Academic literature on the topic 'Mississippi River – Discovery and exploration'

Fossil-bearing sites containing predominantly mastodon, Mammut americanum, remains were discovered west of the Mississippi River on the Osage River in Upper Louisiana only a few decades after the discovery by Longueuil of similar remains at Big Bone Lick in Kentucky. The first excavations were conducted in the 1790s by Pierre Chouteau, a fur trader and member of the founding family of St Louis. Chouteau's work was documented by several early travelers, including Georges-Henri-Victor Collot and later by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, among others. It was from Chouteau's excavation that the first mastodon molar from west of the Mississippi River reached Baron Georges Cuvier in Paris, having been sent from Philadelphia by Benjamin Smith Barton. Early nineteenth-century travelers continued to mention the Osage River locality and, by 1816, William Clark displayed fossil specimens in his St Louis Museum. By 1840 the indefatigable fossil collector and museum entrepreneur, Albert C. Koch, began extensive digging in the Osage River basin along with sites in the Bourbeuse River valley and at Kimmswick along the Mississippi River in Missouri. Koch's extensive collection of mastodon bones enabled him to assemble a mounted specimen that he named the Missourium, an exaggerated and poorly reconstructed skeleton that was later identified and properly reassembled by Richard Owen at the British Museum. The specimen was later purchased by the trustees of that museum. The publicity surrounding Koch's work stimulated a veritable ‘bone rush’ to the Osage River in the years preceding the Civil War, with some of the fossils making their way into the collections of the American Philosophical Society and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Following the Civil War, interest shifted to the Mississippi valley and the Kimmswick site just south of St Louis, where ongoing excavations became an attraction during the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St Louis. C. W. Beehler, a St Louis resident, was responsible for the work, a venture that attracted scientists from the Smithsonian as well as other institutions. While none of the principals in the early exploration of fossil sites in Missouri had scientific training, the fact that their collections were passed on to scientific practitioners in Philadelphia, Washington, Paris, and London contributed to the expanding body of information that aided in the development of the field of vertebrate paleontology.

This article posits that the earliest map to have ever used the name Toronto as a place is uncovered. Previously unnoticed, the name “Tarontos Lac,” for today’s Lake Simcoe, is on a 1678 map by Jean-Baptiste-Louis Franquelin. His map, “Carte pour servir a l’eclaircissement du Papier Terrier de la Nouvelle France,” is now recognized as Toronto’s cartographic birth certificate. The article describes the map, discusses how the discovery came about and why the name may have gone unnoticed until now. This cartographic study is set in the history of the exploration of the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi River. Three other unsigned and undated period maps, often claimed as “Toronto” firsts, are also examined. These claims are dismissed, as revised attributions show them to have been by different cartographers and dated later than originally thought, making Franquelin’s map the oldest. The cartographic genealogy of the name Toronto is traced back through three and a half centuries to its initial appearance on Franquelin’s map.

