Newswise \u2014 AMES, Iowa \u2013 The geologists spoke in apocalyptic terms about Iowa\u2019s distant past:<\/p>\n
\u201cA rift developed deep in the Earth, magma came up and tried to split the continent apart,\u201d said Elizabeth Swanner, a professor of Earth, atmosphere and climate at Iowa State University. \u201cThis happened about a billion years ago in what is now Iowa, spreading from Kansas and Nebraska, then up and around Minnesota and Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, said Ryan Clark, the associate state geologist for energy and minerals with the Iowa Geological Survey based at the University of Iowa, there was molten rock flowing across Iowa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t think of Iowa having volcanoes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut a billion years ago this rift ran right through Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n
This rift, now known as the Midcontinent Rift System, formed when \u201cthe North American continent almost ripped in half,\u201d Clark wrote in an essay for the December 2024 IGS Geode<\/a>, the Iowa Geological Survey\u2019s annual report.<\/p>\n That magma cooled and crystallized into iron-rich rocks that were buried by thousands of feet of younger sedimentary rock and eventually by glacial sediments. Clark describes them as \u201cmafic igneous rocks that contain the mineral olivine, an iron-magnesium silicate.\u201d<\/p>\n Iowa has a lot of those black rocks thousands of feet below farms, towns and cities. When hot groundwater mixes with them, a chemical reaction called serpentinization causes the iron to bond with oxygen from water molecules, releasing hydrogen gas underground. That gas is known as geologic hydrogen.<\/p>\n Now, in what one headline called a \u201chydrogen rush,\u201d<\/a> a few companies are beginning to drill exploratory wells, take seismic readings for subsurface mapping and otherwise look for geologic hydrogen under Iowa.<\/p>\n If stores of geologic hydrogen are found trapped underground or can be stimulated by pumping water down to the iron-rich rock, that could be the beginning of a clean hydrogen economy for the state.<\/p>\n Geologic hydrogen could be a source of clean energy powering fuel cells which mix hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity while exhausting heat and pure water vapor. Geologic hydrogen could also be used as a local feedstock for fertilizer production, a valuable commodity for Iowa farmers. It also has uses in industry and transportation.<\/p>\n Scientists at Iowa\u2019s research universities are starting to discuss how researchers could help develop a hydrogen economy.<\/p>\n Blue on the \u2018prospectivity map\u2019<\/p>\n Geoffrey Ellis, a research geologist with the Central Energy Resources Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey and a hydrogen expert, started with two charts showing global hydrogen supplies of today and tomorrow.<\/p>\n He spoke to about 40 people \u2013 including Iowa State President David Cook and other university administrators, faculty, staff, students and state agency representatives \u2013 as part of an April research workshop organized by Swanner and called, \u201cHydrogen Opportunities for Iowa.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellis\u2019 charts showed big gaps between actual green hydrogen production (that\u2019s the energy-intensive synthesis of hydrogen using renewable wind or solar power to split water molecules) and announced projects and goals. A January 2025 research paper<\/a> published by Nature Energy estimates it would take $1.3 trillion of global subsidies to close the gap.<\/p>\n It would be much cheaper to harvest geologic hydrogen, Ellis said. And that would have a much lower carbon footprint.<\/p>\n But what kind of resource is there? And, how much does Iowa have?<\/p>\n Until 1987, the geological understanding was that the hydrogen molecule was too tiny to be trapped and stored in underground deposits. But then, while drilling for water near a village in West Africa\u2019s Mali, hydrogen came out of the ground<\/a> and has been used to generate electricity for the residents. It was clear evidence hydrogen could naturally accumulate underground.<\/p>\n Decades later, Ellis flashed a slide with a map of the U.S. lower 48. It was mostly green through the northeast, down the Atlantic coast, around to South Texas then throughout the far West. There was lots of blue in the middle, with some darker blues throughout the Midwest, including a wide line from southwest Iowa to north-central Iowa.<\/p>\n This was the country\u2019s first map of potential areas for geologic hydrogen. The blue \u2013 the darker the better \u2013 showed the regions with the necessary geological conditions for hydrogen accumulation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe map, which will continue to be updated as science and exploration progress, is an important first step in understanding a resource with potential to be a significant future energy resource for the U.S.,\u201d says a geological survey news release<\/a> announcing the map in January 2025.<\/p>\n