Sentences with phrase «surrounding rock»

Under high pressures, water can react with surrounding rock to make diamonds and oil.

Our guide was very helpful in taking photos and told us myths and stories surrounding the rock formations.

The study, to be published in Water Resources Research on October 20, demonstrates that fractures in surrounding rock produced by the hydraulic fracturing process are able to connect to preexisting, abandoned oil and gas wells, common in fracking areas, which can provide a pathway to the surface for methane.

The first application in nearly 20 years for a new uranium mine in the U.S. — chemically leaching uranium from surrounding rock and pumping it to the surface at Moore Ranch in Wyoming — was submitted in October 2007 by Energy Metals Corp. and, subsequently, 19 more followed.

Like an earthquake, a moonquake sets off ripples of motion called seismic waves that speed through surrounding rock.

The problem is that many other particles — including cosmic rays and those emitted by the radioactivity of surrounding rock — can create signals in the detector that look like dark matter.

The research also adds insight into middle crust strain transients, temporary stress on surrounding rock that's caused by tectonic motion.

But even the small projects are already turning up surprises, such as the relative permeability of various rocks and the ability of CO2 to mix with saline and form carbonic acid, which eats away surrounding rock.

Getting to these thinner seams requires cutting into surrounding rock — creating silica dust that is also breathed by miners.

But an analysis of the other mineral deposits in ALH 84001 — such as those containing calcium and iron — by Paul Niles of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and his team suggests that water surrounded the rock and had been cool enough for life to thrive.

Members of a team led by paleoanthropologist Isaiah Nengo estimated the fossil's age by assessing radioactive forms of the element argon in surrounding rock, which decay at a known rate.

As magma approaches the Earth's surface, it either erupts or stalls in the crust, where it interacts with surrounding rocks, cools, and crystallizes into solid rock.

Any liberated water could then percolate through surrounding rock to form clays.

On islands and surrounding rock formations, marine iguanas, giant land tortoises and tropical seabirds capture the imagination.

The mist from the plunging water froze as it landed on the surrounding rocks and railings.

In the event of an underground leak, we want a surrounding rock that will impede travel of the toxic materials.

Distinctive fossils in the surrounding rocks helped the team narrow down the age of the dolphin to between 5.8 million and 6.1 million years ago, a time when the Isthmus of Panama hadn't yet risen from the sea.

The crack behind the descending blob of iron would quickly seal itself under pressure from the surrounding rock, so there would be no risk of the crack spreading catastrophically and splitting the planet wide open.

There, these carbonates may melt and react with the surrounding rocks, eventually crystallizing into diamonds.

Through careful preparation of the fossils, which involved chipping away the surrounding rock with a fine needle, the researchers were able to view not only the hard parts of the body, but fossilised soft tissue as well.

In particular, it has been difficult to explain where the surrounding rock goes when the magma intrudes.

The grains are the first documented to be found in situ (as is) without having to first dissolve the surrounding rock with acid,» adds Belyanin.

The new picture also shows that the bases of these plumes are anchored at the core - mantle boundary in two huge blobs of hot rock, each about 5,000 kilometers in diameter, that are likely denser than surrounding rock.

The plumes are likely at least 400 degrees Celsius hotter than surrounding rock.

In all three fossils, outlines of soft tissue were preserved in the surrounding rock as dull black material.

The report found that state inspectors often allowed injection at pressures that exceeded the capabilities of the wells and thus risked cracking the surrounding rock and spreading contaminants.

Eleven tons of lead and two tons of polyethylene shield the detectors, which weigh just a few pounds, from any radioactivity in the surrounding rock that could create a false signal.

Over decades it dissolves into the brine that shares the pore space or, over longer time spans, forms carbonate minerals with the surrounding rock, Hovorka notes.

The tiny fossils might have been hard to isolate from the surrounding rock, but researchers were able to take advantage of the presence of iron oxide to dissolve the limestone and pull the fossils from the resulting slurry with a magnet.

The fossil, which dates back some 425 million years, was too delicate to excavate by traditional means, so the researchers took digital images of the fossil at 20 - micrometer intervals as they ground through the surrounding rock.

This fault also shows up in surface - wave maps, but the spatial resolution of the body - wave velocity map was much higher, and revealed new information about the velocity of seismic waves traveling through the fault's surrounding rocks, which in turn provides valuable clues about their composition and organization.

Petroleum engineers use foraminifer fossils to maximize their oil yields: If certain fossils exist in an oil - rich layer of sediment, locating similar ones in the surrounding rock is likely to lead to more oil.

This captured CO2 can also react with minerals in the surrounding rock to form carbonates that hold carbon in solid form.

Analysis of the surrounding rock suggests they lived in a sea near hydrothermal vents pumping out hot, mineral - laden water.

Researchers could then determine whether hydrogen gas mixes with residual gas or oil, reacts with minerals in the surrounding rock or poses any environmental concerns.

Enhanced oil recovery injects carbon dioxide into oil wells, flushing out oil from the surrounding rocks and allowing more oil to be produced from a reserve.

There may be complications involving damage to the target well and surrounding rock, but there will be an end to the gushing within a few months.

They also want to test ways to ensure the surrounding rock at the bottom of the hole is solid enough, and that any water there can't travel up toward the surface.

If a well is sealed too high, any leaks between well casings beneath the seal could still leak oil out into the surrounding rock and up to the seafloor.

The solution is then pumped 550 yards underground into a basalt formation, where the acidity leaches elements like calcium and magnesium from the surrounding rocks.

Because the gas is volcanic in origin, the researchers reasoned that it must have arrived at Bravo Dome steaming hot — enough to warm up the surrounding rocks.

The researchers conclude that well production could be greatly improved if the hydrofractures connected better to natural fractures in the surrounding rock.

Because salt is much less dense than rock, the sound waves surveyors use to scour the depths race through it at nearly three miles per second, twice as fast as it traverses the surrounding rock and sand.

In lab experiments, the electrical disturbances associated with those holes diffuse through the surrounding rocks at speeds of about 100 meters per second.

Miners in countries from across Africa and Southeast Asia use mercury to separate the precious metal from the surrounding rock and silt.

At the same time, the heating and accumulated damage to the surrounding rock causes the chamber walls to develop a more viscous (rather than elastic) response to stress.

As the magma chamber fills up, it causes an increase in pressure, which leads to cracks closing in the surrounding rock and producing faster seismic waves — and vice versa.

Another complication is that the concentration of methane and other gases in natural deposits could be affected not just by chemistry but also by the speed at which they seep through the surrounding rocks.

Because the interiors of icy planetary bodies might also be salty, due to interactions between the ice and the surrounding rocks or a liquid ocean, lead author Livia Eleonora Bove of the CNRS & Université Pierre et Marie Curie in France and the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne in Switzerland and the rest of the team studied the effects of salts on the formation of the ice X from ice VII.