224 results found.
... place mammals * Dearth of transistional fossils * Male lactation * Sleeplessness in mammals * Inheritance of rotational effects * Magnetite in mammals * Microbat data processing * The onza, nandi bear, Steller's sea ape, and others. Comments from reviews: Essential for all libraries, schools and serious Forteans. Fortean Times View Cart Buy online via PayPal with MC/Visa/Amex 324pp, hardcover, $21.95, 89 illus., 3 indexes, 1996. 527 references, LC 91-68541. ISBN 0-915554-31-3 . 7" x 10". Biological Anomalies: Birds: A Catalog of Enigmas and Curiosities Sorry, Out of print Birds are everywhere: some can fly high over the Himalayas, others can dive as deep as 500 meters in the oceans, some migrate unerringly from one end of the earth to the other. With more than 9,000 species recongnized, birds present us with hundreds of scientific puzzle to solve. Typical subjects covered: Asymmetric birds * Wing claw and spurs * Inherited callosities * Unrelated birds that look alike * Enigmas of avian instincts * The intelligence of birds * An avian aesthetic sense? * Birds that roost upside down * The insiduous nature of brood parasitism * Avian battles, courts, funerals * Unsolved mysteries of migration * Poisonous birds * The unique avian respiratory system * The two-voice pheonomenon * Echolocation in birds View Cart Buy online via PayPal with MC/Visa/Amex 486 pages, hardcover, $27.50, 150 illus., 3 index, 1998. 1170 references, LC ...
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... Not only did the poor dinosaurs have to contend with an asteroid impact and a lurch of the poles, but also with the possible ignition of voluminous methane burps. 65-million years ago. This was the time of the well-publicized, but still hypothetical, asteroid impact. It is said to have wreaked havoc on our wounded planet and, especially, the dinosaurs. Volcanos spewed out vast lava fields and filled the air with greenhouse gases and dust. It was a bad time for many life forms. Actually, It may have been far worse than generally advertised. In addition to the volcanic activity and climate change, the shock of the asteroid impact could have been sufficient to destabilize the immense amounts of methane hydrate that have long been locked up, frozen and dormant, in oceanic sediments all over the world. According to this scenario, once the shock of the asteroid impact released the methane from its icy prison, it rose to the surface of the oceans in a world-wide burp. Methane, unfortunately for the dinosaurs and many other life forms, is highly flammable. Lightning could have ignited it almost immediately if it was concentrated enough. A colossal firestorm might have then enveloped the entire planet. The whole atmosphere could have been afire. This, according to B. Hurdle and colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory, who speculate that the dinosaur hegemony may ended suddenly in flames rather than in a long, drawn-out whimper. (Day, Michael; "Hell on Earth," New Scientist, p. 5, November 20, 1999) ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 130: JUL-AUG 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Baikal: The Inland Ocean Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is the planet's deepest lake (1635 meters) and the richest in biodiversity (over 1,000 species of animals and plants existing nowhere else). Even though Lake Baikal is only 20-25 million years old, more than 5 kilometers of sediment have accumulated in some spots. These facts are remarkable as fresh-water lakes go, but Baikal also has features usually found only in salty oceans. It seals sport in fresh water 1,000 kilometers from the nearest salt water. (How did they get there?) Even more interesting are Baikal's thermal vents or chimneys that are otherwise restricted to cracks in the earth's crust in the deep oceans. Further enhancing Baikal's marine attributes, deep drilling and seismic profiles have recently discovered the existence of gas hydrates (methane hydrate, for example). Plumes of gas bubbles have also been detected where gas hydrates have been tectonically disturbed. There are even craters on Baikal's deep bottom where gas hydrates have erupted explosively. (De Batist, Marc, et al; "Tectonically Induced Gas-Hydrate Destabilization and Gas Venting in Lake Baikal, Siberia," Eos, 80:F502, 1999.) Comments. Baikal's gas-explosion craters resemble those on the floor of the North Sea. There, the sudden releases of gases are thought to cause the famous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 129: MAY-JUN 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Leaky Seas Just as we have been assured that the Greenhouse Effect is melting the ice caps and that rising ocean levels will force us to abandon our coastal cities, we read the following: Within a billion years, our planet could be as dry and barren as Mars, claim geologists in Tokyo. They have calculated that the oceans are leaking water into the Earth's mantle five times as fast as it is being replenished. It is true that ocean water is being drained away at subduction zones where oceanic crustal plates dive under the continental plates; there's a 10,000-mile unsealed crack there. S. Maruyama and colleagues at the Tokyo Institute of Technology estimate that 1.12 billion metric tons of water leak through that crack in the earth's integument every year. Geologists have always assumed that most of this leakage was returned to the oceans through deep-sea vents and volcanic action, but Maruyama calculates that only 0.23 billion metric tons are recovered. The balance is probably absorbed by lawsonite and other minerals forming 100 kilometers below the surface. (Hadfield, Peter; "Leaky Seas," New Scientist, p. 4, September 11, 1999.) Comment. Does this mean we should cease our attempts to stem global warming? From Science Frontiers #129, MAY-JUNE 2000 . 2000 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient ...
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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 The Long Reach Of The Hawaiian Islands From aircraft and satellites, one can see strong contrasts in the roughness of the ocean surface in the lee of those idyllic islands with their volcanic peaks that poke over 10,000 feet into the Pacific airstreams. These long streaks on the ocean surface are called "wind wakes." The wind wake leeward the Hawaii is spectacular. These islands are swept by steady northeast trade winds. Mauna Kea (4201 meters), Mauna Loa (4201 meters), and other Hawaiian peaks penetrate high above trade inversion. Together they create a visible wind wake some 3,000 kilometers long to the west -- many time-greater than any other island wind wakes to be seen on the planet. The effects of these soaring peaks are more than visual. Their wind wake drives an eastward ocean current that, in turn, draws warm water away from the Asian coast 8,000 kilometers distant from Hawaii. Thus, a few island mountains affect the climate of a continent a fifth of the way around the globe! (Xie, Shang-Ping, et al; "Far-Reaching Effects of the Hawaiian Islands on the Pacific Ocean-Atmosphere System," Science, 292:2057, 2001.) Comment. The Hawaiian wind wake is not anomalous but it is surely interesting. From Science Frontiers #137, SEP-OCT 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects I Must Go Down To The Goo Again!With apologies to Masefield for mangling a line of his poetry. it really is tine to go down to the sea and examine its microstructure. The ocean is not what it seems. When you snorkel in crystal-clear Caribbean waters, you do not sense that you are swimming in a very thin jelly. In reality, ocean water is filled with a complex tangle of microscopic strands and particles of gel. According to F. A zam , an oceanographer at Scripps: It's not in the textbooks or in the classical explanations. The gel's existence fundamentally changes our ideas of the microcosmos in which sea organisms live. It has added another layer of complexity that people are only now starting to consider in the context of whole ocean systems . . Gel is like the dark matter of the sea. While sea gel does not impede the snorkeler, . it does herd microbes into clumps or microniches . which we cannot see either. These microbes. in effect, exist in a tangled. 3-D mesh that affects not only their movements but also those of their prey and predators. A few statistics confirm the amazing complexity of the seawater microcosm and its incredibly high microbe population density. The long strands in the oceanic gel are mostly crosslinked polysaccharides. If the polysaccharides in 1 milliliter of seawater could be placed end-to-end, they would stretch out ...
