Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The motor of the world*The innards of our planet, as presently visualized, consist of an inner core of solid iron about 2,400 kilometers in diameter. Surrounding this is a fluid outer core, which in turn is wrapped onionlike by the mantle and outer crust. Earthquakes are always sending seismic waves through these regions and jostling seismometers installed all over the globe. From this wealth of seismic signals, geophysicists have found that the inner core, lubricated by the fluid outer core, rotates about 1.1 per year faster than the mantle and crust. The inner core interacts with the geomagnetic field and is, in effect, like the rotor of a slow, ponderous induction motor. Expanding upon this vision of the earth as a colossal electrical machine, E. Stokstad writes: "Electric currents of about a billion amps flow across the boundary between the solid inner core and the fluid outer core that lies around it. In the presence of the Earth's magnetic field, these currents generate massive forces that tug on the inner core. And because the outer core has a relatively low viscosity, the inner core can spin freely." (Stokstad, Erik; "Earth's Heart Is in a Spin," New Scientist, p. 18, July 20, 1996. The basic paper is: Song, Xiadong, and Richards, Paul G.; "Seismological Evidence for Differential Rotation of the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Something Rotten At The Core Of Science H.F . Horrobin is a long-time critic of the anonymous peer-review system used in the scientific community. Most anomalists will readily subscribe to his complaint: The core system by which the scientific community allots prestige (in terms of oral presentations at major meetings and publication in major journals) and funding is a non-validated charade whose processes generate results little better than does chance. Given the fact that most reviewers are likely to be mainstream and broadly supportive of the existing organization of the scientific enterprise, it would not be surprising if the likelihood of support for truly innovative research was considerably less than that provided by chance. (Horrobin, David F.; "Something Rotten at the Core of Science," Meta Research Bulletin, 10:17, June 15, 2001.) From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence and political conspiracy (CIA, FBI, JFK, MI5, NSA, etc) Homeworking.com . Free resource for people thinking about working at home. ABC dating and personals . For people looking for relationships. Place your ad free. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Complexities Of The Inner Earth So many new and startling facts about the inner earth are emerging from current magnetic, seismic, and gravitic researth that a little list is in order. Bear in mind when going down the list that most of these features would have been considered absurd only a decade or two ago. The earth's solid inner core, which "floats" inside the liquid core, is not spherical. Rather, it is anisotropic with its axis of symmetry aligned with the earth's axis of rotation. (Ref. 1 below) "The CMB (core-mantle boundary) is the most dramatic discontinuity in the earth's internal structure in terms of the physical and chemical properties as well as the time scale of the processes that take place on either side of it. Its shape, if different from that predicted by the hydrostatic equilibrium theory, may contain information important to our understanding of geodynamic processes in the mantle or the geomagnetic field generated in the outer core." (Ref. 1, and also item #7 below) The earth's magnetic field possesses four lobes which remain fixed relative to the earth's surface, as demonstrated by 300 years of data. These lobes do not drift westward like the general field. (Ref. 2) "Core-spot pairs" of magnetic intensity seem to move westward and poleward. In the southern hemisphere, they originate under ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Continental graveyard?The seismic waves generated by earthquakes penetrate deeply into our planet and allow geophysicists to, in effect, X-ray the earth. In addition to the hypothesized solid inner core, the fluid outer core, and the encapsulating solid mantle, there seems to be continentsized inhomogeneities in the vicinity of the mantle and the outer core. The anomalous seismic signals can be interpreted as huge blocks of different composition and/or temperature. T.H . Jordan, from MIT, ventures: ". .. that what they have mapped are 'continents' on the core-mantle boundary. 'What we've seen is something really incredible,' he says. According to Jordan, the anomalies are analogous to continents on the surface of the earth, because they can't be accounted for by temperature variations but must reflect some compositional change as well. These features 'represent the scum or slag that sits up on the outer core boundary, just as continents sit on the outer surface of the earth,' he says." Some have even speculated that these subterranean chunks of debris are pieces of surface continents that were subducted at the plate boundaries long ago. There are, after all, missing pieces in the continental drift jigsaw puzzle. There might even be substantial chunks of asteroids and comets down there waiting, like the Titanic, to be explored by scientific instruments. Can once-subducted continents and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Behind magnetic flip-flops The earth's magnetic field frequently reverses its polarity. Such flips can of-ten be correlated with climate changes, global ice volumes, sea-floor spreading rates, and deposition of black shales, tektite falls, biological extinctions, etc. The frustrating thing is the lack of clear-cut cause and effect; that is, how these phenomena are linked physically to the geomagnetic field. Part of the problem is that we can only guess at how the geomagnetic field is generated. Let us assume that the earth's magnetic field is created by dynamo action in the planet's fluid core. P. Olson finds analytically that the core dynamo may reverse sign due to fluctuations in core turbulence caused by two competing energy sources: heat loss at the mantle-core boundary and progressive growth of the inner core. In concept, the heat lost at the core-mantle boundary might be linked to climate changes and sea-floor spreading. Taking a different tack, D. Gubbins has investigated the possibility that field reversals are triggered by ice ages and meteorite impacts (tektite falls). The physical mechanism here would be the increase in pressure upon the core, which affects the rate of freezing in the outer core, and thus the power available to the core dynamo. Gubbins found that these externally caused pressure changes were too small to explain the polarity changes. However, the parameters involved ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Giant Crystal At The Heart Of The Earth Geophysicists have been forced to consider this possibility because of two anomalies: Seismic waves from earthquakes pass through the earth's core faster when they travel parallel to the earth's axis than when they travel in the plane of the