Earth-logs

A glimpse of the deep Moon

Published on December 30, 2012 by zooks777Leave a comment

Charting the variation in gravitational potential across a planet provides a measure of the distribution of mass beneath its surface. That depends on both the planet’s actual shape and on internal variations in rock density. The Earth’s gravity has been mapped with varying degrees of precision, depending on sample spacing, by surface measurements using gravimeters. Doing gravity surveys from space cannot be so direct, however. One ingenious approach for the gravitational field over the oceans is to measure the mean height of the ocean surface using radar beams from a satellite. Since this is affected by variations in the gravitational field, partly due to bathymetry and partly because of varying density beneath the ocean floor, removing the calculable bathymetric effect leaves a gravitational signal from the underling lithosphere and deeper mantle. The first satellite to illuminate the Earth with radar microwaves, Seasat, gradually built up such a gravitational map of the deep Earth over a period of 105 days in 1978, which was followed up by other satellites such as the ERS series and Topex-Poseidon.

GRAIL lunar probes — The GRAIL satellites in lunar orbit (credit: Wikipedia)

It is not so easy to map gravity precisely above a solid planetary surface, but through the GRACE experiment this can be done by measuring very precisely the distance between a pair of satellites that follow the same orbit. As the gravitational field changes so too does the separation between the tandem of satellites; an increase in gravity pulls the satellites closer together and vive versa. GRACE has provided some fascinating data, such as estimates of the withdrawal of groundwater from large sedimentary basins and shrinkage of ice caps. However, GRACE is limited in its resolution of gravitational anomalies by the fact that Earth has an atmosphere above which such tandems must be parked in orbit to avoid burning up. The higher the orbit, the more degraded is the resolution. This effect is much less for Mars and non-existent for the Moon.

Gravity field of the moon as measured by NASA's GRAIL mission. The far side of the moon is at the centre, whereas the nearside (as viewed from Earth) is at either side. (credit: NASA/ARC/MIT) — Gravity field of the moon as measured by NASA’s GRAIL mission. The far side of the moon is at the centre, whereas the nearside (as viewed from Earth) is at either side. (credit: NASA/ARC/MIT)

A sister experiment to GRACE has been orbiting the Moon since September 2011: the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL). First the tandem orbited at 55 km, then 22 and for a brief period 11 km, before running out of thruster fuel on 17 December 2012 and crashing into the lunar surface. Results from the highest orbit resolve lunar gravity to 13 km cells, recently reported on-line in three papers (Zuber, M.T. and 16 others 2012. Gravity field of the Moon from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) Mission. Science, doi 10.1126/science.1231507; Wieczorek, M.A. and 15 others 2012. The crust of the Moon as seen by GRAIL. Science, doi 10.1126/science.1231530; Andrews-Hanna, J.C. and 18 others 2012. Ancient igneous intrusions and early expansion of the Moon revealed by GRAIL gravity gradiometry. Science, doi 10.1126/science.1231753). From crater gravitational signatures due to variations in surface topography it seems that the early bombardment of the lunar surface far exceeded previous assumptions. Impact effects dominate the GRAIL data at this resolution, but 2% of the information relates to structures hidden at depth.

500 km linear anomaly in the Moon's far-side gravitational field. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSM) — 500 km linear anomaly in the Moon’s far-side gravitational field. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CSM)

There are linear gravity anomalies extending over hundreds of kilometres, which may be huge igneous intrusions in the form of dykes; perhaps reflections of early influences of early extensional tectonics in the Moons lithosphere. Estimates point to this having been due to an up to 5 km increase in the lunar radius, probably as a result of thermal changes. The dominant feature of the lunar surface is not the near-side flat basaltic maria, visually prominent as they are, but the far more rugged lunar highlands which stand far higher because of the lower density of their constituent feldspar-rich anorthosites. GRAIL permitted a bulk estimate of the density of highland crust that turned out to be substantially lower, at 2550 kg m^-3 – compared with 2600-2700 for granite and 2800-3000 for basalt – than originally estimated from samples returned by the Apollo mission. This forces a reassessment of the thickness of highland crust from 50-60 km to between 34 and 43 km, with a near-surface layer that has a porosity of around 12%, probably resulting from its awful battering. A thinner highland crust than previously assumed presents a bulk geochemical picture that need not be more enriched in ‘refractory’ elements, such as aluminium and calcium, than is the Earth.