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... the author's own conclusions. Plate tectonics -- the reigning paradigm in the earth sciences -- faces some very severe and apparently fatal problems. Far from being a simple, elegant, all-embracing global theory, it is confronted with a multitude of observational anomalies and has had to be patched up with a complex variety of ad hoc modifications and auxiliary hypotheses. The existence of deep continental roots and the absence of a continuous, global asthenosphere to "lubricate" plate motions has rendered the classical model of plate movements untenable. There is no consensus on the thickness of the "plates" and no certainty as to the forces responsible for their supposed movement. The hypotheses of large-scale continental movements, seafloor spreading, and subduction , as well as the relative youth of the oceanic crust are contradicted by a substantial volume of data. Evidence for significant amounts of submerged continental crust in the present-day oceans provides another major challenge to plate tectonics. (Pratt, David ; "Plate Tectonics: A Paradigm under Threat ," Journal of Scientific Exploration," 14:307, 2000.) Definition. Asthenosphere = upper mantle, a hot, fluid layer of rock. Two kinds of marine magnetic anomalies: (Top) Idealized stripes straddling a rift valley. (Bottom) Actual magnetic anomalies in the North Atlantic. Quite a difference between theory and reality From Science Frontiers #134, MAR-APR 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of Interest SIS . Catastrophism, archaeoastronomy, ancient history, mythology and astronomy. Lobster . The journal of intelligence ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Unusual Wave January 14, 1998. Indian Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Oriental Bay , enroute Port Klang to Suez. "At 2230 UTC the vessel was on a course of 269 at 23 knots when a line was observed on the radar at a range of 3 n mile, travelling from northwest to southeast at an estimated speed of 15 knots, as indicated on the sketch. The line was observed to be a wave. "It was about 10 minutes after the first sighting that the vessel passed over the wave, which was approximately 4 m [13 feet] high, and she heeled 5 to port while the autopilot deviated 3 off course. At the time of the event, there was a low swell of 1.0 m from 320 and the sea was 0.5 m from 360 . The current was estimated to be 2.5 knots running to the west." (Talbot, A.P .; "Unusual Wave," Marine Observer, 69:10, 1999.) Comment. The wave could not have been a tsunami because it was travelling too slowly. Tsunamis travel at jet speed and are rarely visible on the deep ocean. Since the wave was solitary and four times the height of the gentle swells, it is unlikely that it was a chance combination of the swells. Most likely it was a surface manifestation of an internal wave that had been reflected from ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When The Antarctic Was Warm The analyses of ocean-floor sediments deposited recently by melting Antarctic ice sheets reveal that these ice sheets are only about 2,000 years old. The evidence is in the rocky debris scraped up from inland Antarctica and then transported out to sea, where it drops to the sea floor as the ice melts. The grains of rock settle into the ocean sediments which contain biological debris that can be carbon-dated. (Marine life beneath the ice sheets is surprisingly abundant and varied despite the near-freezing temperatures.) A somewhat politically incorrect observation appears in this article. However, the news that the Antarctic Peninsula's ice shelves may have come and gone at least once since the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago, suggests that people may not be fully to blame for the disappearance now underway. Supporting foregoing evidence are studies of Antarctic lake sediments and ancient abandoned penguin rookeries. Everything points to a warmer, more humid Antarctica between 2,500 and 4,000 years ago. (Perkins, S.; "Antarctic Sediments Muddy Climate Debate," Science News, 160: 150, 2001.) Comment. The warmer Antarctic just portrayed might explain those old maps, such as that of Piri Re'is, that seem to depict a relatively ice-free Antartica. The more daring of us might postulate sea commerce between South America, southern ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 134: MAR-APR 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What Sang First?Not WHO, but WHAT! Sophisticated music predates the advent of modern humans by tens or hundreds of million years. Whales and birds filled the ocean and primeval forest with song long before our hominid branch sprouted on the Tree of Life. As a matter of fact, our closest relatives, the great apes, sing not at all. Somewhere in the hominid genome "music" genes reside, unexpressed in the apes, but somehow triggered into activity in the human line. We have learned recently that the Neanderthals manufactured bone flutes as far back at 53,000 years. They may not have been able to speak to one another in words, but they had the language of music. Their music, and ours, may have been entrained in genes inherited from nonhominid ancestors that lived 60 million years ago, but which have been suppressed in primates until Neanderthals and modern humans came along. You may wonder where this argument is taking you. It goes back at least 60 million years to when the cetacea (whales and dolphins) split off from the evolutionary track leading to humans. It may even go back farther to when birds split away from the reptilian line. The music of birds and whales incorporate some of the complexity and sophistication of Beethoven's Fifth. The genes that have led to such musical talents may be ancient indeed, as speculated in the Science article under review. The authors go ...