equator. The transit time difference is 2-4 seconds. Apparently, the earth's core is not perfectly spherical or its properties are different in different directions. The natural vibration or "ringing" frequencies of the earth are "split," that is, instead of a series of single "tones" we detect a series of closely paired frequencies. This is symptomatic of a core that is anisotropic; that is, its properties are different in different directions. J. Tromp, of Harvard, may have de-anomalized both sets of observations with a single theory: "For the shape of the core alone to explain the observations, he says, the shape of the inner core would have to be very unrealistic. Instead, he claims that the inner core behaves like a giant asymmetric crystal, aligned with the Earth's axis so that seismic waves travel faster in that direction. Tromp's analysis fits neatly with suggestions that the inner core is made of a high-pressure phase of iron in which the atoms are close-packed in hexagons, because such a 'sigma' phase is anisotropic." But, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil & gas from the earth's core In central Sweden this summer, drillers will be boring into the rocks of the Siljan Ring, Europe's largest known meteor crater. Oil and gas should not be down there in any quantities according to current theory, but that's what they are drilling for. Isn't it futile to fight such a well-established dogma that oil and gas have biological origins and therefore must be looked for only where life once thrived? Not any longer! Enough anomalies have accumulated to seriously challenge the idea that oil and gas are byproducts of ancient animal life. Here are a few of these anomalies: The geographical distribution of oil seems derived from features much larger in scale than individual sedimentary features. The quantities of oil and gas available are hundreds of times those estimated on the basis of biological origins. The so-called "molecular fossils" found in oil and claimed as proof of a biogenic origin are simply biological contaminants, particularly bacteria that feed upon the petroleum. Petroleum is largely saturated with hydrogen, whereas buried biological matter should exhibit a deficiency of hydrogen. Oil and gas are often rich in helium, an inert gas which biological pro cesses cannot concentrate. The great oil reservoirs of the Middle East are in diverse geological provinces. There is no unifying feature for the region as a whole and, especially, no sediments rich in biological debris that could have produced ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 128: MAR-APR 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Ganymede Magnetic Paradox In December 1995, the Galileo space-craft was injected into orbit around Jupiter, thereby becoming the first known artificial satellite of this giant planet. In the five years that have transpired, Galileo has radioed back voluminous data about Jupiter itself and its four large Calilean satellites. These natural satellites have turned out to be a disparate bunch. Three have iron cores, but Callisto breaks the mold with an unusual core of mixed ice and rock. Europa probably possesses an ocean, and Callisto might also. Only one of Jupiter's large satellites, Ganymede, boasts a magnetic field. In fact, Ganymede is apparently the only satellite in the solar system to display an intrinsic, dipole magnetic field like the earth's . Although Ganymere's magnetic field is like that produced by a permanent bar magnet, its core is much too hot for permanent magnetism. Again like the earth, Ganymede's field is theorized to be generated by the convection of electrically conducting liquid in its core -- a dynamo of sorts. All well and good, but Ganymede is so small that it should have cooled off billions of years ago thereby freezing its metallic core. So then, whence its magnetic field? One way out of this box it to suppose that about a billion years ago Ganymede was circling Jupiter in an orbit that took it much closer to this ponderous planet. Then, Jupiter's powerful ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Magnetic Jerk Problem We reported above that the earth's magnetic field "jerked" in 1969; that is, it suddenly accelerated its westward drift. The earth's core, which through dynamo action reputedly generates the magnetic field we detect at the surface, apparently does not keep pace with the outer crust. It is this sluggishness that produces the observed westward drift of the magnetic field of about 1 meter per hour. While most geophysicists acknowledge that something significant happened to the core in 1969, the geographical extent of the "jerk" is unclear. The acceleration of the field was clearcut in Europe but obscure or undetectable over much of North America. If the jerk was geographically limited, the core perturbation probably was, too. The earth's core may, in fact, eddy and swirl like the planet's atmosphere. Going over past records, geophysicists think they have spotted another jerk in 1912; only that time the field decelerated. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Magnetic 'Jerk" Gaining Wider Acceptance," Science, 225:1135, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #36, NOV-DEC 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... + 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. EC Chemical and Physical Anomalies associated with inner Earth ECC CHEMICAL ANOMALIES ECC1 Anomalous Abundances of Some Noble Gases ECD DEEP-DRILLING DISCOVERIES ECD1 Drilling Truth Confounds Surface Science ECG STRUCTURAL ANOMALIES INDICATED BY GRAVITATIONAL ANOMALIES ECG1 Remarkable Gravity Anomalies ECG2 Gravity Trends That Challenge the Continent-Accretion Model ECG3 Gravity Data Indicating Large Mantle Inhomogeneities ECG4 Anomalous Gravity Signals Following Earthquakes ECH HEAT-FLOW ANOMALIES ECH1 Mid-Plate Volcanism ECH2 Hawaiian Hot-Spot Tracks ECH3 Dearth of Continental Hot Spots ECH4 Non-Random Distribution of Hot Spots ECH5 Thermal Plumes Correlated with Other Geophysical Activity EQ SEISMIC PROBING OF INNER EARTH EQA LOCALIZED STRUCTURES IN THE CORE AND MANTLE EQA1 Stratification of Basement Rocks EQA2 Deep Continental Roots EQA3 Deep Penetration of Subducted Slabs EQA4 Lateral Inhomogeneities in the Lower Mantle EQA5 Mysterious Structures at the Core-Mantle Boundary EQA6 Seismic Reflectors EQD SEISMIC DETECTION OF LARGE SCALE DISCONTINUITIES, ZONES, STRUCTURES EQD1 Velocity Discontinuities EQD2 Channels and Zones EQD3 Structural Anomalies of the Inner Core EQD4 Anomalies Associated with Mantle Convection Cells EQQ ANOMALOUS SEISMIC SIGNALS EQQ1 Deep-Focus Earthquakes ES STRATIGRAPHIC ANOMALIES ESA EMBEDDED ACCRETION STRUCTURES ESA1 Cylindrical Structures in Rock and Unconsolidated Sediments ESA2 Spherical Aggregates ESA3 Concretions ESA4 Small Fused Structures ESA5 Geodes ESA6 Orbicules ESB ANOMALOUS BIOLOGICAL PHENOMENA IN GEOLOGY ESB1 Biological Extinction Events ESB2 Biological Explosion Events ESB3 Recent Vegetation and Shallow Water Fossils at Great Depths ESB4 Long-Buried, Undecomposed Organic Matter ESB5 Living and Fossil Marine Organisms Found Far Inland ESB6 Living Organisms ...
