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Keyword: stalactites

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  • Deep Underground Lies the World’s Largest Musical Instrument

    02/16/2024 4:27:26 PM PST · by nickcarraway · 16 replies
    Far Out Magazine ^ | Fri 16 February 2024 | Jordan Potter
    Deep underground, encased by the rolling hills of North Virginia, lies a subterranean paradise and musical marvel. The Luray Caverns boast the most extensive cave system in the eastern United States, but for the millions of visitors who flock there each year, it’s not just the beautiful rock formations that reel them in. These natural walls also house the eerie vibrations that emanate from the world’s largest musical instrument. Locked away, deep in the labyrinthine passages of the Luray Caverns, is The Great Stalacpipe Organ. This instrument is a natural wonder that brings a new meaning to “rock music”. The...
  • Study finds Australian caves are up to 500,000 years older than we thought, and it could explain a megafauna mystery

    09/27/2022 10:03:41 AM PDT · by LibWhacker · 18 replies
    Phys.org ^ | 9/27/2022 | Rieneke Weij, Jon Woodhead, Kale Sniderman and Liz Reed
    South Australia's Naracoorte Caves is one of the world's best fossil sites, containing a record spanning more than half a million years. Among the remains preserved in layers of sand are the bones of many iconic Australian megafauna species that became extinct between 48,000 and 37,000 years ago.The reasons for the demise of these megafauna species are intensely debated. But the older the fossils we can find, the better we can understand the species' evolution and extinction.To date, determining the precise age of the caves has been difficult. However our research demonstrates, for the first time, how old Naracoorte's caves...
  • Droughts in the sixth century paved the way for Islam

    06/19/2022 9:18:11 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 14 replies
    Heritage Daily ^ | University of Basel
    Extreme dry conditions contributed to the decline of the ancient South Arabian kingdom of Himyar... the droughts left behind a region in disarray, thereby creating the conditions on the Arabian peninsula that made possible the spread of the newly emerging religion of Islam.On the plateaus of Yemen, traces of the Himyarite Kingdom can still be found today: terraced fields and dams formed part of a particularly sophisticated irrigation system, transforming the semi-desert into fertile fields. Himyar was an established part of South Arabia for several centuries.However, despite its former strength, during the sixth century AD the kingdom entered into a...
  • Cave stalagmites show that flooding destroyed Liangzhu City: How an ancient Chinese culture met its end

    12/12/2021 11:25:06 AM PST · by SunkenCiv · 7 replies
    Cosmos Magazine ^ | November 25, 2021 | Ellen Phiddian
    The Liangzhu excavation site, on the Yangtze River Delta, southwest of Shanghai in China, is home to the remains of a 5,300-year-old civilisation. Liangzhu City was once an advanced culture, with hydraulic infrastructure including dams, reservoirs and canals. Despite not having metals, the Neolithic people of Liangzhu operated a complex water system that allowed agriculture to flourish. There is still much to learn about Liangzhu, which was only declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. It was inhabited for 1,000 years, but it’s still not entirely clear what caused the city’s downfall, which was thought to be abrupt... Moisture...
  • 4,300 Years of Bat Poop From The Depths of a Jamaican Cave Have Revealed Earth's Past

    04/14/2021 9:06:08 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 53 replies
    https://www.sciencealert.com ^ | 14 APRIL 2021 | DAVID NIELD
    The cave entrance. (Chris Grooms) You may not give a pile of bat poop gathered over 4,300 years a second look – but to a group of scientists, it's provided an intriguing insight into how bat diets and therefore climate conditions have shifted over thousands of years. Taller than the average man (2 meters or 6-and-a-half feet), the pile of poop (also known as guano) records history in clear layers, much like sediments under a lake. By analyzing the layers back through time, the scientists have been able to figure out changes in the diets of the bats that have...
  • A Shocking Find in a Neanderthal Cave in France ( inhabited 176,000 years ago )

    09/29/2020 3:54:54 PM PDT · by Candor7 · 60 replies
    The Atlantic ^ | May 25, 2016 | Ed Yong
    ..............After drilling into the stalagmites and pulling out cylinders of rock, the team could see an obvious transition between two layers. On one side were old minerals that were part of the original stalagmites; on the other were newer layers that had been laid down after the fragments were broken off by the cave’s former users. By measuring uranium levels on either side of the divide, the team could accurately tell when each stalagmite had been snapped off for construction. Their date? 176,500 years ago, give or take a few millennia.
  • Stalagmite reveals carbon footprint of early Native Americans