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... , 2000, meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration, R.A . Day presented a paper that: Itemized the many important ways n which Mars differs from the other inner planets and moons; Proposed a mechanism that might lave created these stark differences; and Identified the earth as the most likely perpetrator of this celestial catastrophism. Day's abstract follows: Mars has surface features that are not seen on inner planets or moons. These are hemispheric asymmetries, idiosyncratic surface fracturing, localized vulcanism, altitude differences, chains of pits, and the nature of dry river-like channels. Other features include extensive loss of an early atmosphere and liquid water. There is interest in the lower-altitude northern region, with its surface formed after the period of heavy bombardment, as a possible ocean basin. The evidence for this is very sparse: no river deltas, no river networks, little debris at the ends of the catastrophic flow channels. The surface is consistent with the stripping anticipated by a Roche-limit encounter. The low-density Martian moons appear to be unconsolidated material of higher density; they appear to be from low-gravity aggregation of that part of the Martian debris that went into orbit as a short-lived ring. A Roche-limit encounter is invoked as a reasonable hypothesis to explain these features. Earth, Mars' nearest planetary neighbor, may have provided that encounter. The Roche limit is 2.9 Earth radii. The Roche limit is that distance within which Mars would begin to be torn apart by the gravitational pull of nearby Earth. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 136: JUL-AUG 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Stealth Catastrophe Recently, as geologists reckon time -- only 800,000 years ago -- Australia, Southeast Asia, and the eastern Indian Ocean were bombarded by untold numbers of small, oddly shaped stones called "tektites." New finds of tektites have expanded the strewn field of these Australasian tektites to include part of China. It now appears that about 30% of the earth's area was subjected to this stony bombardment. It is inescapable that the Australasian-tektite fall was a major event in the earth's history. But where are other signs of this great catastrophe? The present consensus holds that the Australasian tektites originated when a large celestial body slammed into our planet somewhere in Southeast Asia. The energy of the impact splashed droplets of molten rock into the atmosphere, where they were shaped aerodynamically and then fell as tektites. The extent of the immense Australasian-tektite strewn field implies a hard-to-miss crater about 100 kilometers in diameter. Yet, despite the geological recency of the event and despite much geological surveying, no convincing crater has been discovered. (SF#115) So, we have abundant evidence of a terrestrial event encompassing much of the planet but no "smoking crater"! The mystery deepens when one realizes that whatever cataclysm sent the Australian tektites aloft may have been comparable in magnitude to the impact that extinguished the dinosaurs (and other fauna) some 65 million years ...
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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 Whence Whitings?Curious clouds of fine white particles often decorate the surface of the warm, shallow waters around the Bahamas. Called "whitings," these clouds of suspended material are not minor phenomena to file away and forget. Some of the bright streaks are 200 square kilometers in area and can be seen from the Space Shuttle. The source of the whitings has not been determined with certainty. The locals claim that schools of fish stir up the fine, white, calcareous sediments. This is doubted because fish are very scarce in the areas where whitings occur. Another thought was that calcium carbonate was being precipitated directly from the ocean water. Chemical tests showed this to be impossible. A new theory has schools of sharks intentionally raising clouds of bottom sediments to blind fish. The sharks then move in with their electrosensitive organs, which are unaffected by the "white-out," and pick off the helpless fish.(Copley, Jon; "Sneak Attack," New Scientist, p. 22, December 2, 2000.) Comment. It would take a lot of sharks to stir up 200 square kilometers of sediment! And why bother if fish are scarce where whitings are seen? A similar phenomenon is seen in the sudden whitenings of the Dead Sea. Details in GHC4 in Earthquakes, Tides,... From Science Frontiers #135, MAY-JUN 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites ...
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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 The Ubiquitous Bird-and-fish Motif Pre-Columbiana, a new journal, promote the popular but "out-on-the-fringe" theory that all our planet's oceans were crossed repeatedly before Columbus (an the Vikings, too). One type of evidence adduced to prove such Precolumbian cultural diffusion is the widespread appearance of motifs that are so specific and unusual that one is forced to admit that independent invention seems very unlikely. In the latest issue of Pre-Columbiana, G. Farley has collected examples of the singular "bird-and-fish" motif from Asia, Africa, both Americas, and the Middle East. As you can see from the illustrations, the similarities are striking, and the bird-fish "contact" highly specific. Bird-and-fish motifs. Clockwise from upper left: Mimbres culture, New Mexico; ancient Egyptian hieroglyph; Chimu culture, Peru; ancient China. (Farley, Gloria; "World-Wide Occurrence of a Bird-and-Fish Motif," Pre-Columbiana, 1:187, 1999.) Comment. Yes, we do know that the birds involved are all fish-eaters, but the "kisses" seem more symbolic than pre-consumption. Also, the fish portrayed are often too big to swallow. From Science Frontiers #133, JAN-FEB 2001 . 2001 William R. Corliss Other Sites of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Columbus Exonerated: Viking Blamed About 1500 A.D ., a major epidemic of syphilis swept across Europe. Up until this time, this continent had been thought to have been free from this dreaded affliction. In the New World, though, archeologists had uncovered many skeletons dated well before 1500 showing unmistakable signs of syphilis. America was obviously the source of this scourge, but how did it ever get to Europe? Of course, every child knows that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. It seemed pretty certain that Columbus's men and the American aborigines had been very, very friendly. Actually, about a dozen pre-1500 skeletons displaying hints of the disease had been found in England and Ireland, but they were not convincing enough to dethrone the Columbus theory. Recently, however, several additional syphilitic skeletons were dug up at a medieval friary in northeastern Britain. The earliest of these bones date back to about 1300. In fact, the new evidence suggests that there was a geographically limited mini-epidemic of syphilis in Britain about this time. Columbus was now off the hook, but who should be hung on it instead? The Vikings, of course. Viking merchants began visiting this part of England about 1300. And it is now admitted that the Vikings had made it to the New World source of the disease circa 1000. Case closed!? (Malakoff, David; "Columbus, Syphilis ...
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... . Most auroral sound is in the infrasound range, which begins at the lower limit of human hearing -- about 20 Hertz. Just enough sound energy seeps over the 20-Hz limit to be heard by sensitive human ears during periods of intense activity. Another natural infrasound, weak but continuous, is the "voice of the sea." These sound waves, called "microbaroms," have periods in the 5-7 second range (0 .20-0 .14 Hz), well below the range of human ears. Such low-frequency sounds travel great distances with little attenuation. It is thought, therefore, that the "voice of the sea" is an extended source -- perhaps the collective acoustical signature of all the storms from all the world's oceans. But this is surmise. Actually, the air is full of infra-sound emanating from still-unidentified sources, as indicated in the figure. Humans may not hear infrasound, but a form of "mountain music" seems to have a mysterious, depressing effect upon some of us. Some infrasounds that last for as long as several days have been triangulated to distant mountain ranges and tend to occur when winds blowing over them exceed a certain speed. This effect may be a low-frequency version of the aeolian tones produced by the cyclic eddy shedding that occurs when wind flows around obstacles. The reported increase in the incidence of suicides during episodes of warm downslope mountain winds (called Chinooks in the western U.S . and the Fohn in the Alps) may be due ...
