April 27, 2026

News and notes

Here are some news items I thought were interesting. For my news items, I try to stick to open access papers.

If you enjoy my blogs, bookmark the site and check on Mondays rather than relying on social media postings which can get lost in the shuffle.

Comments

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Geopolitics

Oil prices up to April 27, 2026
Credit: Oilprice.com

Marine Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz
Credit: marinetraffic.com

Cats With Nine Lives

• Trump faces unprecedented third assassination attempt.

Iran War

• Ongoing coverage of the Iran War.

• Thanks to Trump: The US Now Controls the World’s Major Oil Transit Chokepoints.

• Pretty well all the news in Oilprice.com is now on the Iran War.

• War squeezes global mining as diesel and acid supplies tighten.

• War in Iran is causing biggest energy crisis in history, IEA says.

• Opinion: The War Will Be Won or Lost at the Strait of Hormuz.

Other Geopolitics

• Militants and separatists launch coordinated attacks across Mali.

• War and geophysics: Exploiting Air‐to‐Ground Coupled Waves from Airstrike‐Triggered Explosions in Syria.

• Video: Pakistan's Conflict with Afghanistan is Becoming a Forever War.

• Europe Turns on Turkey as the War Cycle Expands.

• The Middle Corridor Emerges As A Strategic Lifeline For Global Trade.

Research and News

• A Common Mantle Source for the Endogenous CO2 Degassed at the Eifel (Western Germany) and the Ardennes (Eastern Belgium) Regions.

• Shifting the Paradigm: Redefining the Chronostratigraphy of the Triassic Rewan Group, Bowen Basin, Australia.

• Zircon U-Pb, Hf isotope and trace element geochemistry from the newly found Neoproterozoic granitoids in Wadh-Khuzdar area, Balochistan, Pakistan: constraints on magma genesis and tectonic settings.

• The geology of the Twelve Apostles in the Port Campbell Embayment in southeast Australia.

• Mid-infrared spectroscopy applied to a multi-level cave system (Montmaurin, SW France): An innovative method for assessing sediment provenance.

• Rb-Sr isotopic systematics across the mafic-felsic transition in the Bushveld complex: Implications for granite petrogenesis and hydrothermal processes.

• Modern microbial landscape: Aerial mapping of microbially induced sedimentary structures forming in a coastal sabkha.

• Niobobaotite, Ba4(Ti2.5Fe2+1.5)4Nb4(Si4O12)O16Cl, a new mineral species from the Bayan Obo REE-Nb-Fe deposit, Inner Mongolia, China.

• UK Minerals Yearbook 2025 now available.

• Sedimentology of silica granules and haematite in the 3.47 Ga Antarctic Creek Member, Mount Ada Basalt, Western Australia.

• Controls on canyon formation along mud-rich continental margins.

• Geological history: Emergence of Continents Stabilized the Bioavailability of Boron.

Plate Tectonics

• Seismic Stratigraphy and Tectonic Evolution of the Forearc Georgia Basin (Upper Cretaceous–Miocene), Canada and USA, With Implications for CO2 Sequestration.

• Quaternary landscape evolution of Apennines peri-Adriatic belt: Insights into climate and tectonics from the fluvial record.

• Deciphering grain-size reduction as a driver of mid-lithosphere discontinuity formation.

• Necking of the active Turkana Rift Zone and the priming of eastern Africa for continental breakup.

• Polycyclic Metamorphism, Exhumation, and Recycling of Subduction Complex Rocks, Cedros Island, Baja California.

• Tectonic switching within a long-lived convergent margin: evidence from the geochemistry of Paleoproterozoic granitoids, Dajarra region, Mount Isa Inlier.

• Cretaceous–Neogene structural architecture, normal faulting, and sedimentary basin development in the Ruby metamorphic core complex domain, northeast Nevada, USA.

• Volcanic History of Rodrigues Island and Its Relationship With the Central Indian Ridge and the Réunion Hotspot.

• Subduction Initiation Volcanism Leading to Development of the Talkeetna Arc, Lower Shuyak Formation, Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska.

Paleontology

• Pliocene carnivorans from Jradzor, Armenia.

• A new species of a bony spur-thighed tortoise from the Early Pliocene (MN15) of Jradzor site, Armenia, and the origin of the Testudo graeca (Testudines, Testudinidae) complex.

• Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans; ScienceNews summary here.

• Pinnaculosum gen. nov.: a fossil form-genus for pinnacled biological soil crust.

• A Quantitative Framework for Assessing Locomotor Asymmetry in Dinosaur Trackways: Testing the Evidence for Limping and Lateral Preference.

• Evolution of sideways locomotion in crabs; Study Finds summary here.

• Polychaete annelids from the earliest Cambrian Period.

• A True Bug with a True but Unique Chela in 100 Million-Year-Old Amber; Eureka Alert summary here; the bug was named after the K Pop band, Stray Kids.

• New data on the sarcopterygian Koharalepis jarviki (Tetrapodomorpha; Canowindridae) from the Late Devonian of Antarctica, revealed via synchrotron and neutron tomography; Phys.org summary here.

