Drilling under the Dead Sea through four Ice Ages [ 500K years ]

Jerusalem Post ^ | Wednesday, November 24, 2010 | Ehud Zion Waldoks

[Bellflower]

It bemuses me that Big Media always prints articles about experiments that are ABOUT to be done. But rarely prints articles with the RESULTS.

Makes you wonder what facts they don't like.

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[SunkenCiv]

It'll be interesting if they *do* print results, but it does seem as if follow-up is generally poor. While I was still in my teens (pre-20), one of my old science teachers mentioned a then-current article (a blurb, really, one or two paragraphs) in Time or Newsweek about discovery of some previously unknown heavy elements in a piece of African mica -- IOW, naturally occurring stable elements in the 120s somewhere -- and bemoaned the very same thing, 35 years ago, that there was never any followup. Of course, he shouldn't have been relying on Time or Newsweek anyway.

A while back now I tracked down a vintage article about this find, because frankly I'd not thought of it between that time and the teacher's diatribe. I wonder what I named it? I'm trying to find it on the hard drives. Hmm, nothin'. In any case, if such a discovery had been upheld, I think we'd have read about it by now, other than the possibility that elements (even stable ones) of that mass would be easy to fission, making miniature nuclear fission reactors (and bombs I suppose) practical for the first time.

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[SunkenCiv]

The Dead Sea is separated from the Med and from the Red by ridgelines approximately 600 m tall (I think that info’s in the V piece, I just didn’t quote it, other than citing it from my fallible memory). So, IOW, that would be a big splash. :’) Also, boloid strikes on the oceans IMO are the mechanism for glaciation in the first place, with tsunamis being a pretty minor sideshow.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fruser1.

[SunkenCiv]

One of my favorite reprises, haven't used it in a while:

Caves reveal clues to UK weather
by Tom Heap

At Pooles Cavern in Derbyshire, it was discovered that the stalagmites grow faster in the winter months when it rains more. Alan Walker, who guides visitors through the caves, says the changes in rainfall are recorded in the stalactites and stalagmites like the growth rings in trees. Stalagmites from a number of caves have now been analysed by Dr Andy Baker at Newcastle University. After splitting and polishing the rock, he can measure its growth precisely and has built up a precipitation history going back thousands of years. His study suggests this autumn's rainfall is not at all unusual when looked at over such a timescale but is well within historic variations. He believes politicians find it expedient to blame a man-made change in our weather rather than addressing the complex scientific picture.

I like that closing sentence -- "future decision-making could be made based on scientific data and not on political expediency". I wouldn't count on it, but that would be great.

[bigheadfred]

I like that closing sentence -- "future decision-making could be made based on scientific data and not on political expediency". I wouldn't count on it, but that would be great.

Interesting. I wonder, after they technologically devise the best translation, how long it will take to convince people it’s correct?

Never mind me. Things ARE looking up. I used to hang with Alice. But that Red friend of hers made me quite, quite, nervous.

[gleeaikin]

Although boloid strikes in the ocean might trigger glaciation, any major tsunamis could be the death blow to a developed civilization if the bulk of the educated and craftspeople inhabited the shoreline. With glaciation, they would have time to move out of the way. With a tsunami, gone in an instant.

I saw a recent show postulating that this is what happened to Crete. A Thera tsunami destroyed the Minoan ports, shipyards, and shipbuilders. When the craft which survived at sea came home, there was no one to maintain them property or build many new ones. Thus from 100 to 200 years later, the Minoan civilization went into eclipse.

[SunkenCiv]

Glaciation due to impact would reach well into the interior and would be sudden; tsunamis from impact would be secondary, and depending on how the sealevel declined, might not hit much of anything. My point was, there wouldn't be anything left to hit. :')

There was no Thera tsunami; the dating for the supposed supereruption (for which there isn't any evidence dating to historical or late prehistoric times) is now far too early to have had anything to do with the end of Minoan civ. Even the old alleged date, ca. 1500 BC, was at least 80 years before the quite sudden end. The Mycenaeans overran everything Minoan, that's the reason for their disappearance.