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... 12,000 B.P ., but not a microsecond earlier. (Roosevelt, Anna Curtenius; "Who's on First?" Natural History, 109:76, July-August 2000.) Continuing the assault on pre-Clovis thought is L.G . Strauss, an anthropologist from the University of New Mexico. His target is the theory that the Solutrean people of southern France and the Iberian Peninsula reached eastern North America before the Clovis culture took hold on the continent. (SF#127) His ammunition comes in four calibers: The Solutrean culture in Europe ended circa 16,500-18,000 B.P ., some 5,000+ years before Clovis. Too early. Iberia and North America are separated by 5,000 kilometers of ocean. Too wide. Genuine Solutrean artifacts differ markedly from those at claimed pre-Clovis sites. Too disparate. There is no evidence that the Soluteans possessed adequate marine technology and experience. Too unreasonable. (Strauss, Lawrence Guy; "Solutrean Settlement of North America? A Review of Reality," American Antiquity, 65:219, 2000.) From Science Frontiers #131, SEP-OCT 2000 . 2000 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 ...
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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 Ribbons In The Sky November 18, 1999. North Atlantic Ocean. Aboard the m.v . Waterford enroute from Pto Bolivar, Columbia, to Ijmuiden. At 1832 UTC an azimuth of Jupiter was taken shortly after sunset. The sky in the vicinity of Jupiter was completely clear, no cloud of any type, with but a few small cumulus dotted around the horizon. About five minutes later, having completed the calculations, the observer again looked out to see a ribbon type cloud, broken in formation, stretching almost from [the] eastern horizon to [the] western horizon. If the estimated height (see below) is reasonably correct, then the bandwidth couldn't have been more than a few hundred feet, apparently more cigar-shaped in cross section than flat, the maximum axis being horizontal, the minimum vertical. The cloud was fairly consistent in density, and at a fairly stable altitude, not undulating or rippled, having the consistency of a small cumulus cloud (white and fleecy), but also translucent. Initially, it was thought to be a condensation trail, but this was shortly dismissed as it was considered too low (estimated to be less than 10,000 ft altitude, probably around 7,0008,000 ft). Both ends of the cloud were checked with binoculars but no aircraft was evident; however, as a yardstick, and by good fortune, one did appear ...
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... years ago, it was largely ice-free. (Pavlov, Pavel, et al; "Human Presence in the European Arctic Nearly 40,000 Years ago," Nature, 413:64,2001. Wilford, John Noble; "New Evidence of Early Humans Unearthed in Russia's North," New York Times, September 6, 2001. Cr. D. Phelps) Comment. A nearly ice-free Arctic some 40,000 years ago might have permitted human diffusion into the New World, but so far we have seen nothing this early. It is likely that the Southern Hemisphere was also freer of ice during this period. Although humans had gained Australia by this time, we know of no good evidence that they used Antarctica and the islands of the Southern Ocean to reach the New World. But see a related item under GEOLOGY. From Science Frontiers #138, NOV-DEC 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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... . Since Antarctica is often buffeted by fierce winds, one would naturally think that these snow dunes have an aeolian origin like desert sand dunes. This does not seem the be the case. Comparisons made using recently declassified images taken in the 1960s by U.S . military satellites reveal that the snow dunes have not moved in over 30 years! Some-thing besides wind-driven snow must be helping to sculpt these immense stationary patterns. (Tomlin, Sarah; "Vast Snow Dunes Frozen in Time," Nature, 402:860, 1999.) Comment. The fossil "string dunes" of Australia closely resemble the Antarctic snow megadunes in pattern and size, but of course they are composed of sand. "Megaripples" charted by sonar and shaped by water currents on the ocean floors are also comparable. See ETR3 in Carolina Bays for more. From Science Frontiers #128, MAR-APR 2000 . 1997 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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... Matter planet happens to be the conceptual double of a Normal-Matter, hypothetical planet named Nemesis, which was proposed in the 1980s to account for the same periodical extinctions in the fossil record. However, diligent searches did not locate Nemesis. Of course, if Nemesis were made of Mirror Matter, as now proposed, it would have escaped telescopic detection then and would still elude our telescopes today! (Schilling, Govert; "Through the Looking Glass," New Scientist, p. 16, April 28, 2001.) Comment. Not only is a crater missing at the Tunguska site, but no one has been able to positively identify the immense impact crater that we suppose must have been excavated when untold numbers of tektites rained down upon Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean about 800,000 years ago. See item under GEOLOGY. From Science Frontiers #136, JUL-AUG 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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... W. Sager and A. Koppers, have plotted 27 ancient pole positions dated between 120 and 30 million years ago. Using rock samples brought up from submerged Pacific sea-mounts, they find that the earth's magnetic poles shifted 15-20-deg about 84 million years ago. The north magnetic pole was not slowly drifting, it was lurching. It took just a couple million years to shift 700 miles or more; that's more than ten times the rate of continental drift. The earth from afar must have seemed to be a disturbed top---on a geological time scale, of course! What could have perturbed the earth? One suggestion blames a sudden shifting of the planet's mass distribution, some sort of subterranean indigestion, like a subducted ocean plate suddenly plunging through into the lower mantle. (Kerr, Richard A.; "Did the Dinosaurs Live on a Topsy-Turvy Earth?" Science, 287:406, 2000.) The biological consequences of such a sudden tilting could have been severe. The event -- known as rapid true polar wander -- may have been accompanied by worldwide volcanic upheavals and reorganization of tectonic plates that would have played havoc with anything living in the Late Cretaceous period, 65 million to 99 million years ago. Although the notion that an asteroid was the immediate cause of dinosaur extinction about 65 million years ago has won wide acceptance, many paleontologists have argued that volcanic activity may have played a role in changing the climate and sending populations of the giant creatures into decline. (Bowman ...