Guyana Prepares for Offshore Licensing Round The Guyanese government is preparing to launch its first bidding round for offshore exploration and production of hydrocarbon blocks. New fiscal terms and conditions are being finalized which the country hopes will allow it to gain the maximum economic benefits. The 2022 bidding round, which according to the nation’s Department of Public Information, is expected to be officially launched soon and will be opened for several months to give interested companies sufficient time to prepare their competitive packages and bid to win the available acreages offshore. With the upcoming bidding round the government expects Guyana’s offshore areas to emerge as a potential super basin with over 11 billion BOE discovered to date. The process seeks to ensure the country gets a fairer share of revenues from oil and gas resources through improved fiscal arrangements, as well as safeguard the safety of people and the environment by following international best practices in offshore development. The new round also aims to be competitive with other global energy projects and assure investors of stability, predictability, and security of any investment. The government seeks to balance its developmental agenda with its climate change goals. Ault Drills Successful Smackover Well in Mississippi Ault Energy completed drilling the Harry O’Neal 20-9 No. 1 in Holmes County, Mississippi, and logged productive oil results across multiple pay zones in the Smackover formation. Completion work has begun on the well, and it is expected to be on stream soon. Ault was formed by parent BitNile this past summer to make strategic oil and gas acquisitions. The company obtained participation rights with for the O’Neal No. 1 well and future oil wells when it invested $12 million in Ecoark Holdings in June. Ault Energy exercised its participation right and acquired a 40% working interest in the well, which is the first project in an expected long-term partnership between Ecoark and Ault parent companies White River and BitNile, respectively, with the intention to drill approximately 100 oil wells over 5 years. White River’s next drilling project is expected to be a 14,000-ft-deep vertical oil well in the Wilcox, Austin Chalk, and Tuscaloosa Marine Shale formations in the Coochie oil field in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. White River also plans to drill three consecutive deep vertical drilling projects at approximately 13,000 ft in the Rodessa and Hosston sand formations on the Pisgah Field Lease in Rankin County, Mississippi. Hess Brings Another Llano Well On Stream Hess brought its Llano-6 well in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) on stream. The new well, like the other Llano wells, is tied back to Shell’s Auger facility. Hess is planning increased activity in the Llano area based on the success of Llano-6, quality of the reservoir, and adjacent high-value prospects. Hess holds a 50% interest in the long-producing Llano field, located about 150 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Garden Banks area in an estimated 2,600 ft of water. Shell, the operator, holds a 27.5% interest, and ExxonMobil has the remaining 22.5%. The field was discovered in 1997 and achieved first oil in 2004. Recent seismic reprocessing and analysis confirmed additional development opportunities in the field. Hess expects more high-value opportunities at Llano with wells planned for 2023 and 2024 and is finalizing plans for a year-long drilling campaign starting in early 2023 that will focus on tieback and hub-class opportunities in the GOM. Mubadala Discovers Gas Field Off Malaysia Mubadala Energy and its partners have announced a new gas discovery offshore Malaysia via the Cengkih-1 exploration well in Block SK 320. The exploration well was drilled to a total depth of 1680 m and encountered a 110-m gas column in the Miocene Cycle IV/V pinnacle carbonate reservoirs. The Cengkih-1 well is located nearly 220 km off the Bintulu coast in Sarawak. The discovery is near the Pegaga gas field, also located within Block SK 320. Mubadala Energy and its partners began production from the Pegaga field in March 2022. The Pegaga field has been developed with an integrated central processing platform built to handle throughput of 550 MMcf/D of gas plus condensate. A new pipeline transports gas from the platform into an existing offshore gas network and subsequently to the onshore Petronas LNG Complex. Mubadala Energy is the operator of Block SK 320 with a 55% stake. Partners Petronas and Sarawak Shell hold 25% and 20%, respectively. Petrobras Progresses Sale of Potiguar Basin Assets Petrobras entered the binding phase of the sale of 40% of its stake in the BM-POT-17 exploratory concessions, in which the Pitu well discovery assessment plan is being developed (Blocks POT-M-853 and POT-M-855), and the POT-M-762_R15 concession (Block POT-M-762), located in deep waters in the Potiguar Basin—Equatorial Margin–off the coast of Rio Grande do Norte. Petrobras currently holds a 100% stake in these concessions and will continue as operator of the partnership after the sale. Petrobras said the search for partnership in these assets is aligned with its portfolio management strategy and the improvement of the company’s capital allocation, aiming to maximize value. POT-M-853 and POT-M-855 are exploratory blocks acquired in the 7th Bidding Round of the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) in 2006. Petrobras is conducting the discovery assessment plan for the Pitu well, with a firm commitment to drill an exploratory well (Pitu Oeste) scheduled for 2023. POT-M-762 is an exploratory block acquired in the 15th ANP Bidding Round in 2018. Petrobras plans to drill the Anhangá well between 2023 and 2024. TotalEnergies Sews Up PSA on Oman’s Block 11 TotalEnergies, along with its partners, has signed an Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) with the Ministry of Energy and Minerals (MEM) of the Sultanate of Oman for onshore Block 11. The first stage of the EPSA activities will see seismic acquisition in late 2022, with a first exploration well planned to be drilled in 2023. TotalEnergies will hold a 22.5% interest in the block, OQ 10% and Shell with 67.5% will be the operator. Block 11 contains undeveloped discoveries and exploration potential. “Our recent activities in Oman are a demonstration of TotalEnergies’ strategy of transformation into a multi-energy company,” said Laurent Vivier, senior vice president Middle East and North Africa, exploration and production, at TotalEnergies. “Today’s entry into the Block 11 gives us the opportunity to unlock additional potential to meet domestic and export gas demand. It strengthens our strategic relationship with the Sultanate of Oman, as illustrated last December by our entry into the neighboring Block 10 gas concession and the start of construction last July of 17-MW peak solar photovoltaic systems providing power to a desalination plant.” In 2021, TotalEnergies’ production in Oman was 39,000 BOE/D. The operator produces oil in Block 6 (4%), as well as LNG through its participation in the Oman LNG (5.54%)/Qalhat LNG (2.04% via Oman LNG) liquefaction complex with an overall capacity of 10.5 mtpa. In 2021 TotalEnergies signed a concession agreement to develop natural gas resources on the onshore Block 10 (26,55%), with first gas expected in 2023. TotalEnergies also operates exploration Block 12 (80%). India Lets New Contracts Related to Small Discovered Fields, CBM The Indian government has signed contracts for 31 discovered small fields under the third round of bidding, and for four coalbed methane (CBM) blocks under the fifth round of bidding with 14 domestic companies. These blocks have been awarded. Among these blocks, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has signed six contracts for discovered small fields, with three each for fields in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. These include four contract areas as sole bidder and two contract areas in partnership with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. The ONGC has also signed two contracts for CBM fields situated in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. Cairn Oil & Gas has signed pacts for eight fields. The third round for discovered small fields was launched by the government in June 2021 where 75 fields were offered under 31 contract areas. The CBM bidding round was launched in September 2021, which concluded at the end of May 2022 with 15 blocks under offer.

