Geologists have mapped 6,000 miles of large rock formations in the United States that could be used to store some of the excess carbon dioxide building up in Earth's atmosphere.Yahoo News...you gotta love their expedience. Of course, this has been known for quite some time, and was even posted on this little blog back in November 2008.
The carbon dioxide released by fossil fuel burning has been continually accumulating in the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution. While some of the greenhouse gas is taken up by plants and absorbed by the ocean, a significant amount is still hanging out in the air, trapping some of the heat that Earth's surface would otherwise radiate to space and thereby warming the globe.
The rock in question is Peridotite. And, while it is pointed out that large deposits are found in the US...(mostly on the West Coast and most of the mountain ranges in Alaska...not the East Coast as the article suggests)...our reserves of this ultramafic and ultrabasic rock are dwarfed in comparison to Oman, Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea and Caledonia, and along the coasts of Greece and the former Yugoslavia.
The funny thing is that the primary mantle of the entire planet Earth is peridotite. As I stated before:
Go figure...the Earth is self correcting...and man is an insignificant little pimple that just happens to be tagging along.I can't wait to see how our scientists suggest we apply this technique pragmatically. I look forward to the Civil Litigation between the US Government (wanting to uncover large rock formations) vs. the Sierra Club (protecting the habitat of the two-nosed fire tail newt). It should be a hoot...
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