06.18.07 | G3 Faculty Meet with Petroleum Industry
G3 faculty members met with petroleum industry representatives during the week of June 11-15, 2007 to discuss the future of the G3 initiative.
04.05.07 | G3 Center Announces Visiting Scholars Program
The Center for Geomechanics, Geofluids, and Geohazards (G3) is pleased to announce the G3 Visiting Scholars Program.
This program provides partial support for travel and living expenses for scholars to participate in the activities of the Center. These are typically collaborative experimental or theoretical studies related to the focus of the Center—on rock and fluid physics applied to understanding and mitigating geohazards and in the sustainable utilization of georesources—and in concert with G3 Center faculty, postdoctoral scholars, or students.
Individuals interested in this program should initiate informal contact with one of the program faculty.
Center interests are identified at: g3.ems.psu.edu/faculty/
Current research projects can be found at: g3.ems.psu.edu/research/
Research on Small-Scale Gold Mining in Ghana
Dr. Kamini Singha (Assistant Professor of Geosciences) and Dr. Petra Tschakert (Assistant Professor of Geography and AESEDA) spent some of their summer in Ghana to conduct interdisciplinary research on small-scale gold mining. With support from the Africa Research Center (ARC), they investigated the differences between the realities and the perceptions of environmental contamination among small-scale miners—men and women—at two mining sites, one close to Dunkwa and the other one next to Bogoso, both in the western part of the country. Mercury, which is still used in gold amalgamation among small-scale miners, was the contaminant of interest.
As a pilot study, Singha and Tschakert collected some of the first data on contamination—water quality, soil samples and participatory methods with miners—in this area, which they hope to build on in future work.
Singha
also taught interested miners and other community members how to use
indicator strips, or "hot kits" to look for various metals
in drinking water on and near the sites while she was taking water and
soil samples for more detailed lab analyses for better quantifying the
sources, sinks, and release mechanisms of mercury. Tschakert used focus
groups, mental models, and participatory ranking and mapping activities
to capture the socio-cultural, mental, and topographical spaces of contamination
and other risks encountered on galamsey (artisanal) mining sites.
Four masters students from the University of Ghana at Legon complete the research team - Jones Adjei, Iddrissu Mutaru Goro, Doris Ottie-Boakye, and Raymond Tutu. The next step is this work will be to intensify collaboration with colleagues at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) in Tarkwa, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, and the University of Ghana at Legon, as well as doctors and medical practitioners to further investigate human and environmental health issues in the small-scale mining sector, ideally in the form of science-community partnerships.
G3 Members to Help Lead IODP Efforts at Nankai
Members
of the G3 Center for Geomechanics, Geofluids and Geohazards at Penn
State are part of the scientific leadership group for a major IODP effort
at Nankai, Japan, beginning in 2007.
The Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE) will be the largest geology research program in history (approx $350 M) and will include riser boreholes into seismogenic faults at depths of 1 up to 6.5 km, as well as long term monitoring. The role of fluids in deformation at the plate boundary is one of the key goals of the program.
Dr. Demian Saffer is the co-chief scientist for the NanTroSEIZE (Stage 1) - Kumano Basin Observatory Drilling Leg, scheduled for March—April, 2008.
The drilling program will include the equivalent of 5 expeditions in year one alone. Year two will include ~6 months of riser drilling on the new , $500 million, Japanese scientific drilling vessel Chikyu. The ship, which was built specifically for scientific drilling, is ~720 ft long and the drilling derrick is too tall to fit beneath the Golden Gate Bridge!
More information: http://www.ees.nmt.edu/NanTroSEIZE