Clipmarks | amgumen's clips

Spectacular views of the chaotic terrain on Mars

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:37:41 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

They cover 225 x 95 km or 21.375 sq km, an area roughly half the size of the Netherlands.

The upper portion of the image swath shows the eastern margin of Kasei Valles and the western margin of the Lunae Planum plateau and the adjoining Sacra Fossae. Kasei Valles is one of the largest outflow channels on Mars, spanning 3000 km, from the Chryse Planitia basin in the north to Echus Chasma to the south.

Sacra Fossae is a fault system that extends for more than 1000 km. It is several hundred metres deep

The images show an old 35 km-diameter impact crater in the north. The crater’s south-western rim is eroded strongly. The erosion is caused mostly by flowing water. The source of the water was located in Echus Chasma, which lies roughly 850 km to the southwest.

The crater floor and the northwestern part of the imaged region are remarkably flat and have been formed by sediments and basaltic lava flows originating from the Tharsis volcanic region.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:28:21 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Scientists probing the Earth's interior have found a large reservoir of water equal to the volume of the Arctic Ocean beneath eastern Asia. The left figure is a slice through the Earth, taken from the figure on the right, showing the attenuation anomalies within the mantle at a depth of roughly 620 miles. In both images, red shows unusually soft and weak rock believed to be saturated with water, and the blue shows unusually stiff rock (yellow and white show near-average values)

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Water covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface and one of its many functions is to act like a lubricant for the movement of continental plates.

“Look at our sister planet, Venus,” Wysession said. “It is very hot and dry inside Venus, and Venus has no plate tectonics. All the water probably boiled off, and without water, there are no plates. The system is locked up, like a rusty Tin Man with no oil.”

Undersea Eruption in Stereo

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:13 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfwzSUOFhLY&feature=related

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Undersea Eruption Now in Stereo

Video Undersea volcano erupts near Tonga in Pacific ocean

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:01:23 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Giant Crack in Africa

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:34:48 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.rochester.edu

In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia.

For the first time they demonstrate that activity on one rift segment can trigger a major episode of magma injection and associated deformation on a neighboring segment. Careful study of the 2005 mega-dike intrusion and its aftermath will continue to provide extraordinary opportunities for learning about continental rifts and mid-ocean ridges."

2005 event that led to the giant rift opening more than 20 feet in width in just days.

Ayele's reconstruction of events showed that the rift did not open in a series of small earthquakes over an extended period of time, but tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. A volcano called Dabbahu at the northern end of the rift erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began "unzipping" the rift in both directions, says Ebinger.

Clip Source: www.rochester.edu

A New Photo of Enceladus' Volcanoes

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:31:15 GMT

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Clip Source: ciclops.org

This raw, unprocessed image of Enceladus was taken by Cassini on Nov. 2, 2009.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 2, 2009 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 930 nanometers.

Fossil Spiders 3D Imaging

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:19:18 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: geology.com

The researchers created their images by using a CT scanning device, which enabled them to take 3,000 x-rays of each fossil. These x-rays were then compiled into precise 3D models, using custom-designed software.

Both Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestivicii were around the size of a 50 pence piece and they roamed the Earth during the Carboniferous period, 359 - 299 million years ago. This was a time before the dinosaurs, when life was emerging from the oceans to live on land. During this period, the world's continents were merging together near the equator to form one supercontinent and the first tropical rainforests were playing host to a diverse range of species.

it used its legs to grab its prey before killing them.

Cryptomartus hindi was an ambush predator, living in logs and fronds, waiting for prey such as insects to walk by before catching and killing them.

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:51:12 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so. The new ocean would connect to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, an arm of the Arabian Sea between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia in eastern Africa.

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of in bits, as the leading theory held. And such sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events

The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.

The whole point of this study is to learn whether what is happening in Ethiopia is like what is happening at the bottom of the ocean where it's almost impossible for us to go

The African and Arabian plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia and have been spreading apart in a rifting process - at a speed of less than 1 inch per year - for the past 30 million years. This rifting formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea.

An Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:57:06 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: Studies of a variety of natural processes, including ocean cycles and solar variability, indicate that they can account for variations in the Earth’s climate on the time scale of decades and centuries. Current climate models appear insufficiently reliable to properly account for natural and anthropogenic contributions to past climate change, much less project future climate.

The APS supports an objective scientific effort to understand the effects of all processes – natural and human --on the Earth’s climate and the biosphere’s response to climate change, and promotes technological options for meeting challenges of future climate changes, regardless of cause.

List of 160 signers of the APS petition available

Clip Source: www.openletter-globalwarming.info

As physicists who are familiar with the science issues, and as current and past members of the American Physical Society, we the undersigned urge the Council to revise its current statement* on climate change as follows, so as to more accurately represent the current state of the science:

Greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, accompany human industrial and agricultural activity. While substantial concern has been expressed that emissions may cause significant climate change

measured or reconstructed temperature records indicate that 20th 21st century changes are neither exceptional nor persistent, and the historical and geological records show many periods warmer than today. In addition, there is an extensive scientific literature that examines beneficial effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide for both plants and animals.

global temperature variations are dictated by ENSO

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:45:27 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: Observations indicate that global temperature rise has slowed in the last decade. The least squares trend for January 1999 to December 2008 calculated from the HadCRUT3 dataset (Brohan et al. 2006) is +0.07±0.07°C decade–1—much less than the 0.18°C decade–1 recorded between 1979 and 2005.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation is a strong driver of interannual global mean temperature variations. ENSO and non-ENSO ontributions can be separated by the method of Thompson et al. The trend in the ENSO-related component for 1999–2008 is +0.08±0.07°C decade–1, fully accounting for the overall observed trend. The trend after removing ENSO (the "ENSO-adjusted" trend) is 0.00°±0.05°C decade–1, implying much greater disagreement with anticipated global temperature rise.