Such unanticipated results from the low-resolution mode of the GRAIL experiment have its science team almost salivating at prospects from the sharper ‘pictures’ that will arise from the lower altitude orbits.

Violent past revealed by map of moon’s interior (sciencenews.org)
NASA moon-mapping mission to come to a crashing end (thehimalayantimes.com)

The Ediacaran fossils: a big surprise

Published on December 17, 2012 by zooks7772 Comments

English: Photograph showing the 'golden spike'... — Edicara sandstones in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia (credit: Wikipedia).

The first macroscopic life forms were the enigmatic bag-like and quilted fossils in sedimentary rocks dating back to 635 Ma in Australia, eastern Canada and NW Europe. They are grouped as the Ediacaran Fauna named after the Ediacara Hills in South Australia where they are most common and diverse. Generally they are not body fossils but impressions of soft-bodied organisms, often in sandstones rather than muds. Some are believed to be animals that absorbed nutrients through their skin, whereas others are subjects of speculation. One thing seems clear; these first metazoans arose because of some kind of trigger provided by the global glacial conditions that preceded their appearance. It has always been assumed that, whatever they were, Ediacaran organisms lived on the sea floor, probably in shallow water. New sedimentological evidence found in the type locality by Gregory Retallack of the University of Oregon seems set to force a complete rethink about these hugely important life forms (Retallack, G.J 2012. Ediacaran life on land. Nature (online), doi:10.1038/nature11777). So momentous are his conclusions that they form the subject of a Nature editorial in the 13 December 2012 issue.

Retallack, a specialist on ancient soils of the Precambrian, examined reddish facies of the Ediacara Member of the Rawnsley Quartzite of South Australia, whose previous interpretation have a somewhat odd background. Originally regarded as non-marine, before their fossils were discovered, when traces of jellyfish-like organisms turned up this view was reversed to marine, the red coloration being ascribed to deep Cretaceous weathering. A range of features, such as clasts of red facies in grey Ediacaran rocks, the presence of feldspar in the red facies – unlikely to have survived deep weathering – bedding surfaces with textures very like those formed by subaerial biofilms, and desiccation cracks, suggest to Retallack that the red facies represents palaeosols in the sedimentary sequence. Moreover, some features indicate a land surface prone to freezing from time to time. The key observation is that this facies contains Ediacaran trace fossils representing many of the forms previously regarded as marine animals of some kind, including Spriggina, Dickinsonia and Charnia on which most palaeontologists would bet good money that they were animals, albeit enigmatic ones.

English: Cropped and digitally remastered vers... — Specimen of Edicaran Dickinsonia (credit: Wikipedia)

If Retallack’s sedimentological observations are confirmed then organisms found in the palaeosols cannot have been animals but perhaps akin to lichens or colonial microbes, and survived freezing conditions. As they occur in other facies more likely to be subaqueous, then they were ‘at home’ in a variety of ecosystems. As the Nature editorial reminds us, from the near-certainty that early macroscopic life was marine there is a chance that views will have to revert to a terrestrial emergence first suggested in the 1950s by Jane Grey. Uncomfortable times lie ahead for the palaeontological world.

Ediacaran study shakes the tree of life (abc.net.au)
Controversial claim puts life on land 65 million years early (nature.com)
Were Weirdo Ediacarans Really Lichens, Fungi, and Slime Molds? (blogs.scientificamerican.com)

Grand Canyon now the Grand Old Canyon?