    04/15/2010 7:24:19 AM PDT · by decimon · 45 replies · 728+ views
    Ohio University ^ | Apr 15, 2010 | Unknown
    ATHENS, Ohio (April 15, 2010) – A new study led by Ohio University scientists suggests that early Native Americans left a bigger carbon footprint than previously thought, providing more evidence that humans impacted global climate long before the modern industrial era. Chemical analysis of a stalagmite found in the mountainous Buckeye Creek basin of West Virginia suggests that native people contributed a significant level of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through land use practices. The early Native Americans burned trees to actively manage the forests to yield the nuts and fruit that were a large part of their diets. “They...
  • Cave records provide clues to climate change

    09/26/2007 11:09:22 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 32 replies · 105+ views
    www.physorg.com ^ | 09/26/2007 | Georgia Institute of Technology
    A close up of one of the stalagmites analyzed in the study. Credit: Jud Partin When Georgia Tech Assistant Professor Kim Cobb and graduate student Jud Partin wanted to understand the mechanisms that drove the abrupt climate change events that occurred thousands of years ago, they didn't drill for ice cores from the glaciers of Greenland or the icy plains of Antarctica, as is customary for paleoclimatolgists. Instead, they went underground. Growing inside the caves of the tropical Pacific island of Borneo are some of the keys to understanding how the Earth's climate suddenly changed - several times -...
  • Remote cave study reveals 3000 years of European climate variation

    06/19/2015 12:15:00 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 16 replies
    ScienceDaily ^ | June 15, 2015 | University of New South Wales
    University of New South Wales Australia-led research on limestone formations in a remote Scottish cave has produced a unique 3000-year-long record of climatic variations that may have influenced historical events including the fall of the Roman Empire and the Viking Age of expansion. The study of five stalagmites in Roaring Cave north of Ullapool in north-west Scotland is the first to use a compilation of cave measurements to track changes in a climate phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation. 'Our results also provide the longest annual record of this important phenomenon, which has a big impact on the climate in...
  • Mega-Tsunami Theory Disputed (Australia)

    02/03/2008 4:35:17 PM PST · by blam · 48 replies · 256+ views
    The Australian ^ | 2-3-2008
    Mega-tsunami theory disputed February 03, 2008 SUPPOSED evidence Australia has been subject to prehistoric tsunamis up to 20m in height over the past 10,000 years could just be the result of Aboriginal occupation, a major conference is set to hear tomorrow. Archaeologists from the Australian National University say the theory about the mega-tsunamis, which has influenced the development of emergency service plans in Western Australia, is not supported by evidence. In 2003 Australian geological researchers suggested prehistoric tsunamis over the past 10,000 years were much larger than those recorded since European settlement, including findings of surges up to 20m in...
  • The Intriguing Problem Of The Younger Dryas—What Does It Mean And What Caused It?

    06/21/2012 10:11:38 AM PDT · by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 48 replies
    watts Up With That? ^ | June 19, 2012 | Guest post by Don J. Easterbrook
    This is a follow up posting to Younger Dryas -The Rest of the Story!Guest post by Don J. Easterbrook Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University.The Younger Dryas was a period of rapid cooling in the late Pleistocene 12,800 to 11,500 calendar years ago. It followed closely on the heels of a dramatically abrupt warming that brought the last Ice Age to a close (17,500 calendar years ago), lasted for about 1,300 years, then ended as abruptly as it started. The cause of these remarkably sudden climate changes has puzzled geologists and climatologists for decades and despite much effort to find...
  • Hour-long hailstorm may have caused 1,000-year freeze, say scientists

    04/02/2010 4:06:27 AM PDT · by TigerLikesRooster · 77 replies · 1,652+ views
    Telegraph ^ | 04/02/10
    Hour-long hailstorm may have caused 1,000-year freeze, say scientists An hour-long hailstorm from space may have changed the climate of the Earth in 11,000 BC, leading to a freeze lasting more than 1,000 years, scientists say. Published: 8:00AM BST 02 Apr 2010 An hour-long hailstorm from space may have changed the climate of the Earth in 11,000 BC, leading to a freeze lasting more than 1,000 years, scientists say. A comet may well have caused the earth to freeze for over 1,000 years Photo: GETTY The catastrophe, caused by a disintegrating comet, wiped out large numbers of animal species and...
  • The Dark Ages: Were They Darker Than We Imagined?

    06/08/2003 10:31:29 PM PDT · by blam · 113 replies · 6,406+ views
    The Universe ^ | 9-1999 | Greg Bryant
    The Dark Ages : Were They Darker Than We Imagined? By Greg Bryant Published in the September 1999 issue of Universe As we approach the end of the Second Millennium, a review of ancient history is not what you would normally expect to read in the pages of Universe. Indeed, except for reflecting on the AD 837 apparition of Halley's Comet (when it should have been as bright as Venus and would have moved through 60 degrees of sky in one day as it passed just 0.03 AU from Earth - three times closer than Hyakutake in 1996), you may...
  • Ancient Drought And Rapid Cooling Drastically Altered Climate

