Clipmarks | amgumen's clips

Toadstool Hoodoo

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:15:36 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

This hoodoo is found in a region of the Grand Staircase National Monument known as the Paria Rimrocks. The toadstool like appearance is formed by erosion when flat blocks of hard sandstone are layered on top or softer rock. This particular hoodoo is known as 'ET'

Experts offer scaled-back sea level rise forecast

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:33:04 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

Worldwide sea levels may rise by about 2.6 to 6.6 feet by 2100 thanks to global warming, but dire predictions of larger increases seem unrealistic, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.

They examined scenarios for loss of ice from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps into the world's oceans, as well as ocean expansion simply due to rising water temperatures.

"If you look at the actual mechanics of how glaciers work, there doesn't seem to be a realistic way that we know about to get more than about 2 meters of sea level rise in the next century," Tad Pfeffer of the University of Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research,

"The real unknown right now is what we call the dynamic effect of ice not melting but just being pushed straight into the ocean," Pfeffer added, referring to pieces of ice breaking off from huge masses of ice such as glaciers and ice sheets and floating in the sea.

Germany leads 'clean coal' pilot

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:26:27 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Big questions still hang over CCS technology overall

This mini power plant is a pilot project for carbon capture and storage (CCS) - the first coal-fired plant in the world ready to capture and store its own CO2 emissions.

A cloud of pure oxygen will be breathed into the boiler. The flame will be lit. Then a cloud of powdered lignite will be injected.

The outcome will be heat, water vapour, impurities, nine tonnes of CO2 an hour, and a landmark in clean technology.

Because the CO2 will then be separated, squashed to one 500th of its original volume and squeezed into a cylinder ready to be transported to a gas field and forced 1,000m below the surface into porous rock

the problem is that the exact cost of large-scale CCS is unknown.

The latest estimates suggest CCS power will cost roughly the same as wind power - maybe 50% more than it does at the moment.

The real test of CCS, though, is not in Europe.

Mammoths moved 'out of America'

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:16:54 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Scientists have discovered that the last Siberian woolly mammoths may have originated in North America.

They believe that woolly mammoths survived through the period when the ice sheets were at their maximum, while other Ice Age mammals "crashed out".

a vast tundra plain that connected Asia and North America

about 1,000 miles from north to south at its greatest extent

was exposed and submerged as global sea levels changed during the Pleistocene

flooded and became the Bering Strait about 11,000 years ago

may have enabled migration of humans from Asia to the Americas

The expansion of North American forests may have "pushed the mammoths along", he added.

It is unclear if the Siberian mammoths experienced a "natural decline" or if they were outcompeted by the North American immigrants.

This study adds to a growing body of evidence about just how dramatic and tumultuous the Pleistocene climate actually was

Here we have evidence of local extinctions, replacements and long-distance dispersals

Socotra Island

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:13:39 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.darkroastedblend.com

this island, which is part of a group of 4 islands, has been geographically isolated from mainland Africa for the last 6 or 7 million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, this island is teeming with 700 endemic species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

The climate is harsh, hot and dry, and yet - the most amazing plant life thrives there. Situated in the Indian Ocean 250 km from Somalia and 340 km from Yemen, the wide sandy beaches rise to limestone plateaus full of caves (some 7 kilometers in length) and mountains up to 1525 meters high.

We begin with the dracena cinnibaris or Dragon's Blood Tree, the source of valuable resin for varnishes, dyes, and "cure-all" medicine; also (predictably) used in medieval ritual magic and alchemy -

The branches spread out into the sky and from below appear to hover over the landscape like so many flying saucers... and from above they have a distinct mushroom look:

Al Hajarah, Yemen - Walled city in the mist

The Round Ice

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:34:42 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: englishrussia.com

Recently a lot of strange round-ice formations have been met in Russia. People don’t know what causes ice to form first big ice circles and then ones of smaller size appear around the mother-formation.

Russian Digging

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 03:18:44 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: englishrussia.com

Just taking a step to any village outskirts and digging a few feet deep inside the soil would reveal tons of the things laying there since World War II. Almost all the territory of Western Russia was a battlefield so if you ever go to Russia you don’t need to pay a visit to an antique store, you can start digging at any place and get your part of loot.

LZ's Houses of the Holy and Giant's Causeway

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:20:51 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: slorker.com

Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album cover

featured the Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage site located in the northeast coast of Northern Ireland. It’s area is made up of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns… the steps you see are the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. Discovered in 1692 and announced to the world, it became a popular tourist attraction ever since the 19th century.

Basalt columns are actually a common volcanic feature and you can see it in many other places like Armenia, New Zealand, Russia and California. I’ve seen a few of them but the Giant’s causeway seems to be most impressive. Here are some pictures of them. Definitely a place to visit in Ireland.

