When the Earth Gets Sick: Most Mass Extinctions Happened Slowly
Earth in the Permian period. Illustration: Kieff (CC)
Via ScienceDaily:
In geology as in cancer research, the silver bullet theory always gets the headlines and nearly always turns out to be wrong. For geologists who study mass extinctions, the silver bullet is a giant asteroid plunging to earth.But an asteroid is the prime suspect only in the most recent of five mass extinctions, said USC earth scientist David Bottjer. The cataclysm 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs.
“The other four have not been resolvable to a rock falling out of the sky,” Bottjer said. For example, Bottjer and many others have published studies suggesting that the end-Permian extinction 250 million years ago happened in essence because “the earth got sick.”
The latest research from Bottjer’s group suggests a similar slow dying during the extinction 200 million years ago at the boundary of the Triassic and Jurassic eras. The latest research from Bottjer’s…
Pieces Of Planet Mars Landed In Africa Last Summer
Obviously, the best result from inspection would be (additional) evidence of Martian lifeforms. Via the Globe and Mail:
Scientists are confirming a recent and rare invasion from Mars: meteorite chunks from the red planet that fell in Morocco last July. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks weren’t discovered on the ground until December.
The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 240 pounds. This is an important and unique opportunity for scientists trying to learn about Mars’ potential for life. So far, no NASA or Russian spacecraft has returned bits of Mars, so the only Martian samples scientists can examine are those that come here in a meteorite shower.
Scientists and collectors of meteorites are ecstatic, and already the rocks are fetching big bucks because they are among…
Cooling The Future: Artificial Glaciers?
BLDG BLOG examines the emerging field of ice engineering, which may prove more and more useful as naturally-occurring ice formations recede:
The city of Ulan Bator, Mongolia, will attempt to keep itself cool over the summer by way of a kind of artificial glacier.
According to the Guardian, this “geoengineering trial” will try to “’store’ freezing winter temperatures in a giant block of ice that will help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer.” Project directors “hope the process will reduce energy demand from air conditioners and regulate drinking water and irrigation supplies.” The cool air will presumably be pumped through the city via a continuous and monumental network of ducts.
The project aims to artificially create “naleds” — ultra-thick slabs of ice that occur naturally in far northern climes when rivers or springs push through cracks in the surface to seep outwards during the day and then…
Woman Selling Million-Dollar ‘Moon Rock’ Arrested
The wackiest part of this chain of events? That NASA has undercover agents who orchestrate stings to crack down on space crimes. Via the Guardian:
A woman who tried to sell what she said was a rare piece of moon rock for $1.7 million was detained when her would-be buyer turned out to be an undercover NASA agent, officials said Friday.
The gray rocks, which are considered national treasures and are illegal to sell, were given to each U.S. state and 136 countries by then-President Richard Nixon after U.S. moon missions and can sell for millions of dollars on the black market.
NASA investigators and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies detained the woman after she met Thursday with an undercover NASA investigator at a restaurant in Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the sheriff’s office said. The investigation was conducted over several months.
NASA planned to conduct tests to determine whether the…
Scientists Find First Evidence Climate Affects Tectonic Plate Movement
Via Discover:
Geologists have known for years that tectonic plates affect climate patterns. Now they say that the opposite is also true, finding that intensifying climate events can move tectonic plates. Using models based on known monsoonal and plate movement patterns, geologists say that the Indian Plate has accelerated by about 20% over the past 10 million years. “The significance of this finding lies in recognising for the first time that long-term climate changes have the potential to act as a force and influence the motion of tectonic plates,” Australian National University researcher Giampiero Iaffaldano told COSMOS.
The researchers plugged information from research on monsoonal patterns and the Indian Plate’s movement into a model, which indicated that the monsoonal erosion that has battered the eastern Himalaya Mountains for the past 10 million years erodes enough material to account for the plate’s counter-clockwise rotation. By gradually shaving off rocks from the eastern flank and…
Black-Market Trinkets From Space
The Willamette Meteorite, the largest ever to be found in the United States.
The New York Times reports:
Ebay and other Web sites pulse with hundreds of sales pitches. “The pieces below have an exceptional patina,” a site called Star-bits.com said of 10 pictured fragments.
