Bearded Geology

On occasion, my home Internet router will reboot itself for reasons unknown to myself, and during one such instance recently, I was left realizing how much that I rely on the Internet these days and was unable to do much without it. However, since I use the Google Chrome browser, I was able to play the jumping T. rex game while waiting for my router to finish rebooting (press arrow keys on the "No Internet" screen to activate). While trying to beat my high score, I noticed that the dinosaur, some kind of tyrannosaurid (the T. rex family), was jumping over saguaro cacti. This got me wondering about the evolution of cactus plants and when they evolved. Cactus are flowering plants (aka angiosperms) and angiosperms evolved in the late Jurassic Period, and rapidly diversified during the Cretaceous Period. But, did the cactus (particularly saguaro) live at the same time as the dinosaurs? First, when did cacti evolve? Interestingly,“[t]here are no relevant fossil records...

Hidden in the woods of Union County, Arkansas, a large unassuming sinkhole housing a small pond called the Norphlet Crater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Although it's easy to overlook, this hole in the ground has quite a story to tell about the early days of the oil and gas industry in Arkansas and a gas well that could not be tamed. Topographic map view of Norphlet Crater In 1922, two years following the Hill No. 1 gas well drilled by Constantine Oil and Refining Company near El Dorado, Arkansas, oil and gas production in the area expanded dramatically and El Dorado became the hub for the petroleum industry in Arkansas. Small independent oil companies and major companies with internationally recognized names, such as Shell and Standard Oil, were all drilling in Union County, Arkansas. In the pine covered hills and farmland about eight miles northwest of El Dorado, near the small town of Norphlet, a cotton field [1] on a farm own...

At 2:10 pm on Thursday, April 22, 1920, the small town of El Dorado, in Union County, Arkansas was busily going about its day. Over a dozen miles northwest, a drilling rig had just finished drilling the first productive oil well in Arkansas six days prior, the Hunter No. 1. However, just two miles [1]  southwest of town was another well being drilled that was going to make headlines as the first productive gas well in southern Arkansas.  Top left: land owners, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Hill. Center: the Hill No. 1 well blowing water, gas, and mud into the air. Bottom right: Constantine Oil and Refining geologist, J. J. Victor. [2] The Hill No. 1 well (Sec. 1, T.18S., R.16W.) operated by Constantine Oil and Refining Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma drilled to 2,226 feet, when it became an "unexpected 'gusher'" and a "great 'gasser'" [3] . The Monroe News-Star newspaper of Monroe, Louisiana reported that it received a kick (i.e. anomalous influx of...