Published on December 11, 2012 by zooks777Leave a comment

Grand Canyon in Winter (credit: Wikipedia)

Among the best known and certainly the most visited topographic feature on the planet, the Grand Canyon resulted from erosion by the Colorado River keeping pace with uplift of the south-central United States. It is the archetype for what is known as antecedent drainage. Since that uplift is still going on, albeit slowly, the Grand Canyon has been assumed to be a relative young landform. By dating the first appearance of debris from the eastern end of the canyon in sediments at its western limit geomorphologists estimated that incision began around 6 Ma ago. Yet a range of other observations present puzzling contradictions. One means of settling the issue is to somehow to date the uplift radiometrically.

A long-used technique is to determine ‘cooling ages’ of crustal rocks exposed by uplift and erosion, exploiting the way in which rock temperature determines whether or not products of radioactive decay cab be preserved intact. One method uses the tracks of defects produced by electrons or helium nuclei from radioactive decay as they pass through various minerals that incorporate high amounts of elements such as uranium. Above a certain temperature the fission tracks anneal and disappear quickly, while below it they accumulate over time. Quantifying that build-up allows the date of cooling below the threshold temperature to be estimated. Similarly, gases produced by radioactive decay of some radioactive isotopes, such as argon from the decay of ⁴⁰K or helium from uranium and thorium isotopes, can only stay in their host mineral if it remains cooler than a narrow range of temperatures. As rock rises towards the Earth’s surface, it starts out hot at depth but cools by conduction as it get closer to the surface. For the 1.8 km of uplift of the Grand Canyon and the relatively cool nature of the underlying crust, neither the fission-track nor the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar cooling-age methods give meaningful results. However, minerals lose helium at temperatures above about 70°C, so a method based on helium accumulation from uranium and thorium isotope decay is a possible means of assessing uplift timing. But there have been plenty of snags to overcome to make this approach reliable. In the case of the Grand Canyon analytical quality and careful sample collection has given a credible result (Flowers, R.M. & Farley, K.A. 2012. Apatite ⁴He/³He and (U-Th)He evidence for an ancient Grand Canyon. Science , doi 10.1126/science.1229390)

Flowers and Farley from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, respectively, produced a result that completely overturns previous conceptions. The western end of the Canyon had been incised to within a few hundred metres of modern depths by 70 Ma ago; more than ten times earlier than previously thought. The eastern end has a more complex history that reveals cooling events in the Neogene as well as an end-Cretaceous initiation of uplift and erosion. Their data are consistent with early incision of the Grand Canyon by a Cretaceous river flowing eastward from the Western Cordillera, with a reversal of flow in the late-Tertiary as uplift of the Colorado Plateau began and western mountains subsided. Whether or not this fits with Cretaceous and later geological history of the SW US, is beyond my ken, but you can bet there will be a storm of comment from US geomorphologists once the paper appears in the print issue of Science.

Toba ash and calibrating the Pleistocene record

Published on December 10, 2012 by zooks7772 Comments

The largest volcanic catastrophe during the evolution of humans formed the huge caldera at Lake Toba near the Equator in Sumatra about 70 thousand years ago. Explosive action erupted 2800 cubic kilometres of magma, of which 800 km³ was deposited as thick ash across most of South Asia and the northern Indian Ocean. Sulfates derived from the gas emissions by Toba form clear ‘spikes’ in ice cores from both Greenland and Antarctica. Its effects were global through the mixing of sulfate aerosols in the stratosphere of both hemispheres, encouraged by its position close to the Equator. By reflecting incoming solar energy the aerosols resulted in a century-long 10°C fall in temperature over the Greenland ice cap. Such global cooling almost certainly affected anatomically modern humans, but it is possible that in South Asia Toba had an even more devastating effect.