    06/24/2009 11:06:18 AM PDT · by tricky_k_1972 · 25 replies · 869+ views
    Space Daily - Terra Daily ^ | Jun 23, 2009 | Staff Writers (SPX)
    CLIMATE SCIENCEAncient Drought And Rapid Cooling Drastically Altered Climate File image. by Staff Writers Columbus OH (SPX) Jun 23, 2009 Two abrupt and drastic climate events, 700 years apart and more than 45 centuries ago, are teasing scientists who are now trying to use ancient records to predict future world climate. The events - one, a massive, long-lived drought believed to have dried large portions of Africa and Asia, and the other, a rapid cooling that accelerated the growth of tropical glaciers - left signals in ice cores and other geologic records from around the world. Lonnie Thompson, University Distinguished...
  • Asteroid Breakup May Have Doomed Dinosaurs

    09/05/2007 11:55:02 AM PDT · by LibWhacker · 46 replies · 1,261+ views
    It’s a disaster scenario that Hollywood has picked up on (think Deep Impact). An incoming object menaces the Earth. Scientists try to destroy it with nuclear weapons, but the horrified populace soon discovers that the blast has simply broken the object into pieces, each with the potential to wreak havoc planet-wide. Now we learn that an impact between two asteroids causing a similar crack-up may have resulted in the cataclysmic event some 65 million years ago that destroyed the dinosaurs. Researchers from Southwest Research Institute and Charles University (Prague) have been studying the asteroid (298) Baptistina, combining their observations with...
  • First evidence of comet striking Earth found in Egypt

    10/10/2013 5:36:16 PM PDT · by workerbee · 32 replies
    Fox ^ | 10/10/13 | Mike Wall
    A team of scientists claims to have found the first-ever definitive evidence of a comet striking Earth. After conducting a series of analyses, the researchers determined that a mysterious black pebble discovered years ago in the Egyptian desert is a piece of a comet nucleus — the first ever discovered. "It’s a typical scientific euphoria when you eliminate all other options and come to the realization of what it must be," study lead author Jan Kramers, of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, said in a statement. [Best Close Encounters of the Comet Kind] The pebble, which the team...
  • Climate Cycles in China as Revealed by a Stalagmite from Buddha Cave(Journal Review)

    07/08/2003 3:48:19 PM PDT · by PeaceBeWithYou · 65 replies · 1,131+ views
    CO2 Science Magazine ^ | July 08, 2003 | Staff
    Reference Paulsen, D.E., Li, H.-C. and Ku, T.-L. 2003. Climate variability in central China over the last 1270 years revealed by high-resolution stalagmite records. Quaternary Science Reviews 22: 691-701. What was done In the words of the authors, "high-resolution records of ð13C and ð18O in stalagmite SF-1 from Buddha Cave [33°40'N, 109°05'E] are used to infer changes in climate in central China for the last 1270 years in terms of warmer, colder, wetter and drier conditions." What was learned Among the climatic episodes evident in the authors' data were "those corresponding to the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age and...
  • Mesopotamian Climate Change (8,000 Years Ago)

    02/15/2004 11:18:28 AM PST · by blam · 77 replies · 5,365+ views
    Geo Times ^ | 2-15-2004
    Mesopotamian climate change Geoscientists are increasingly exploring an interesting trend: Climate change has been affecting human society for thousands of years. At the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in December, one archaeologist presented research that suggests that climate change affected the way cultures developed and collapsed in the cradle of civilization — ancient Mesopotamia — more than 8,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found evidence for a mass migration from the more temperate northern Mesopotamia to the arid southern region around 6400 B.C. For the previous 1,000 years, people had been cultivating the arable land in northern Mesopotamia, using natural rainwater...
  • Huge Ancient Civilization’s Collapse Explained

    05/29/2012 5:32:20 AM PDT · by Renfield · 47 replies
    LiveScience ^ | 5-28-2012 | Charles Choi
    The mysterious fall of the largest of the world's earliest urban civilizations nearly 4,000 years ago in what is now India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh now appears to have a key culprit — ancient climate change, researchers say. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia may be the best known of the first great urban cultures, but the largest was the Indus or Harappan civilization. This culture once extended over more than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Seato the Ganges, and at its peak may have accounted for 10 percent of...
  • Remote Lake May Be Treasure Trove of Climate Data

    12/15/2007 3:43:24 PM PST · by neverdem · 44 replies · 138+ views
    ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 13 December 2007 | Phil Berardelli
    Enlarge ImageThe vault. The sediments at the bottom of the lake in Northen Quebec's Pingualuit Crater hold unmatched clues to North America's climate record.Credit: Robert Fréchette / ARK; (inset) University of Arkansas SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--A million years ago, a large meteorite smashed into what is now northern Quebec and created a crater that may become an unprecedented repository of data with which to study long-term climate change, researchers reported here this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Canada and the northern United States are dotted with tens of thousands of lakes, most of them formed by...