

Highlights Archive

Updated 08/06/2012 SLD