The ads are for chunks of meteorites, bits of asteroids that have fallen from the sky and are as prized by scientists as they are by collectors. As more meteorites have been discovered in recent years, interest in them has flourished and an illegal sales market has boomed — much to the dismay of the people who want to study them and the countries that consider them national treasures.
“It’s a black market,” said Ralph P. Harvey, a geologist at Case Western Reserve University who directs the federal search for meteorites in Antarctica. “It’s as organized as any drug trade and just as illegal.”
The discovery of a rich and historically…
Earthquake Hits Burma
Just in case things weren’t shaken up enough, Burma gets a taste of Mother Nature. CBC News reports:
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 has hit northeastern Burma, also known as Myanmar.
The quake struck at 8:25 p.m. local time Thursday near the Southeast Asian country’s borders with Thailand and Laos, about 110 kilometres from the northern Thai city of Chiang Rai.
Two earthquakes were initially reported with a 7.0 magnitude, but the U.S. Geological Survey soon amended its report to confirm one shallow quake, centred 10 kilometres below the surface of the earth.
“Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are highly vulnerable to earthquake shaking, though some resistant structures exist,” said a report posted on the monitoring agency’s website shortly after the quakes. “The predominant vulnerable building types are wood and unreinforced brick masonry construction.”
The monitor said 600,000 people would have experienced shaking anywhere from strong to violent and…
Is U.S. West Coast About To Experience The Next Great Quake?
disinfo reader Aleph Omega sent along this video from Fox News’s Cavuto show, saying:
The geologist [Jim Berkland] who predicted 1989 SF earthquake within 4 days is predicting an earthquake on the west coast within the next month, but more likely between 3.19.11 through 3.26.11. His telltale signs are: rare closeness of the moon to earth (full moon is tomorrow), equinoctial tides on the 20th, earth and groundwater tides — all of which loosen pressure in the earth. Also, massive fish kills in Redondo Beach and whale beaching.
Earthquake Moved Japan Closer to U.S., Shifted Earth’s Axis, Shortened Day
This is astounding. Paul Rincon reports for BBC News:
Japan’s coastline may have shifted by as much as 4m (13 ft) to the east following Friday’s 8.9 Magnitude earthquake, according to experts.
Data from the country’s Geonet network of around 1,200 GPS monitoring stations suggest a large displacement following the massive quake.
Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey (BGS) told BBC News the movement observed following the quake was “in line with what you get when you have an earthquake this big”.
The quake probably shifted Earth on its axis by about 6.5 inches (16.5cm) and caused the planet to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 millionths of a second.
Japan’s meteorological agency has proposed updating the magnitude of the earthquake to 9.0. [UPDATE: Has been changed to 9.0] This would make it the joint fifth biggest quake since instrumental records began, but other agencies have not…
New Zealand’s Lost ‘Eighth Wonder Of The World’ Found Deep Underwater
Kiwi scientists have discovered portions of the Pink and White Terraces, a natural wonder which was ravaged by a 19th century volcanic blast. Sadly, the remnants are buried at the bottom of a lake, meaning they will remain hidden away from the eyes of humans. Science Daily reveals:
They were called the Eighth Wonder of the World. Until the late 19th century, New Zealand’s Pink and White Terraces along Lake Rotomahana on the North Island, attracted tourists from around the world, interested in seeing the beautiful natural formations created by a large geothermal system. But the eruption of Mt. Tarawera on June 10, 1886, buried the terraces in sediment and caused the lake basin to enlarge, engulfing the land where the terraces stood. For more than a century, people have speculated whether any part of the Pink and White Terraces survived the eruption.
This week, scientists from New Zealand’s GNS Science, in collaboration…
Supercontinents of Planet Earth: 650 Million Years in Under 2 Minutes (Video)
Alasdair Wilkins on io9.com has a great post about the past and future of our planet’s continents. Definitely worth a read:
Earth’s continents are constantly changing, moving and rearranging themselves over millions of years — affecting Earth’s climate and biology. Every few hundred million years, the continents combine to create massive, world-spanning supercontinents.
