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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nitrate Deposits Defy Rational Explanation "The nitrate deposits in the extremely arid Atacama Desert of northern Chile are among the most unusual of all mineral deposits. In fact, they are so extraordinary that, were it not for their existence, geologists could easily conclude that such deposits could not form in nature. The nitrate deposits consist of water-soluble saline minerals that occur as cement in unconsolidated surficial material -- alluvial fill in valleys, loose rocky debris on hillsides, and windblown silt and sand -- and as impregnations and veins in porous and fractured bedrock. They are found chiefly along the eastern side of the Coastal Range, but also ... the Coastal Range, in the Central Valley to the East, and along the lower Andean front. Features of the deposits that appear to defy rational explanation are their restricted distribution in a desert characterized throughout by saline soil and salt-encrusted playas; the wide variety of topography where they occur; the abundance of nitrate minerals, which are scarce in other saline complexes; and the presence of other, less abundant minerals containing the ions of perchlorate, iodate, chromate, and dichromate which do not exist in any other saline complexes. Iodate,, chromate, and dichromate are known to form under such conditions, but no chemical process acting at temperatures and pressures found at the earth's surface is known to produce perchlorate." (Ericksen, George E.; "The Chilean Nitrate ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 29: Sep-Oct 1993 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology South American-polynesian Contacts At Easter Island The Ancient Horsemen Astronomy Another Quasar Enigma Sedimentary Rocks on Venus? Biology Porpoise Stun Gun Genes Aren't Everything Life Beyond 100 c Geology Nitrate Deposits Defy Rational Explanation Episode of Steep Geomagnetic Inclination Geophysics Astronomy and Earthquakes Satan's Storm Psychology Solving Problems in Your Sleep Unclassified Temptations of Numerology ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The whale-on-its-tail fossil Near Lompoc, California, is a large deposit of diatomaceous earth, so-called because it is composed almost entirely of countless billions of exquisitely sculptured diatom skeletons. Uniformitarian geologists have steadfastly maintained that such diatomaceous-earth deposits require millions of years to form as the tiny skeletons sink slowly to the sea floor. At Lompoc, however, embedded in the thick layer of diatomaceous earth is the fossil of a large whale apparently standing on its tail. How could this whale fossil have maintained its position and integrity over hundreds of thousands of years as it was buried millimeter by millimeter? Wouldn't the bones have been quickly scattered? Creationists have pointed to this whale as proof that the Lompoc diatomaceous-earth deposit was formed catastrophically, interring the whale almost instantaneously, and burying doctrinaire uniformitarianism at the same time. (Creationists want to "shorten" geological time to fit Biblical schedules.) But was the whale really entombed on its tail? Creationist geologists studied the Lompoc deposit and put a different slant on the story but not on its ending. "Contrary to some reports that have circulated, the 80-90 ft (24-27 m) long fossilised baleen whale found in April 1976 in an inclined position in a diatomite unit in the Miguelito Mine at Lompoc, California, was not buried while 'standing on its tail'. An onsite investigation has revealed that the ...
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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 nebraska sand hills: wind or water deposits?In response to the item in SF#92 about possible massive flooding in Siberia, E. Hansen sent the accompanying mosaic of Landsat photographs of northwestern Nebraska. On this, the famous Nebraska sandhills appear like giant ripples. The width of the mosaic is about 340 kilometers, so you can appreciate the scale of the hills themselves. The crest-to-crest distances seem to be 2-3 kilometers. Roughly 35,000 square kilometers are covered with a sheet of sand that averages 8 meters thick. Mainstream geologists write these sandhills off as eolian (wind-carried) deposits laid down during the late Pleistocene. Hansen, however, along with geological iconoclast A. Kelly, demur. The Nebraska sanhills, they aver, were actually deposited by a wall of water sweeping down across the continent from the north -- very likely the consequence of an impact of a large asteroid. For more on Kelly's rejection of the eolian theory and many additional examples of deposits by huge tsunamis or marine incursions, see his book Impact Geology and/or category ETM7 in our catalog volume: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, etc. (To order the latter book, visit here .) (Hansen, Evan; personal communication, March 26, 1994.) From Science Frontiers #93, MAY-JUN 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 135: MAY-JUN 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil Deposits And Rotary Phenomena Sometimes obscure and unlikely correlations lead to new insights. In this context, we are obliged to mention a most improbable connection proposed by chemical engineer S. Mori in a paper presented at the Spring 2000 meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Mori suspects that oil and gas deposits are linked to the origin of tornados! In his paper, Mori said that positively charged oil deposits underground establish polarity with negatively charged oxygen ions at the surface. When a thunderstorm passes over the oil field, he thinks this subsurface polarity links up the with electric polarity established between clouds and ground, creating the vacuum that spawns the tornado. Over the years, Mori said he's built a data base of about 8,000 tornado hits in the United States for comparison with the location of known oil and gas deposits. He said that studies in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Texas found a high correlation. (Lore, David; "Underground Oil One Twist in Tornado Theory," Charleston Dispatch, June 8, 2000. Cr. J. Dotson.) Comments. There have been numerous reports of electrical and burning phenomena associated with tornados. See GWT1 & GWT2 in Tornados, Dark Days. The oil-sodden lands of the Persian Gulf can be correlated with another sort of rotary phenomena: the strange phosphorescent wheels of light that have been seen many times swirling in the shallow waters of the Gulf. See GLW ...
