Fossil Tree Found at Saltern Cove, near Paignton

A correspondent alerted me to THIS WEB PAGE on the BBC website. It concerns the finding of a lycopsid (tree) fossil at Saltern Cove. It is important because the area was thought to be marine in the Devonian and the tree indicates that there was a desert island. I wonder if the tree grew here or whether it floated in.

You can find out a great deal more about the find at THIS ARTICLE published by the English Riviera Global Geopark.

 Making "White" Hydrogen - Pity About the Ophiolite

I came across THIS ARTICLE which discusses the various means of making Hydrogen, most of which are very environmentally unfriendly. There is a colour coding of Hydrogen which describes how it is made.

And the "greenest" hydrogen is White Hydrogen! This is already being produced by natural geochemical processes. This involves the weathering of basic igneous rocks.

This could be industrialized by pumping water and carbon dioxide into ophiolites. This produces serpentine, magnesium carbonate and hydrogen. So get rid of carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen! 

This sounds very good. Presumably there would be difficulties, but the techniques used are those of the oil industry which might encourage their use.

As far as I am concerned the downside is the change of lovely ophiolites into less lovely serpentinites.

 Nautilus Video

A correspondent alerted me to this video and it makes nice pleasant viewing. It is even more pleasant if you mute the sound.

All you need to know about Nautilus can be found HERE.