Here’s the past and future of Earth’s supercontinets.
34,000 Year-Old Bacteria Discovered Alive
Photo: Magnified microscopic view of large algae and prokayotes (Brian Schubert)
Can this ancient discovery help us understand future discoveries of bacteria on other planets? Via The Epoch Times:
Scientists have found prokaryotes believed to have been alive when trapped in salt crystals 34,000 years ago, according to a study published this month in The Geological Society of America’s open-access journal GSA Today.
“Microbes are known to exist in subsurface habitats, such as sub-seafloor sediments and continental and oceanic crust, to depths of up to 3 km,” the paper reads.
“Prokaryotes (single-celled organisms lacking a nucleus and other membrane-bound specialized structures) in these subsurface environments live in water within sediment pores and rock fractures.”
Organisms have also been found in glaciers up to 8 million years old, according to the paper.
[Continues at The Epoch Times]
Who Parked Our Moon?
Editor’s Note: This essay from Jim Marrs exploring a number of controversial ideas about the Moon was originally published in Above Top Secret: Uncover the Mysteries of the Digital Age (Disinformation, 2008).
Despite six announced visits by U.S. astronauts between 1969 and 1972, the Moon remains a riddle to scientists in many regards. The solutions to these riddles could indicate an alien aspect of our familiar Moon.
Called “the Rosetta Stone of the planets” by Dr. Robert Jastrow, the first chairman of NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, scientists had hoped by studying the composition of the Moon, to resolve some of the mysteries of how our planet and solar system came into existence.
However, six Moon landings later, science writer Earl Ubell declared, “… the lunar Rosetta Stone remains a mystery. The Moon is more complicated than anyone expected; it is not simply a kind of billiard ball frozen in space and time, as many scientists…
U.S. Identifies $1 Trillion In Mineral Deposits In Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan looks like it just got a lot bigger and longer. The New York Times reports:
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.
Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the…
The Atlantis Blueprint on The Black Fridays
The Black Fridays Episode 22 — Rand Flem-Ath
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
Author Rand Flem-Ath joins us to discuss the Atlantis, Earth Crust Displacement, and what the ancients new!
Rand, along with his wife Rose, have authored several books including; The Atlantis Blueprint, The Forbidden Manuscript and Field of Thunder.
A fascinating topic with a great guest.
Dr. Robert Schoch on The Black Fridays!
The Black Fridays Episode 14 — Dr. Robert Schoch
Website • iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
Well, what can we say? Dr. Robert Schoch! How humbling it has been to have the guests we’ve had so far! But, this goes beyond our expectations. We talk with Dr. Schoch about his findings in Bosnia and Japan and of course his discoveries that turned the scientific world on it’s head.
Dr. Robert M. Schoch, a full-time faculty member at the College of General Studies at Boston University since 1984, earned his Ph.D. (1983) in Geology and Geophysics at Yale University. He also holds an M.S. and M.Phil. in Geology and Geophysics from Yale, as well as degrees in Anthropology (B.A.) and Geology (B.S.) from George Washington University.
Dr. Schoch is the author or coauthor of both technical and popular books, including the trilogy with R. A. McNally: Voices of the Rocks: A Scientist Looks at Catastrophes and…
Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says
Alex Morales writes on Bloomberg:
The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.
Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.
“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”
The changes can be modeled, though they’re difficult to physically detect given their small size, Gross said. Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may…
A Real Life Lex Luthor? Switzerland Geologist on Trial for ‘Causing Quakes’
A real life Lex Luthor… Was it all a real estate scam to create “beachfront” property in this land-locked country? Let’s find out. BBC News reports:
The head of a geothermal energy company has gone on trial in Switzerland accused of damaging property by triggering earthquakes. Markus Haering’s company had been working with the authorities in Basel to try to convert the heat in deep-seated rocks into electricity.
But the project was suspended in 2006 when drilling triggered the quakes.
They caused no injuries but led to $9m (£5.54m) of damage. Mr Haering denies deliberately damaging property.
The project was shut down permanently last week after a government study found that similar quakes caused by the project would lead to millions of dollars worth of damage each year.