The Toba ash at the Jwalapuram excavations in South India(Photo credit: Sanjay P. K. via Flickr)

At several sites in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in Malaysia Toba ash has buried artifacts that arguably may have been made by the earliest modern emigrants from Africa. Immediately above the ash are yet more tools that suggest humans did survive the eruption. Palaeoanthropologists have argued that the stress of Toba’s environmental effects on all hominins living at the time may have resulted in population crashes from which only the fittest individuals emerged. Major evolutionary changes have been ascribed to ‘bottlenecks’ of that kind to result in changes in human behaviour detectable from the archaeological record, such as the creation of completely new kinds of tools, art and language. However, recent finds in Africa suggest that many such shifts are much older than Toba.

Perhaps Toba’s greatest contribution to palaeoanthropology is that it is an easily recognised event in the geological record, but compared with its sulfate spike in the Greenland ice core at ~71 ka the existing radiometric dates have uncertainties of several thousand years. Using the latest ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dating methods on fresh crystals of sanidine (volcanic K-feldspar) from new excavations in Malaysia these uncertainties have been reduced significantly (Storey, M. et al. 2012. Astronomically calibrated ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar age for the Toba supereruption and global synchronization of late Quaternary records. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v. 109, p. 19684-18688 ). The sulfate peak and the ash can now be attributed to an age of 73.88 ± 0.32 ka; better than a golden spike in Late Pleistocene stratigraphy. The ice-cores have a check on chronology just beyond the limit of counting annual layering, as do ocean sediment cores for a time older than ¹⁴C can ever achieve. Toba now links too with events recorded by the precise U-Th series dating of cave deposits

Massive volcanic eruption puts past climate and people in perspective (environmentalresearchweb.org)

Probing the Earth’s mantle using noise

Published on December 4, 2012 by zooks7773 Comments

sesmic tomography — Artistic impression of a global seismic tomogram – beneath Mercator projection – dividing the mantle into ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ regions (Credit: Cornell University Geology Department – http://www.geo.cornell.edu/geology/classes/Geo101/graphics/s12fsl.jpg)

It goes without saying that it is difficult to sample the mantle. The only direct samples are inclusions found in igneous rocks that formed by partial melting at depth so that the magma incorporated fragments of mantle rock as it rose, or where tectonics has shoved once very deep blocks to the surface. Even if such samples were not contaminated in some way, they are isolated from any context. For 20 years geophysicists have been analysing seismograms from many stations across the globe for every digitally recordable earthquake to use in a form of depth sounding. This seismic tomography assesses variations in the speed of body (P and S) waves according to the path that they travelled through the Earth.

Unusually high speeds at a particular depth suggests more rigid rock and thus cooler temperatures whereas hotter materials slow down body waves. The result is images of deep structure in vertical 2-D slices, but the quality of such sections depends, ironically, on plate tectonics. Earthquakes, by definition mainly occur at plate boundaries, which are lines at the surface. Such a one-dimensional source for seismic tomograms inevitably leaves the bulk of the mantle as a blur. But there are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it in melted butter. All kinds of processes unconnected with tectonics, such as ocean waves hitting the shore and interfering with one another across the ocean basins, plus changes in atmospheric pressure especially associated with storms, also create waves similar in kind to seismic ones that pass through the solid Earth.

Such aseismic energy produces the background noise seen on any seismogram. Even though this noise is way below the energy and amplitude associated with earthquakes, it is continuous and all pervading: the cumulative energy. Given highly sensitive modern detectors and sophisticated processing much the same kind of depth sounding is possible using micro-seismic noise, but for the entire planet and at high resolution. Rather than imaging speed variations this approach can pick up reflections from physical boundaries in the solid Earth. Surface micro-seismic waves exactly the same as Rayleigh and Love waves from earthquakes have already been used to analyse the Mohorovičić discontinuity between crust and upper mantle as well as features in the continental crust; indeed the potential of noise was recognized in the 1960s. But the deep mantle and core are the principle targets, being far out of reach of experimental seismic surveys using artificial energy input. It seems they are now accessible using body-wave noise (Poli, P. et al. 2012. Body-wave imaging of Earth’s mantle discontinuities from ambient seismic noise. Science, v. 338, p. 1063-1065).