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... lists are R. Muller and D. Morris, two Berkeley physicists. Here is how they see it: "A sufficiently large asteroid or cometary nucleus hitting the Earth lofts enough dust to set off something like a 'nuclear winter.' The cold persists long after the dust settles because of the increased reflectivity of the snow-covered continents. In the course of a few centuries, enough equatorial ocean water is transported to the polar ice caps to drop the sea level about 10 meters and thus reduce the moment of inertia of the solid outer reaches of the Earth (crust and mantle) by a part in a million. 'That doesn't sound like much, Morris told us. 'But when we realized that this translates into a full radian of slippage between mantle and core in just 500 years, we began to look seriously at the consequences.' With the moment of inertia of the crust and mantle 'suddenly' decreased, the argument goes, they begin spinning faster than the solid-iron inner core at the center of the Earth. The 2300-km thick shell of liquid outer core that separates the mantle from the inner core thus acquires a velocity shear, which in the course of about a thousand years destroys the pattern of convective flows that served as the dynamo maintaining the Earth's dipole field." The field reversal is not immediate according to both calculations and analyses of sediments. After the impact event, the dipole field decreases for a few thousand years, followed by a longer hiatus. Then, there is a sudden reversal. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Anatomy Of A Magnetic Field Reversal "A highly detailed record of both the direction and intensity of the Earth's magnetic field as it reverses has been obtained from a Miocene volcanic sequence. The transitional field is low in intensity and is typically non-axisymmetric. Geomagnetic impulses corresponding to astonishingly high rates of change of the field sometimes occur, suggesting that liquid velocity within the Earth's core increases during geomagnetic reversals." The time period required for the field to reverse was about 4500 years, as measured at Steens Mountain, Oregon. There were three periods of very rapid change (impulses), which hint at radical changes in the core. The average magnetic field at the earth's surface decreased to 20% of normal during the reversal. (Prevot, Michel, et al; "How the Geomagnetic Field Vector Reverses Polarity," Nature, 316:230, 1985.) Comment. The illustration reveals that the reversal was far from a clean 180 flip; there was much meandering. Just what was happening in the core during the reversal is a mystery. When the magnetic field dropped to low levels, flux of cosmic rays and other radiation at the earth's surface probably increased drastically. Terrestrial life might have been adversely affected. The Steene Mountains directional record. The numbers refer to the samples used from the volcanic sequence, in order of increasing age. Dotted lines represent field directions in the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 98: Mar-Apr 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Six Immense Armadas Of Icebergs Invaded The North Atlantic "Observations of large and abrupt climate changes recorded in Greenland ice cores have spurred a search for clues to their cause. The search has revealed that at six times during the last glaciation, huge armadas of icebergs launched from Canada spread across the northern Atlantic Ocean, each triggering a climate response of global extent." The foregoing abstract does not mention the interesting Heinrich layers that fostered the above scenario. In 1988, H. Heinrich published a paper describing a curious set of sedimentary layers found in cores drilled in the tops of the Dreizack seamounts in the eastern North Atlantic. Heinrich concluded that each of the six layers he found represented the melting of "six great armadas of icebergs." These icebergs carried debris picked up in Canada and, as they melted, deposited it on the seamounts and ocean floor. Each layer could be correlated with the major climate boundaries revealed by the Greenland ice cores. Very fittingly, these iceberg incursions are now termed "Heinrich Events." (Broecker, Wallace S.; "Massive Iceberg Discharges as Triggers for Global Climate Changes," Nature, 372:421, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #98, MAR-APR 1995 . 1995-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 41: Sep-Oct 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wimps in the sun?For over two decades now, physicists have been measuring the neutrino flux emitted by the sun -- and despite all attempts this flux is much too low. It just doesn't jibe with what theorists say should be happening in the thermonuclear powerhouse in the sun's interior. J. Faulkner and R. Gilliland have conceived a solution to this dilemma. They postulate a large population of WIMPS (Weakly Interactive Massive Particles) orbiting the sun's core, but still well beneath the sun's visible surface. The WIMPS help convey heat out of the core, thereby cooling it to temperatures significantly less than those predicted by the astrophysicists. A cooler core emits fewer neutrinos, bringing theory into line with reality. And just what are these WIMPS? One suggestion is that they are photinos, a particle suggested (but not proved) by recent experiments at CERN (SF#37) (Thomsen, D.E .; "Weak Sun Blamed on WIMPS," Science News, 128:23, 1985.) Comment. WIMPS represent just the kind of particle that Dewey Larson railed against in his book: The Universe of Motion. He maintains that astronomers have to engage in such ridiculous theoretical gymnastics and invention only because they have picked the wrong energy-generating mechanism for stars and refuse to give it up! Larson's theory, on the other hand, solves this ...
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... two spots on the plamet where the temperatures are several hundred degrees higher than in the surrounding areas. Actually, these hot spots are easy to understand; because, to a Mercurian, the sun comes to a stop in the sky over one of these points and then moves backwards to the other point 180 away. As the sun tarries over these two spots, it heats them preferentially. The strange apparent motion of the sun is due to the 3:2 ratio between Mercury's period of revolution around the sun (88 days) and its axial spin period (59.6 days). What is surprising is that the energy detected radiating from the two hot spots is all reradiated solar energy; that is, there seems to be no contribution at all from Mercury's core! If no heat is leaking out of Mercury's core, the core itself is very likely solid. If it is solid, it cannot establish convection cells and thus generate a magnetic field through dynamo action. But back in 1975, the Mariner 10 spacecraft radioed back that Mercury actually does possess a magnetic field, and a surprisingly large one at that. (Wilford, John Noble; "Theory of Mercury's Hot Poles Is Shown to Be a Fact," New York Times, June 13, 1990. Cr. J. Covey.) Comment. Something is clearly awry. This inconsistency could mean that the dynamo theory presumed to be responsible for planetary magnetic fields is incorrect. Reference. Mercury's anomalous magnetic field is cataloged in section AHZ in our catalog ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 44: Mar-Apr 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Of Dust Clouds And Ice Ages Ice cores from the polar ice at Camp Century, in Greenland, have been analyzed for the presence of cosmic dust. "It is concluded that on five occasions during the interval 20,000-14,000 years BP, cosmic dust mass concentrations in the solar system rose by one and two orders of magnitude above present day levels. Moreover if the particles found in these ice core samples are indicative of the particle size distribution which prevailed in the interplanetary medium at that time, then it may be concluded that the space number density of submicron sized particles must have uncreased by a factor of 105 or more. During these times the light transmission properties of the solar system would have been significantly altered resulting in major adverse effects to the earth's climate. Thus it is quite possible that these dust congestion episodes were responsible for the abrupt climatic variations which occurred toward the end of the last Ice Age." Whence these interplanetary dust clouds? The author of this article ruled out terrestrial volcanism (an insufficient source of iridium) and encounters with asteroids and cometary tails (too infrequent to account for the long periods of high dust levels). Rather, the dust source may have been the same event that created the recently discovered dust ring between Mars and Jupiter, which is believed to be only a few tens of thousands of years old. The nature of the "event" is not ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 137: SEP-OCT 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fuzz In The Climate Record Climatologists have bet heavily on their analysis of cores extracted from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Their trace impurities are believed to accurately record the earth's climate over the last several hundred thousand years. The temporal accuracy of this record is based upon the assumption that these impurities have not migrated vertically from where they were deposited. This assumption is now under severe stress with the discovery of anomalous diffusion within ice plus a phase phenomenon called "premelting," both of which result in the transport of the climate-marking impurities far from their original layer of deposition. A.W . Rempel et al write below (in the jargon of climatologists): .. .under conditions that resemble those encountered in the Eemian interglacial ice of central Greenland (from about 125,000 to 115,000 years ago---impurity fluctuations may be separated from ice of the same age by as much as 50 cm. This distance is comparable to the ice thickness of the contested sudden cooling events in the Eemian ice from the GRIP core. Translation: The accepted picture of the earth's climate history over the last few hundred thousand years may be seriously distorted. (Rempel, A.W ., et al; "Possible Displacement of the Climate Signal in Ancient Ice by Premelting and Anomalous Diffusion," Nature, 411:568, 2001.) Comment. This discovery could impact ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Plane Weirdness Made Plain In SF#93, under the title: "Just Plane Weird," we questioned the long-term persistence of trailing vortices from aircraft wingtips. Could