Eni Starts Area 1 Production off Mexico via MODEC FPSO MODEC said first oil has flowed through FPSO MIAMTE MV34 operating in the Offshore Area 1 block in the Bay of Campeche off Mexico. The contractor was appointed by Eni Mexico for the supply, charter, and operation of the FPSO in the Eni-operated Offshore Area 1 block in 2018. The charter contract will run for an initial 15 years, with options for extension every year thereafter up to 5 additional years. Moored in a water depth of approximately 32 m some 10 km off Mexico’s coast, the FPSO is capable of handling 90,000 B/D of oil, 75 MMcf/D of gas, and 120,000 B/D of water injection with a storage capacity of 700,000 bbl of oil. The FPSO boasts a disconnectable tower yoke mooring system, a first-of-its-kind design in the industry. The system was developed to moor the FPSO in shallow water, while also allowing the unit to disconnect its mooring and depart the area to avoid winter storms and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The mooring system was developed by MODEC subsidiary SOFEC Inc. The mooring jacket was fabricated in Altamira, Mexico. Eni Starts Production from Ndungu EP Development Italy’s Eni has started production from the Ndungu Early Production (EP) development in Block 15/06 of the Angolan deep offshore, via the Ngoma FPSO. With an expected production rate in the range of 20,000 B/D, the project will sustain the plateau of the Ngoma, a 100,000-B/D, zero-discharge, and zero-process-flaring FPSO, upgraded in 2021 to minimize emissions. A further exploration and delineation campaign will be performed in Q2 2022 to assess the full potential of the overall assets of Ndungu. Ndungu EP is the third startup achieved by Eni Angola in Block 15/06 in the past 7 months, after Cuica Early Production and the Cabaca North Development Project. Block 15/06 is operated by Eni Angola with a 36.84% share. Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção (36.84%) and SSI Fifteen Ltd. (26.32%) comprise the rest of the joint venture. Aramco Discovers Natural Gas in Four Regions Saudi Aramco has discovered natural gas fields in four regions of the kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, citing Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. The fields were found in the Empty Quarter desert located in the central area of the kingdom, near its northern border and in the eastern region, he said, according to SPA. Saudi Arabia wants to increase gas production and boost the share of natural gas in its energy mix to meet growing electricity consumption and to make more crude available for export. The minister said an unspecified number of fields were discovered and he mentioned five by name: Shadoon, in the central region; Shehab and Shurfa, in the Empty Quarter in the southeastern region; Umm Khansar, near the northern border with Iraq; and Samna in the eastern region. Two of the gas fields, Samna and Umm Khansar, were said to be “nonconventional” and possibly shale finds. Lukoil Completes Area 4 Deal in Mexico Russian producer Lukoil has completed a deal to become a lead stakeholder in an Area 4 shallow-water asset adjacent to Tabasco and Campeche in Mexico. Under the deal, Lukoil has acquired a 50% stake in the asset from US independent Fieldwood Energy, which filed for US bankruptcy protection in August 2020, for $685 million. The original deal was priced at $435 million; the additional $250 million is related to expenditures Fieldwood incurred since 1 January 2021. Fieldwood committed to invest $477 million to increase oil production from the Ichalkil and Pokoch fields from the current level of 25,000 B/D to a plateau level of 115,000 B/D. Situated in water depths between 35 and 45 m, the fields’ recoverable hydrocarbon reserves amount to 564 million BOE, more than 80% of which is crude oil. Production started in Q4 2021; current average oil production has exceeded 25,000 B/D. The approved work program includes drilling three development wells (two on Ichalkil and one on Pokoch), upgrading three production platforms, and performing seismic reprocessing and petrophysical studies. The remaining 50% stake in Area 4 is held by operator PetroBal, a subsidiary of Mexico’s GrupoBal. Petrobras Sells Polo Norte Capixaba Field Cluster In line with its strategy to concentrate resources on deepwater and ultradeepwater assets, Brazil’s Petrobras has sold 100% of its interest in Norte Capixaba cluster to Seacrest Exploração e Produção de Petróleo Ltda for $544 million, including a $66-million contingent payment. The cluster comprises four producing fields—Cancã, Fazenda Alegre, Fazenda São Rafael, and Fazenda Santa Luzia—and produced 6,470 BOE/D in 2021. The deal also includes the Norte Capixaba Terminal (TNC) and all production facilities. NewMed Targets Morocco Market Entry Israel-based NewMed Energy, formerly Delek Drilling, has identified Morocco as “a country with enormous geological and commercial potential,” in particular the Moroccan coastal areas in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic. The announcement comes a day after the Moroccan Minister of Industry and Trade, Ryad Mezzour, and his Israeli counterpart, Orna Barbivai, signed an MOU aimed at promoting investments and exchanges between the two countries in the digital design, food, automotive, aviation, textile, water technologies and renewable energies, medical equipment, and the pharmaceutical industries. In September 2021, the Israeli oil and gas exploration company obtained from the Moroccan ministry the exploration and study rights of the Dakhla Atlantic Block, which has an area of about 109000 km2. ExxonMobil Sells Nigerian Assets to Seplat ExxonMobil has agreed to sell its shallow-water assets in Nigeria to Seplat Energy for $1.28 billion plus a contingent consideration of $300 million. Seplat said it is acquiring a 40% operating stake in four oil leases to nearly triple its annual net production to 146,000 BOE/D. The deal also includes the Qua Iboe export terminal and a 51% interest in the Bonny River Terminal and natural gas liquids recovery plants at EAP and Oso. It does not include any of ExxonMobil’s deepwater fields in Nigeria. TotalEnergies Discovers Large Oil Field off Namibia TotalEnergies has made a significant discovery of light oil with associated gas on the Venus prospect, located in block 2913B in the Orange Basin, offshore southern Namibia. The Venus 1-X well encountered approximately 84 m of net oil pay in a good-quality Lower Cretaceous reservoir. The find’s potential reserves are estimated at 2 billion bbl of oil. “This discovery offshore Namibia and the very promising initial results prove the potential of this play in the Orange Basin, on which TotalEnergies owns an important position both in Namibia and South Africa,” said Kevin McLachlan, senior vice president exploration at TotalEnergies. “A comprehensive coring and logging program has been completed. This will enable the preparation of appraisal operations designed to assess the commerciality of this discovery.” Block 2913B covers approximately 8215 km2 in deep offshore Namibia. TotalEnergies is the operator with a 40% working interest, alongside QatarEnergy (30%), Impact Oil and Gas (20%), and NAMCOR (10%). CNPC Scoops Ishpingo Drilling Contract The first drilling contract at the Ishpingo oil field near Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park has been awarded to China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), Energy Minister Juan Carlos Bermeo told Reuters. Following the approval of a new hydrocarbon law and legislation, Ecuador plans to move forward with auctions and competitive processes for securing foreign and domestic capital for oil and gas exploration, production, transportation, and refining projects. The first drilling campaign to start after an environmental license was granted for the sensitive area will involve 40 wells over the next 18 months. It will focus on the field’s allowed zone without touching an area protected by a court ruling that has prevented extending drilling. Ishpingo is the latest part of the ITT-43 oil field in Ecuador’s Amazonia region to start drilling after Tambococha and Tiputini. It is expected to produce heavy oil to be added to the nation’s output of flagship Napo crude, Bermeo said. BP Brings Hershel Expansion Project On Line in US GOM BP has successfully started production from the Herschel Expansion project in the Gulf of Mexico—the first of four major projects scheduled to be delivered globally in 2022. Phase 1 comprises development of a new subsea production system and the first of up to three wells tied to the Na Kika platform in the Mississippi Canyon area. At its peak, this first well is expected to increase platform annual gross production by an estimated 10,600 BOE/D. The BP-operated well was drilled to a depth of approximately 19,000 ft and is located southeast of the Na Kika platform, approximately 140 miles off the coast of New Orleans. The project provides infrastructure for future well tie-in opportunities. BP and Shell each hold a 50% working interest in the development. Petrobras Kicks off Gulf of Mexico Asset Sales Petrobras has begun an asset sale program in the Gulf of Mexico, in line with the company’s strategy of debt reduction and pivot toward Brazilian deepwater production. The package for sale includes the company’s 20% stake in MP Gulf of Mexico (MPGoM) which holds ownership stakes in 15 fields in partnership with Murphy Oil. In addition to partnership-operated fields, MPGoM owns nonoperated interests in Occidental’s Lucius, Kosmos’ Kodiak, Shell’s Habanero, and Chevron’s St. Malo fields. During the first half of 2021, Petrobras’ share of production was 11,300 BOE/D. ExxonMobil Liza Phase 2 Underway off Guyana ExxonMobil started production of Liza Phase 2, Guyana’s second offshore oil development on the Stabroek Block; total production capacity is now more than 340,000 B/D in the 7 years since the country’s first discovery. Production at the Liza Unity FPSO is expected to reach its target of 220,000 bbl of oil later this year. The Stabroek Block’s recoverable resource base is estimated at more than 10 billion BOE. The current resource has the potential to support up to 10 projects. ExxonMobil anticipates that four FPSOs with a capacity of more than 800,000 B/D will be in operation on the block by year-end 2025. Payara, the third project in the block, is expected to produce approximately 220,000 BOPD using the Prosperity FPSO vessel, currently under construction. The field development plan and application for environmental authorization for the Yellowtail project, the fourth project in the block, have been submitted for government and regulatory approvals. The Liza Unity arrived in Guyana in October 2021. It is moored in water depth of about 1650 m and will store around 2 million bbl of crude. ExxonMobil affiliate Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Ltd. is the operator and holds 45% interest. Hess Guyana Exploration Ltd. holds 30% interest and CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Ltd. holds 25%. Dragon Finds Oil in Gulf of Suez UAE’s Dragon Oil has discovered oil in the Gulf of Suez, according to a statement from the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources. The field contains potential reserves of around 100 million bbl inside the northeastern region of Ramadan. That estimate makes it one of the largest oil finds in the region over the past 2 decades. Development plans were not reported but reserve numbers could expand, the ministry said. The oil field is the first discovery by Dragon Oil since it acquired 100% of BP’s Gulf of Suez Petroleum assets in 2019. Dragon Oil, wholly owned by Emirates National Oil Co., holds 100% interest in East Zeit Bay off the southern Gulf of Suez region. The 93-km2 block lies in shallow waters of 10 to 40 m.

