Free Republic

Almost 2,000 years ago, a stonemason working in a limestone quarry near the hill of Mǎgura Cǎlanului in current-day Romania left behind his tools. A local resident happened upon the corroded bits of metal in 2022 and brought them to the attention of the Corvin Castle Museum in Hunedoara, according to a La Brújula Verde report. The artifacts turned out to be a complete stonemasonry toolkit, the first of its kind ever found in pre-Roman Dacia and one of the most complete kits from anywhere in Europe. The set consists of 15 different objects weighing a total of 25 pounds,...

In the desert areas of Namibia, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, research work has revealed unusual structures that are probably due to the activity of an unknown microbiological life form. Unusually small burrows, i.e., tiny tubes that run through the rock in a parallel arrangement from top to bottom, were discovered in marble and limestone of these desert regions. "We were surprised because these tubes are clearly not the result of a geological process," said Professor Cees Passchier from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), who first came across the phenomenon during geological field work in Namibia. During subsequent sample investigations, evidence...

Mexico finalized plans to take control of a port and quarry owned by Vulcan Materials Co. on its Caribbean coast, deepening tensions days before the nation’s president leaves office. Mexico finalized plans to take control of a port and quarry owned by Vulcan Materials Co. on its Caribbean coast, deepening tensions days before the nation’s president leaves office. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s administration declared the land south of the resort cities of Cancun and Playa del Carmen a natural protected area, according to a filing in the federal gazette published hours after US lawmakers sought to dissuade such a...

Something about one of the floor tiles in his parents’ newly renovated European home seemed extremely strange. That’s because the man who made the discovery, a dentist, recognized the bizarre, out-of-place object he had just found. The unusual discovery was made when Reddit user Kidipadeli75 noticed a floor tile located in a portion of the home leading out onto a patio area that seemed to have something very strange embedded in it. Naturally, he did what anyone would do in our modern era of internet sleuthing: he posted an image of the oddity online. The curious object in the photo...

Bought this because it's so odd, it was buried for 50 years plus, up in New Jersey in a carriage house under some floor boards. I have looked at it under a loop, looks like just ink on stone no dot matrix. I think the stone is soap stone, weighs 42 pounds, 12 by 16, the original etching which is easy to find was done in 1948 by Gerome Kaplin titled "the Arabs" on what I think is a 42 pound piece of soap stone. Never seen anything like it, Sotheby's is checking it out. Figured a Freeper might know.

State officials in Texas have announced the discovery of an "agent of election fraud" who was illegally submitting ballots in a Texas county. TX Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the arrest of a woman who was posing as a social worker to illegally gather and submit the ballots of elderly and disabled patients in Limestone County.

In a handful of fossilized teeth and bones, scientists say they’ve found evidence of a previously unknown human species that lived in what is now the Philippines about 50,000 years ago. The discovery deepens the mystery of an era when the world was a melting pot of many different human kinds on the move. Small-jawed with dainty teeth, able to walk upright but with feet still shaped to climb, these island creatures were a mix-and-match patchwork of primitive and advanced features in a unique variation of the human form, the scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.(Snip)

Scientists Prove Limestone Can Form Quickly BY TIM CLAREY, PH.D. * | THURSDAY, JUNE 07, 2018 Many environmentalists are concerned with the anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. Research projects are being funded across the globe to find ways to sequester the “extra” CO2 produced by these processes in an effort to save our planet. These results show that the primary minerals that compose limestone can rapidly form—easily within the timeframe of the global Flood in Genesis. One of these projects was discussed recently in an article by Valeria Perasso of the BBC News Service.1 She...

I found out about this place because of a news item about the "New 7 Wonders" of the world. It's a nominee. Now, I don't expect that I'll have any travel plans that take me to Beirut, but if for some strange reason I ended up there, I would have to see this place. I think one of the amazing things about the Internet is that it allows us to see places that we'll probably never have a chance to visit. I've posted a lot of those as these Geology Pictures of the Week. I hope I'll get to see...

Where can you go to see a cool example of nanotechnology? Well, just about everywhere. A new study reveals that plain old concrete, the most common human-made material on the planet, owes its properties to its nanoscale structure. Down the road, this new understanding could lead to novel forms of concrete that require less energy and CO2 to generate and might allow researchers to engineer its properties much as they have done with advanced steel alloys. Concrete isn't what comes to mind when most people think of nanomaterials. It's the oldest engineered construction material and was first used by the...

I saw a picture of this highly abnormal (aboriginal?) place, and decided it was quite worthy of the Christmas break Geology Picture of the Week. For added artistic content, both a black-and-white and color photo are provided. The link has neither; it's a Web site about the national park in Australia, if you're interested in going. For a better photographic treatment, look for 7 pictures of Nambung National Park on the page below, which has some other nice Australia images. (I can't link these pictures onto FR.) Perth and Western Australia

I read about Grand Gulf, Missouri in a recent "Natural History" magazine, and I admit to a minor fascination with small state-park size canyons and gulches and runs, typified by such places as Turkey Run in Indiana; Letchworth State Park (not so small) in New York; and the Flume in Franconia Notch State Park, New Hampshire -- places I've been to. This appears to be another interesting one that I've not been to. So here's a few pictures of Grand Gulf. I was away from my computer all last week and couldn't post my weekly "feature". The pictures are from...

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...

Link post: please post any commentaries on the thread below. The purpose of this post is to alert interested FReepers to the post in the General/Chat section. (Ping list membership available on request.) Geology Pictures of the Week, June 19-25: Spider Rock and Bicentennial Column

Variations on a theme (I like themes): Spider Rock, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona Bicentennial Column, Ogle Cave, New Mexico

Scientists Interrupt Search for the “Mayan Atlantis" in the Caribbean. Cuban Newpaper: GRANMA Mexico City, November 6, 2004 Forwarded by David Drewelow This story updates this prior story . - A group of scientists searching for a hypothetical “Mayan Atlantis" found a pyramid of 35 meters under the waters of the Caribbean, but it had to interrupt the mission due to technical problems, as reported by the Mexican newspaper Millenium, today. After 25 days of work in the sea, near the southwestern end of Cuba, the investigations deeper than 500 meters had to be abandoned due to problems with the...

Link post, to allow interested Free Republic readers to access the thread in the FR "chat" section, where all discussion posts should be located: Geology Picture of the Week, July 4-10, 2004: Blowing Rocks Preserve, Florida

The site (linked above) includes some 360-degree panoramas of this area, but you have to download the viewer. I didn't do that.

Link post (provided to direct interested FReepers to this article in the FR "chat" section, where any discussion should take place): Geology Picture of the Week, September 7-13, 2003