such vortices actually maintain their integrities for several minutes and thus produce the curious tubes of misty air and flapping sounds observed at the end of the Los Angeles airport runway? The answer seems to be YES, as confirmed below: "Wingtip vortices have a core diameter of 20 to 40 feet and, as they trail behind each wingtip, remain approximately two wingspans apart. Why don't they enlarge in radius and dissipate? The rapid acceleration at the outer edge of the vortex produces low pressure in the core, and this pressure differential creates enough centrifugal force to hold the system tightly together for three to seven minutes. After that, friction takes its course, breaking these stubborn twisters apart into mere turbulence." The rest of this article deals with how light aircraft can avoid these sometimes deadly horizontal "twisters." (Manningham, Micah D.; "Wake Turbulence," Private Pilot , p. 69, June 1994. Cr. W.A . Welch) From Science Frontiers #94, JUL-AUG 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 56: Mar-Apr 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Large moon essential to the development of life?Even before its well known effect on romance, our moon was the key to the development of life on earth, according to J. Pearson. He ventures that our ponderous moon (much larger than the moons of Mars) was the key to the melting of the earth's core via tidal friction. With a fluid core, the earth developed a strong magnetic field (much stronger than those of the other inner planets) through dynamo action. This field protected nascent life from space radiation -- and here we are! (Hecht, Jeff; "Lunar Link with Life on Planets," New Scientist, p. 40, January 21, 1988.) Comment. Current scientific opinion declares that the moon was captured by the earth -- a rather rare astronomical event. The capture of a very large moon would be even rarer. From this shaky chain of thoughts, we conclude that life in the universe must be exceedingly scarce. However, such long chains of inferences are usually found to be far off the mark. From Science Frontiers #56, MAR-APR 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... -week continuous record of the behavior of the earth's field. Ordinarily, we would not expect to see very much change in 2 weeks; even a reversing field is thought to take thousands of years to complete its flip-flop. However, at Steens Mountain, when the field reversed 15.5 million years ago, the lava flows suggest that the field's axis was rotating 3-8 per day -- incredibly fast according to current thinking, in fact a thousand times faster than expected. The conundrum (one might call it a scientific impasse) arises because the flowing electrically conducting fluids that supposedly constitute the earth's dynamo would have to flow at speeds of several kilometers/hour. No one has ever contemplated molten rock moving at such speeds in the core! (Appenzeller, Tim; "A Conundrum at Steens Mountain," Science, 255:31, 1992. Lewin, Roger; "Earth's Field Flips Flipping Fast," New Scientist, p. 26, January 25, 1992.) Could it be that the prevailing dynamo theory is incorrect? To make matters more interesting, it now seems that the paths taken by the reversing poles follow similar routes with each flip-flop. One preferred path is a band about 60 wide running northsouth through the Americas; the other path is 180 away cutting through east Asia and just west of Australia. The implication is that some unknown structure in the core somehow guides the reversing poles. (Anonymous; "A New Path to Magnetic Reversals," Eos, 72: ...
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... is a good place to work.) These embarrassing, grotesque gaps can be made to disappear almost as if by magic by assuming that the earth was smaller in the past. This seems, on the surface, to be a crazy idea. Why would an entire planet swell up like a balloon? Hugh Owen answers in this way: "The geological and geophysical implications of such Earth expansion are so profound that most geologists and geophysicists shy away from them. In order to fit with the reconstruction that seems to be required, the volume of the Earth was only 51 per cent of its present value, and the surface area 64 per cent of that of the present day, 200 million years ago. Established theory says that the Earth's interior is stable, an in ner core of nickel iron surrounded by an outer layer that behaves like a fluid. Perhaps we are completely wrong and the inner core is in some state nobody has yet imagined, a state that is undergoing a transition from a high-density state to a lower density state, and pushing out the crust, the skin of the Earth, as it expands." (Owen, Hugh; "The Earth Is Expanding and We Don't Know Why, "New Scientist, p. 27, November 22, 1984.) Reference. For more on the Expanding Earth Hypothesis, see category ETL6 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This book is described here . Relative bad fit of South America and Africa on a globe of modern size is indicated by the black gaps ...
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... Veneer Gerald Wesserburg and Donald de Paolo, two California geologists, have studied the isotopic ratios of neodymium 143 and 144 in both continental and deep-sea lavas. If the underground lava sources were the same, the isotope ratios should be the same. But they are not. Midocean lavas are enriched in neodymium143 compared to continental lavas. Since neodymium-143 is a decay product of samarium, scientists have been able to establish the neodymium isotope ratio from the time of the Big Bang to the present. The isotope ratio for the mid-ocean lavas is just what would be expected on a planet where lighter surface materials had come to the surface during a molten state. The continental lavas, though, must tap very ancient reservoirs, possibly those of a true primitive earth. This ancient core is now swathed with younger materials from who knows where! This young envelope wraps around the whole planet, with the present continents being caused by slight protuberances on the ancient core. Whence the young veneer? A rain of material from some recent close encounter? (Anonymous; "Underground Sites of Ancient Earth," New Scientist, 83:886, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #9 , Winter 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Remarkably Early Dates For Agriculture B.K . Maloney, of the British Museum, describes his pollen analysis of sediments that have accumulated in the Toba Highlands of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The base of a 9.7 -meter core from the Pea Sim-sim Swamp has yielded a radiocarbon date of 18,496 years. Pollen studies of the core indicate a brief decline of forest pollen about 17,800 BP along with increased sedimentation characteristic of cleared land. Taken by themselves, these data would probably be interpreted in terms of natural climate changes. But extremely early dates for human activity exist nearby: 14,000 BP for agriculture in Thailand and 11,000 BP for forest clearance on Taiwan. It is possible, therefore, that men were clearing land for planting in North Sumatra almost 18,000 years ago. (Maloney, B.K .; "Pollen Analytical Evidence for Early Forest Clearance in North Sumatra," Nature, 287:324, 1980.) Comment. Some archeologists hotly disoute the early dates mentioned above. For more, see our Handbook: Ancient Man. Ordering information for this volume may be found here . From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 33: May-Jun 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The moon's moonlets The great lunar basins are not arranged randomly. They occur in bands -- not one band but several. How can this geometry be explained. One hypothetical scenario has the primitive moon surrounded by many moonlets 60 miles and larger in diameter, plying equatorial orbits that are unstable. As the moonlets' orbits decayed, some crashed into the moon's equatorial regions, blasting out a band of huge craters. The force of the impacts also caused the lunar crust to slide over the still-liquid core by as much as 90 . When the next group of moonlets crashed, they gouged out a new belt of craters and shifted the crust still more. Magnetic measurements of lunar rocks tend to confirm that the lunar crust did indeed shift by large angles -- several times. (Anonymous; "Did the Moon Have Moonlets?" Science Digest, 92:20, January 1984.) Comment. Such events could also have happened on earth, which would account for tropical-zone fossils being found at the present-day poles. From Science Frontiers #33, MAY-JUN 1984 . 1984-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Big Bang As An Illusion That the universe began with the Big Bang is now so ingrained in our thinking that we almost never search for plausible alternatives. Perhaps the Big Bang is just a facade that diverts us from theories that better explain the observed characteristics of the universe. A trio of American and British astron omers (B .J . Carr, J.R . Bond, W.D . Arnett) are exploring the possibility that the cosmos began with a generation of very massive stars rather than the debris of the Big Bang. These huge stars would have had masses 100 or so times that of the sun. By virtue of the much higher pressures and temperatures at their cores, they would have burnt up their fuel inventories much faster than sun-sized stars. Thus they would have burnt themselves out long ago, probably surviving as black holes. Such an ancient generation of massive stars can explain four puzzling features of the universe: (1 ) The amount and character of the background microwave radiation. (2 ) The identity of the "missing mass" needed to hold the universe together (i .e ., the relict black holes). (3 ) The primordial abundance of helium. (4 ) The near-absence of heavy elements in the universe. Although the success of this hypothesis is far from total, it might help wean us away from the Big Bang. (Maddox, John; "Alternatives to the Big Bang," ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Explaining the Nazca Lines Humans in the Americas 32,000 Years Ago? Astronomy Lumps, Clumps, and Jumps Clump of Antimatter 1986: "Tired Light" Revived Again Biology Something Big Down There! Brain Architecture: Beyond Genes Heretical Evolutionary Theory The Chromosome Gap How the Cheetah Lost its Stotts Earth's Womb Geology Oil & Gas From the Earth's Core Oceans From Outer Space? Continental Graveyard? Two Points of Great Impact Geophysics A True Fish Story Booming Dunes Another Luminous Aerial Bubble Psychology Magnetic Theory of Dowsing Chemistry & Physics Unpredictable Things ...