The pumice sample from Egypt that had for years been saddled on as proof for both the extent and date of the Thera eruption turned out (when it was finally analyzed, guess no one was in a rush) to be from the Kos volcano, which hasn't erupted in tens of thousands of years. The pro-supereruption camp immediately and quite perversely claimed that its origin undermined the short chronology, while in fact it points to the fact that there's no scientific basis for their belief that there was such a supereruption in the first place. :')

• New Ice-Core Evidence Challenges the 1620s age for the Santorini (Minoan) Eruption [2004 ]

another reprise:

"Even when, during the respective Thera Conferences, individual scientists had pointed out that the magnitude and significance of the Thera eruption must be estimated as less than previously thought, the conferences acted to strengthen the original hypothesis. The individual experts believed that the arguments advanced by their colleagues were sound, and that the facts of a natural catastrophe were not in doubt... All three factors reflect a fantasy world rather than cool detachment, which is why it so difficult to refute the theory with rational arguments." -- Eberhard Zangger, "The Future of the Past: Archaeology in the 21st Century", pp 49-50.

[SunkenCiv]

Alice D? ;’)

[gleeaikin]

The date I read most recently for Thera was 1626 BC. My suggestion that in 100 to 200 years, the remaining ships would be gone, and few rebuilt fits within the time frame to final collapse, which was probably caused by an invasion by mainland Myceneans. Regarding the date 1500 BC, there was a major eruption of Mt. Etna listed as 1500 BC, + - 50 years. I don’t know if there is more recent info on the actual date, but I have always wondered what impact that eruption might have had in the region.

[SunkenCiv]

The update is, there was no eruption of Thera, apart from the attested one circa 200 BC. There wasn’t a tsunami. Even the caldera seen today was there for tens of thousands of years. It is strange to me how this has persisted. Zangger notes that the first suggestion of such a culture-shifting eruption apparently comes from late in the 19th c (Evans didn’t start excavation until 1900). It was picked up on in the 1930s (when the Atlantis connection was added, if memory serves), revived again in the 1960s, and periodically ever since (generally equated with Atlantis).

[Rocky]

OK, what’s up with the funny periodic table? Where did that come from and why?

[SunkenCiv]

Well, that took a while to be noticed, eh? ;’)

[Jet Jaguar]

?

[gleeaikin]

A few years ago, I bought a whole book on the Thera eruption. I never got a chance to read it. If I can locate it I will see what kind of references and test data it has and let you know.

[SunkenCiv]

Heh heh...

[SunkenCiv]

a little of this, a little of that, interesting site:

http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/chronololy/
http://www.therafoundation.org/articles/volcanology/

[SunkenCiv]

The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean

1. The Southern Greek Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Sequence at Franchthi
2. The Neolithic Cultures of Thessaly, Crete, and the Cyclades
3. The Eutresis and Korakou Cultures of Early Helladic I-II
4. The Early Cycladic Period
5. The Early Minoan Period:The Settlements
6. The Early Minoan Period: The Tombs
7. Western Anatolia and the Eastern Aegean in the Early Bronze Age
8. The 'Lefkandi I' and Tiryns Cultures of the Early Hellaadic IIB and Early Helladic III Periods
9. Middle Helladic Greece
10. Middle Minoan Crete
11. The First Palaces in the Aegean
12. Minoan Architecture: The Palaces
13. Minoan Domestic and Funerary Architecture of the Neopalatial and Post-Palatial Periods
14. Late Minoan Painting and Other Representational Art: Pottery, Frescoes, Steatite Vases, Ivories, and Bronzes
15. Minoan Religion
16. The Shaft Graves
17. Akrotiri on Thera, the Santorini Volcano and the Middle and Late Cycladic Periods in the Central Aegean Islands
18. The Nature and Extent of Neopalatial Minoan Influence in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Worlds
19. Mycenaean Tholos Tombs and Early Mycenaean Settlements
20. Mycenaean Residential Architecture: Palaces and Ordinary Housing
21. Mycenaean Public and Funerary Architecture: Fortifications, Drainage Projects, Roads, and Chamber Tombs
22. Aspects of Mycenaean Trade
23. Troy VI
24. Mycenaean Pictorial Art and Pottery
25. The Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Social, Political, and Economic Organization
26. Mycenaean and Late Cycladic Religion and Religious Architecture
27. Troy VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War
28. The Collapse of Mycenaean Palatial Civilization and the Coming of the Dorians
29. Post-Palatial Twilight: The Aegean in the Twelfth Century B.C.