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Drilling under the Dead Sea through four Ice Ages [ 500K years ]
Jerusalem Post ^
| Wednesday, November 24, 2010
| Ehud Zion Waldoks
Posted on 11/24/2010 6:45:44 AM PST by SunkenCiv
An int'l research team at urging of TAU, Hebrew U. professors will drill half a kilometer to study year-by-year climate change from 500,000 years ago... The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program chose the Dead Sea as the site of its next drilling at the urging of Tel Aviv University's Prof. Zvi Ben-Avraham and the Israel Geological Survey's Dr. Mordechai Stein... sponsored by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities... "We will be taking out a vertical piece about half a kilometer long which will allow us to get a picture of climate change on a year-by-year basis going back 500,000 years," he said. Ben-Avraham heads the initiative along with Stein of the Hebrew University's Institute of Earth Sciences, and Prof. Michael Lazar of the University of Haifa is project manager. Because the surface of the Dead Sea is more than 400 meters below sea level, it is a drainage basin for water from all over Israel and beyond. That water has brought sediment along with it, which laid layer upon layer of stored geologic information throughout hundreds of thousands of years. The researchers believe the sample will reveal detailed evidence of annual rainfall, climate change, droughts, floods, dust storms, earthquakes and more over the last roughly 500,000 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; citiesoftheplain; deadsea; eberhardzangger; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; greatrift; greatriftvalley; israel; paleoclimatology; riftvalley; sodomandgomorrah; thedeadsea; thesaltsea; valleyofsiddim
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To: DManA
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.
21
posted on
11/24/2010 4:11:22 PM PST
by
Bellflower
(All meaning is in The LORD.)
To: ApplegateRanch
22
posted on
11/24/2010 6:47:26 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: DManA
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.
23
posted on
11/24/2010 7:05:41 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: gleeaikin
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.
24
posted on
11/24/2010 7:08:39 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: Bodleian_Girl
25
posted on
11/24/2010 7:08:43 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: fruser1
26
posted on
11/24/2010 7:14:00 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: bigheadfred; Spok; Bellflower; UCANSEE2; mountainlion; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Rurudyne; ...
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.
27
posted on
11/24/2010 7:15:24 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: SunkenCiv; UCANSEE2
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 its 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.
28
posted on
11/24/2010 7:52:03 PM PST
by
bigheadfred
(/s happens)
To: SunkenCiv; All
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.
To: gleeaikin
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. :')
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.
30
posted on
11/27/2010 12:56:34 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: bigheadfred
31
posted on
11/27/2010 1:17:04 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: SunkenCiv; All
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.
To: gleeaikin
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).
33
posted on
11/28/2010 6:13:37 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: SunkenCiv
OK, what’s up with the funny periodic table? Where did that come from and why?
34
posted on
11/28/2010 7:29:34 PM PST
by
Rocky
(REPEAL IT!)
To: Rocky
Well, that took a while to be noticed, eh? ;’)
35
posted on
11/28/2010 7:48:02 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: SunkenCiv
To: SunkenCiv; All
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.
To: Jet Jaguar
38
posted on
11/29/2010 4:35:41 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
To: gleeaikin
39
posted on
11/29/2010 6:31:43 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
- The Southern Greek Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Sequence at Franchthi
- The Neolithic Cultures of Thessaly, Crete, and the Cyclades
- The Eutresis and Korakou Cultures of Early Helladic I-II
- The Early Cycladic Period
- The Early Minoan Period:The Settlements
- The Early Minoan Period: The Tombs
- Western Anatolia and the Eastern Aegean in the Early Bronze Age
- The 'Lefkandi I' and Tiryns Cultures of the Early Hellaadic IIB and Early Helladic III Periods
- Middle Helladic Greece
- Middle Minoan Crete
- The First Palaces in the Aegean
- Minoan Architecture: The Palaces
- Minoan Domestic and Funerary Architecture of the Neopalatial and Post-Palatial Periods
- Late Minoan Painting and Other Representational Art: Pottery, Frescoes, Steatite Vases, Ivories, and Bronzes
- Minoan Religion
- The Shaft Graves
- Akrotiri on Thera, the Santorini Volcano and the Middle and Late Cycladic Periods in the Central Aegean Islands
- The Nature and Extent of Neopalatial Minoan Influence in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Worlds
- Mycenaean Tholos Tombs and Early Mycenaean Settlements
- Mycenaean Residential Architecture: Palaces and Ordinary Housing
- Mycenaean Public and Funerary Architecture: Fortifications, Drainage Projects, Roads, and Chamber Tombs
- Aspects of Mycenaean Trade
- Troy VI
- Mycenaean Pictorial Art and Pottery
- The Linear B Tablets and Mycenaean Social, Political, and Economic Organization
- Mycenaean and Late Cycladic Religion and Religious Architecture
- Troy VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War
- The Collapse of Mycenaean Palatial Civilization and the Coming of the Dorians
- Post-Palatial Twilight: The Aegean in the Twelfth Century B.C.
40
posted on
11/29/2010 6:41:47 PM PST
by
SunkenCiv
(The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)
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