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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 Giant impact-wave deposit along u.s . east coast Along the shore from North Carolina to Maryland and also into Chesapeake Bay, deep-sea drillers have charted the Exmore Boulder Bed. No minor deposit this; it is is over 60 meters thick in places and covers more than 15,000 square kilometers. In the bed are found boulders (up to 2 meters in diameter), cobbles, pebbles, and traces of tektite glass and shocked quartz. The youngest microfossils date from the Eocene, and argon dating of the ejecta yield a date of 35.5 million years, which correlates with the North American tektite strewn field. C.W . Poag et al interpret this boulder bed as follows: "On the basis of its unusual characteristics and its stratigraphic equivalence to a layer of impact ejecta at Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Site 612 (New Jersey continental slope), we postulate that this boulder bed was formed by a powerful bolidegenerated wave train that scoured the ancient inner shelf and coastal plain of southeastern Virginia. The most promising candidate for the bolide impact site (identified on seismic reflection profiles) is 40 km north-northwest of DSDP Site 612 on the New Jersey outer continental shelf." (Poag, C. Wylie, et al; "Deep Sea Drilling Project Site 612 Bolide Event: New Evidence of a Late Eocene Impact-Wave Deposit and a Possible Impact Site, U ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 121: Jan-Feb 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Arkansas Tsunami Deposit?Yes, Arkansas is hundreds of kilometers from any ocean. Could a tsunami ever reach Little Rock, or even 120 kilometers northeast of Little Rock where, atop a 76-meter (250-foot) hill are perched giant blocks of sandstone. These blocks range up to 7.6 meters (25 feet) in size and weigh many tons. No native rocks in the area match them. The Ice Age glaciers never reached Arkansas, so they can't be glacial erratics. Where did they come from? One clue is the presence of glauconite in the sandstone. Glauconite is common in marine rocks, so suspicion points toward the Gulf of Mexico. Geologist G. Patterson, University of Memphis, thinks that the huge chunks of sandstone came from coastal Louisiana and were carried some 650 kilometers (400 miles) inland by the giant tsunami raised by the asteroid or comet that smashed into the Yucatan to close out the Cretaceous. That, of course, was when the dinosaurs were forced into oblivion. But could the tsunami really have transported such huge rocks 650 kilometers? (Falk, Dan; "Washed Up," New Scientist, p. 26, November 7, 1998.) Comments. Tsunami debris from the end-Cretaceous impact has been found along the Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. In northeastern Mexico, geologists have found a debris layer 3-meters thick that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Mars Had Lakes Rhythmic layered deposits can be seen in the Valles Marineris, a large Martian valley. The strata are erosional remnants up to 5 kilometers high, with individual layers 170-220 meters thick. They can be traced on spacecraft photographs for some 50 kilometers. The material making up the strata is clearly different from that of the valley walls. After the layers were deposited, they were deeply eroded by some event in Martian history that seems related to the formation of the great outflow channels associated with Valles Marineris. The author of this American Geophysical Union paper concludes: "The morphology and history of the sediments are consistent with deposition in standing bodies of water early in Martian history." (Nedell, Susan S., and Squyers, Steven W.; "Geology of the Layered Deposits in the Valles Marineris, Mars," Eos, 65:979, 1984.) Comment. The "event" that deeply eroded the Martian deposits may have been similar to the catastrophic emptying of Lake Missoula, which carved out the Channelled Scablands of eastern Washington state as the Ice Ages waned. From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... fact, it was easy to find three examples of such processes from the literature collected from the past two months. Although the discoveries reported below may seem dull to anomalists ued to more exciting fare, it may well be that life from "inner space" has been and will be more important to humankind than life from "outer space," as implied in third item! Bacteria and placer gold. "Lacelike networks of micrometresize filiform gold associated with Alaskan placer gold particles are interpreted as low-temperature pseudomorphs of a Pedomicrobium -like budding bacterium. Submicron reproductive structures (hyphae) and other morphological features similar to those of Pedomicrobium occur as three-dimensional facsimiles in highpurity gold in and on placer gold particles from Lillian Creek, Alaska." In short, bacteria help create placer gold deposits. The author believes that bacterioform gold is widespread. (Watterson, John R.; "Preliminary Evidence for the Involvement of Budding Bacteria in the Origin of Alaskan Placer Gold," Geology , 20:315, 1992.) Microorganisms and iron deposits. At least 500 million years ago, filamentous bacteria and/or fungi were already playing vital roles in the deposition of iron from hydrothermal fluids. Abundant microbial filaments indicative of biological activity are found in the Cambrian ironstones in Australia's Thalanga deposit. (Duhig, Nathan C., et al; "Microbial Involvement in the Formation of Cambrian Sea-Floor Silica-Iron Oxide Deposits," Geology , 20:511, 1992.) Deeper implications. The formation of placer gold and ironstone are only part of the repertoire ...
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... High Altitudes ESB7 Growth Structures on Marine Organisms and Their Fossils ESB8 Animals Entombed in Rocks ESB9 Living Organisms at Great Depths ESB10 Fossils of Warm-Climate, Light Dependent Organisms Found in the Polar Regions ESB11 Time-Wise Anomalous Fossils ESB12 Skipping in the Fossil Record ESB13 "Special" Nature of Fossils ESC ANOMALOUS CHEMICAL PHENOMENA IN GEOLOGY ESC1 Chemical Anomalies in the Stratigraphic Record ESC2 Chemical Anomalies in Igneous and Metamorphic Rocks ESC3 Surface Films on Rocks ESC4 Spontaneous, Rapid, Exothermic Reactions in Nature ESC5 Death Gulches ESC6 Violent Lake Turnovers ESC7 Petrifactions and Lignifications ESC8 Geological Effects of Natural Combustion ESC9 Rocks and Sediments of Controverted Origins ESC10 Unusual Growth Structures ESC11 Possible Extraterrestrial Origin of Ocean Water ESC12 Chemical Anomalies of Lakes and Ground Water ESC13 Petroleum Anomalies ESC14 Coal Anomalies ESC15 Outgassing of Radon-222 ESC16 Methane Anomalies ESD DEPOSITS OF REMARKABLE SIZE ESD1 Bone Caves, Bone Caches,... ESD2 Bone Beds, Fish Beds,... ESD3 Sedimentary Deposits of Exceptional Volume ESD4 Historical Evidence for Large Scale Flooding ESD5 Recent Large Reductions of Polar Ice Cover ESD6 Giant Basalt Flows and Traps ESD7 Giant Accumulations of Oil ESD8 Giant Erratics and Megabreccias ESD9 Deposits of Great Areal Extent ESI INCLUSIONS ESI1 Inclusions in Crystals ESI2 Microdebris ESI3 Erratic Boulders, Stones, and Mineral Patches ESI4 Anomalous Amber Inclusions ESI5 Microfossil-Like Inclusions ESI6 Oil in Fossil Cavities ESI7 Carbon Dust on Fossil Plants ESI8 Great Rarity of Fossil Meteorites and Tektites ESI9 Stretched Pebbles ESM ANOMALOUS SUPERFICIAL GEOLOGICAL MATERIALS ESM1 Unusual Superficial Aggregations of Rocks ESM2 Strewn Fields of Natural Glasses ESM3 Tektite and Microtektite Paradoxes and Anomalies ESM4 Boulder Trains and Belts ESM5 Rock Glaciers, Block Fields ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Oil, oil: everywhere, every age Geologists have discovered a major deposit of oil in Precambrian rocks in Australia's Northern Territory. Precambrian oil does exist elsewhere -- around the Great Lakes, Russia, etc. -- but the Australian deposits differ in that they are economically attractive. The oilbearing strata are dated at between 1.4 and 1.7 billion years; and the oil itself is at least this old. Significantly, the oil contains extremely small amounts of steranes, which are thought to be derived from advanced organisms, but there were plenty of chemicals typical of primitive bacteria. The mere existence of commercially exploitable deposits of Precambrian oil implies that, far from being devoid of life, the ancient earth was host to immense accumulations of bacteria and other simple organisms. (Anonymous; "Ancient Oil in Australia: A New Bonanza?" New Scientist, p. 26, September 11, 1936.) Comment. As discussed above this Australian oil might have been produced abiogenically. The surface and near-surface Athabasca oil sands in western Canada constitute a well-known deposit of almost unbelievable size. Geologists have long speculated about where such an immense quantity of biological matter could have originated. (Few dare to suggest nonbiological origins!) Now, we learn that below the Cretaceous Athabasca oil sands lies a 70,000 square kilometer "carbonate triangle" estimated to contain about 2 x 1011 cubic meters ...