AbstractA fossil pecan, Carya illinoensis (Wang.) K. Koch, from floodplain sediments of the Mississippi River near Muscatine, Iowa, was accelerator-dated at 7280 ± 120 yr B.P. This discovery indicates that pecan was at or near its present northern limit by that time. Carya pollen profiles from the Mississippi River Trench indicate that hickory pollen percentages were much higher in the valley than at upland locations during the early Holocene. Pecan, the hickory with the most restricted riparian habitat, is the likely candidate for producing these peaks in Carya pollen percentages. Therefore, pecan may have reached its northern limit as early as 10,300 yr B.P. Its abundance in Early Archaic archaeological sites and the co-occurrence of early Holocene Carya pollen peaks with the arrival of the Dalton artifact complex in the Upper Mississippi Valley suggest that humans may have played a role in the early dispersal of pecan.

ABSTRACT On December 20, 1999 at approximately 1045 hours, crude oil was discovered in the Leaf River near Collins, Mississippi. The investigation determined the discharge was approximately 8,000 barrels originating from a source in the vicinity of State Highway 28 and Summerland Road, Jones County, Mississippi. The point of the release was located inland and in an upland type environment approximately 8 miles from the discovery location (Highway 84 bridge) near Collins, Mississippi. After the line was shut-in and control of the source was certain, it was determined there were three distinct types of work areas remaining for the cleanup operations: an upland marsh type environment, an ephemeral flow creek bed, and a limited access river environment. Strategic objectives for the response included prevention of any further migration of oil down the Leaf River; and prevent any additional oil from migrating or being flushed (during the next rain event) out of the upland marsh area down the unnamed creek and entering the Leaf River. The focus of this paper is on the measures pursued by operations and the Unified Command that were designed to prevent any further oiling of the Leaf River in the event oil was flushed out of the upper marshy area as a result of the cleanup operations or from a rain event. Operations installed a series of underflow dams at the confluence of the unnamed creek and the Leaf River as well as between the unnamed creek and the upland marsh area. These two stopgaps provided the necessary containment for the anticipated rain events forecast to occur early in the new year. The series of dams were successful in controlling the total fluid flow, containing flushed oil, and preventing additional oiling of the Leaf River during the first rain and throughout the remainder of the response.