Poli and colleagues from the University of Grenoble, France and Finland used a temporary network of 42 seismometers laid out in Arctic Finland to pick up noise, and sophisticated signal processing to separate surface waves from body waves. Their experiment resolved two major mantle discontinuities at ~410 and 660 km depth that define a transition zone between the upper and lower mantle, where the dominant mineral of the upper mantle – olivine – changes its molecular state to a more closely packed configuration akin to that of the mineral perovskite that is thought to characterize the lower mantle. Moreover, they were able to demonstrate that the 2-step shift to perovskite occupies depth changes of about 10-15 km.

Applying the method elsewhere doesn’t need a flurry of new closely-spaced seismic networks. Data are already available from arrays that aimed at conventional seismic tomography, such as USArray that deploys 400 portable stations in area-by-area steps across the United States (http://earth-pages.co.uk/2009/11/01/the-march-of-the-seismometers/)

It is early days, but micro-seismic noise seems very like the dreams of planetary probing foreseen by several science fiction writers, such as Larry Niven who envisaged ‘deep radar’ being deployed for exploration by his piratical hero Louis Wu. Trouble is, radar of that kind would need a stupendous power source and would probably fry any living beings unwise enough to use it. Noise may be a free lunch to the well-equipped geophysicist of the future.

Prieto, G.A. 2012. Imaging the deep Earth. Science (Perspectives), v. 338, p. 1037-1038.

Breakthrough in human tools: the scene shifts to Africa

Published on November 22, 2012 by zooks7771 Comment

A means of assessing the cognitive abilities of hominins is through the objects that they created, whether tools or artefacts with apparent symbolic significance. The latter include pigments, coloured shells, beads, artwork or even deliberately parallel and crossing lines gouged on otherwise innocuous rock. Undoubtedly valuable to their creators, possibly treasured and passed on until lost or broken – most are fragile – symbolic artefacts are rare. So although they shout ‘thoughtful’, their age tells us little about when such a capacity first arose. Many archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists assert that creating and/or manipulating symbols may signify a link with being able to speak. Tools are a lot easier to find, probably as discards and lost items, and a well-described and understood sequence of forms and sometimes uses has been established, which extends as far back as perhaps 3 Ma – before the genus Homo appeared.

In terms of their meaning in terms of the consciousness of their makers and users, there are possibly four major recognisable steps. Chimpanzees and some birds can learn to pick up natural objects, such as stones and twigs, and use them: some bands of chimps even retain the knowledge. A step beyond that is preparing a natural object for use, as with breaking a pebble to create a cutting edge: something not exclusively human because it is possible that pre-human hominins created the earliest such Oldowan tools. Being able to visualise hidden potential inside something natural is altogether more advanced, and is represented by the iconic bi-face or Acheulean ‘hand-axe’. Its earliest makers, H. ergaster and erectus, literally brought such objects to light by skilfully knapping away the outer parts of substantial lumps of suitable rock. The knowledge endured for more than a million years but was eventually added to and superseded by a range of more delicate and specific stone tools, but more sophisticated tools represented the same ‘liberation’ of a simple idea held in rock. The fourth general cognitive leap was to add several resources together as composite tools, and arguably we have not long emerged from that phase with the creation of composite tools that help us design and make other tools: a machine-tool culture.

It is that penultimate step-up in consciousness that has been engaging archaeologists since they first realised that some small, sharp chips of stone were not waste but deliberately crafted for combination with wood or bone. Such ‘microliths’ have been found in intact arrows and sickles of the Meso- and Neolithic, but their range steadily goes back in time with more research. Unmistakeable microliths have now been discovered at the South African coastal site at Pinnacle Point, in an occupation layer that is 71 ka old (Brown, K.S. and 8 others 2012. An early and enduring advanced technology originating 71, 000 years ago in South Africa. Nature, v. 491, p. 590-593).