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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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... color vision occurred are not well-understood. Nor do we know why they were restricted to mammals and birds; although it is easy to fabricate several survival-of-the-fittest scenarios. The "how" part of the mystery is particularly hard to grasp in neo-Darwinian terms because the complex pigments that confer spectral sensitivity upon the cones represent remarkable, complex chemical syntheses. Also mysterious is the apparent loss of color vision in 14 species of toothed whales and seals. (Only 14 species were examined; there may be more.) These particular whales and seals lack the blue-sensitive cones, even though they are descended from mammals with bichromatic vision (hippos and otters, respectively). This deficiency is doubly perplexing: Sensitivity to blue light is highly desirable in the ocean environment because it is blue light that penetrates seawater well. The loss occurred in two mammalian lineages not particularly closely related on the evolution charts. In other words, they were probably not random, unlucky mutations; rather, something more profound. Neo-Darwinists are quick to explain that these afflicted species may have originally frequented shallow waters where sensitivity blue light was not so important. This capability dwindled away like the power of sight in some blind cave creatures. It never returned. (Chin, Gilbert, ed.; " Color-Blindness in Whales," Science, 292:399, 2001. Hecht, Jeff; "Blind to the Big Blue," New Scientist, p. 14, April 28, 2001.) Sperm whales are usually classed with the toothed whales ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Whale falls: stepping stones across the ocean abysses Unique biological communities flourish at widely separated "oases" on the deepsea floors, where hydrothermal vents supply the energy and chemicals necessary for life. Here are found free-living bacteria, tube worms, molluscs, and several other species that prosper without the benefit of photosynthesis. These chemosynthetic, thermal-vent communities are separated by thousands of kilometers of sea-floor "desert." Yet, the species involved are similar worldwide and must, at some time, have crossed these wide, forbidding expanses. One possible mechanism for this mysterious dispersion came in 1987, when the research submersible Alvin chanced upon the remains of a 21-meter whale at a depth of 1,240 meters off California's coast. The whale's skeleton was covered with bacterial mats like those at the hydrothermal vents. Also sustained by the carcass were mussels, snails, and worms; all in all, a community much like those at the vents. Furthermore, many of the species partaking of the whale's energy and chemical resources are not normally found in that part of the Pacific. Subsequently, more "whale falls" with attached biological communities were found elsewhere. Calculations suggest that whale falls are more common that one might suppose -- perhaps occurring with average spacings of only 25 kilometers. They could very well be the stepping stones that allow hydrothermal vent communities to disperse across the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 86: Mar-Apr 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The milky sea a.k .a . "white water"June 1854. South of Java. Aboard the American clipper Shooting Star . Captain Kingman reporting: "The whole appearance of the ocean was like a plain covered with snow. There was scarce a cloud in the heavens, yet the sky...appeared as black as if a storm was raging. The scene was one of awful grandeur; the sea having turned to phosphorus, and the heavens being hung in blackness, and the stars going out, seemed to indicate that all nature was preparing for that last grand conflagration which we are taught to believe is to annihilate this material world." We selected this account of the milky sea phenomenon because of its vivid verbiage -- something absent from the modern reports: "August 13, 1986. Northwest Indian Ocean. The entire sea surface took on an intense white glow which was not unlike viewing the negative of a photograph." The milky sea is a rather common phenomenon. In fact, the British Meteorological Office has established a Bioluminescence Database, which presently contains 235 reports of milky seas seen since 1915. P.J . Herring and M. Watson have employed this Database in a review paper on these impressive displays. Geographical plotting of the reports shows a strong concentration in the northwest Indian Ocean (see figure). Seasonally, there is a strong peaking in August and a secondary blip in ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Solitary Waves Unlike the well-known long trains of ocean swells that sweep past ship and swimmer with great regularity, solitary waves move "in splendid isolation, steadfastly holding their shape." Spacecraft photos have revealed curious striations in the Andaman Sea near Thailand. They are presumed to be examples of solitary waves. The Andaman waves extend for many miles and travel very slowly -- less than 10 kilometers per hour. They propagate along the boundary between the layer of warm surface water and the great mass of cooler water below. The amplitude of the downwardly pointing wave troughs of warm water along this interface may penetrate as far as 100 meters into the cold water below. (Herman, Russell; "Solitary Waves," American Scientist, 80:350, 1992.) Comment. Much more about these solitary waves and the other unusual waves mentioned above may be found in section GHW in our catalog: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds . The prevailing explanation for most oceanic solitary waves (often called "solitons") is that they are generated when tidal surges encounter underwater continental shelves or other obstructions. The above-mentioned catalog volume is described at: here . From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Current Treads In The North Pacific We are a bit hestitant about including still another eyebrow-raising item, but the source here is Eos, a weekly publication of the American Geophysical Union, and the story is irresistible! It all began when the container ship Hansa Carrier , enroute from Korea to the U.S ., encountered a fierce storm and lost 21 40-foot-long containers to the sea. "Approximately 80,000 Nike brand shoes were lost overboard on May 27, 1990, in the north Pacific Ocean ( 48 N, 161 W). Six months to a year later, thousands of shoes washed ashore in North America from southern Oregon to the Queen Charlotte Islands...We have gathered beachcomber reports and compared the inferred shoe drift with an oceanographic hindcast model and historical drift bottle returns. This spill-ofopportunity provided a calibration point for the model. Computer runs for 1946-1991 suggested that drift of floatable material across the northeast Pacific Ocean for May 1990-January 1991 was farther south than the mean of forty-five simulations." Route of the floating shoes Well, we can tweak the model a bit; but the authors added a postscript: "As we were finishing this article, we received reports of shoes arriving at the northern end of the Big Island of Hawaii. These shoes appear to have followed the California current southward, and then traveled westward." (Ebbesmeyer ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Depths Of Ignorance Oceanographers have been heard to complain that science knows more about the surface of Mars than it does about the topography of the deep ocean floors. Marine biologists, however, have even more reason to feel slighted. To illustrate, the usual picture painted of the abyssal terrain beyond the continental shelves and slopes is one a a frigid biological desert -- endless plains of sterile muck, broken once in a while by oasis-like deepsea vents, where weird tube worms thrive amidst clouds of chemosynthetic bacteria. This is a highly misleading portrayal. The situation, in fact, recalls what happened when biologists first released clouds of insecticides in rain forest canopies, thus precipitating a deluge of uncataloged insects into collecting nets waiting below. Now, instead of a mere million species of insects worldwide, entomologists are thinking perhaps 10 million or more. Will the same diversity prevail in the deepsea muck? C.L . Van Dover believes so: "Away from the vents, in the great ocean plains, life is much less dramatic and often scaled down to minute proportions -- threadlike worms, tiny snails, delicate, transparent clams. Yet, the diversity of animals in the cold abyssal muds, it now appears, may rival the celebrated biodiversity of the tropical rain forests." We now know virtually nothing about this fauna, how it survives, and how it evolved. Millions of undescribed species may be awaiting discovery by ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Another Elliptical Halo Measurements of an elliptical lunar halo obvsered in the Indian Ocean. June 6, 1992. Aboard the m.v . British