Clip Source: nds.coi.gov.uk

14 September 2009

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A pdf version of the paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Tags: el-nino

The Big Chill

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 03:50:03 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

The Big Chill

Channels associated with impact craters discovered on Mars

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:03:00 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: If a significant amount of water was released or mobilized by the formation of the Hale Crater impact, larger impacts that formed during the early days of the Solar System may have been able to bring even more water to the surface of Mars. If this is true, a long-term, stable, warm and wet climate may not be required to explain the presence of such channels in the ancient Martian landscapes.

Clip Source: hirise.lpl.arizona.edu

Channels associated with impact craters were once thought to be quite rare. Scientists proposed a variety of unusual circumstances to explain them, such as impacts by comets or precipitation caused by the impact event. As more of Mars is photographed with high-resolution imagery, more craters surrounded by channel systems are being discovered.

The channels in this HiRISE image are from Hale Crater, an exceptionally well-preserved 125 x 150 kilometer (approximately 78 x 93 mile) impact crater located on the northern rim of the Argyre Basin. Hale Crater is roughly 170 kilometers (100 miles) to the southeast.

The channels in this subimage are up to about 250 meters (820 feet) across, though most are much smaller. The channels appear to emanate directly from Hale’s ejecta, and were likely formed by the impact event. The heat of the impact could have melted large amounts of subsurface ice, and generated surface runoff capable of carving the channels.

Clip Source: hirise.lpl.arizona.edu

Capitan Reef

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:04:36 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: Over millions of years, segments of the Capitan Reef were uplifted, and much of the sediment was eroded away from the more resistant limestone reef materials. The Guadalupe Mountains, stretching to the northeast from El Capitan in Texas to near Carlsbad, New Mexico, are one of these uplifted portions of the reef. The southern end of the range is included within Guadalupe Mountains National Park. As this uplift continued, groundwater that supported some of the material in many of the caverns drained away, and material collapsed to form large underground chambers, such as those in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Because the reef was built, in large part, through the accumulation of dead marine organisms that incorporated calcium carbonate into their structures, fossils are abundant in the reef deposits throughout the exposed portions of the Guadalupe Mountains.

Clip Source: www.fhsu.edu

Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas, and Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico, both incorporate features of the Capitan Reef within their boundaries. About 250 million years ago, West Texas and southwestern New Mexico were covered by an embayment of a tropical Permian sea. Unlike modern reefs, which are built primarily by corals and their symbionts, Capitan Reef was built by sponges, algae, and other organisms that incorporated "lime" into their structures. These organisms thrived in the shallow waters near the coast, and, as they died, their calcium carbonate structures accumulated on the sea floor. Deposits of these organisms, along with calcium carbonate precipitated from the water, built the horseshoe-shaped reef that paralleled the ancient shoreline of the embayment, separated from the land by a relatively shallow lagoon.

El Capitan, Capitan Reef, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas

Natural Entrance, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

Previous and Future (2080) Met Office predictions

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:49:52 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Summer 2009

Prediction: “Barbecue summer” with high temperatures and no more than average amounts of rainfall.

Result: The wettest July in almost century. However, there were days in which the temperature peaked above 86F (30C).

Winter 2008

Prediction: A mild and dry season, with a few strong chilly spells.

Result: The eighth-warmest January ever recorded. The mild conditions during the winter even led to flowers and wildlife, including snowdrops and red admiral butterflies, making unseasonably early appearances.

Summer 2007

Prediction: High temperatures and no indications that it would be a particularly wet summer.

Result: The summer of 2007 was one of the wettest since records began. June and July saw major flooding across parts of England and Wales.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Global warming to push London temperatures up to 105F

could regularly see temperatures of 105F (41C) and south-west England could be hot enough to grow grapes and sunflowers, according to a map of how climate change will affect Britain in 2080.

Most important historical events of the Vikings in Greenland:

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:15:57 GMT

clipped by: amgumen
clipper's remarks: After excavations of 2,400 Viking objects there is no longer any doubt that the Vikings discovered America long before Columbus.

Read more about The Norse History of Greenland 982-1500 on the site
http://www.greenland-guide.gl/leif2000/history.htm

Clip Source: www.greenland-guide.gl

In the 960s Erik the Red, a fiery Norwegian, was exiled from his home in Norway. He went to Iceland, where he married Thjodhildur. He was later banished from there for three years. Erik headed west and discovered a land with an inviting fjord landscape and fertile, green valleys. He was greatly impressed by the land's resources, and he returned to Iceland and spoke about this land, which he called "the green land".
In 986 he set out from Iceland at the head of 25 ships, heading for Greenland. There were 500 men and women on board. Of the 25 ships only 14 reached their destination.

The Vikings founded Brattahlid and the two hamlets of Vesterbygden and Østerbygden. Around the year 1000 the population was approx. 3,000, living in 300-400 farms. This small community survived for 500 years. Why they disappeared is still a great mystery.

The oldest known European colony in the New World is the Viking settlement of L'Anse-aux-Meadows in northwest Newfoundland, Canada.

Norse ruins at Brattahlid.