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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 The Carbon Problem The "carbon problem" seems to hit the scientific creationists the hardest, but it also has interesting implications for today's earth. Consider first where the carbon in the earth's crust resides: Petroleum 201 x 1018 grams Coal 15 Limestone 64200 Biosphere 0.3 In this article, these figures are made more understandable by physical descriptions of some of the truly colossal deposits of oil, coal, and limestone. For example, in the Canadian Rockies, the Livingstone limestone was deposited 2000 feet deep on the margin of the Cordilleran geosyncline but thins eastward to about 1000 feet in the Front ranges. ". .. it may be calculated to represent at least 10,000 cubic miles of broken crinoid plates." Two implications are: Even if the earth's biosphere were completely converted into oil, coal, and limestone each year, the earth would have to be far older than the 6000 years desired by the creationists, unless most of the carbon deposits had non-biological origins, which seems unlikely. The immense inventory of carbon tied up in biologically produced deposits was originally abiogenic. Where did it come from? Abiogenic methane and carbon dioxide released from the crust seem the most likely sources. This means that the crust must have once had, and may still have, prodigious supplies of methane. T. Gold and S. Soter have long argued that the earth's crust still ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The karoo: the greatest vertebrate graveyard In SF#104, we mentioned a vast bone bed consisting mainly of fish remains. Now, an exchange of letters in a creationist journal gives us the opportunity to present a few facts about a giant bone bed of terrestrial vertebrate fossils: the Karoo Supergroup of southern Africa. The point being discussed by the creationists is the source of the estimated 800 billion vertebrate fossils contain ed in the Karoo deposits. Whence this astronomical number of mainly swampdwelling reptiles? And whence the immense volume of sandstones and shale that contains their bones? The Genesis Flood model favored by creationists requires that all 800 billion animals be drowned at the same time and swept into South Africa and fossilized. But, they ask themselves, could the entire earth ever have supported so many swamploving reptiles at the same time? Is the Flood model threatened? (Froede, Carl R., Jr.; "The Karoo and Other Fossil Graveyards: A Further Reply to Mr. Yake," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 32:199, 1996. A response by Bill Yake followed this letter.) Comment. The figure of 800 billion fossils appears in several authoritative works, although concern is expressed about its magnitude and assumptions employed in calculating it. Once thing that is certain is that the Karoo deposits are immense and packed with bones. Even after decades of fossil collecting, bones are still sticking out of the ground. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Evidence For A Giant Pleistocene Sea Wave On the Hawaiian island of Lanai, limestone-bearing gravel blankets the coastal slopes. Called the Hulopoe Gravel, it now reaches a height of 326 meters above sea level. Taking into account the 1000,000-year age of the gravel and the slow subsidence of the Hawaiian Islands, the deposit probably reached 380 meters when it was first formed. The big question is how it got deposited at such great heights. Highsea stands are rejected by the authors in favor of a single episode of catastrophic waves about 100,000 years ago. Earthquake-generated tidal waves are considered unlikely because of the great heights involved. (The highest tsunami ever recorded in historical times reach ed only 17 meters above sea level.) A great meteor impact or submarine volcanic explosion are good possibilities, but the authors favor a giant submarine landslide on the Hawaiian Ridge, noting that in 1958 a similar event off Alaska produced a wave that reached 524 meters above sea level. (Moore, James G., and Moore, George W.; "Deposit from a Giant Wave on the Island of Lanai, Hawaii, Science, 226:1312, 1984.) From Science Frontiers #37, JAN-FEB 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Methane hydrate: past friend or future foe?What looks like a grayish ice cube, fizzes at its edges, and soon wastes away to a puddle of water? If you wish, you can accelerate the substance's demise by touching a match to it; it is packed with potential energy. The substance is methane hydrate, and it is found in prodigious quantities in oceanic sediments. Each cubic centimeter of methane hydrate contains about 160 cubic centimeters of methane at standard conditions; it is a concentrated source of natural gas. In fact, methane hydrate deposits in the world's oceans hold twice as much carbon as all the coal, oil, and gas reserves on land! But methane hydrate may be much more than a future fuel source; it may have been humanity's savior in eons gone by; it may be our future nemesis. You see, methane hydrate is very unstable; changes of temperature or pressure on a global basis can trigger the release of immense volumes of this greenhouse gas from oceanic deposits. For example, when the Ice Ages lowered ocean levels by locking up water in the advancing ice caps, pressures on ocean-bottom methane hydrate lessened and, according to some speculators, released enough gas so that the increased greenhouse heating turned back the Ice Ages. (Was Gaia at work here?) On the other hand, if present human activities are truly stoking the greenhouse effect, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 85: Jan-Feb 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Tsumani Tales Only a few years ago astronomical catastrophism was denied as a major factor in geological change. Now one reads everywhere of huge terrestrial impact craters, iridium layers, and tektite deposits. Even so, one necessary consequence of 70% of the large impacts has been neglected until recently: the giant tsunamis and marine incursions that must have swept over the coasts of the continents following impacts at sea. This oversight is now being rectified. 100,000 BP. The South Pacific. A longstanding geological enigma of the New South Wales coastline is the curious distribution of sand dunes. Those headlands less than 40 meters high have lost most of their dunes, leaving only raw, unweathered rock. On the other hand, the higher headlands have retained these dunes. Australians B. Young and T. Bryant hypothesize that a tsunamis 40 meters high swept the lower headlands clean about 100,000 years ago. They can even plot the incoming wave's direction, because a few remnants of the coastal dunes still cling to the southwest corners of the headlands along the NSW coast south of Newcastle. In their scenario, the tsunamis came from the northeast, smashed into the Solomons, southeastern Australia, and northeastern New Zealand. The Great Barrier Reef protected northeastern Australia from the full force of the wave. Young and Bryant favor a Hawaiian landslip as the initiator of the tsunamis, but acknowledge that an asteroid impact could also have done ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Martian Great Lakes P. Lowell hasn't been vindicated by the discovery of sedimentary formations on Mars, but his spirit must be pleased. Lowell's geometrical network of artificial canals have been superceded by great arroyos, flood-created deposits, and now evidence that Mars was once host to ice-covered lakes up to 3 miles deep and as large as Lake Superior. Photos from the Viking spacecraft