The Pinnacle Point technology was indeed sophisticated, microlith manufacture requiring fire treatment as well as choice of rock and careful shaping and sharpening. As well as extending the microlith culture back so far the team of South African, US, Australian and Greek archaeologists compared them with 28 later African tool kits. The designs have barely changed from 71 ka to those of the last few hundred years. Kyle Brown and colleagues show that the industrial method endured, thereby laying to rest the somewhat reactionary notion that the methods were lost again and again in Africa after separate inventions and were only taken up decisively by the supposed ‘advanced’ anatomically modern humans who colonised Europe…

It is difficult to see how the Pinnacle Point microliths could have been useful, unless hafted in arrows or throwing sticks – maybe even saws and sickles? Crucially, they predate larger blade-tools that could have been hafted to form spears. The focus must now shift to the Zambian scene where possible microliths are reported at two 250 ka sites. If confirmed, they would link the decisive fourth cognitive step towards humanity with the very origin of fully modern humans, rather than a much later, non-African dawning of ‘smarts’ along with language, advanced art and much else in the chilly caves of southern Europe.

Of all human-colonised continents Africa lags far behind the rest as regards spread and density of archaeological digs. Only the ‘famous’ sites attract resources for investigation. Imagine what might emerge once there are more local people with research skills, equipment and transport; and, dare I say it, more independence of action and the attendant confidence in their ability.

McBrearty, S. 2012. Sharpening the mind. Nature, v. 491, p. 531-532.
Stone Tools Point to Creative Work by Early Humans in Africa (nytimes.com)
Complex Tool Discovery Argues for Early Human Smarts (livescience.com)
Small lethal tools have big implications for early modern human complexity (eurekalert.org)

A glimpse of the Hadean

Published on November 22, 2012 by zooks777Leave a comment

There is something deeply unsatisfying, even untidy, about a geoscientific history from which the first half billion years is more or less a blank. Every likely stone has been turned and every isotope hurled as a curve-ball through a mass spectrometer in the quest for either direct evidence of Hadean events or an acrid whiff that lingers in later matter. All, that is, except for one…

Formed in a proposed supernova that likely helped trigger formation of the Sun and Solar System, ¹⁵⁰Gd quickly decayed to produce ¹⁴⁶Sm, which itself had a half-life of about 68 Ma. That is too short for any significant trace of that radioactive rare-earth element to remain in terrestrial rocks, but its daughter isotope ¹⁴²Nd bears witness to its former existence. Checking the proportion of ¹⁴²Nd against the heavier ¹⁴⁴Nd is a means of assessing isotopic fractionation according to atomic mass between a solid source of a magma, and between residual magma and solids that crystallised from it.

A popular and well-supported view of the Hadean is that shortly after accretion of the Earth a stupendous impact left a deep ‘ocean’ of magma and flung off mass that produced the Moon. Solidification of that ocean, which would have involved denser minerals sinking and lighter ones rising to higher levels, has been suggested to have resulted in differentiation of the mantle into two portions, one enriched, the other depleted; an event on which the entire later geochemical history of our planet has depended. Should either part of the mantle melt again, the igneous rocks that would result should carry a neodymium isotope signature of one or the other. Little sign of either emerges from studies of igneous rocks younger than 2.5 Ga, but older rocks from Greenland that go back to 3.8 Ga demonstrate that almost all of them melted from the Hadean depleted mantle. Without rocks carrying ¹⁴²Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd ratios signifying the other side of the more ancient mantle division, an enriched source, the grand idea was flawed. But this one-sidedness appears now to have been balanced by other Archaean igneous rocks (Rizo, H. et al. 2012. The elusive Hadean enriched reservoir revealed by ¹⁴²Nd deficits in Isua Archaean rocks. Nature, v. 491, p. 96-100).

