Free Republic

We live in a world created in 1945. The United States is the world’s dominant political, economic, and military power. We treat those facts as if they are somehow immutable. They are not. We are standing on the brink of losing it all. The Biden administration continues to blunder forward with its reckless policy of escalation in Ukraine treating the entire enterprise as if it were a video game of some sort. There are in the minds of these men and women no consequences for their actions. Only the other side takes losses. Only the other side feels pain. ......

An Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip destroyed a Hamas tunnel giving frogmen unseen access to the sea from their base, the Israeli army said Sunday. Army spokesman Jonathan Conricus told reporters that the tunnel, the first of its kind discovered by Israeli intelligence, was hit on June 3 in the north of the strip as Israeli aircraft pounded over a dozen militant targets in Gaza. He said it was probable there were more like it not yet located by Israel.“We continue to monitor using all our operational, technical and intelligence capabilities that we have at our disposal,” he...

Map of the planned Turkish Stream (Wikipedia). Russia’s Gazprom has begun constructing the first stage of the Turkish Stream pipeline that will run gas from southern Russia across the Black Sea to Turkey, Reuters reported on Sunday.Switzerland’s Allseas Group S.A has begun laying pipes on the Russian shore of Black Sea. The pipeline will when completed by the end of 2019 allow the state-owned Gazprom company to send gas direct to southern Europe through the Turkish Stream while bypassing Ukraine.The Turkish Stream intergovernmental agreement was signed in October 2016 after having been halted for almost a year following the shootdown...

<p>SYDNEY—The search for Malaysia Airlines 3786.KU 0.00% Flight 370 might be delayed up to six weeks by negotiations with civilian contractors that have equipment that can scan deep trenches in the southern Indian Ocean, according to a person familiar with the investigation.</p>

Swedish scientists plan to explore a mystery ripped straight from the “The X-Files.” Rather than Mulder and Scully, this adventure features Swedish researchers Peter Lindberg and Dennis Asberg. They too know the truth is out there -- and in mere days plan to visit what they call the “Baltic Anomaly.” Last summer, while on a treasure hunt between Sweden and Finland, the pair and their research associates made headlines worldwide with the discovery of a 200-foot wide unidentified object at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Now a team of oceanographers, engineers and deep sea divers will return to the...

Slideshow of fascinating undersea creatures

Pemex says there are billions of untapped barrels in Mexico's deep waters. But it lacks the capital and know-how to go after them. A bill being pushed by President Felipe Calderon's administration would make it easier for Pemex to hire the expertise it needs. But deep-water projects cost billions and can take a decade to come on line. Oil majors typically want a share of any crude that they find -- a standard industry practice forbidden by Mexico's constitution.

An enormous underwater landslide 60,000 years ago produced the longest flow of sand and mud yet found on Earth. The landslide off the coast of north-west Africa dumped 225 billion metric tonnes of sediment into the ocean in a matter of hours or days. The flow travelled 1,500km (932 miles) - the distance from London to Rome - before depositing its sediment. The work, by a British team of researchers has been published in the academic journal Nature. The massive surge put down the same amount of sediment that comes out of all the world's rivers combined over a period...

Undersea expedition finds 'promising' data GALVESTON, Texas, March 11 (UPI) -- A submarine expedition to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico has returned with "promising" clues regarding an ancient undersea shoreline there. Anthropologist David Robinson told the Houston Chronicle that the expedition at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary yielded some significant data, yet was hesitant to say the area was 20,000 years old. "We found an area that looks like a promising place to do further research," he said of the 6-mile-long studied area. The study also marked the first use of some new vital undersea technology...

Dating a massive undersea slide Sid Perkins From San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union Pieces of moss buried in debris deposits along the Norwegian coast have enabled geologists to better peg the date of an ancient tsunami and the immense underwater landslide that triggered it. Carbon dating of the newly unearthed moss suggests that the landslide occurred about 8,100 years ago. Sometime after the end of the last ice age, the largest landslide known to geologists took place off the coast of Norway. Called the Storegga slide, this slump of seafloor sediments included about 3,000 cubic...

Existence of under-sea temple claimed By: Prasaad Bhosekar Visakhapatnam, July 03: Archaeologists in Visakhapatnam claim that a centuries-old temple exists two kilometers from Visakhapatnam coast, on the sea bed. While the coastal city of Visakhapatnam is steeped in history, few know that there was a temple called “Visakeswara Temple” on the coast of the city. Many centuries ago this temple went under the sea due to geological adjustments. According to Professor Gangadharam, who is working on facts regarding this temple, the temple existed centuries ago, but got submerged in the sea. ``From the research I did, I found out that...