reveal sedimentary layers up to 250 feet thick that seem to have been laid down by liquid water. The source of the sediments and mode of deposition are unknown. (Anonymous; "Great Lakes on Mars," Science 86, 7:13, April 1986.) Comment. The scientists reporting these findings, S. Squyres and S. Nedell, called attention to this type of Martian stratigraphy in Valles Marineris back in 1984. See SF#37. Reference. Martain layered deposits are cataloged at AME19 in the catalog The Moon and the Planets. To order, visit: here . Viking photo of probable sedimentary strata along the side of a Martian ridge. From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 60: Nov-Dec 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Global fire at the k-t boundary The worldwide deposit of iridium at the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary has been considered very strong evidence that a large astronomical object (asteroid or comet) devastated our planet some 65 million years ago. Some scientists, however, propose that the iridium layer was instead deposited through widespread volcanic activity. The proponents of an astronomical mechanism should be heartened by a recent paper in Nature, by W.S . Wolbach et al. Here is their Abstract: "Cretaceous-Tertiary (K -T ) boundary clays from five sites in Europe and New Zealand are 102 -104 -fold enriched in elemental C (mainly soot), which is isotopically uniform and apparently comes from a single global fire. The soot layer coincides with the Ir layer, suggesting that the fire was triggered by meteorite impact and began before the ejecta had settled." The composition of the hydrocarbons in the sediments points to the earth's biomass (mainly surface vegetation) as the source of the soot. The total quantity of K-T soot is equivalent to that which would be produced by burning 10% of all present terrestrial plant material. (Wolbach, Wendy S., et al; "Global Fire at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary," Nature, 334:665, 1988.) Comment. Unmentioned in the above article is the possibility that extensive wildfires might have been ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects PALEOMAGNETIC PITFALLS "Magnetism in rocks has provided a traditional tool for studies of the Earth's geomagnetic field. These studies have tended to rely on the assumption that the direction of magnetization was 'frozen in' during formation of the rock. But many sedimentary rocks formed during the Palaeozoic acquired their remanent magnetization through alteration processes that occurred after deposition of the sediment. The causes and geological significance of this phenomenon have been much debated." The foregoing paragraph is enough to send shivers throughout the geological world. Does this undermine paleomagnetism and generalizations flowing from it, such as plate tectonics? The "alteration processes" mentioned in the above quotation include: (1 ) The chemical conversion of pyrite into magnetite in ancient rocks after they were deposited; and (2 ) The reorientation of remanent magnetization following exposure to moderately high temperatures. That these processes can be important is evident in a second quotation: "During the past eight years, however, evidence has accumulated that the remanent magnetization of many carbonate sediments was not acquired at the time of deposition, thereby invalidating some previous interpretations of the palaeomagnetic data. Instead, magnetization seems to have been acquired over a limited time span during the late Palaeozoic, from about 310 to 250 million years ago." (Reynolds, Richard L.; "A Polished View of Remagnetization," Nature, 345: 570, 1990.) Reference. Many other problems afflict paleomagnetism. See: ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Early Man In Australia Even Earlier In an alluvial deposit in Western Australia, Mance Lofgren and John Clarke have discovered more than 30 stone tools dating back more than 100,000 years. Previously, the first men were thought to have invaded Australia only 40,000 years ago. (Anonymous; "Man's Arrival in Australia Put Back 60,000 Years," New Scientist, 78:734, 1978.) Comment. A similar situation exists in North America, where many discoveries of tools in ancient geological deposits are hotly debated. From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Antarctic Bone Bed W. Zinsmeister was accustomed to scoff at the idea that the Age of Dinosaurs ended violently with the impact of a giant asteroid some 65 million years ago. He always asked: "Where's the layer of burnt and twisted dinosaur bones?" His certainty was shaken, however, when he began mapping fossil deposits on Seymour Island, Antarctica. He didn't find the dinosaur bones but rather a giant bed of fish bones at least 50 square kilometers in area. Some sort of catastrophe must have annihilated untold millions of fish. And guess what? This great bone bed was deposited directly on top of that layer of extraterrestrial iridium that marks the 65-million-year-old Cretaceous Tertiary boundary at many sites around the world. (Hecht, Jeff; "The Island Where the Fish Had Their Chips," New Scientist, p. 16, November 11, 1995) Cross reference. Bone beds of fish and other creatures are filed under ESB13X2 in Anomalies in Geology. To order this catalog, see here . From Science Frontiers #104, MAR-APR 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Microorganisms complicate the k-t boundary Ancient bacteria, it appears, have tampered with the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary of some 65 million years ago. A key marker of this boundary is a thin "spike" of iridium that is found worldwide, and which was supposedly deposited by the asteroid impact that helped finish off the dinosaurs. For many scientists, the asteroid-impact scenario has become a "non-negotiable" brick in the Temple of Science. The problem they have faced is that the iridium layer is variable in thickness and concentration from site to site. Sometimes iridium can be detected well above and below the K-T boundary. This variability has tended to undermine the asteroid-impact theory. Recent experiments at Wheaton College by B.D . Dyer et al have demonstrated that bacteria in ground water can both concentrate and disperse iridium deposits. In other words, bacteria could smear out an iridium spike, perhaps partially erase it, or even move it to a deeper or shallower layer of sediment. (Monastersky, R.; "Microbes Complicate the K-T Mystery," Science News, 136: 341, 1989.) Comment. An obvious question now is how bacteria might have affected other chemicals, such as oxygen and carbon isotopes, widely used in stratigraphy. From Science Frontiers #67, JAN-FEB 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... may harbor about methane burps from the sea floor bringing down TWA flight 800. (SF#110) The media have said little about the staggering quantities of methane and higher hydrocarbons locked up in frozen hydrates around the edges of the continents. Actually, the small methane burps are minor problems compared to the catastrophic climate changes that could be forced if just a small portion of the gases frozen under the sea floor were released into the atmosphere. Gas-hydrates are unimpressive when brought to the surface -- just dirty, fizzy ice. However, taken together, they contain more carbon than all the world's oil fields, perhaps much more. Most estimates fall between 1,700 and 11,000 billion tons, but there is one scientist who pegs these cold-storage carbon deposits at 4,100,000 billion tons. In comparison, human releases of carbon to the atmosphere via the burning of wood, gas, coal, and