Anglo-American westward expansion provided a major impulse to the development of the young United States' narrative tradition. Early U.S. writers also looked to the South, that is, to the Spanish New World and, in some cases, to Spain itself. Washington Irving's “A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus” (1828), the first full-length biography of the admiral in English, inaugurated the trend, and Mark Twain's “Life on the Mississippi” (1883) transformed it by focusing on the life and lives of the Mississippi River Valley and using an approach informed by Miguel de Cervantes's “Don Quijote de la Mancha.” From Irving's “discovery of America” to Twain's tribute to the disappearing era of steamboat travel and commerce on the Mississippi, the tales about “western waters,” told via their authors' varied engagements with Spanish history and literature, constitute a seldom acknowledged dimension in Anglo-America's nonfictional narrative literary history.

This article summarizes some of our results of geological exploration on the Kutuleya river area. It describes our experience of integrating heliometric surveys in order to clarify the forecast of the development of improved reservoir properties for the formulation of exploratory drilling. The results of testing of a well laid, which served as the basis for the discovery of the Kirenga river oil field, are presented.

Oil and gas (O&G) activity has been pervasive in the Mississippi River Delta (MRD). Here we review the life cycle of O&G fields in the MRD focusing on the production history and resulting environmental impacts and show how cumulative impacts affect coastal ecosystems. Individual fields can last 40–60 years and most wells are in the final stages of production. Production increased rapidly reaching a peak around 1970 and then declined. Produced water lagged O&G and was generally higher during declining O&G production, making up about 70% of total liquids. Much of the wetland loss in the delta is associated with O&G activities. These have contributed in three major ways to wetland loss including alteration of surface hydrology, induced subsidence due to fluids removal and fault activation, and toxic stress due to spilled oil and produced water. Changes in surface hydrology are related to canal dredging and spoil placement. As canal density increases, the density of natural channels decreases. Interconnected canal networks often lead to saltwater intrusion. Spoil banks block natural overland flow affecting exchange of water, sediments, chemicals, and organisms. Lower wetland productivity and reduced sediment input leads to enhanced surficial subsidence. Spoil banks are not permanent but subside and compact over time and many spoil banks no longer have subaerial expression. Fluid withdrawal from O&G formations leads to induced subsidence and fault activation. Formation pore pressure decreases, which lowers the lateral confining stress acting in the formation due to poroelastic coupling between pore pressure and stress. This promotes normal faulting in an extensional geological environment like the MRD, which causes surface subsidence in the vicinity of the faults. Induced reservoir compaction results in a reduction of reservoir thickness. Induced subsidence occurs in two phases especially when production rate is high. The first phase is compaction of the reservoir itself while the second phase is caused by a slow drainage of pore pressure in bounding shales that induces time-delayed subsidence associated with shale compaction. This second phase can continue for decades, even after most O&G has been produced, resulting in subsidence over much of an oil field that can be greater than surface subsidence due to altered hydrology. Produced water is water brought to the surface during O&G extraction and an estimated 2 million barrels per day were discharged into Louisiana coastal wetlands and waters from nearly 700 sites. This water is a mixture of either liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons, high salinity (up to 300 ppt) water, dissolved and suspended solids such as sand or silt, and injected fluids and additives associated with exploration and production activities and it is toxic to many estuarine organisms including vegetation and fauna. Spilled oil has lethal and sub-lethal effects on a wide range of estuarine organisms. The cumulative effect of alterations in surface hydrology, induced subsidence, and toxins interact such that overall impacts are enhanced. Restoration of coastal wetlands degraded by O&G activities should be informed by these impacts.

The book’s introduction sets the stage for the drama by narrating the specific moment when state-appointed commissioners located the spot that would serve as permanent capital of Mississippi on the bluffs of the Pearl River in future Jackson. As they make this discovery, the two commissioners think back on the history of the previous few decades and the steps it took to remove European colonial powers, set up a territorial government and eventually become a state.

‘Exploration and empire’ begins with Jefferson's famous “Corps of Discovery” up the Missouri River and into the heart of the Great Plains lead by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Its two overriding purposes were to find a practicable water route across the North American continent and to establish peaceful relations with the native peoples now manifestly destined to come under American rule. The essential colonial context of late-nineteenth-century exploration is seen in Mungo Park's exploration of the Niger region in Africa; the British exploratory efforts to find the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic; the race to the Antarctic; David Livingstone's attempts to find the Nile's source; and the search for the “forbidden city” of Lhasa, Tibet.

Abstract In The Account Given In “Old Times On The Mississippi,” Mark Twain left the town for the river to seek distinction. The town bred in its boys fantasies of the capture of murderers and the discovery of buried treasure, but realistically there seemed no escape from the droning slumber that enveloped all animate beings from the pigs in the street to the clerks in the stores to the people in their homes—except to take to the river.