3.8 billion year-old Amitsoq gneisses, West Greenland (Image credit: Stephen Moorbath, via Royal Society)

The analysed rocks are interesting for another reason, for they are 3.4 Ga old vertical sheets of basalt or dykes that cut through the more ancient west Greenland crust. They are the first evidence of a brittle crust that cracked under tension to be followed by mantle-derived magma. Some members of the Ameralik dyke swarm show just the isotopic signature predicted for the enriched member of the postulated fundamental mantle division. However, for some yet to be recognised reason, few post-Archaean rocks show any sign of widespread mantle heterogeneity. Such matters could be addressed with any confidence only after mass spectrometry allowed precise discrimination between isotopes of a whole variety of both common and rare elements. That was not so long ago, so a rich trove of future revelations can be anticipated.

Greenland rocks provide evidence of Earth formation process (phys.org)

Batter your planet

Published on November 15, 2012 by zooks777Leave a comment

K/T extinction event theory. An artist's depic... — Artist’s depiction of the asteroid impact 65 million years ago that caused the K-T mass extinction. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just in time for the festive season I have been sent the URL for an on-line impact simulator written by a team from Imperial College London and the University of Arizona (Collins, G.S. et al. 2005. Earth Impact Effects Program: A Web-based computer program for calculating the regional environmental consequences of a meteoroid impact on Earth. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, v. 40, p. 817–840), with a web presence designed at Purdue University, Indiana. ImpactEarth (http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth/) has been around for two years and has a scientifically pleasing level of precision, thanks to the authors, Gareth Collins, Jay Melosh and Robert Marcus.

The fact that the target shown by the accompanying animation and other graphics seems to be the Washington-New York megalopolis may be a cause for some concern for US readers, especially the Department of Homeland Security, National Security Agency and CIA. They can rest easy, however, as this seems to be a matter of artistic license: the choice of parameters allows for ocean strikes and targets of sedimentary or crystalline rocks. Others are impactor diameter and density, impact angle and speed, plus distance from ground zero. An element of whimsy allows the casual user to choose inbound humpback whales, school buses and the Empire State Building as well as more astronomically likely scenarios.

There are a number of missing parameters such as direction relative to Earth’s rotation, latitude and the likely affect of an ice-cap strike, and no mention in the results of the electromagnetic burst from atmospheric compression on entry – the Diesel effect. However, the thermal effects on bystanders, buildings and vegetation at the ‘viewpoint’ personalise the experience to some extent. It is the detail about crater dimensions and evolution, lithospheric melting and what might happen to the Earth’s axial tilt and day length that the wealth of computations produce surprises. It is not easy to destroy our planet: using a body with a density of 3000 kg m^-3 and the diameter of Asia causes no significant melting or changes in axial tilt at speeds less than 12 km s^-1, but does change the length of the day by up to 113 hours. This is because the power of impacts and therefore the work done by them is proportional to the square of the speed. Mind you, nothing is left standing as the seismic effect has a Richter Magnitude of more than 15! Yet, curiously, no atmospheric or thermal radiation effects are noted.

Have fun.

NASA: The world is not ending on Dec. 21 (whas11.com)
How Paintballs Could Save Earth from Giant Asteroid Impact (space.com)
Pick Your Favorite Doomsday (news.discovery.com)

Hominin round-up

Published on November 14, 2012 by zooks777Leave a comment

Our tenacious companions.

Until recently humans and lice were inseparable and the same goes for all primates, and nearly all mammals. However, unlike fleas, which happily will suck any blood that is going provided it is easily tapped, lice are tailored to their hosts. Should a baboon louse, for instance, get into your short and curlies it will almost certainly die. In any case, again unlike fleas, the louse cannot leap: they spread through intimate contact. The human head louse spreads especially well among nursery- and infant-school children, as any parent knows, because lessons often involve them literally getting their heads together. Less well known is that Pediculus humanus eschew soiled or greasy hair and it is the well-scrubbed kids who suffer and spread ‘beasts on the head’. Conversely, the clothes louse that carries typhus and other infections is deterred by regular laundry and ironing. And then there is the Continue reading “Hominin round-up” →

Short fuse on clathrate bomb?