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... Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solar-system puzzles In the 30-or-so years that space probes have been visiting the solar system's other planets, much has been learned, but there are now more questions than ever. We now pose four of these -- none of them could even have been asked before the space program. Not only is the magnetic axis of Uranus tilted grotesquely away from the planet's axis of rotation, but the latter lies almost in Uranus' orbital plane. Q1. Why are the magnetic fields of Neptune and Uranus tilted at such grotesque angles with the axes of rotation? A1. Probably because of giant impacts. Q2. "Why does Mercury have an iron core twice as massive, relative to its size, as any other rocky planet?" A2. Probably because a giant impact tore off its rocky mantle. Q3. "How can Neptune sustain 1400-kilometer-per-hour winds -- faster than Jupiter's -- when it is so far from the sun, whose heat powers atmospheric circulation?" A3. ?? Q4. "How could Mars -- now more than 50 C below freezing -- have been warm enough in its early days to have water flowing on its surface?" A4. Possibly due to geothermal heat. (Kerr, Richard A.; "The Solar System's New Diversity," Science, 265:1360, 1994.) Reference. A large collection of solar- ...
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... Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Florida More Exotic Than The Travel Agents Promise Anyone who has visited Florida knows that it differs in several ways from the rest of North America. Now we find that Florida doesn't even belong to North America; it is an interloper, an "exotic terrane." How does one know this? Three facts hint that Florida doesn't belong: When pre-Cenozoic land masses are fitted together, assuming the truth of continental drift, an awkward overlap arises that suggests that Florida was not always where it is today; The latest paleomagnetic measurement of Florida's Paleozoic latitude is consistent with it being part of Gond wanaland rather than at its present latitude; Radiometric dating of zircons retrieved from a core extracted from Northern Florica yield an age of 16501800 million years. There are no known source rocks in the southeastern U.S . that old; Africa and South America are likely sources of such zircons. "These (latter) two new lines of geologic data provide strong evidence confirming previous suggestions that Florida was part of Gondwana during the early Paleozoic and that its current configuration is that of an exotic terrane sutured to North America during the fragmentation of Pangea." (Opdyke, Neil D., et al; "Florida as an Exotic Terrane: Paleomagnetic and Geochronologic Investigation of Lower Paleozoic Rocks from the Subsurface of Florida," Geology , 15:900, 1987.) Comment. Other exotic terranes have been found in western North America, making the continent a veritable pastiche. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 87: May-Jun 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The bottle-green icebergs of antarctica Antarctic icebergs frequently incorporate sediments that turn them dark, even zebra-striped on occasion. But it is the bottle-green icebergs that provoke the most interest, for it is not certain why they are green. Is it due to intrinsic optical properties of the ice or impurities? A recent paper by J. Kipfstuhl et al suggests the latter and tells us where these translucent, strikingly green bergs originate. "A comparison of samples from a translucent green iceberg with a core from the Ronne Ice Shelf revealed an excellent agreement in isotopic composition, crystal structure, and incorporated sediment particles. Marine shelf ice which constitutes the basal portion of some ice shelves is considered to be the source of green icebergs. It [the green ice] most likely results from 'ice pump' processes which produce large amounts of ice platelets in the water column beneath ice shelves. These subsequently accumulate and become compacted into bubble-free, desalinated ice." The inclusions in the green ice are probably trapped by the accumulating platelets. Since the green ice is confined to the bottoms of the bergs, it becomes apparent only after the bergs capsize. The green icebergs in the Weddle Sea originate mainly from the Amery Ice Shelf. (Kipfstuhl, J. et al; "The Origin of Green Icebergs in Antarctica," Journal of Geophysical Research, 97:20,319, 1992.) Similar phenomenon ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galaxy Spins Wrong Way We have all seen impressive photographs of spiral galaxies with their whirlpool patterns. One can easily imagine them spinning ponderously, with streams of stars spiraling out behind the rotating core. This picture is intuitively satisfying from a mechanical point of view. But: "A galaxy with a spiral arm going the wrong way has been found by astroomers in the U.S . Spiral arms usually trail behind as a galaxy turns, but in NGC 4622 an inner arm is wrapped round the galaxy in the direction it is rotating." (Mitton, Simon; "Puzzle of Galaxy That Points Two ways," New Scientist, p. 22, February 29, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #81, MAY-JUN 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What is it? a black hole, of course!Radio-telescope measurements of the compact radio source, churning away in the center of our Galaxy, reveal that it is only 20 AU in diameter at radio wavelengths of l.35 centimeters. This is roughly the size of the solar system inside Saturn's orbit. This tiny radio source is so energetic that there seems no escaping the conclusion that it is a blackhole. No other astronomical object is capable of generating so much energy in so small a volume. Since other galaxies also seem to harbor small, but very powerful radio sources in their centers, astronomers wouldn't be too surprised if all galaxies had black-hole cores. Quasars, in fact, might be galaxies with spectacularly active centers. Would these unseeable black holes be the notorious "missing mass" in the universe? Not likely. The mass of the purported black hole in our Galaxy is only about several million solar masses-- not even close to what is needed. (Maddox, John; "Black Hole at the Galactic Centre," Nature, 315:93, 1985.) Comment. Actually, it would be rather amusing if the problem of the missing mass, which we cannot see, were solved by black holes, which we cannot see either! Reference. Black holes and other cosmological entities are discussed in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. to order the book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers ...
