These are questions for the Department of Geology and Geography, so we
· Dr. Martin Farley, department chair and a former oil company scientist,
· Nathan Phillippi, a cultural and physical (maps) geographer, and
· Dr. Lee Phillips, a sedimentary petrologist and geochemist, who is also
director of the Pembroke Undergraduate Research and Creativity Center
and the Southeastern N.C. Regional Micro-analytical and Imaging Center.
On the following pages is the answer to one of life's nagging questions
"Why study geology?"
Question. Tuesday, August 23, 2011. Did you feel it?
have felt, and I lived in California for a couple of years. I had an earth science
class right after it, so we had a lot to talk about. It was a reminder from our
physical universe and why we study it.
effect, the top of a flagpole is the best place to feel an earthquake.
by convergent plate boundaries like West Coast quakes. The Mid-Atlantic Rift
in the middle of the ocean is the nearest site with divergent plates.
in Charleston, S.C., rang church bells in Chicago. There have been others but
not as big as that.
altogether. Most were magnitude two that can only be measured by instruments.
phenomenon of people who believe in the end time, but geologists agree we're okay.
Q. I read that a Canadian gold mining company
purchased land in Moore County. With gold near
$2,000 an ounce, should I get my pan and head for
the nearest stream?
America's first gold rush was in North Carolina.
There is still gold here, and with the price of gold
so high, there is renewed interest. In Robeson
County? No. The Lumber River is a black water
river, which by definition starts and ends in the
coastal plains. To get gold in the bottom of your
river, it must have its feet in the Piedmont.
some interest in north Moore. There is some placer
mining going on in streams and stream deposits.
Gold has been found in a geologic feature
called the Carolina Slate Belt, which is a band
of sedimentary and volcanic rock that runs from
Virginia to Georgia and cuts through the middle
of North Carolina. At current prices for gold, they
would be foolish not to look here.
a question of how feasible it is to extract it.
People in this line of work are born optimists. I
don't think gold mining in North Carolina will be
economically feasible even at today's prices. There
are also environmental issues that come with gold
mining especially the use of cyanide in a process
called heap leaching.
Q. The Chinese are hoarding something called rare earth
metals, and mining companies are looking elsewhere.