<em>Abstract</em>.—Agriculture has been identified as a potential leading source of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and sediment enrichment of water bodies within the Mississippi River basin (MRB) and contributes to impaired water quality and biological resources in the MRB and the northern Gulf of Mexico (GOM). This study reviewed agriculture, impacts on water quality and biological resources, and a brief introduction of watershed conservation programs in the MRB. Agriculture has increased nutrients and sediment loads to the Mississippi River and the northern GOM since the 1950s. Fish and macroinvertebrate communities have shifted, and low oxygen and high-turbidity-tolerant groups became dominant. In addition to existing conservation practices such as the Conservation Reserve Program through the 1985 farm bill and other related programs (e.g., the Wetlands Reserve Program), a recent basin-wide conservation initiative—the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (MRBI)—was launched by U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service in 2010. The MRBI provides financial incentives (more than US$222 million) to producers and landowners in 640 watersheds of 13 states to implement voluntary conservation practices that improve water quality, restore wetlands, enhance wildlife habitat, and sustain agricultural profitability. Edge-of-field and watershed monitoring have been initiated through the MRBI and related agricultural conservation programs such as Section 319 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean Water Act and new initiatives such as the Discovery Farms program in Arkansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, Pioneer Farm in Wisconsin, the Louisiana Master Farmer Program in Louisiana, and others in the MRB states. These efforts will greatly improve downstream watershed ecosystem health by avoiding, controlling, and trapping nutrient and sediment runoff from agricultural fields to the Mississippi River and GOM. Although there continues to be problems with nutrient transport, sedimentation, and depleted groundwater supplies, agriculture will likely have less influence on the future ecological health condition of the Mississippi River and GOM. Future restoration programs need to focus more on state or regional coordination by classifying restoration projects and standardizing the geographic scale and evaluation methods across the whole MRB.

Abstract Who owned the Louisiana Territory? Meriwether Lewis and Carlos Dehault Delassus could not agree on an answer. Delassus, a Spanish official, thought that he still administered lands controlled by the French. Rumors of the sale of Louisiana had reached St. Louis in August 1803, but no formal instructions had been sent to Delassus, lieutenant governor of the territory. On 8 December 1803, Captain Lewis had crossed the Mississippi River to meet with Delassus. Lewis knew that the United States had purchased Louisiana from Napoleon’s government, but he carried no official documents concerning the sale. So after presenting his credentials, Lewis informed Delassus that he planned to lead an expedition funded by the government of the United States. Perhaps the captain paraphrased the instructions that President Thomas Jefferson had sent to Lewis, his twenty-nine-year-old former secretary, in June. “The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by it’s [sic] course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan [sic], Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purposes of commerce.” Delassus insisted that the American party not proceed up the Missouri until he received notification of Louisiana’s sale. Lewis willingly complied. He crossed back to the east side of the Mississippi and established his winter camp on easily recognized American soil. In January 1804, the residents of St. Louis officially learned that all of the Louisiana country had been purchased by the United States. In March, a formal transfer ceremony occurred in the town. In May, William Clark, who shared command of the expedition with Lewis, led the parry across the Mississippi. As many as forty-six men may have begun the ascent of the Missouri. Aside from the two commanding officers, twenty-seven young, unmarried recruits served as permanent members of the “Corps of Discovery.” Two nonmilitary personnel also accompanied the corps-York, an African-American slave whom Clark had inherited from his father, and George Drouillard, half French-Canadian and half Shawnee, who worked as a hunter and interpreter for twenty-five dollars a month. Over the journey of twenty-eight months and eight thousand miles, only one member of the corps lost his life.

Abstract James W. Marshall walked along the American River inspecting John A. Sutter’s millrace on a cold January morning in 1848. As he tried to determine the water pressure needed to turn the wheel of Sutter’s sawmill, Marshall’s eyes detected the glint of metal in the stream, yellow metal, and he collected samples. The nuggets he found that morning produced the California gold rush. Some fiftythree years later, Captain Anthony F. Lucas pushed more drill stem into a saltdome at Spindletop, Texas, near Port Arthur. A rumbling noise, a sharp vibration, and the Lucas gusher blew in on 10 January 1901, oil shooting two hundred feet in the air for nine days. Within four years, twelve hundred nearby wells produced over thirty million barrels of petroleum. Between the discovery of gold in California and the coming of “black gold” in Texas, the economy of the trans-Mississippi West was transformed from subsistence agriculture and herding into a modernized and urbanized capitalistic economy integrated into a worldwide structure.

Abstract The roads of North Dakota, like those of the other prairie states and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that lie just across its northern border, run in straight lines, north to south, east to west. Even in the western part of the state, where the Missouri River, long ago the highway of discovery of the Lewis and Clark expedition, is in the early stage of its journey to the Mississippi, the roads just cross it in those never-ending straight lines. Their occasional jogs are arbitrary, made by man, who wrote all these straight lines on the map. There is nothing to impede the roads or the wind. It comes whistling out of the west, never slowing even at Chicago to the east. And, much of the time in winter, it comes out of the north, whipping the dead grasses that protrude from the frozen earth and its bleak skin of old snow and slashing whatever flesh is in its way like a stream of razor blades. The last winter before Norma Deloris Egstrom left North Dakota, the temperature went down to 63 below zero Fahrenheit; the followingJuly it rose to 120. Once, when she was a little girl, she froze both her hands.