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... Eventually (? ), Other Entities It is rather amazing that we can detect neutrinos at all. Carrying no electric charge and possibly massless, most zip right through the entire earth as if it were not there. A very, very few, however, are captured in huge, fluidfilled tanks built by physicists. These trapped ghostly particles tell tales we do not yet fathom. We have mentioned the solar-neutrino problem before (SF#46/84, for example). It is one of science's more perplexing and enduring mysteries. Even the most modern, sophisticated neutrino detectors count only about one-third the number of neutrinos that the sun "should" be sending in our direction -- according to our best theories on the nuclear reactions simmering away in the solar core. To this classical neutrino problem has been added the discovery that the solar neutrino flux varies in ways difficult to explain. P. Sturrock and G. Walther, at Stanford University, scrutinized 20 years of data from a detector deep in the Homestead Mine in South Dakota and find that the neutrino flux seems to peak every 21.3 days, varying as much as 30% to 100%. It may be that the sun's fusion "engine," long thought to run steadily and smoothly, sputters in a cyclic fashion? If an automobile engine did this, we would take it to the garage! (Holden, Constance; "More Neutrino Mystery," Science, 273:1663, 1996.) The problem deepens: The first 102 days of neutrino data ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Catastrophe Scenarios We present below two reconstructions of major terrestrial catastrophes. Both are based on sound geological research: deep-sea cores, seismic profiles, and the like; but the reconstructions of the events are on the speculative side, particularly in matters of the magnitudes of the effects. Both events also purport to explain long-standing puzzles. Scenario #1 . The Bosporus silt plug blows. During the last Ice Age, sea levels dropped hundreds of feet exposing the continental shelves. The planet's great rivers cascaded over the edges in great waterfalls. The rocky sill at Gibraltar kept the Atlantic waters out of the Mediterranean, and this sea began to dry up. Farther to the east, the Black Sea was now cut off from the Mediterranean's salty water by the silt-choked Bosporus, that narrow strait separating Asia Minor from Europe. In consequence, the Black Sea became a vast fresh-water lake fed by Europe's rivers to the north. The Ice Age eventually waned, and the oceans and Mediterranean began to rise. About 7,000 years ago, the hydraulic pressure on the Bosporus silt plug became too great and it popped. Salty Mediterranean water poured into lowlands around the Black Sea. Scientists estimate that 50 cubic kilometers of water surged through the Bosporus each -- 200 Niagaras in one colossal waterfall. Falling some 150 meters, the thunder of falling water might have been heard ...
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34. Nanobes
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nanobes Get used to this term! Of course you know about microbes. Well, nanobes are also life forms but so much smaller than microbes that they deserve the prefix "nano" (for 10-9 ) rather than "micro" (for 10-6 ). The smallest recognized bacteria, Myco plasma , lack cell walls and fall in the size range 150-200 nanometers. Nanobes are much smaller: 20-150 nanometers. But are nanobes really alive? A drill core recently extracted from a stratum of sandstone 3 kilometers deep off the coast of Western Australia was found to be infected with miniscule filamentous structures. P. Uwins and her colleagues at the University of Queensland believe these structures (" nanobes") are alive. They appear to grow and have cell walls. But skeptics assert that some lifeless chemical structures also grow. Others suspect contamination of the sample as it was raised to the surface and handled. Published photos of the nanobes look very much like the structures in the Martian meteorite ALH84001, which are claimed to be fossilized extraterrestrial bacteria. (SF#116) (Dayton, Leigh; "Tiny Wonders," New Scientist, p. 13, March 27, 1999.) Comment. R.L . Folk claims that so-called "nannobacteria" (100-400 nanometers) are ubiquitous on the earth. Few biologists believe that life forms can be this small, and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lake victoria's cichlid fishes: can random mutations explain them?Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake (420 kilometers long, but only 69 meters at its deepest). It is also the home of more than 300 species of cichlid fishes. Ordinarily, that number of different species would pose no problem for the biologists -- look at the 400 or so species of hummingbirds in Central and South America! Lake Victoria, however, is a very young lake, and all of these cichlid fishes are endemic. Therefore, they must have evolved rather rapidly. Recent seismic surveys of Lake Victoria and piston cores from its deepest parts by T.C . Johnson et al have surprised everyone: Lake Victoria was completely dry 12,400 years ago. Nor were there deeper "satellite" lakes that could have served as refuges for Lake Victoria's biota during extreme droughts. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the present-day 300+ species of cichlid fishes all evolved in less than 12,400 years. This being so, can random mutations -- the accepted source of evolutionary novelty -- have generated so many new species in such a short time? That would be one new species every 40 years or so on the average. (Johnson, Thomas C., et al; "Late Pleistocene Desiccation of Lake Victoria and Rapid Evolution of Cichlid Fishes," Science, 273:1091 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 13: Winter 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New Definition For Humans Needed One scientist has defined humans as "tool makers" as distinguished from "tool users." This distinction is necessary because several animals employ tools for simple tasks, such as fishing termites out of holes. However, Kitahara-Frisch points out in this paper that experiments by Wright with a young orangutan proved that at least one animal can actually make tools; that is, use one tool to make another. More specifically, Wright taught the orangutan to strike sharp flint flakes from a core and then use them to cut a cord and gain access to its favorite food. (Kitahara-Frisch, J.; "Apes and the Making of Stone Tools," Current Anthropology, 21:359, 1980.) Comment. Apparently, with orangutans, at least, no manipulative or cognitive barriers exist to prevent them from entering their own Stone Age. Reference. The ability of non-human mammals to manufacture and use tools is cataloged at BMT11 in Biological Anomalies: Mammals I. To order, go to: here . From Science Frontiers #13, Winter 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Origin Of The Moon Debated In October of 1984, the Conference on the Origin of the Moon convenved in Kona, HI. The clear favorite among the four contending hypotheses was the earth-impact scenario, which may be stated as follows: "Near the end of the Earth's accretion, after its core had formed and while the growing planet was still molten, an object at least the size of Mars smashed into it at an oblique angle. The cataclysm put large quantities of vaporized or partially vaporized impactor and Earth into orbit. The primitive Moon formed from that material." Conferees turned thumbs down on the theory that the moon was captured by the earth. Still not ruled out are the double-planet hypothesis (earth and moon accreted in their present configuration) and the fission-from-earth theory. (Taylor, G. Jeffrey; "Lunar Origin Meeting Favors Impact Theory," Geotimes, 30:16, April 1985.) Reference. See SF#37 for more details on all four theories mentioned above. From Science Frontiers #42, NOV-DEC 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... History describes how, in theory, the mitochondria in cells were created by bacterial invasion. The presence of chloroplasts in plants, too, may have come about in this way. A case also exists for the alliance of spirochetes with cells to form flagella and cilia. These three "mergers" provided cells with metabolism, photosynthesis, and mobility. Margulis and Sagan obviously do not believe that the "bacterial connection" ended there. They bring their article to a close with an almost poetic manifesto that we now quote in part. The context of the quotation is their assertion that plant and animal evolution would never have taken place unless one life form attacked another and the latter defended itself, all this followed by accomodation and the development of a symbiotic relationship. "Uneasy alliances are at the core of our very many different beings. Individuality, independence -- these are illusions. We live on a flowing pointillist landscape where each dot of paint is also alive. Earth itself is a living habitat, a merger of organisms that have come together, forming new emergent organisms, entirely new kinds of 'individuals' such as green hydras and luminous fish. Without a a life-support system none of us can survive. It is in this light that we are beginning to see the biosphere not only as a continual struggle favoring the most vicious organism but also as an endliess dance of diversifying life forms, where partners triumph." (Sagan, Dorion, and Margulis, Lynn; "Bacterial Bedfellows," Natural History, 96:26, March 1987.) Comment. ...