Skill in the Indian Ocean. "Between 1300 and 1345 UTC, a complete halo phenomenon was observed round the moon, as shown in the sketch. The ring was complete although its appearance was elliptical. Its horizontal diameter was 40 with its vertical diameter being 53 . "The illuminated part of the moon was not in the centre of the halo, its altitude at the lower limb (phase, new waxing) being 38 54'. The altitude of the upper part of the halo was 59 whereas the lower edge was at 6 ." (Anderson, P.R .; "Elliptical Halo," Marine Observer, 63:65, 1993.) Comment. Once again we have another observation called "impossible" by geophysicists. Halos, they say, must be symmetrical about the sun or moon. Yet, photos and precise measurements, like those above, demonstrate the reality of the phenomenon. From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... .P . Klimley and his colleagues decided to find the answer. First, by direct observation, they determined that the sharks' main purpose was not pro-creation, although some mating did occur. Mainly, the hammerheads just idled away the daylight hours. At dusk, they disappeared. Klimley et al next implanted some sharks with transmitters and followed them at night. This was their feeding time, they swam 10-15 miles to deep waters where they gorged on squid. At daybreak, they were back drifting around Espiritu Santo. Apparently, the mountain was just a place to rest. But how did the hammerheads find their way back so unerringly? Furthermore, by tracking the tagged fish, the researchers found the sharks often precisely followed the same paths in what seemed a featureless ocean. How did they do it? It was quickly ruled out that they were following specific ocean currents or the bottom topography. The hammerheads seemed to possess some sort of unrecognized navigation sense. Suspecting they might be sensing the geomagnetic field, Klimley began towing a magne tometer behind the boat. Sure enough, the hammerheads were following paths coincident with lines of high magnetic gradient. And Espiritu Santo itself turned out to be a sort of magnetic beacon from which radiated these magnetic "paths" that the hammerheads followed so exactly. Now the question became: How do hammerheads -- and perhaps other animals -- sense such exceedingly small changes in the geomagnetic field? Some birds and mammals do have small particles of magnetite in their bodies, but no one knows how they might be incorporated into ...
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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 Another Milky Sea January 25, 1995. Indian Ocean. Aboard the s.s . Lima , Juaymah to Rotterdam. Third officer, S.M .F . Masud, and others of the ship's company observed another instance of one of the sea's great unex plained phenomena. "At 1800 UTC on a clear moonless night while 150 n.mile east of the Somalian coast a whitish glow was observed on the horizon and, after 15 minutes of steaming, the ship was completely surrounded by a sea of milky-white colour with a fairly uniform luminescence. The bioluminescence appeared to cover the entire sea area, from horizon to horizon but above the surface, and it appeared as though the ship was sailing over a field of snow or gliding over the clouds. "There was no damping effect on capillary waves or reduction of visibility at all and there was no mist at deck level although at a distance it seemed as if there was either lowlying mist or the upwelling of the luminescence itself. The bow waves and the wake appeared blackish in colour and thick black patches of oil were passing by. Later, the Aldis lamp revealed that the 'oil patches' were actually light-green kelp, amazingly black against the white water." A water sample contained many singlecelled microorganisms, but they displayed no luminescence. After 6 hours, the luminescence disappeared. Commenting on this report, P.J ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ship falls: supplements to whale falls?" Strange tube worms up to six feet long have been discovered off the Spanish coast, dining on the hydrogen sulphide from rotting beans [beams?] in the hold of a ship that sank 13 years ago. Lacking mouth, gut and anus, they rely on bacteria to process the nutrients in minerals and dissolved in sea water. They had been found previously in the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico. It was thought they liked to live in huge colonies around cracks in the ocean floor where hot, mineral-rich lava pours out and areas where oil and gas leak from the seabed." (Anonymous; "Gas Guzzlers," Fortean Times, p. 19, no. 68, 1993. Via Daily Telegraph , June 22, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #88, JUL-AUG 1993 . 1993-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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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 Whence the earth's pulse?Geological history records a restless planet subject to a succession of chemical and physical upheavals. Have these great paroxysms been random in time? M.R . Rampino and K. Caldeira do not think so: Number of geological events during geologic time "Published data sets of major geologic events of the past 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 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 84: Nov-Dec 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Atlantic Waves Getting Bigger Above, we inserted a short, rather vague note on this phenomenon. We now have a bit more to report, although no one seems to have any answers. "The North Atlantic is getting rougher -- much rougher. In the mid-1980s average waves in the ocean were 25 per cent higher than during the 1960s. More recent studies show that by the end of the 1980s the tops of the waves were 50 per cent higher, as measured by both instruments and estimated by sailors. .. .. . "The cause of the increasing choppiness of the waters of the North Atlantic is unclear. Waves are whipped up by strong winds, yet there has been no corresponding increase in wind speeds. [S .] Bacon believes that a clue may lie in the persistence of winds from a certain direction." (Anonymous; "Making Waves in the North Atlantic," New Scientist, p. 10, August 29, 1992.) From Science Frontiers #84, NOV-DEC 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Dune Circles Of Sossusvlei The Dead Pan of Sossusvlei lies in the Namibian Desert some 50 kilometers from the Atlantic Ocean. It is a 5-hour drive from Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. Geologically, this feature is a clay pan in the flood plain of the Tsauchah River, which flows on the average only once in a decade. Towering above the clay pan are sand dunes that reach 350 meters elevation above the river bed. They are veritable mountains of sand and the tallest dunes in the world. The potential anomaly at Sossusvlei is not the size of the dunes but rather the mysterious circles of grass that grow upon them. All we have to go on is a photograph showing a dozen or so of the circles situated at some unspecified distance from the photographer. Somewhat irregular in shape, the circles seem to be on the order of 100 meters in diameter. No grass at all grows within the rings of thick grass, but outside grow sparse, evenly distributed grass clumps. The writer of the Sossusvlei article labels the circles "unusual phenomena." (Pupkewitz, Tony; "Sossusvlei," Optima , 36:136, 1988. Cr. P.A . Hill. Optima is a South African publication.) Comment. Are these circles akin to the "fairy rings" found in moister climates? Perhaps also pertinent are the clones of creosote bushes which grow outwards in expanding circles, as mentioned in ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 90: Nov-Dec 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Band Of Turbulence That the ocean deeps also have their "weather" is evident in the following report. While reading it, be aware that it is only the surface manifestation of larger phenomenon which, like the bulk of an iceberg, is concealed from the observer. July 29, 1992. Equatorial Atlantic. Aboard the m.v . Enterprise enroute from Saldanha Bay to Las Palmas. "At 1930 UTC a bold linear echo was suddenly noted on the radar screen, as if from a singular, large swell wave running along a line bearing approximately 290 -110 and moving towards the ship in a south-southwesterly direction, see sketch. Although it was night-time, it was light enough to determine visually at a distance of about 1 n.mile, that it was not a large swell wave. At 1947 the vessel was passing through the echo which extended out to 4 n.mile on either side of it and, on observing the water around the ship with the aid of an Aldis lamp, it was noted that there was a great deal of turbulence present. The Enterprise , fully laden with iron ore, suddenly veered 6 to port of her heading of 325 , indicating the strength of the turbulence. The sea prior to this point was only slightly rippled by a light SW'ly wind, force 1-2 . The band of turbulence was approximately 20 m wide and the sea beyond ...