Published on October 31, 2012 by zooks777Leave a comment

The biggest tsunami to affect inhabitants of Britain, mentioned in the earlier post Landslides and multiple dangers, emanated from the Storegga Slide in the northern North Sea west of Norway. That submarine debris flow was probably launched by gas hydrates beneath the sea bed breaking down to release methane thereby destabilising soft sediments on the continental slope. Similar slides were implicated in breaking Europe-America communications in the 20^th century, such as the Grand Banks Slide of 1929 that severed submarine cables up to 600 km from the source of the slide. Even now, much Internet traffic is carried across oceans along optic-fibre cables, breakages disrupting and slowing services. A more mysterious facet of clathrate breakdown is its possible implication in unexplained and sudden losses of ships. When gas escapes to the surface, the net density of seawater decreases, the more so as the proportion of bubbles increases. Ship design and cargo loading rests on an assumed water density range from fresh to salt water and for different temperatures at high and low latitudes.

The Atlantic seaboard of the USA hosts some of the best-studied accumulations of clathrates in the top 100-300 m of seabed sediments. Since their discovery these ‘cage complexes’ of mainly methane and carbon dioxide trapped within molecules of water ice have been studied in detail. Importantly, the temperatures at which they form and the range over which they remain stable depend on pressure and therefore depth below the sea surface. At atmospheric pressure solid methane hydrate is unstable at any likely temperature and requires -20°C to form at a pressure equivalent to 200 m water depth. Yet is stable at temperatures up to 10°C 500 m down and 20°C at a depth of 2 km. Modern sea water cools to around 0°C at depths greater than 1.5 km, so gas hydrates can form virtually anywhere that there is a source of methane or CO₂ in seafloor sediment. In the sediments temperature increases sharply with depth beneath the seabed due to geothermal heat flow thereby limiting the clathrate stability zone to the top few hundred metres.

Two factors may lead to clathrate instability: falling sea level and sea-floor pressure or rising sea-floor temperature. Many gas-hydrate deposits, especially on the continental shelf and continental edge are likely to be close to their stability limits, hence the worries about destabilisation should global warming penetrate through the water column. The western North Atlantic is an area of especial concern because the Gulf Stream flows northward from the Caribbean to pass close to the US seaboard off the Carolinas: that massive flow of tropical warm water has been increasing during the last 5 thousand years so that its thermal effects are shifting westwards.

Geophysicists Benjamin Phrampus and Matthew Hornbach of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas have used thermal modelling to predict that gas-hydrate instability is imminent across 10 thousand square kilometres of the Caroline Rise (Phrampus, B.J. & Hornbach, M.J. 2012. Recent changes to the Gulf Stream causing widespread gas hydrate destabilization. Nature, v. 490, p. 527-530). As a test they analysed two seismic reflection profiles across the Carolina Rise, seeking anomalies known as bottom-simulating reflectors that signify free gas in the sediments. These are expected at the base of the gas-hydrate zone and their presence helps assess sediment temperature. At depths less than 1 km the base of the gas-hydrates modelled from the present temperature profile through the overlying seawater lies significantly above the base’s signature on seismic lines. The deeper levels probably formed under cooler conditions than now – probably eight degrees cooler – and may be unstable. If that is correct, the Caroline Rise area seems set to release around 2.5 Gt of methane to add to atmospheric greenhouse warming. The Storegga Slide also lies close to the northern track of the Gulf-Stream – North Atlantic Drift…

Gulf Stream Shift Linked to Methane Gas Escaping from Seabeds Scientific American
Seismic signs of escaping methane under the sea (nature.com)
Remember the panic over methane seeping out of the Arctic seabed in 2009? Never mind. (wattsupwiththat.com)
Mienert, J. 2012. Signs of instability. Nature, v. 490, p. 491-492.
Scientists uncover diversion of Gulf Stream path in late 2011; Warmer waters flowed to shelfbreak south of New England (sciencedaily.com)

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