With the recent exploration/discovery of deep-water reservoirs andcontinued developments of drilling and production, it remains very important to have a comprehensive and quantitative risk assessment ofthe drilling/production processes including effective response to deal with such disasters. What measures must be taken to recover from the disaster scenario of a hurricane impacting the same region in the aftermath of an oil spill? The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in history, was caused by an explosion on a semi-submersible drilling rig about 50 miles southeast of the Mississippi River delta on April 20, 2010. Catastrophic events such as oil spills have enormous impact for the local economy of the area and even for the local labor markets. Another regional disaster, Hurricane Katrina impacted Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, as it ripped over the core of the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) producing zone, one of the important oil and gas production areas of the worldin 2005. Also, if acatastrophic disaster occurs and the emergency response supply chain is not adequately prepared, then the economic consequences of sucheventcan be huge. Whenever a disaster happens, another reaction to this event that should be considered is resiliency. It is the ability to reduce or remove potential losses due to disaster events. The impact of different shocks on various aspects of a state’s economic performance is estimated using a Vector Autoregressive model (VAR). In this study, the dynamic response of a variety of industrial sectors in Louisiana to each of these disasters is considered. The responses of different impulses in this model are shown to demonstrate the interdependence of various time series data.

Ireland is well known as a host to many carbonate-hosted zinc-lead deposits dating back to the discovery of the Tynagh deposit in 1961 which ushered in a prospecting rush which resulted in the discovery of several deposits and prospects, e.g., Ballinalack, Boston Hill, Carrickittle, Courtbrown, Harberton Bridge, Keel, Moyvoughly, Navan, Oldcastle and Silvermines. Research into understanding these deposits, in order to further advance successful exploration, initially adopted a Mississippi Valley Type model to direct exploration. How-ever, it soon became apparent that many of the deposits in Ireland did not fit this model and a new paradigm was needed. The term Irish-type was coined to more fully describe those deposits. However, there were some deposits that did not fit this new model notably Abbeytown, Allenwood, Boston Hill and Harberton Bridge (the latter three deposits collectively known as the Kildare District). Unlike most Irish-type deposits they strongly cross-cut the stratigraphy and have a vertical extent that is far greater than the lateral extent. Mineralogically they are significantly different with marcasite being the dominant iron sulphide. Plots of fluid inclusion data fall within fields separate to all the deposits in the Irish Midlands and are similar to the ranges of major MVT deposits from around the world. Similarly sulphur isotopic results show no evidence of the bacterial sulphate reduction that typify the Irish-type deposits and generally all fall with the range of “hydrothermal sulphur”. Fluid inclusion data is indicative of high salinity fluids enriched in chloride relative to bromide and suggests a component of salinity derived via dissolution of halite or from evaporation of seawater. Therefore, the region in which these fluids formed should contain evidence of halite. In this paper we describe the geological features of these deposits and critically assess the evidence which permits us to assign these deposits to the Mississippi Valley class of deposits – notwithstanding that clearly, they are geographically Irish, but they do not possess the typical diagnostic characteristics of Irish-type Zn-Pb deposits.

Some of the world’s largest recent hydrocarbon discoveries are located beneath the waters of the Northern Caspian Sea, or offshore Kazakhstan. The Kashagan field alone is believed to contain in excess of 10 billion barrels of oil, and there are fields at containing billions of barrels at several other locations. The exploitation of these reserves is now moving from discovery and exploration phases towards production. The Northern Caspian Sea is an unusual environment for offshore development. The water is generally extremely shallow; less than 10 m water depth in almost all locations and down to 1.5 m in several areas above the oil and gas reservoirs. While the Caspian has minimal tides, storm surges can lead to rapid depth changes of over 1 m in depth, up or down. For 3-5 months of the year, depending on location and on the severity of the winter, ice cover is present. Some of the ice is land fast, and the rest is more or less mobile. Large ridge and rubble fields build up, often becoming grounded. Two other challenges for operations are that the environment is sensitive, with important and endangered species. The oil is also associated with high concentrations of sour gas, whose high toxicity presents additional safety risks in the event of blowouts or other accidents. All the drilling and production platforms in the area are and will be gravity based. They range in (planned) size from several square kilometers with over 1000 persons on board to small wellhead installations that will normally be unmanned. The platforms must be supplied and supported by a large fleet of vessels including OSVs, tugs, barges, and other specialized vessels. The flagship of this fleet are the icebreaking supply vessels. This paper describes the genesis, design, construction, and entry into service of the largest of the vessels now in operation, the Ice Breaking Supply Vessel (IBSV) Tulpar, the Kazakh flying horse. BMT SHIP DESIGN Limited was approached in April 2001 by BUE to ascertain whether it was possible to design a shallow water icebreaker with a large deadweight capability and also meet with the requirements of transiting the canal system into the Caspian Sea. The vessel was to be delivered into the Caspian by November 2002 in time for the winter ice season. After exploratory discussions with BUE, BMTSD entered into an agreement to jointly support each other in the development of a suitable vessel design, later to be designated SWIMSS, (Shallow Water Ice Management Standby Supply) and then present this design to AGIP as a viable solution to their requirements. The design was to be based upon design study information supplied by BMT Fleet Technology Limited and was a development of a river icebreaker concept. Agip KCO’s program for the design, build and delivery of the vessel in what was effectively a fourteen-month timeframe was ambitious to say the least at the outset, it was further complicated by the requirements changing twice in the design phase and the contact award being correspondingly delayed. How these challenges were met is set out below.