Think of it as the Mars Rover but at the bottom of the ocean, remotely exploring our own planet's most alien landscape for scientists back at mission control. "This is how the science is going to be done," said Deborah Kelley, a University of Washington oceanographer. In 2000, Kelley led an expedition using a manned submersible to explore the deep Atlantic Ocean. Her team stumbled upon something never seen before. The researchers discovered a startlingly massive collection of limestone towers located miles away from the tectonic "spreading" cracks in the seafloor that typically produce such structures. Some of these hydrothermal...

Japan blasts China for carrying out undersea surveys AP , TOKYO Saturday, Mar 26, 2005,Page 1 Japan yesterday accused China of illegally conducting undersea surveys in its territory 22 times last year, including nine surveys near two Pacific Ocean islets at the center of a dispute between the two countries over resources. Meanwhile, a delegation from a Japanese nongovernment group yesterday steamed toward the Okinotorishima islets to study the possibility of building a lighthouse it hopes would strengthen Japan's foothold there. In a statement, Japan's Foreign Ministry said China had illegally conducted undersea surveys inside Japan's special economic zone 22...

Five-star luxury on the ocean floor: undersea hotel planned in the Bahamas 2 hours, 23 minutes ago Offbeat - AFP MIAMI (AFP) - Anyone willing to dish out 1,500 dollars a night might soon get a chance to come face to face with sharks from the comfort of an undersea hotel room a Florida entrepreneur plans to build in the Bahamas. AFP/DDP/File Photo "People who are interested in experiencing something they can't find anywhere else in the world will find it a real bargain," says Bruce Jones who heads the 40-million-dollar project. To date, there is only one such underwater...

NOAA and Partners Survey "Flying Boat" Crash Sites Dec. 14, 2004 — A watery grave off the Hawaiian coast is yielding answers about World War II-era aircraft and ships. Explorer-researchers from NOAA and the University of Hawaii joined with colleagues from the National Park Service on an ocean mission off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, to document sites where historic seaplanes, or flying boats, rest on the ocean floor. The joint-agency team surveyed an area around the site of a Japanese mini-submarine that was discovered by NOAA and the University of Hawaii in 2002. NOAA marine archaeologists conducted two...

Link post, to bring attention to the posting in the FR "chat" section, where all discussion and comments should be posted: Geology Picture of the Week, May 23-30, 2004: Undersea asphalt volcanoes

Now for something somewhat different: From this page: The Lost City Hydrothermal Field From this site (also in the Source URL above) Lost City Expedition

July 24 — In a new study, researchers speculate that a towering undersea hot-water chimney laden with microbes is just the sort of place that might have spawned life on Earth or even other planets. THE HYDROTHERMAL VENT SYSTEM discovered two years ago has now been found to have endured for 30,000 years. Researchers said similar setups — on Earth and possibly on other worlds — might last millions of years and could have been incubators for the first life. The Lost City, as it has been named, is a craggy column of minerals and microbes sitting 2,500 feet below...

January 28, 2003 Shipwreck in the Gulf Clings Tenaciously to its MysteriesBy KENNETH CHANG BOARD THE RYLAN T, off Louisiana — Those who believe in ghosts might conclude that those aboard a shipwreck at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico do not want to be disturbed. For nearly two centuries, the ship has lain under a half-mile of water, forgotten until ExxonMobil, by infinitesimal chance, bisected it with an oil pipeline two years ago. Marine archaeologists at Texas A&M University saw it as an opportunity to use undersea technology to uncover maritime history. With robotic submarines able to...

Exclusive Morien Institute interview with - Dr Paul Weinzweig - Advanced Digital Communications Havana, Cuba On May 28 2002 National Geographic News reported on the many recent discoveries underwater on the coastal shelves around the world. The story focussed on the recent discovery of megalithic ruins some 2,200 ft below sea level off the coast of Cuba, interviewing geologist, Manuel Iturralde, the Director of Research at Cuba's Natural History Museum. He is the Consulting Geologist for the Canadian exploration company, Advanced Digital Communications (ADC), based in Havana, Cuba, which discovered the megalithic formations It has been suggested that what...