A follow-up to this post: Henry Fountain explains further the recent evidence suggesting vast water deposits, deep below the surface of the planet. “The water is not liquid, but rather bound in minerals that exist at the extreme pressures found at such depths.”
Tag: Geology
The Oceans Below.
They dug too greedily and too deep…In a small Brazilian diamond, scientists find some potential evidence of vast reservoirs of water deep below the Earth’s surface (otherwise known as R’lyeh, where dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.) The Abyss pic above notwithstanding, “geologist Hans Keppler told Agence France-Presse that scientists should be cautious in concluding so much from such a small sample, and adds that it is likely the water is trapped in molecular form in certain rocks.” (Via High/LowIndustrial.)
400 (PPM) Blows.
Carbon concentration in the atmosphere veers dangerously close to the dubious milestone of 400 part per million. (The revised reading came out at 399.89.) “For the previous 800,000 years, CO2 levels never exceeded 300 ppm, and there is no known geologic period in which rates of increase have been so sharp. The level was about 280 ppm at the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, when the burning of fossil fuels began to soar.”
The Great Flood…and a blow to the Annalistes.
“In a period ranging from a few months to two years, the scientists say that 90% of the water was transferred into the basin. ‘This extremely abrupt flood may have involved peak rates of sea level rise in the Mediterranean of more than 10m per day,’ he and his colleagues wrote in the Nature paper.” A new study suggests that, over five million years ago and with an event called the Zanclean flood, the Mediterranean Sea may have been re-formed in as little as two years. “The team estimates the peak flow to have been around 1000 times higher than the present Amazon river at its highest rate.“
Coincidentally, two years is about as long as it takes to read Ferdinand Braudel’s seminal two-part history of the Mediterranean. Cut to the chase, man!
At the Mountains of Madness.
“‘We now know that not only are the mountains the size of the European Alps, but they also have similar peaks and valleys,’ says Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist with the British Antarctic Survey. ‘This adds even more mystery about how the vast East Antarctic ice sheet formed.’” Arctic Dreams, Antarctic nightmares…Also by way of a GSSM friend (who noted the Lovecraft angle), researchers explore the origins of the Gamburtsev mountain range, beneath the Antarctic ice. Don’t we have enough problems right now without intrepid scientists accidentally awakening the Old Ones at Kadath in the Cold Waste?
The Ground Beneath Our Feet.
“California has more than a 99% chance of having a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake within the next 30 years, according scientists using a new model to determine the probability of big quakes. The likelihood of a major quake of magnitude 7.5 or greater in the next 30 years is 46% — and such a quake is most likely to occur in the southern half of the state.” Memo to myself, re: the job hunt: Perhaps avoiding Southern California is in order…