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... 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 the job. If the wave began near Hawaii, it would initially been about 375 meters (about mile) in height. (Davidson, Garry; "A Tsunamis Tale from Sydney," New Scientist, p. 17, October 17, 1992.) 65,000,000 BP. Northeastern Mexico. The date mentioned is, of course, that of the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. This is the time when, many scientists believe, a very large asteroid slammed into northern Yucatan, forming the now-buried Chicxulub crater and wiping out the dinosaurs. Since the impact site was covered with ocean at the time, a powerful tsunamis should have surged out from this area. Indeed, debris attributable to a tsunami has been found on the U.S . Gulf Coast and on some Caribbean islands. J. Smit et al now report finding a layer of debris up to 3 meters thick in northeastern Mexico. This layer was apparently deposited in water about 400 meters deep as the giant wave wreaked havoc along Mexico's shore and its backwash piled up debris offshore. This interpretation is supported by the presence of tektites, microtektites, glass spherules, abundant plant material, an iridium anomaly, and near the top ripple beds. (Smit, Jan, et al; "Tektite-Bearing, Deep-Water Clastic Unit at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary in Northeastern Mexico," ...
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... caught in dead water, Nansen reported, Fram appeared to be held back, as if by some mysterious force, and she did not always answer the helm. In calm weather, with a light cargo, Fram was capable of 6 to 7 knots. When in dead water she was unable to make 1.5 knots. 'We made loops in our course', Nansen wrote, 'turned sometimes right around, tried all sorts of antics to get clear of it, but to very little purpose.'" Nansen asked the noted physicist and meteorologist V. Bjerknes to look into the frustrating phenomenon. Bjerknes found that the energy of the ship's propeller was, in essence, being siphoned off to create internal waves along the interface between the light fresh water and dense ocean water underneath rather than propelling the ship forward. (Walker, J.M .; "Farthest North, Dead Water and the Ekman Spiral," Weather, 46:158, 1991.) Reference. Dead water and "slippery seas" are cataloged in GHC5 in: Earthquakes, Tides. This book is described here . From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... sky either, which although virtually cloudless was very dark, and certainly darker than the atmosphere at the level of the ship. The only conclusion that the observers could come to was that this was a faint example of (to quote The Marine Observer's Handbook ), 'luminescence in the air a few feet above the sea surface when there is no light in the water'. This form lasted for about 30 minutes, whereas the bright flashes continued for three or four hours before they too eventually ceased." (Thompson, P.C .; "Bioluminescence," Marine Observer, 62:14, 1992.) Comment. Many cases of aerial marine light displays have been cataloged. It is assumed by scientists that bioluminescent particles are somehow carried into the air from the ocean, but there is no evidence at all for this. It is quite possible that some marine phosphorescent displays are electrical rather than biological. Additional examples and discussion of possible aerial phosphores-cent displays available in GLW3 in our catalog: Lightning, Auroras. To order, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #80, MAR-APR 1992 . 1992-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... said yesterday." The seismologist cited, F. Baldwin from the U.S . Geological Survey, estimated that the wave was 18 feet high and 250 feet wide. (Anonymous; "Rogue Wave Smashes into Beach," Hawaii Tribune-Herald , July 5, 1992. Cr. H. DeKalb.) Rumors of a falling object. The landslide theory sounds good, but there have been rumors that another phenomenon was involved. B. Stein, of Orlando, has reported the testimony of a boater, who was far offshore at the time: ". .. the boater came forward with the information that, shortly before the time of the wave, he was in his boat about eight miles offshore. He watched as a distant object approached across the sky toward the ocean at a high rate of speed, and crossed the bow of his boat at an angle with a "whoosh" (his word). Shortly after, a giant swell made his 41-foot sailboat handle like a large surfboard. Various news sources state that the meteorite, as it is now being called, was anywhere from a meter to 10 feet across. The boater who wished to remain anonymous, gave the professors enough information so that they are hoping that the Navy will retrieve the object, which is presumed to be lying in about 70 feet of water off the Daytona Beach coastline, with plenty of coordinates for locating it." (Stein, Becky; "Daytona Beach MiniTidal wave," Louisiana Mounds Society Newsletter , no. 52, p. 2, October ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 68: Mar-Apr 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Impact Delivery Of Early Oceans Where did the earth's oceans come from? For decades the stock answer has been: from the condensation of vapors escaping from the planet's cooling crust; that is, "outgassing." The possibility that some terrestrial water might have ar rived from extraterrestrial sources after the earth's formation has been discounted. The major reason behind this neglect was the expectation that the erosive effects of large-scale impacts of water-carrying comets and asteroids would preclude any net accumulation of volatiles, and could even reduce any existing inventories of surface water. C.F . Chyba has recently reexamined this question of cometary water influx vs. impact-caused water losses using the latest estimates of comet/asteroid fluxes during the period between 4.5 and 3.5 billion years ago, when bombardment of the inner solar system was thought to be especially severe. Rather than the expected net loss, Chyba computes that the earth would really have gained more than 0.2 - 0.7 ocean masses in that billion-year period. Venus would have fared equally well, but Mars, more sensitive to impact erosion, would have accreted "only" a layer of water 10-100 meters deep over the whole planet! (This Martian water is now mostly below the surface supposedly.) (Chyba, Christopher F.; "Impact Delivery and Erosion of Planetary Oceans in the Early ...
