No New Permits; Thirty-Two Active Rigs; AMD/XLNX Surge -- February 1, 2022

AMD: up almost 10% in after-hours trading. Whoo-hoo. Closed at $117; traded at $128 after hours. So, how did XLNX do? Holy mackerel. XLNX also up over 9% after hours. Closed at $198; after-hours surged to $217. AMD earnings beat by 10%; revenues beat by 5%.  

SBUX: up a bit during the day, before earnings announced, but then missed on earnings (citing inflation and Omicron -- didn't AAPL have the same problem -- inflation and Omicron as well as supply chain problems? Down about 2% after hours. Later: this is incredible. SBUX is now trading up! What's up? I don't know but it warms the cockles of my heart. LOL.

PayPay and Block: both down after hours. PayPal down a 16%. Down $30, trading at $147. So, what's the real story. No one has mentioned it yet. The story now being told? Apple. Apple announced it will take all credit cards on its iPhone Wallet, not just its own Apple card. This will severely hit one of the few revenue streams that Block and PayPal have. 

Debbie Downer: yesterday, Melissa's panel on Fast Money all sounded like Debbie Downer. I missed Fast Money today because Sophia and I studied Spanish, read Wings of Fire, and did multiplication flashcards. But it looks like tech is back. I'll replay Melissa on Hulu later tonight. See if anyone eats crow. They won't; they'll change the narrative.

DWAC? I have no clue. Let's look. Holy mackerel! DWAC surged 14% today; up $10 and trading at $83.

Spread? Most interesting story today? WTI and Brent only one dollar apart. 

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Back to the Bakken

Active rigs:

$88.20	2/1/2022	02/01/2021	02/01/2020	02/01/2019	02/01/2018
Active Rigs	32	14	54	64	58

 No new permits. Absolutely nothing reported. Did Bismarck have the day off? A winter storm? 

Active rigs: NDIC reports 34 but one was a SWD and one rig is a CCS rig. I didn't check to see if there are any double-counted rigs. So, 32 active rigs for now.

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The Book Page

Again, if interested in origin of solar system, earth, fossil fuel, origin of life, this is currently the best new book on the market right now for armchair/amateur biologists, geologists, fossil fuel aficionados. 

• How The Mountains Grew
• John Dvorak
• c. 2021
• Pegasus Books, August 2021

From the book, pages 183 - 185:

Soon after the Morrison Formation ... the Jurassic Period came to an end.

But there is a problem here: what exactly marks the end of the Jurassic and the beginning of the next geologic period, the Cretaceous?

Some geologists maintain that there was a mass extinction that can be used to mark a division between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Others suggest that if an extinction did occur -- and some have questioned it -- the event was limited geographically and was not global in extent, an so cannot be used to distinguish between two geologic periods. In short, not everyone agrees that a sudden shift occurred in the plant's history between these two periods.

Some of the problem seems to be the fault the history of geology (sic). The Cretaceous Period, one of the first geological time periods to be names, was first formally defined in 1822 by d'Ormalius d'Halloy for a thick strata for white chalk cropping out in the Paris Basin; whereas, the Jurassic Period was first introduced in 1829 by Alexandre Brongniart for an unusual set of marine fossils found in the Jura Mountains that run along the France-Switzerland border. Neither man was concerned with defining where the boundary between the two time periods should be located within the rock record. And so two centuries have passes as generations of geologist have struggled with the problem.

Currently members of the International Commission on Stratigraphy have taken a radical step and have abandoned the use of fossil succession to define the boundary -- which is how all other geologic periods of the Phanerozoic Era are defined -- and, instead, are using a change in the Earth's magnetic field. (One could almost feel the hearts of professional geologists being broken when the decision was made. Geologists are a conservative bunch, especially when it comes to defining their holiest scepter, the Geologic Time Scale.)

So, for now, the boundary between the Jurassic and the next geologic period, the Cretaceous, is defined as the top of the normal magnetic polarity stripe known as Chron M19n. It occurred 145.7 million years ago and is coincident with an "explosion" in the number of small, globular microorganisms known as Calpionella alpine that can be found in Mexico and across Central and Eastern Europe -- and so there is reason for the conservatives in the world of geology to hope that the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary, will eventually, be defined by fossil succession. Thus, as this illustrates, a considerable effort goes into precisely defining the boundaries of the Geologic Time Scale. 

But for those who choose to look at the history of the 'Earth through a wider lens, it is sufficient to note that there is a significant change in vegetation between the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods -- the first flowers and the first broad-leaf trees appeared during the Cretaceous -- and that there is a significant change in the types of animals, including in the types of dinosaurs.

And, as d'Hallow noted, there was a surprisingly large amount of chalk deposited during the Cretaceous period.