even the collective flatulence of all the planet's animals are trivial. Geological evidence confirms that past climate swings were associated with large injections of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. A major contributor to these "carbon burps" may be decomposing methane hydrate. Until recently, climatologists have questioned the sizes of gas-hydrate deposits, but cores extracted from the Blake Ridge off the Carolina coast confirm the immense amounts of gases precariously locked up in sea-floor sediments. The stratum of gas hydrates in the Blake Ridge alone covers 26,000 square kilometers -- enough gas is there to supply the U.S . for ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When The Earth Shifted Gears No one really knows just how the terrestrial magnetic field is generated or why it has reversed its direction so frequently in past geological time. Per-haps there is a clue in the following correlation: "The Mesozoic-Cenozoic histories of reversals in the earth's magnetic field and of periods of widespread anoxia in the ocean basins show a remarkable correlation; periods of black-shale deposition (' anoxic events') occur during lengthy periods without magnetic reversals (' quiet periods'). My assembly of published work indicates a remote connection between quiet periods and anoxic events and suggests its form: Magnetic quiet periods coincide with fast seafloor spreading. During these periods, buoyant spreading ridges displace seawater into broad shelves, thus decreasing earth's albedo and causing global warming. Temperature gradients, and thus density gradients, from pole to equator decrease in surface waters, and the deep ocean currents of oxygenated polar waters wane. Oxygen minimum zones intensify and widen; anoxic conditions throughout entire basins are indicated by black shales deposited in the deep sea. These relations thus suggest that the earth's interior processes and its climates are related and their status recorded by both magnetic polarity and anoxic event chronologies of the earth." (Force, Eric R.; "A Relation among Geomagnetic Reversals, Seafloor Spreading Rate, Paleoclimate, and Black Shales," Eos, 65:18, 1984.) Comment ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 39: May-Jun 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Deeper Mysteries "The first detailed views of vast stretches of the seafloor in U.S . coastal waters have revealed features so immense and unexpected that they defy the imaginations of the scientists who discovered them." A special sonar device named Gloria is being employed to produce high resolution maps of the seafloor. Apparently previous sonar sounding methods missed startling underwater volcanos, canyons, and immense delta-like deposits. About 170 miles off San Francisco, near a huge volcanic structure, Gloria discovered an underwater canyon comparable in size to the Grand Canyon. No one really knows how it was formed. This great chasm is associated with a delta-like deposit twice the area of Massachusetts. Normally, one expects alluvial fans at the ends of canyons, but in this instance the submarine canyon actually cuts down into the fan. Where such a huge mass of material came from is a mystery rivaling that of the canyon's origin. (Yulsman, Tom; "Mapping the Sea Floor," Science Digest, 93:32, May 1985.) Reference. The geological puzzles presented by submarine canyons are detailed in ETV1 in our Catalog: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds. For a description of this book, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #39, MAY-JUN 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects More Nominative Determinism Following in the trail of Feedback's page in the New Scientist, we herewith offer two more cases of nominative determinism or ND. This phenomenon, as readers of SF are well aware, occurs when a person's last name is related to his or her occupation. A solid example of ND is seen in the name of the Director of U.S . Programs for the Rodale Institute. The Institute, it turns out, is studying carbon and nitrogen balances in organically managed cropping systems. Nitrates originating in such agriculture contaminate the ground water and often end up in drinking water. The EPA has determined that nitrates in drinking water can be harmful; thus this study. Who directs the study? Dr. Laurie Drinkwater! (Anonymous; "Organics Reduce Groundwater Pollution," Acres U.S .A . , p. 11, May 1999. Cr. L. Cortner.) And to whom does the journal Marine Observer turn when expert opinion is required on marine phenomena, including fish identification? Dr. Peter Herring! From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did a methane burp down twa800?The potential for methane eruptions from offshore sediments to sink ships and down aircraft was proposed by W.D . McIver way back in 1982, in the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. (SF#25/208) The source of methane-gas releases (" burps") is the rapid decomposition of methane hydrate, which exists in prodigious quantities in offshore sediments. Some geologists have estimated that there is twice as much methane in methane-hydrate deposits as in all terrestrial natural-gas fields. What makes methane hydrate potentially lethal is its instability. Landslides and small quakes can release huge plumes of methane bubbles into the ocean and thence into the atmosphere. Ships might founder in the lowdensity froth of bubbles, and aircraft might be adversely affected, too. This is where TWA800 comes in. R. Spalding, a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories has been monitoring mysterious atmospheric explosions and believes that some of these detonations are consistent with the atmospheric ignition of huge methane plumes. (Other detonations are due to meteors.) Spalding proposes the following scenario: The ocean floor releases a massive methane gas plume, which rapidly rises to the surface and ascends into the atmosphere. The lighter-than-air methane cloud gains altitude, mixing with oxygen and thereby gaining explosive poten tial. An electrical disturbance -- possibly caused by the rising cloud itself or a lightning strike - ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil Meteorites Over a century ago, astronomer H.W .M . Olbers (of Olbers Paradox fame) remarked that meteorites are extremely rare in the fossil record. While meteorites are found in profusion in some specially favored surface deposits (Antarctica and Australia's Nullarbor Plain), there are very few records of any being found in the immense volumes of coal, gold ores, and other geological materials that have been mined down the centuries. Of course, many meteorites escaped the notice of miners who were looking for something else. Nevertheless, few have been reported from strata more than a few thousand years old. (See ESI8 in Neglected Geo logical Anomalies.) It is therefore surprising that a veritable lode of fossil meteorites has been found in a limestone quarry at Kinnekulle, in southern Sweden. "During the sawing of a few thousand cubic meters of Ordovician limestone into 2-3 cm thick slices, 25 fossil meteorites have been found. All meteorites, except, four, have been found in a 60 cm thick bed called the Archaeologist. This bed represents a few hundred thousand years and contains several hard ground surfaces...Many of the Archaeologist meteorites are prominently angular in shape whereas others are round. This seems difficult to reconcile with an atmospheric breakup of a single large meteorite." B. Schmitz and M. Tassinari, the authors of this paper, suggest that this rare concentration of fossil meteorites ...
