{"id":3435,"date":"2008-12-17T06:05:20","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T06:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/2008\/12\/dont-these-people-look-where-theyre-drilling\/"},"modified":"2008-12-17T06:05:20","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T06:05:20","slug":"dont-these-people-look-where-theyre-drilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/2008\/12\/dont-these-people-look-where-theyre-drilling\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t these people look where they’re drilling?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the conclusions that came out of the Lusi debate at AAPG<\/a> was that poor choice of drilling location was at least as big a factor in the disaster than anything that was (or wasn’t done) during the drilling. Now, via the BBC<\/a>, comes this report from the AGU conference<\/a>*:<\/p>\n

\n

Drillers looking for geothermal energy in Hawaii have inadvertently put a well right into a magma chamber.<\/p>\n

Molten rock pushed back up the borehole several metres before solidifying, making it perfectly safe to study.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Erm – seismic survey, anyone? I mean, it’s not that finding molten rock beneath the ground in Hawaii is exactly a shock. Fortunately, rather than a scene from a bad disaster movie, there’s apparently a scientific payoff:<\/p>\n

\n

Magma specialist Bruce Marsh says it will allow scientists to observe directly how granites are made.<\/p>\n

“This is unprecedented; this is the first time a magma has been found in its natural habitat,” the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, professor told BBC News.
\n“Before, all we had to deal with were lava flows; but they are the end of a magma’s life. They’re lying there on the surface, they’ve de-gassed. It’s not the natural habitat.<\/p>\n

“It’s the difference between looking at dinosaur bones in a museum and seeing a real, living dinosaur roaming out in the field.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the abstract of the presentation<\/a>. I love the description of the discovery as being ‘during routine commercial drilling operations’.
\n*Don’t mention the conference! Or at least, the fact that I’m not at it. Again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honest, guv – that magma chamber came out of nowhere!
\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geology","category-volcanoes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}