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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. 74: Mar-Apr 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Gaia on mars?H.L . Helfer, University of Rochester, noting the absence of extensive cratering on the northern plains of Mars, suggests that some 2-3 .5 billion years ago these plains were covered with oceans. These ancient seas, perhaps as much as 700 meters deep, protected the plains from direct impacts. Further, crater density counts for Chryse and the Martian highlands imply that Mars possessed a fairly dense atmosphere until about 1.5 billion years ago. In his Abstract Helfer speculates as follows: "With both early Earth and early Mars having similar atmospheric compositions and not too dissimilar atmospheric structures, it is reasonable to suppose that the warm Martian oceans, like the ancient oceans of Earth, would develop anerobic and aerobic photosynthesizing prokaryotes and structures like stromatolites. Their development might have changed the Martian atmosphere. Their fossils might be found along the fringes of the old oceans, the northern lowland plains." (Helfer, H.L .; "Of Martian Atmospheres, Oceans, and Fossils," Icarus, 87:228, 1990.) Comment. The Gaia influence is seen in the molding of the Martian atmosphere into something more conducive to the development of life. One can also speculate that, if life did develop on Mars, it could have seeded the earth via bits of debris blasted off by meteorite impacts. Several meteorites picked up in Antarctica are thought to have come from Mars ...
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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 We Live Atop A Chemical Retort Far down there beneath our feet, the earth's chemicals are bubbling away, aided often by bacteria and other life forms. It's a dark world, but it's also hot, permeated by fluids, and possibly the abode of organisms we haven't dreamed of. Three hints of this nether world follow. Quick oil. Rather than ripening in deep strata for millions of years, as per prevailing theory, some oil is being created in only a few thousand years in the vicinities of ocean-bottom chimneys. Dimesized oil globules have been sighted floating near these chimneys. Analysis of chunks broken off the chimneys by research submersibles reveal the presence of petroleum-like hydrocarbons that are less than 5000 years old. It is thought that high-temperature fluids percolating up through the sediments convert buried organic matter into oil very rapidly. (Monastersky, R.; "The Quick Recipe for a Soup of Black Gold," Science News, 136:295, 1989.) Comment. Not mentioned in this article is T. Gold's theory that oil is actually derived from primordial carbon deep in the crust. Gassy water. Some water wells in Texas also produce much methane. This methane is apparently not related to any oil or gas wells in the region. Rather, surmise has it that bacteria deep in the crust are converting buried organic material into methane and ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 70: Jul-Aug 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Wandering Albatrosses Really Wander Tracks of three Wandering albatrosses in the southern Indian Ocean. Six male wandering albatrosses nesting on Crozet Island, between South Africa and Antarctica, were fitted with tiny (180-gram) transmitters and tracked by satellite. Their flights were amazing: "Tracks of wandering albatrosses in the southwestern Indian Ocean showed that they covered between 3,600 and 15,000 km in a single foraging trip during an incubation shift. They flew at speeds of up to 80 km per h and over distances of up to 900 km per day. They remained active at night, particularly on moonlit nights..." (Jouventin, Pierre, and Weimerskirch, Henri; "Satellite Tracking of Wandering Albatrosses,; Nature, 343:746, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #70, JUL-AUG 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... there is a microwave flicker of life remaining in the minicomets. J.J . Olivero and his colleagues at Penn State have been monitoring the sky with a microwave radiometer in their search for emissions from high-altitude gases. During more than 500 days of observations, they detected 111 sudden bursts of water vapor. Olivero et al suggest that these bursts occur when small, icy comets vaporize at very high altitudes. These minicomets are of the same size (about 100 tons) and frequency (20 per minute over the whole atmosphere) as those predicted by L.A . Frank. Frank's icy comets have been received with about as much warmth as "cold fusion." One reason for the unpopularity of icy comets is that they would have provided sufficient water to fill the ocean basins, thus undermining the accepted view that our oceans derived from outgassed water vapor from deep within the earth. Besides this mindset, the minicomets do have some counts registered against them: (1 ) The effects of all the purported water vapor on the ionosphere should be easily detected but they are not; (2 ) Seismometers emplaced on the moon have not detected their impacts there; and (3 ) Military surveillance satellites have not seen these housesized objects. (Monastersky, Richard; "Small Comet Controversy Flares Again," Science News, 137:365, 1990. Also: Emsley, John; "Are 'Minicomets' Peppering the Earth's Atmosphere?" New Scientist, p. 36, June 9, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV- ...
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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. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Australasian tektites coughed up by a moon of jupiter?The Australasian tektites are glassy blobs found on or near the surface of the ground from the Philippines, through southeast Asia, all the way to Tasmania. Similar but much smaller "microtektites" appear in deapsea de posits in the adjacent oceans. Radiometric and fission-track dating indicate that the tektites solidified about 700,000 years ago. Yet, their geological age, as measured by the age of the terrestrial sediments in which they are found, is only a few thousand years. This great disparity in age engendered a confrontation between geologists and geophysicists. The latter insisted on their 700,000-year figure; the former said "maybe so" but the tektites are still found only in very young, superficial sediments. The point here is that time-of-solidification may not be the same as time-of-fall. At stake is the prevailing theory, now dogmatically proclaimed, that tektites are created when a large asteroid impacts the earth, ejecting molten droplets of rock which shower back to earth as solidified tektites. No one has ever found a suitably large crater ( 200 miles in diameter) assignable to the Australasian tektite strewn field. Nevertheless, the impact model prevails; and the young geological age of the tektites is dismissed as erroneous. A Soviet scientist, E.P . Izokh, has recently proposed a radically different scenario that would produce both ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 72: Nov-Dec 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects IS THE ARCTIC ICE COVER THINNING?" In May 1987 a British submarine carried out an ice profiling experiment in the Arctic Ocean in which the route closely approximated that of an earlier voyage in October 1976. Over a zone extending more than 400 km to the north of Greenland there is evidence of a significant decrease in mean ice thickness in 1987 relative to that found in 1976. This thinning amounts to a loss of volume of at least 15% over an area of 300,000 km2 ." (Wadhams, Peter; "Evidence for Thinning of the Arctic Ice Cover North of Greenland," Nature, 345:795, 1990.) In an accompanying discussion of the ice problem, A.S . McLaren et al note that since the late 1800s, Arctic researchers using drills have reported consistently that the Arctic ice thickness averaged 3-4 meters. U.S . subma-rine surveys concurred with these figures during cruises in 1960 and 1962. Satellite surveys of ice cover from 19781987 found no trends. In other words, other sources of data on the Arctic ice reveal little change. The new results, therefore, need further confirmation. (McLaren, A.S ., et al; "Could Arctic Ice Be Thinning?" Nature, 345:762, 1990.) From Science Frontiers #72, NOV-DEC 1990 . 1990-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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