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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. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Migrating Birds Collide With Magnetic Bump Do birds utilize the earth's magnetic field for navigation? Many have so surmised; and there exists anecdotal evidence for it. A Swedish ecologist, T. Almberstam, decided to attempt scientific observations. At Norberg, in central Sweden, a huge deposit of magnetite creates a powerful magnetic anomaly. The deposit is 12 kilometers long by several wide. At low altitudes, the total magnetic intensity of the earth's field is 60% higher than normal. What happens when migrating birds fly into this magnetic bump? "Although Almerstam found that many migrating birds showed no signs of avoiding the Norberg anomaly, and often managed to keep on the right course as they passed through it, there were definite indications that the birds' orientation might be affected under special circumstances. Some migrants flying at low altitudes, where the magnetic intensity was greatest and the inclination and declination distorted greatly, became disoriented briefly. They nervously landed and then circled around before taking off again. Other birds changed their altitude abruptly, dropping 100 metres in two minutes and breaking up their flock formations." Certainly something is happening, but no one knows what. (Anonmous; "Magnetic Anomaly Upsets Migrating Birds," New Scientist, p. 32, November 5, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 65: Sep-Oct 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fossil Ufos "Geologists have discovered strange disc-shaped features in slate deposits in California. 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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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Stratum Shuffling At Plate Boundaries In March 1981, the Glomar Challenger was drilling into the oceanic sediments north of Barbados. Here, oceanic sediments are apparently being scraped off the oceanic plate as it thrusts under the North American plate. As a result, older Miocene deposits now overlie younger Pliocene deposits. Direct observations of the pressure in the zone where the shearing occurs showed it to be some 20 bars higher than the equilibrium pressure of 550 bars. This higher pressure may support the theory that low-angle thrust faults many kilometers wide are physically possible because high pressure fluids lubricate the shear zone, allowing massive thicknesses of sediments to slide over one another without resulting in wholesale fracturing and obvious damage. (Anderson, Roger, N.; "Surprises from the Glomar Challenger," Nature, 293:261, 1981.) Comment. Scientific creationists have long thought that the many low-angle thrust faults, where many miles of older rock are superimposed on younger rock, contradict geological dating schemes and therefore the theory of evolution. Establishment geologists, although somewhat amazed at the sizes of some of the overthrusts, especially one in Wyoming, have never despaired of finding a reasonable physical mechanism that would preserve the Law of Superposition and the idea of dating rocks by their included fossils. The Glomar Challenger results should buoy their spirits. Nev-ertheless, we must wonder how widespread stratum shuffling really is. What stratigraphic sequence is now immune ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Pennsylvanian time-scale problems The advent of radiometric dating seemed to solve once and for all the problem of assigning dates to the key events in the earth's history. Indeed, all of the reference books confidently label charts with firm dates for the appearance of fishes, the demise of the dinosaurs, and so on. Alas, things are not quite as certain as they appear. Radiometric dating is not all that precise; errors may be large indeed. Take the Pennsylvanian period for example. It is part of the Carboniferous period, when many of the great coal deposits were laid down. The classical duration of the Pennsylvanian -- used in many texts -- is 34 million years. A meticulous new study of central European stratigraphy now pegs the Pennsylvanian as spanning only 19 million years. Now that's a 44% change! This new figure for the duration of the Pennsylvanian has already cast doubt on the origin of the famous Pennsylvanian cyclothems (repetitive strata) in North America. It had been thought that these seemingly cyclic deposits were correlated with sea level changes forced by variations in the earth's orbit (the Milankovitch periods). With this substantial compression of Pennsylvan-ian time, this correlation falls apart. The cyclothems, which are of impressive area and thickness, now seem to have been created by some other, still unrecognized phenomenon. (Klein, George deV.; "Pennsylvanian Time Scales ...
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... fascinating papers relating to giant sea-bed pockmarks. In Ref. 1, J.T . Kelley et al describe a pockmark field in Belfast Bay, Maine. Here, the density of the pockmarks reaches 160 per km2, and they are apparently the largest pockmarks yet discovered. The Belfast Bay field is "fresh" and "active" in the sense that the pockmarks are sharply defined and methane bubbles still stream up from buried organic matter. Natural-gas plume rising from the sea-floor off the Carolina coast. Another pockmark field is the subject of P.R . Vogt et al (Ref. 2). It occupies a strip about 1.3 km wide and 50 km long between Greenland and Spitzbergen. This strip of pockmarks seems to be underlain by a deposit of methane hydrate 200-300 meters thick. [Methane hydrate is a weird substance that looks like dirty ice. When brought to the surface, the methane fizzes away, leaving only a puddle of dirty water!] Lastly, in Ref. 3, C.K . Paull et al report on the release of plumes of methane bubbles from the Carolina continental rise at a depth of 2167 meters. Here, the sediments are riddled with methane hydrate. Why all this fuss over fizzy ice, and what is the connection between methane hydrate and pockmarks? The methane hydrate deposits represent immense accumulations of methane -- probably far more natural gas than geologists have found on the continents. Sea-bed pockmarks are thought to be formed when methane gas is explosively vented, perhaps when methane ...
