Free Republic

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’ll fight a proposal to eliminate a 52-year-old federal agency that seeks to create jobs. McConnell told WYMT-TV Saturday that he’s opposed to the proposal to do away with the Appalachian Regional Commission, which is contained in President Donald Trump’s budget for Fiscal 2018. In fact, McConnell said, “We are not going to allow any cuts” to the commission. …

US scientists have found what it could be key for the future of the country’s ailing coal industry as they detected that ashes from local operations, particularly those around the Appalachian region, are very rich in rare earth elements. Researchers from North Carolina-based Duke University analyzed coal ashes from coal-fired power plants throughout the US, including those in the largest coal-producing regions: the Appalachian Mountains; southern and western Illinois; and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. One of the team main conclusions was that coal waste generated by the Appalachian coal operations was the richest in rare earth...

Europeans named the southern mountains after the Apalchen or Apalachen tribe of natives. How did the name progress from "Apalchen" to "Appalachia" and "Appalachian Mountains?" By the whims of cartographers and geographers, it seems. The steps from "Apalchen" to "Appalachian" can be traced by referring to vintage maps which provide names for the mountains of the East.

The rise of the Appalachian Mountains seems to have triggered an ice age 450 million years ago by sucking CO2 from the atmosphere. Researchers report evidence that minerals from the mountain range washed into the oceans just before the cold snap, carrying atmospheric carbon dioxide with them. The result clarifies a long standing paradox in the historical relationship between CO2 and climate, experts say. At the start of the so-called Ordovician ice age, about 450 million years ago, the planet went from a state of greenhouse warmth to one of glacial cold, culminating in mass extinctions of ocean life. This...

Cold air from Sandy's far western side brought heavy, wet snow to the mountains of northern North Carolina to Maryland. It could continue to snow as far north as extreme western New York Monday into Wednesday. Garrett County Airport in Maryland is already showing a temperature of 32 degrees with visibility between 0 and 1/4 of a mile. There's likely to be heavy snow and fog there. Snowfall should top a foot in the higher terrain of West Virginia.

Tried to come up with something different, so I went with something local over in West Virginia. I've been here a couple of times. Nice hiking. In the fall, some of the brush turns this incredible shade of red. Click 'em all for 2x bigger. Bear Rocks Elakala Falls (not far from Blackwater Falls)

Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up "unconventional" gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future. The mother lode of these deposits, where natural gas is so tightly locked in deep rocks that it's costly and complicated to extract, is the Marcellus shale underlying the Appalachians. Geologists call the Marcellus a "super giant" gas field. Penn State geoscientist Terry Engelder believes it could supply the natural gas needs of the United States for 14 years. But as word spread over the past year that...

Link post: to make interested readers aware of the post in the FR "Chat" section, where any discussion should take place: Geology Picture of the Week, January 4-10, 2004

I'm lazy this week. So this one was easy. Click on picture to go to page with large version option (which covers a larger area). Sunny Mid-Atlantic (on New Year's Eve)

<p>WHITESBURG, Ky.— From his modest office in the Whitesburg City Hall, Dee Davis has a global vision for improving the image and conditions of rural America.</p> <p>When CBS announced plans last year for a reality television show based on "The Beverly Hillbillies," Davis spearheaded a nationwide protest of the proposed series in which an Appalachian family would be uprooted to Hollywood and showered with money and luxury as the cameras rolled.</p>

New Hampshire mountain range to get name change A 'bump on a ridge' soon to be named Mount Reagan Associated Press MOUNT CLAY, N.H. (AP) — A peak that New Hampshire is naming for Ronald Reagan is one of the tallest in the White Mountain Range, at 5,553 feet, but it isn't exactly a popular hiking destination. The rocky summit doesn't even bulge high enough over its supporting treeless ridge to be a distinctive peak, according to the Appalachian Mountain Club, which doesn't include it on its list of peaks over 4,000 feet. "It's just a bump on a ridge,"...