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... 57: May-Jun 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Outrageous Earthquake Waves "Shock waves produced by earthquakes travel faster through the earth when going in a north-south direction than when they travel east-west. "When these waves, called seismic waves travel east-west they take two seconds longer to reach a point on the other side than if they travel north-south. The measurements of velocity take the slightly wider girth of the Earth from east to west into account." D. Anderson, director of Cal Tech's seismological laboratory states, "all of the possible explanations of this phe nomenon are outrageous." The "least outrageous" explanation for the anomaly is that the earth's outer core is not a pure liquid, but more like a slurry of aligned solid particles. (Anonymous; "Earthquake Waves Give 'Outrageous' Result," New Scientist, p. 38, February 18, 1988.) From Science Frontiers #57, MAY-JUN 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... .01) x 1011 m3 kg-1 s-2 . We do not yet have adequate resolution to discriminate this scalar model from a scalarvector model." (Eckhardt, D.H ., et al; "Experimental Evidence for a Violation of Newton's Inverse-Square Law of Gravitation," Eos, 69:1046, 1988.) "In the late summer of 1987, an ex periment was performed to determine the value of the Newtonian gravitational constant, G, by measuring the variation of the earth's gravity, g, with depth in the Greenland icesheet. The site for the experiment - the radar station at Dye-3 , Greenland - was selected because of the existing 2000- m-deep ice borehole there. Previous analysis of ice-cores from the borehole indicate that the ice density can be accurately modeled. Gravity measurements were made to a depth of 1673 meters in the ice, the sub-ice topography was mapped with high-precision radar echo sounding over a 10-km-diameter region, and a series of 24 locations in a 32-km-diameter network around the hole were surveyed with gravity, leveling, and GPS positioning. "When corrected for the sub-ice topography, a gravity anomaly that accumulated to nearly 4 mGal in 1.4 km was observed. We find measured anomalies can be taken as evidence for non-Newtonian gravity, but can also be accounted for in terms of Newtonian physics if a suitable distribution of high densiity masses exist beneath the borehole." (Zumberge, Mark ...
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... A NEW QUASAR DISTANCE RECORD: A NEW EMBARRASSMENT A quasar has been detected with a redshift of 4.73. If this redshift is interpreted as a measure of the quasar's distance (Who would risk his reputation by suggesting otherwise?), it is 14 or billion light years away. If the Big Bang is assumed (Who would risk..etc?), this quasar is only about a billion light years from the edge of the universe. Its age, then, is only a billion years. But this stripling of a quasar appears perfectly "normal" with no signs of youth! Its spectrum indicates that even at this young age, the elements were present in the same abundances found in older quasars. And, of course, at this quasar's core there must be a billion-solar-mass black hole (Who would risk..etc.?). Current theory is hardpressed to explain this very rapid evolution of a "normal" quasar with its immense black hole. (Peterson, I.; "Quasar Illuminates the Most Distant Past," Science News, 136: 340, 1989.) Comment. Could it be that our fanatically held ideas about redshifts, black holes, and Big Bangs are wrong? You bet it could! Reference. The redshift controversy the the anomalies that create it are cataloged in: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Ordering information here . From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The features, at Yreka, are between 2 and 7 centimetres across and 2 to 4 millimetres thick; some have centres stained with iron oxides. One geologist, Nancy Lindsley-Griffin of the University of Nebraska, has already dubbed the saucer-shaped features, 'unidentified fossil-like objects.' "Geologists discoverd the UFOs in bedding planes of the slate, formed from ocean bottom that was deposited between 400 and 600 million years ago. The objects are puzzling because they lack the symmetry that fossils of living organisms usually display. They are also too large to be the droppings of any creature alive at the time, and do not look like concretions, such as agates, formed by natural chemical processes. Lindsley-Griffin says they resemble very tiny bicycle wheels, with a central core and an outer rim, but with most of the spokes missing.'" One thought is that these features may be fossil jellyfish. (Anonymous; "Fossil 'UFOs' Mystify the Geologists," New Scientist, p. 43, July 1, 1989.) From Science Frontiers #65, SEP-OCT 1989 . 1989-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... axis of the earth's magnetic field is tilted about 11 away from our planet's axis of rotation. This tilt is embarrassing to the reigning "dynamo theory," in which the axes of the magnetic field and rotation are presumed to be aligned. The situation is even worse with some the other planets; viz., Uranus with 60 and Neptune with 47 . Jupiter's tilt is 10 , while Saturn's is only 1 . Clearly, something is awry. Two possibilities are: (1 ) The dynamo theory is incorrect; or (2 ) The magnetic fields measured by spacecraft are actually combinations of central, dynamocreated, dipole fields, which are aligned with the axes of rotation, and "other" dipole fields originating in the outermost portions of the planetary cores. If the latter solution to the dilemma is correct, we must account for the origin and disposition of these "other" dipoles. (Eberhart, J.; "Straightening the Magnetic Tilts of Planets," Science News, 137:294, 1990.) Reference. The anomalously titled magnetic fields of planets are cataloged in The Moon and the Planets. For details on this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... a paleooceanographer at the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. Recently he has been drilling deeply into the submerged coral reefs off Barbados. During his research, it has been discovered that the radiocarbon (C1 4 ) scale is in serious error beyond 10,000 years BP. Radiocarbon dating is widely used in archeology, but it has always been hard to estimate how much radiocarbon was present in the earth's atmosphere thousands of years ago. As a matter of fact, even before Fairbanks' discovery, a major correction to the radiocarbon time scale was made using tree-ring counts as an absolute reference. But tree ring data go back to only about 10,000 years. The latest correction was made by E. Bard, also at Lamont-Doherty, who took Fairbanks' coral cores and compared the radiocarbon dates with uranium-thorium dates. The result is that at 20,000 BP, the radiocarbon date is 16,500 BP, 3500 years too low. [Of course, all this as sumes that the uranium-thorium dates are accurate.] Use of the newly corrected radiocarbon scale has pushed the peak of the Ice Ages back from 18,000 BP to 21,000 BP. But there is more. The same article in Science, without saying how he came up with the number, has Bard fixing the strength of the earth's magnetic field at only half its present level 20,000 years ago. This is most interest-ing because over the last 400 years of direct measurements, the geomagnetic field has been steadily decreasing! ...