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... investigating the archaeological background of early maize on the coast of Peru, I realized that several factors affect interpretation. The estimated date for the start of common use of maize there is close to the apparent dates of a large tsunami, the abandonment of many coastal sites, and the start of occupation at Chavin de Huantar in the highlands. While investigating the possible relations between the principal pretsunami coastal culture and Chavin, I discovered that depictions of a monstrous head link the two cultures." The "monstrous head" is thought by the Bird to be a stylized representation of a tsunami wave. Not mentioned at all in the abstract are the physical evidences of tsunami damage along the Peruvian coast. This article portrays the possible effects on the ancient manmade structures in the region as well as the widespread deposits of sand, cobblestones, and other sediments. (Bird, Robert McK.; "A Postulated Tsunami and Its Effects on Cultural Development in the Peruvian Early Horizon," American Antiquity, 52:285, 1987.) Profile of a north-south site trench at a a site on the Peruvian coast, showing thick strata that may have been deposited by a tsunami. From Science Frontiers #53, SEP-OCT 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Artifacts Of The Auriferous Gravels Now dismissed entirely and even ridiculed by establishment archeologists is the evidence of ancient human activity found in California's auriferous gravels. R.E . Gentet sets the geological stage in the following paragraph. "The 1849 gold rush to the state of California was the beginning of some of the most unusual reported finds of early man in North America. The gold-bearing gravels of California are recognized as being Tertiary in age, ranging from oldest to youngest Tertiary, depending upon the exact geological setting. At the time these gravels were deposited, volcanic eruptions also laid down lava beds, often tens or scores of feet thick. This occurred a number of times, and together with much erosion since then, have now resulted in table mountains, that is, lava-capped hills where the harder lava has better withstood erosion stresses while surrounding softer material has been swept away. It is under the hard lava beds, in the gold-bearing (auriferous) gravels, where the reported human bones and artifacts were found, not just once or twice, but hundreds of times by miners during the span of time from the 1850s through the 1890s while engaging in mining operations. Findings were spread over a wide geographical area." During the late 1800s, several books and many papers recorded the discoveries. Some of the finds were made by respected scientists of the day. Human skulls were found embedded over ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 95: Sep-Oct 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Snowballs in hell?Arecibo radar image of Mercury's morth pole showing several craters. In SF#79, we revealed that anomalous radar reflections from Mercury's polar regions might be due to residual deposits of water ice. At first, this possibility seems most unlikely given Mercury's proximity to the sun. Where the sun's rays beat directly on Mercury's surface, the temperature can reach 700 K. Even glancing sunlight, occurring when the sun is perched on Mercury's horizon, should heat the surface to 170 K. At this temperature, water ice would evaporate quickly in Mercury's near-vacuum atmosphere. But any permanently shaded areas at the planet's polar caps -- say, deep in a crater -- would remain below 100 K. This is cold enough to retain ice, even in a vacuum. Radar topographic studies of Mercury's polar regions, using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Goldstone antenna with the VLA (Very Large Array) plus the big Arecibo antenna in Puerto Rico, have been able to confirm that there are indeed craters in the polar regions of Mercury. These craters match up well with the radar reflectivity anomalies recorded earlier. So, it now seems likely that ice does exist on Mercury. And, since our moon also boasts permanently shadowed crater areas, ice probably survives there, too. This is good news for future lunar colonists ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Power Of A Paradigm Powerful paradigms can stifle scientific research. The truth of this has become apparent at the Topper archeological site near Allendale, South Carolina. The dig was discovered back in 1981 when a local man, named Topper, led A. Goodyear (from the University of South Carolina) to a deposit of side-notched chert points. These artifacts are similar to 10,000-year-old points found elsewhere. Nothing anomalous so far! At depths of 80-100 centimeters, Goodyear came across fluted blanks from which the classic and distinctive Clovis points could be manufactured. This was the culmination of the dig; the archeologists picked up their trowels and headed for other sites. Why? Simply because everyone knew that there were no North American artifacts older than Clovis points. Dated at 10,800-11,200 radiocarbon years, Clovis points supposedly marked the earliest arrival of humans in the Americas. Digging deeper at the Topper site would have been a waste of time. In 1998, however, Goodyear had second thoughts. This was the time when the nothing-older-than-Clovis paradigm was being challenged by finds at Monte Verde, Chile. (SF#120) Goodyear decided to take his trowels back to the Topper site. "After some 40 cm of essentially barren deposits, the excavators began finding small flakes and microtools. The lower level, exposed over 28 square meters, ...
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... Project Sourcebook Subjects Pliocene sculptures or freaks of nature?We have at hand Number 20 of Archaeologische Berichten , 1990, 108 pp. This thick booklet bears the subtitle Picture Book of the Stone Age . And a picture book it is, with hundreds of drawings interspersed with 26 pasted-in color photos. The text is English. What do these photos and drawings show? Basically, they portray stones and pepples picked out of gravel pits and similar accumulations of rocky debris that look like human heads, ape heads, primitive tools, etc. Some of the pebbles do indeed resemble humanmade artifacts. (See accompanying sketch.) Most, though, require some imagination. The import of these artifacts, if that is what they really are, comes home when one learns that they come from deposits that are millions of years old! If any of these pebbles are really human-made, anthropology will be stood on its head. Since the present report is the 20th in a series, one can assume that the contributors to Archaeologische Berich ten have amassed incredibly large collections of ancient stones and pebbles that "look like" artifacts. Comment. Similar purported artifacts have been found at the controversial Calico Hills site, California, in Pleistocene deposits that may be 100,000 years old. And don't forget that "Face on Mars"! From Science Frontiers #77, SEP-OCT 1991 . 1991-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 46: Jul-Aug 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Salt structures on venus?The following quotation is the abstract of a paper appearing in the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. "The discovery of a surprisingly high deuterium/hydrogen ratio on Venus immediately led to the speculation that Venus may have once had a volume of surface water comparable to that of the terrestrial oceans. We propose that the evaporation of this putative ocean may have yielded residual salt deposits that formed various terrain features depicted in Venera 15 and 16 radar images. "By analogy with models for the total evaporation of terrestrial oceans, evaporite deposits on Venus should be ar least ten to hundreds of meters thick. From photogeologic evidence and insitu chemical analyses, it appears that the salt plains were later buried by lava flows. On Earth, salt diapirism leads to the formation of salt domes, anticlines, and elongated salt intrusions -- features which have dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 km. Due to the rapid erosion of salt by water, surface evaporite landforms are only common in dry regions such as the Zagros Mountains of Iran, where salt plugs and glaciers exist. Venus is far drier than Iran; extruded salt should be preserved, although the high surface temperature (470 C) would probably stimulate rapid salt flow. Venus possesses a variety of circular landforms, ten to hundreds of kilometers wide, which could be either megasalt domes or salt intrusions colonizing impact craters. Additionally, arcuate bands seen in the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Bpm Equals Dowsing It is remarkable that this article appears in a reputable scientific journal. Williamson was stimulated to write about dowsing by apparent recent Russian successes with BPM (Bio-Physical Method) in locating minerals. BPM has created quite a stir in the USSR, with all the scientific trappings of conferences and journal papers. The Russians evidently use BPM in conjunction with aerial photogeological surveys in pinpointing mineral deposits. BPM anomalies are detected on foot by hand-held BPM de tectors (read: divining rods). Williamson goes on to describe the ridicule heaped on dowsing in the West. The negative experiments of Foulkes with trained dowsers shoved