The Scare and the Truth

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:22:54 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: scienceandpublicpolicy.org

The scare:

The science of climate change is complex; however the weight of scientific evidence shows that ‘global warming’ caused by human actions is happening now

The truth:

Since 1998 no new annual temperature record has been set. Since late 2001, linear-regression trends for all four of the major global-temperature datasets have been downward (Figure 1). The drop in temperature between January 2007 and January 2008 was the greatest since instrumental records began in 1880. Whatever else is happening in the climate, “global warming” is not “happening now” and has not been happening for a decade. No new annual global-temperature record is expected until 2015 (Keenlyside et al., 2008). Not one of the computer models predicted this long period of global cooling. In the month of June 2008, exactly 20 years after James Hansen’s forecast to Congress that global temperatures would rise sharply, global temperatures were actually cooler than they had been when he made the forecast in June 1988.

Weirdly wonderful blue clouds

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:55:17 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

Polar Mesospheric Clouds (also known as noctilucent clouds) are transient, upper atmospheric phenomena observed usually in the summer months at high latitudes (greater than 50 degrees) of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. This image was acquired at an altitude of just over 200 miles

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

The noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds are at an altitude of 47 to 53 miles (76 to 85 km), where meteors and bright aurora lights are not uncommon and the atmosphere gives way to the blackness of space. The clouds remain a scientifically baffling phenomenon more than 120 years after their discovery.

The clouds form at dizzying heights where the air is one hundred million times drier than the Sahara. By contrast, the common high-altitude cirrus clouds only reach heights of 11 miles (18 km) up.

People first spotted the noctilucent clouds a few years after the 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa super-volcano in Indonesia

We're just trying to understand now how clouds form and how they vary

The question is extremely simple

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 03:20:13 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.iceagenow.com

“So my question is extremely simple, we know temperature goes up and down. We know there is tremendous amount of natural variations, but for how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand -- we politicians and scientists-- that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" the scientist asked to applause from the audience.

Gee was perhaps one of the most prominent and accomplished scientists attending the conference in Oslo. Gee, currently a professor at Dept. for Geosciences of Uppsala University in Sweden, was awarded the European Geosciences Union award for his scientific leadership of EUROPROBE, a multidisciplinary research project that brought hundreds of senior scientists, postdocs and doctoral students together to study tectonic structures within Europe.

Yeah, I'm fine... what about you?

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:03:30 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.darkroastedblend.com

Obsidian

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 04:19:52 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: flickr.com

Clip Source: www.finescience.com

For applications where an extremely fine cutting action is required or for studies where trace metals from ordinary scalpel blades cannot be tolerated, these very special obsidian scalpels may provide the answer. They are so fine that they are used in human surgical procedures where objectionable scar tissue might result from the use of a coarser scalpel. The blade is made from obsidian a type of volcanic glass which allows a much finer blade than is possible with the conventional steel blade. In some cases this makes the relatively inexpensive obsidian scalpel a suitable substitute for an expensive diamond knife. Patterned after "stone-age" knives which first made their appearance about 18,000 years ago, these modern versions utilize hard maple wood dowelling for handles and a special epoxy coating. This seals the joint between the blade and the handle, and enables the knife to be autoclaved.

Russia may cut off oil flow to the West

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 21:19:06 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Fears are mounting that Russia may restrict oil deliveries to Western Europe over coming days, in response to the threat of EU sanctions and Nato naval actions in the Black Sea.

Reports have begun to circulate in Moscow that Russian oil companies are under orders from the Kremlin to prepare for a supply cut to Germany and Poland through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. It is believed that executives from lead-producer LUKoil have been put on weekend alert.

Any evidence that the Kremlin is planning to use the oil weapon to intimidate the West could inflame global energy markets. US crude prices jumped to $119 a barrel yesterday on reports of hurricane warnings in the Gulf of Mexico, before falling back slightly.

Armed with $580bn of foreign reserves (the world's third largest), Russia appears willing to risk its reputation as a reliable actor on the international stage in order to pursue geo-strategic ambitions.

We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War," said

'Lost towns' discovered in Amazon

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:54:50 GMT

clipped by: amgumen

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A remote area of the Amazon river basin was once home to densely populated towns, Science journal reports.

Researchers found evidence of a grid-like pattern of settlements connected by road networks and arranged around large central plaza

There are signs of farming, wetland management, and possibly fish farms.

Like medieval European and ancient Greek towns, those forming the Amazonian urban landscape were surrounded by large walls. These were composed of earthworks, the remains of which have survived.

Each community had an identical road, always pointing north-east to south-west, which are connected to a central plaza

Evidence was found of dams and artificial ponds

The people who once lived in the settlements are thought to have been wiped out by European colonists and the diseases they brought with them.