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... ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects WHAT'S ANOTHER DIPOLE OR TWO?" Planetary exploration by deep space probes in recent years has shown that the dipole moment of some mag netized planets has a surprisingly large inclination angle with respect to the rotation axis. It is argued that the inclined dipole thus obtained may not be physically realistic. Applying the method we have developed for the source surface magnetic field of the sun (a spherical surface of 2.5 solar radii), it is suggested that the main dipole of the earth and the magnetized planets is actually axial (the magnetic moment is parallel or antiparallel to the rotation axis), and that two or three smaller dipoles near the core surface are responsible for the apparent inclination of the main dipole." (Akasofu, S-I ., and Saito, T.; "Is the Earth"s Dipole Actually Inclined with Respect to Its Rotation Axis?" Eos, 71: 490, 1990.) Comment. In SF#70, we see that the magnetic field of Uranus is inclined a whopping 60 to its axis of rotation. Can a few, small additional dipoles distort the main field so much? And just what are these small dipoles anyway -- physically and electrically? From Science Frontiers #71, SEP-OCT 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Moon (mascons), the existence of the rings of Saturn, and even the observations that gave rise to the notion of a 'fifth force.'" J. Gribbin, whose article begins with the above paragraph, is quick to proclaim that this "theory of everything" is not just silly-season kite flying. Rather, it was proposed by A.P . Trofimenko in the well-respected Astrophysics and Space Science (168:277) Restricting ourselves to speculations concerning the earth, Trofimenko sees our planet as a sphere of low-density material enclosing 126 mini black holes that account, first, for the many gravity anomalies we measure on the surface; and, second, the earth's high density. That's right, there's no iron core in this model! Some of the mini black holes near the surface create local hot spots (plumes, volcanos, etc.) through the emission of Hawking radiation. Trofimen-ko's scheme encompasses the planets, the stars, and, as advertised, "every thing." (Gribbin, John; "Could Mini Black Holes Provide a 'Theory of Everything?'" New Scientist, p. 25, September 1, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... external appearance, only has a density of 3.34, implying an altogether different origin. In the currently accepted theory of solar-system formation, all of the planets and their satellites condensed from a primordial disk of dust sur rounding the just-formed sun. The planets closer to the solar inferno lost more of their easily vaporized constituents due to the sun's heat. The cooler, outer planets were able to retain large amounts of ices. In this scenario, we would expect Mercury to be rich in iron and rocks. This seems to be the case, but it has too iron to fit the theory. Astronomers have tried to save the theory by supposing that a large asteroid sideswiped Mercury tearing off part of its outer layer of lighter rocks, leaving the heavier iron core untouched. The theory doesn't say what happened to the debris from this colossal collision. As for Mercury's magnetic field, it is small, only 1% that of the earth. But where does it originate? All of the other planets with magnetic fields (earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus) rotate rapidly and are believed to have molten interiors, allowing fluid dynamos to form. Mercury, in contrast, spins very slowly and seems solid throughout. Therefore, the magnetic dynamos that supposedly create the fields of other planets cannot exist inside Mercury. (Crosswell, Ken; "Mercury -- the Impossible Planet," New Scientist, p. 26, June 1, 1991.) Comment. Could Mercury be a permanent magnet? M. ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects The Orbiting Mountains Below Two years ago a Russian scientist suggested that tiny black holes orbiting within the earth might trigger volcanic activity. Now, he has extended the idea to earthquakes. "A .R . Trofimenko of the Minsk Department of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR believes that all cosmic bodies, including the Sun and the Earth, are riddled with "mini" black holes left over from the big bang. Though much smaller than atoms. such black holes would each contain as much mass as a mountain, up to about 2 x 1020 grams. "Trofimenko originally suggested that energy radiated by these mini black holes could make hot spots that produce volcanic outbursts. Now he has investigated the way in which such objects, by orbiting about the Earth's core, would distort the gravitational field at the surface of our planet." Each time a mini black hole passes beneath a spot on the surface, there would be a "gravitoimpulse" too short to be detected by current instrumentation but sufficient to trigger earthquakes. (Anonymous; "Baby Black Holes Blamed for Earthquakes," New Scientist, p. 18, September 19. 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... 250 Myr (extinction events, sea-level lows, continental flood-basalt eruptions, mountain-building events, abrupt changes in sea-floor spreading, ocean-anoxic and blackshale events and the largest evaporite deposits) have been synthesized (with estimated errors). These events show evidence for a statistically significant periodic component with an underlying periodicity, formally equal to 26.6 Myr, and a recent maximum, close to the present time. The cycle may not be strictly periodic, but a periodicity of 30 Myr is robust to probable errors in dating of the geologic events." The obvious question is: What could cause a 30-million-year periodicity? Internally, the earth's innards might be periodic, possibly in terms of plume eruption, mineral phase changes, core convection, etc. Externally, comets and asteroids are cyclic. Rampino and Caldeira point out that the solar system crosses the heavily populated plane of the Galaxy every 30 million years. (Rampino, Michael R., and Caldeira, Ken; "Major Episodes of Geologic Change: Correlations, Time Structure and Possible Causes," Earth and Planetary Sci ence Letters , 114:215, 1993.) Reference. We catalog crater periodicity in ETC4 in Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. This catalog described here . From Science Frontiers #87, MAY-JUN 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... . Zielhuis, Princeton seismologists, report a huge reservoir of water about 900 kilometers under present-day Europe. Some 400-500 million years ago, there was an ocean in this locale. (Zimmer, Carl; "The Ocean Within," Discover, 15:20, October 1994.) Deep ocean #2 . H. Wysession, Washington University, has located a water-rich slab 250 kilometers thick at a depth of 2,700 kilometers under Indonesia. He thinks it might be the subducted floor of the paleo-ocean Tethys that last saw sunlight 250 million years ago. (Redfern, Martin; "Lost Ocean Found Deep in the Earth," New Scientist, p. 16, September 3, 1994.) Reference. Anomalies of the earth's core and mantle are covered in our catalog volume: Inner Earth. Details here . From Science Frontiers #96, NOV-DEC 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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