Ore Deposit Geology

• Crustal recycling and metamorphic dehydration govern the fertility of granite-associated tin systems.

• Symplectitic intergrowths enriched in low-melting-point chalcophile elements and their implications for gold enrichment in the Dadiangou gold deposit, western Qinling Orogen, Central China.

Mining and Energy

• Brent crude oil spot prices surge past futures price in April.

• U.S. oil producers aren’t coming to the rescue despite high prices as mistrust and chaos hit outlook. The ‘market is being manipulated’.

• US exporters are plugging a Qatar-sized LNG supply hole – for now: Maguire.

• What You Need to Know About the New Enbridge Sunrise LNG Pipeline Approval.

• Visual Capitalist: These Countries Hold Most of the World’s Copper.

• Ghana directs Newmont, AngloGold, Zijin to shift mining ops to local firms by December.

• Perovskite: Synthesis of K- and Fe-rich davemaoite, explanation: perovskite and solar cells.

• Germany discovers a treasure trove beneath an old gas field: 43 million tons of lithium have been found beneath the Altmark region, bringing Europe closer to the great battery revolution.

Environmental Geology and Hydrogeology

• Under “whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting”:

• Boreholes are booming in a drying South Africa – how the government plans to tighten controls.

• Golf (dis)courses: A political ecology analysis of water usage in an arid area.

• Legacy coal mines tied to toxic selenium levels in Alberta lake, as legal pressure mounts for cleanup.

• Asia’s longest free-flowing river contaminated by arsenic linked to Myanmar mines.

Glaciers and Climate Change

• Lots of recent papers on glaciers in The Cryosphere from the EGU.

• Seismic record analysis can reveal a glacier’s past.

Bad Science

• Killing of Calgary-born scientist tied to mysterious U.S. deaths, disappearances despite quick arrest.

Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Geohazards

Seismic Monitor

Active Volcano Map

Volcanoes

• Smithsonian / USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report.

• United States Geological Survey (USGS) Volcano Observatories:

• Yellowstone Caldera Chronicles: How much water erupts from Old Faithful Geyser?

• Cascades Volcano Observatory Weekly Update.

• Volcano Watch – Shallow earthquakes and ground deformation at Kīlauea’s summit highlight hazards near Halemaʻumaʻu.

• Iceland: Thríhnúkagígur: The only volcano on Earth where you can descend into a magma chamber.

• Fault-mediated magma propagation and triggered seismicity revealed by the 2022 São Jorge Azores unrest.

• Large Deformation, Pressure-Driven Mechanistic Modeling of the 2018 Caldera Collapse at Kīlauea Volcano, HI.

Earthquakes

• What triggered the catastrophic 15 January 2022 Hunga eruption?

• Article from Judith A Hubbard and Kyle Bradley on last week’s earthquake: Another large subduction earthquake off the coast of northern Japan; USGS summary here.

Geohazards

• A tale of two coasts: Unveiling US Gulf and Atlantic coastal cities at high flood risk.

Free Geology Books and Other Stuff

Free geology books can be downloaded from these sites:

• OreZone Readers and Experts Telegram Channel; the Ore Zone channel also shows employment opportunities for geologists.

• The Groundwater Projecthas many groundwater geology books for free downloadtogether with free online courses, listed here.

• Free Groundwater Modeling Courses from the HydroGeoCenter.

• Lectures on groundwater from the IAH, on YouTube.

• From Western Australia: Carbonatite, lamprophyre and host rocks in the northern Aileron Province.

• The Geology of Indonesia: Volume 1 and Volume 2.

• Brett Davis’ book on veins in a deforming rock mass: “The Veining Bible”; also at this site.

• From the Mineralogical Society of America: Handbook of Mineralogy.

• Systematic geochemical classification of felsic igneous rocks of the Yilgarn Craton.

• From the Arizona Geological Survey: Geochemistry Diagram Generator v 1.0.

• Online app: Australia’s full national topographic library at your fingertips.

Upcoming Events

• May 7-8, 2026 , Core Conference 2026, Alberta Energy Regulator, Core Research Centre, 3545 Research Way NW (University Research Park) Calgary, Alberta.

• GAC-MAC 2026 St. John's NL, St. John's Convention Center, May 25-28, 2026.

• PEG2026: 11th International Symposium on Granitic Pegmatites; 16th–19th August 2026, in Perth, Western Australia.

• 14-18 September 2026 , IAH 2026, 53rd Congress of the International Association of Hydrogeologists; Budapest Congress Center.

• September 30 - October 3, 2026 SEG 2026 Conference Salt Lake City, United States.

• Paleoamerican Odyssey 2026, October 14-17, 2026, Santa Fe Convention Center, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

• November 2-3, 2026 CCMEC 2026 Victoria Inn Hotel & Convention Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

• 12-20 August 2028, Geosciences for Humanity, 38th International Geological Congress, in the BMO Centre, Calgary.

• Society of Petroleum Engineers Distinguished Lecturer Schedule.

• American Geophysical Union List of Upcoming Meetings.

• The Geological Society: Events & Courses.

• Upcoming Distinguished Geoscience Australia Lectures (DGALs).