dowsing out to the lunatic fringe. But recently, a little-mentioned American study by Chadwick and Jensen seems to contradict Foulkes. Chadwick and Jensen, highly skeptical at the beginning of their experiments, were surprised to discover that their 150 novice dowsers were actually sensitive to the small magnetic field changes one expects in the neighborhood of mineral concentrations. The dowsing effect is weak but apparently real. (Williamson, Tom; "Dowsing Achieves New Credence," New Scientist, 81:371, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 133: JAN-FEB 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Strange Red Slime In Mine In the 1960s, an abandoned mine in Wisconsin flooded with groundwater. Scuba divers could not resist the challenge. As they explored the murky depths, they chanced upon deposits of spongy, red slime. When analyzed, the slime was found to contain the first naturally produced nanocrystals. Nano-crystals, like those described above under BIOLOGY, had previously been grown only in the lab. Also like the artificial nanocrystals, those in the red slime did not aggregate randomly; they "rotate into structural accord with the adjacent particles." Whence the slime's 2-3 nanometer clumps of iron oxyhydroxide? Iron-oxidizing bacteria excreted them! (Anonymous; "Strange Crystal Growth Found in Mine," Science News, 158:207, 2000.) Question. Was the red slime a biofilm? From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 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. 12: Fall 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The earth's ring The most profound climatic event of the Tertiary was the terminal Eocene event 34 million years ago. The sudden change in the abundance of forest plants suggests that the winters became much more severe while the summers remained about the same. At about the same time, the radiolaria were devastated by some sort of disaster. This was also the time when the North American tektite strewn field was deposited -- a field that stretches halfway around the world. John O'Keefe hypothesizes that some of the tektites and microtektites that rained down during this period missed the earth and went into orbit around it, forming an opaque Saturn-like ring. This ring might have lasted a million years or more; and its shadow could have caused the extrasevere winters postulated from botanical data. (O 'Keefe, John A.; "The Terminal Eocene Event; Formation of a Ring System around the Earth," Nature, 285:309, 1980.) Comment. Many who have previously speculated about terrestrial ring systems, such as I.N . Vail, were called pseudoscientists! Reference. The North American tektites are the subject of Section ESM3 in our Neglected Geological Anomalies. Ordering information here . Earth's ring shadow From Science Frontiers #12, Fall 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 18: Nov-Dec 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Burgess Shale Puzzle In British Columbia, a middle Cambrian (550 million years BP) formation called the Burgess Shale has miraculously preserved a vast assemblage of soft-bodied sea creatures, especially arthropods. Does this rich and unusual deposit help elucidate arthropod evolution? No, it has complicated the problem. Few of the fossil arthropods can be easily related to groups now living. The Burgess Shale arthropod population is primitive in some ways but remarkably specialized in others. Some of the fossils have body segments like those in one recognized arthropod group but display limbs resembling those of an entirely different group. (Fortey, R.A .; "The Burgess Shale: A Unique Cambrian Fauna," Nature, 293: 189, 1981.) Comment. It appears that Nature was shuffling the gene deck, or that there was rampant hybridization, or that confusing programs for evolutionary change were drifting in from the cosmos a la Hoyle and Wickramasinghe! From Science Frontiers #18, NOV-DEC 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 64: Jul-Aug 1989 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Libyan Desert Glass Pieces of Libyan Desert Glass weighing as much as 16 pounds are found in an oval area measuring approximately 130 by 53 kilometers. The clear-to-yellowish-green pieces are concentrated in sand-free corridors between north-south dune ridges. The origin of this immense deposit of glass has been attributed by some to ancient nuclear explosions and alien activities, but investigating scientists have always been satisfied with a meteor-impact hypothesis. A recent study (abstract below) also opts for this explanation, although no one has found a crater of suitable size or other supporting evidence. "Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) represents 1.4 x 109 g of natural glass fragments scattered over about 6500 km2 of the western Desert of Egypt. We made a systematic study (employing INAA, microprobe and mass spectrometry techniques) of several varieties of LDG and locally associated sand and sandstone to provide insight into the nature and formation of these enigmatic glass fragments. These studies indicate that: Although the LDG has restricted major element compositions (97.98 wt% SiO2 ; 1-2 wt % Al2 O3 ) their trace element contents (ppm) (Fe, 490-5200; Co, 0.2 -1 .2 ; Cr, 1.2 -29 and Sc. 0.462.5 ) vary by as much as a factor of 5 to 30. The LDG fragments exhibit a factor of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 93: May-Jun 1994 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology The spirit pond inscription stone Molecular clock places humans in new world 22,000-29,000 bp Astronomy Anomalous horizon glows seen on the moon From dust unto dust Biology Marine snow A REALLY ERRANT PIGEON A REALLY ERRANT SEAL Cold-blooded birds? Why snakes have forked tongues Lactating male bats Geology The nebraska sand hills: wind or water deposits? The giant crystal at the heart of the earth Geophysics Strange explosions at sasovo, in russia Just plane weird Psychology The healing of rents in the natural order Mathematics Btt and surreality ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 27: May-Jun 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A COMPASS IN OUR SINUSES?You may not feel any north-directed nasal twinges, but the thin hard bones lining the human sinuses contain deposits of magnetic ferric iron. This discovery adds man to a long list of organisms from bacteria to birds known to possess localized accumulations of magnetic material. Experiments with these animals, including humans, seem to indicate a widespread ability to detect ambient magnetic fields. Some animals appear to use this sense for navigation. Whether humans do or do not is still a moot question. (Baker, Robin R., et al; "Magnetic Bones in Human Sinuses," Nature, 301: 78, 1983.) From Science Frontiers #27, MAY-JUN 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Hope for atlantis?" That huge vertical movements in the crust occur is not in question. One could cite the deep sea oozes resting on coals of Tertiary Age in Barbados, for example. The coals represent a shallow water, tropical environment which sank to over 4-5 km depth for the deposition of the ooze and was then raised again, all in a very short period." (James, Peter M.; "A New Model for Crustal Deformation," Open Earth, no. 17, 1982.) From Science Frontiers #28, JUL-AUG 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 45: May-Jun 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wrong-way primate migration Scientists have long assumed that the primates originated in Africa, spread to Europe, and then jumped to North America. This hypothesis may be over turned by the discovery of fossils of early primates in Wyoming. The revised route would be Africa-Asia-North America, the reverse of the prevailing theory. This item also remarks that "Remains of early 'true' primates have not been uncovered in Africa." The reason is that the deposits that should contain them have all been eroded away. (Bower, B.; "Wyoming Fossils Shake Up Views of Early Primate Migration," Science News, 129:71, 1986.) Comment. One wonders about the "missing" African strata and fossils. Perhaps they never existed. Here is an in-stance where theory requires certain data, as with evolution's missing links. Sometimes "missing" data is really missing! From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 30: Nov-Dec 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Non-lethal tektites It is the fashion these days to blame the many so-called "extinctions" prevalent in the fossil record on extraterrestrial cataclysms. Some deposits of tektites and microtektites have indeed been correlated with the disappearances of some species. Since tektites are supposedly formed during meteor collisions with the earth, many scientists thought the evidence, circumstantial though it may be, very convincing. What has not been publicized as well is the fact that many microtektites, particularly in sediments 30-40 million years old, have no correlations whatsoever with any important biological extinctions. (Anonymous; "Non-lethal Tektites," New Scientist, 99:345, 1983.) Reference. The many paradoxes and anomalies associated with tektites are cataloged at ESM3 in: Neglected Geological Anomalies. Information on this book may be found here . From Science Frontiers #30, NOV-DEC 1983 . 1983-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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