Geoscience Currents transmit snapshots of the many facets of the geoscience profession, in-depth case studies of how geoscience is applied, factsheets that provide rigorous introductions to a range of geoscience topics, workforce trends, and career paths.
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Displaying 11 - 20 of a total of 52 items
August 05, 2020
Federal datasets provide a broad view of workforce and economic trends and usually provide data on annual or quarterly granularity, although some provide monthly data. While their coarse granularity does not make them very useful for high-frequency, occupation-specific analysis, these datasets are...
September 26, 2019
Employment projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate an overall 6.2% increase in geoscience jobs between 2018 and 2028, from 404,640 jobs in 2018 to 429,703 jobs in 2028. For comparison, the projected growth of the U.S. workforce over the same timeframe is expected to be 5.2%....
September 15, 2019
Since the 1970’s an increasing number of economic geology theses and dissertations in the U.S. and Canada have focused on energy sources. Until the 1990’s, however, over half of all economic geology dissertations and just over half of all economic geology theses focused on ore deposits. In the 1990...
July 19, 2019
As a whole, geoscience-related median salaries increased by 2% between 2017 and 2018, on par with other major science and engineering occupational categories. The geoscience occupations with the largest increases between 2017 and 2018 include Environmental Science Postsecondary Teachers (5%),...
September 05, 2018
By the numbers: Kentucky
3,159 geoscience employees (excludes self-employed)1
207 million gallons/day: total groundwater withdrawal3
$592 million: value of nonfuel mineral production in 20174
74 total disaster declarations, including 29 severe storm, 22 flood, and 8 fire disasters (1953-...
June 01, 2018
Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Demand
Hydraulically fracturing a modern well can require millions of gallons of water for the initial fracturing process. This is a potential problem in arid regions with competing demands for fresh water (i.e. high water stress), such as Colorado and West Texas (...
June 01, 2018
Introduction
Naturally occurring crude oil comes in many forms. The most familiar to many people is light crude oil, which is less dense than water and flows easily at room temperature. Heavy oil and bitumen are forms of crude oil that are more viscous (thicker) and dense. The largest crude oil...
June 01, 2018
Introduction
All widely used combustible fuels emit harmful (toxic or ozone-forming) gases and particles when burned to provide energy. These air pollutants can have a wide array of public health impacts, such as increasing the rate of certain cardiovascular (heart) and pulmonary (lung) diseases,...
June 01, 2018
Introduction
The oil and gas industry consumes and produces water. Water is used to drill and hydraulically fracture (“frack”) wells, refine and process oil and gas, and produce electricity in some natural gas power plants. Water is also naturally present in the rocks that contain oil and gas and...
June 01, 2018
Opportunities and Concerns in Using Produced Water
Produced water is natural groundwater that is extracted along with oil and gas. It is commonly salty and mixed with oil residues,1 so it must be either disposed of or treated and reused. About 2.5 billion gallons of produced water are extracted...
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