... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 38: Mar-Apr 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Galloping Glaciers North America boasts 104 surge glaciers. No one knows why these glaciers behave so differently from normal glaciers; they certainly look the same. But while ordinary glaciers creep along a few inches per day , surging glaciers will sometimes charge ahead at the rate of several yards per hour . The surges may be years apart; and they may occur periodically. The surges start high up on the glacier and propagate down to the foot, which plods along a few inches per day until the surge arrives. Then, it leaps forward, only to return to normality until the next periodic surge. The surges seem to occur when water spreads out under the ice, lubricating its flow. Beyond this we know little. Why do some glaciers surge while those right alongside behave normally? Are the surges really cyclic? The Variegated Glacier, in Alaska, for example, surged in 1906, probably in 1926, in 1947, in 1964-65, and in 1982 -- about 20 years between surges. The surges do not seem to be connected to earthquakes, climatic changes, volcanic heat, or anything obvious. (Beard, Jonathan; "Glaciers on the Run," Science 85, 6:84, February 1985.) From Science Frontiers #38, MAR-APR 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 75 miles north of Bermuda. Heavy rain began to pelt the ship, and a furious wind sprang up out of nowhere. Squalls were nothing new to the Marques , one of 39 tall ships participating in a transatlantic race. But as a precaution, Stuart Finlay, the seasoned 42-year-old American captain of the ship, shortened the sails. The Marques was carrying a crew of 28 - half of whom were under 25. At the helm, Philip Sefton, 22, fought the angry waves that now confronted them. "Suddenly a heavy gust of wind pushed the Marques down on its starboard side. At the same instant 'a freakish wave of incredible force and size,' as Sefton later described it, slammed the ship broadside, pushing its masts farther beneath the surging water. A second wave pounded the ship as it went down. The Marques filled with water and sank in less than one minute. Most of the crew were trapped as they slept below deck. Only Sefton and eight shipmates survive." Accounts such as that above are part of sea lore. Waves 50-100 feet high have been frequently reported over the years. Most often, they are encountered in rough seas, but some walls of water have smashed ships in relatively calm waters. A tanker encountering a steep-sided giant wave in the Aguhlas Current of the African coast. Until recently, oceanographers were confident that any unusually large wave was just the chance addition of two smaller waves. Now, a consensus is emerging that at least two other factors are important: seabed ...

... 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 10 YEARS OF COLD FUSION It was on March 23, 1989 that M. Fleischmann and S. Pons announced their "cold fusion" results. After an initial surge of publicity followed by disbelief and ridicule, cold fusion research was effectively banned from mainstream science publications. (SF#114, SF#112, and earlier). While cold fusion may not be politically correct these days, a cadre of off-mainstream researchers is pursuing the idea under such names as Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) and Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions (CANR) Could LENR and CANR (nee CF) be both scientifically correct and politically incorrect? A survey of cold fusion research over the past decade by E.F . Mallove appears in a recent issue of Infinite Energy . If you read only mainstream journals, you may be surprised to learn that several thousand technical papers have been written on the subject. Mallove has abstracted a "select 34" of these that support the reality of LENR and CANR. Many of the 34 appeared in Infinite Energy and Fusion Technology . The Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and Physics Letters A have also carried some of these "select" papers. Finally, Mallove provides references to papers that undermine the credibility of those studies at Caltech, Harwell, and MIT that were used to derail cold fusion as a serious scientific enterprise. (Mallove, Eugene F.; "Key Experiments That Substantiate Cold Fusion ...

... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 7: June 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The sun controls the earth's global electrical circuit Data collected from electrosondes (balloons measuring atmospheric electrical currents) over the Antarctic ice caps infer that solar flares stimulate large surges in the flow of electrical charge from the upper atmosphere to the earth's surface. Because this unidirectional flow of fair-weather electricity must ultimately be balanced by thunderstorms somewhere on the planet, it follows that the frequency and severity of terrestrial thunderstorms are dictated, at least on the average, by solar activity. Formerly, global circuit theory had it that the thunderstorms themselves were the driving force behind the fairweather current flow. Now it seems that the sun calls the tune and that thunderstorms do not arise at random. (Anonymous; "Solar Activity and Terrestrial Thunderstorms," New Scientist, 81:256, 1979.) From Science Frontiers #7 , June 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... 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,... ESM6 Elevated Erratics... ESM7 Anomalous Glacial Drift ESM8 Fluidized Debris Slides ESM9 Surging Glaciers ESM10 Driftless Enclaves within Glaciated Regions ESM11 Anomalous Rock Motion ESM12 Superficial Rocky Debris of Doubtful Provenance ESP ANOMALOUS PHYSICAL PHENOMENA IN GEOLOGY ESP1 Anomalous Radiohalos ESP2 Flexible Rocks ESP3 Unusually Colored Rocks ESP4 Noncrushing of Fossils in Sediment Compaction ESP5 Remarkable Polished Rocks ESP6 Ringing Rocks ESP7 Small-Scale Magnetic Anomalies ESP8 Frazil Ice, Anchor Ice,... ESP9 Long-Range Fine Structure In Strata ESP10 Jointing, Cleat, Crack Patterns ESP11 Shocked Mineral Grains at Geological Boundaries ESP12 Radiometric Dating Discordances ESP13 Natural Fission Reactors ESP14 Musical Sands ESP15 Luminous Rocks ESP16 Explosive Rocks ESP17 Dry Quicksand ESP18 Glacieres/Natural Refrigerators ESP19 Radioactive Fossils ESP20 Clustering of Mineralogical Dates in Time and Space ESP21 Random Cracking around Radioactive Inclusions ESR PHENOMENA OF THE OUTER CRUST ESR1 Incompleteness of the Stratigraphic Record ESR2 Lateral Variations in Strata ESR3 Apparently- ...

... 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 ...

... The planet's great rivers cascaded over the edges in great waterfalls. The rocky sill at Gibraltar kept the Atlantic waters out of the Mediterranean, and this sea began to dry up. Farther to the east, the Black Sea was now cut off from the Mediterranean's salty water by the silt-choked Bosporus, that narrow strait separating Asia Minor from Europe. In consequence, the Black Sea became a vast fresh-water lake fed by Europe's rivers to the north. The Ice Age eventually waned, and the oceans and Mediterranean began to rise. About 7,000 years ago, the hydraulic pressure on the Bosporus silt plug became too great and it popped. Salty Mediterranean water poured into lowlands around the Black Sea. Scientists estimate that 50 cubic kilometers of water surged through the Bosporus each -- 200 Niagaras in one colossal waterfall. Falling some 150 meters, the thunder of falling water might have been heard 500 kilometers away! The Black Sea rose quickly, driving the shoreline and humans back a kilometer or two every day. The fleeing Neolithic farmers were forced up into the rich river valleys of Europe, carrying tales of the catastrophe as well as their culture and agricultural know-how into these areas. The Middle East was affected, too. The traumatic experiences of the survivors may have been the basis for the Sumerian and Biblical flood stories. (Mestel, Rosie; "Noah's Flood," New Scientist, p. 24, October 4, 1997. Also: Kerr, Richard A.; "Black Sea Deluge May Have ...

... catastrophic event occurring on the hidden half of Jupiter -- possibly the impact of some large object -- or, even more intriguing, Jovian lightning. (Hammel, H.B ., and Nelson, R.M .; "Bright Flash on Jupiter in 1983," Nature, 366:117, 1993.) Comment. Could this Jovian "lightning" actually have been an electrical spark? This thought dovetails nicely with the pair of "ghostly" infrared spots that race across Jupiter's surface in synchronism with Io's orbital motion. (See SF#91.) The two spots are believed to be the moving terminals of a gigantic electrical circuit that stretches from Jupiter's surface to Io and back again. The 1983 flash might have been a current surge in this cosmic circuit. Reference. More on Io's post-eclipse brightning can be found in AJX6 in our catalog: The Moon and the Planets. For description of the book, see here . From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...

... the ice sheets them-selves, despite the fact they look like they might have been shaped by flowing water. As we all know, the word "flood" is an anathema in geology, probably because a provable episode of extensive flooding would lend credence to the Biblical Flood! (Actually, many cultures around the world have similar flood legends.) Canadian geologist J. Shaw is now trying to break out of this philosophical prison. "According to Shaw, heat from the Earth formed huge lakes of meltwater that remained trapped beneath the North American ice sheet. As the sheet began to retreat near the end of the glacial age, the water broke through and flowed in torrents down to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean. While flowing under the ice cap, water would have surged in vast, turbulent sheets that sculpted and scoured drumlins. Each flood lasted until the weight of the ice cap once again shut off the outlet of the covered lake, Shaw says." Shaw goes on to estimate that one large drumlin field in Saskatchewan was created when 84,000 cubic kilometers of water was discharged. Just this single episode would have raised global sealevels by about 10 inches in a few days or weeks. Imagine what happened as this water flowed across North America. Many geologists look askance at Shaw's theory of drumlin formation. (Monastersky, R.; "Hills Point to Catastrophic Ice Age Floods," Science News, 136:213, 1989.) Comment. The famous Channelled Scablands in the Pacific Northwest are thought to have been scoured out when ...