In countless grade-school science textbooks, the Earth’s mantle is a yellow-to-orange gradient, a nebulously defined layer between the crust and the core. To geologists, the mantle is so much more than that. It’s a region that lives somewhere between the cold of the crust and the bright heat of the core. It’s where the ocean […]

Following a three-year, five-way competitive process, the U.S. Department of Energy has selected the Energy and Geosciences Institute (EGI) at the University of Utah to develop a geothermal laboratory near Milford, Utah. The laboratory, called Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) will focus on developing enhanced geothermal systems which could greatly expand the […]

Utah’s iconic Rainbow Bridge hums with natural and man-made vibrations, according to a new University of Utah study, published September 21 in Geophysical Research Letters. The study characterizes the different ways the bridge vibrates and what frequencies and energy sources cause the rock structure to resonate. The vibrations are small, according to geology and geophysics […]

A mineral discovered by retired University of Utah medical technologist Joe Marty recently received the inaugural Mineral of the Year award for 2014 by the International Mineral Association. Marty discovered the winning mineral, ophirite, roughly 25 years ago at the Ophir Hill Consolidated mine of Utah. The mine, located in the Ophir district in the Oquirrh […]