Wind Cave National Park (WICA), the first cave in the world to become a national park, is famous for the park’s namesake feature. Wind Cave, named for the noticeable wind-flow patterns observed as air moves in and out of the natural cave entrance, is currently the third longest cave system in the United States and seventh longest in the world. Wind Cave formed when groundwater dissolved buried layers of the fossiliferous Madison Limestone, which were deposited during the Mississippian subperiod approximately 359 to 347 million years ago. In addition to the Madison Limestone, several other formations are exposed within the park, dating from the early Proterozoic to the Holocene. The presence of fossils within the park has been known since at least the late 19th century when early settlers explored the cave to turn the geologic feature into a tourist attraction. However, most of the geologic work conducted during the park’s history has focused on the exploration and development of the cave itself, rather than its fossils. Paleontology became a bigger focus in the late 20th century when the park partnered with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology to recover and research fossils found within the cave and on the park’s surface. Other partnerships include those with the Mammoth Site of Hot Springs and Northern Arizona University, through which researchers have studied Quaternary cave deposits found across the park. In ascending order (oldest to youngest), the geologic formations at WICA include undifferentiated lower Proterozoic rocks (Precambrian), Harney Peak Granite (Precambrian), Deadwood Formation (Cambrian–Ordovician), Englewood Limestone (Devonian–Mississippian), Madison Limestone (Mississippian), Minnelusa Formation (Pennsylvanian–Permian), Opeche Shale (Permian), Minnekahta Limestone (Permian), Spearfish Formation (Permian–Triassic), Sundance Formation (Middle–Upper Jurassic), Unkpapa Sandstone (Upper Jurassic), Lakota Formation (Lower Cretaceous), Fall River Formation (Lower Cretaceous), White River Group (Eocene–Oligocene), and Quaternary alluvium, conglomerate, and gravel deposits. The units that are confirmed to be fossiliferous within the park are the Deadwood Formation, Englewood Limestone, Madison Limestone, and Minnelusa Formation, which contain a variety of marine fossils from a shallow sea deposition environment; the Sundance Formation, which has much younger marine fossils; the Lakota Formation, which has yielded petrified wood; and the White River Group and Quaternary deposits, which contain vertebrate and invertebrate fossils deposited in and near freshwater streams, lakes, and ponds. Many of the fossils of WICA are visible from or near public trails and roads, which puts them at risk of poaching or damage, and there is evidence that fossil poaching occurred at several of the Klukas sites soon after they were discovered. Furthermore, there are several fossil sites on the tour routes within Wind Cave, which are of value to interpretation and the park experience. WICA has implemented cyclic fossil surveys in the past to monitor site conditions, and it is recommended that this paleontological resource monitoring be continued in the future.

The far north of Manitoba is endowed with potential for base and precious metals, diamonds, uranium, and rare metals. The goal of a collaborative project between the Manitoba Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Canada was to provide an advanced framework of geoscience knowledge for mineral exploration and land-use management. Bedrock mapping, geophysical surveys, and geochemical and geochronological analyses carried out in 2005 to 2011 in the far north of Manitoba showed diverse and complex rocks that record nearly two billion years of Earth history. Key advancements in understanding include a new stratigraphy and chronology of at least four metasedimentary cover sequences in the Seal River Domain, some with high potential for economic uranium, gold, and/or rare-metal mineralization; and the identification of a Neoarchean greenstone belt in the Great Island area with known gold occurrences. The discovery of remnants of ancient (3.5 Ga) cratonic lithosphere in the Seal River area also renders the region favourable for diamond exploration.

Australia's and China's resources (e.g. Olympic Dam Cu-U-Au-Ag and Bayan Obo REE deposits) highlight how discovery and mining of iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG), iron oxide±apatite (IOA) and affiliated primary critical metal deposits in metasomatic iron and alkali-calcic (MIAC) mineral systems can secure a long-term supply of critical metals for Canada and its partners. In Canada, MIAC systems comprise a wide range of undeveloped primary critical metal deposits (e.g. NWT NICO Au-Co-Bi-Cu and Québec HREE-rich Josette deposits). Underexplored settings are parts of metallogenic belts that extend into Australia and the USA. Some settings, such as the Camsell River district explored by the Dene First Nations in the NWT, have infrastructures and 100s of km of historic drill cores. Yet vocabularies for mapping MIAC systems are scanty. Ability to identify metasomatic vectors to ore is fledging. Deposit models based on host rock types, structural controls or metal associations underpin the identification of MIAC-affinities, assessment of systems' full mineral potential and development of robust mineral exploration strategies. This workshop presentation reviews public geoscience research and tools developed by the Targeted Geoscience Initiative to establish the MIAC frameworks of prospective Canadian settings and global mining districts and help de-risk exploration for IOCG, IOA and affiliated primary critical metal deposits. The knowledge also supports fundamental research, environmental baseline assessment and societal decisions. It fulfills objectives of the Canadian Mineral and Metal Plan and the Critical Mineral Mapping Initiative among others. The GSC-led MIAC research team comprises members of the academic, private and public sectors from Canada, Australia, Europe, USA, China and Dene First Nations. The team's novel alteration mapping protocols, geological, mineralogical, geochemical and geophysical framework tools, and holistic mineral systems and petrophysics models mitigate and solve some of the exploration and geosciences challenges posed by the intricacies of MIAC systems. The group pioneers the use of discriminant alteration diagrams and barcodes, the assembly of a vocab for mapping and core logging, and the provision of field short courses, atlas, photo collections and system-scale field, geochemical, rock physical properties and geophysical datasets are in progress to synthesize shared signatures of Canadian settings and global MIAC mining districts. Research on a metamorphosed MIAC system and metamorphic phase equilibria modelling of alteration facies will provide a foundation for framework mapping and exploration of high-grade metamorphic terranes where surface and near surface resources are still to be discovered and mined as are those of non-metamorphosed MIAC systems.