Fri 29 May 2020
In The News
Welcome to our "In the News" page, featuring summaries of Internet news, relevant to Catastrophism and Ancient History.
Show Titles only | Show summaries
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7 May 2020 Lost Hill Forts An amateur archaeologist and photographer has discovered what looks like two hidden hill forts by the use of laser light technology. Fantastic work - see https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/lost-bronze-age-hill-forts-409... ... He lives in Brixham, a fishing port on the south coast, and says he has been working off and on to get the filters right over a couple of months. The idea came after reading about the same technique being used in South America in order to locate lost civilisation sites in the jungle. Both sites are on hills - one near Paignton, and the other at Berry Pomeroy. |
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7 May 2020 Squid Attack This is a cracker as well. At https://phys.org/news/2020-05-fossil-reveals-evidence-million-year-old-s... .... a fossil from the Jurassic coast of Dorset found in the 19th century has had a much closer look (and analysis). It seems to show a squid with a herring like fish in its jaws. In other words it was fossilised and preserved in the act of devouring its prey, a fish. It is said to date from 199 million years ago. |
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7 May 2020 Swanning Along Comet Swan. An unexpected outburst from Comet Swan means it is now eyeball visible - if you can see beyond the full moon. See https://spaceweather.com (6th May 2020). It is unclear what is happening at the moment as it is possible it might be the first stages of fragmenting - as Comet Atlas did a few weeks ago. What was seen was an outburst event as it approaches the Sun - or impacts with the solar wind. On May 12th it comes as close as it will to the earth and then on May 27th it swings around the Sun. More outbursts to come. |
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7 May 2020 Greenland Grand Canyon Here we have some catastrophic flooding - on Mars and beneath the Greenland ice sheet. Courtesy of Gary again. At www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200430150302.htm ... and https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/uoma-hco043020.php ... a network of canyons under the Greenland ice sheet includes one that is so deep and big it has been called the Greenland Grand Canyon. Its shape suggests it was caused by running water - followed by glaciation (or vice versa). |
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6 May 2020 Raining Plasma It's raining plasma on the sun. A massive prominence is jutting out and its leaking plasma - see https://spaceweather.com (5th May 2020). Mysteriously, some of the 'raindrops' plummet faster than ambient magnetic forces seem to allow. The theory of magnetic diffusion as applied to solar prominences predicts much slower speeds. The rainstorm is breaking the speed limit. See https://vimeo.com/414939863 |
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6 May 2020 Spinosauros At https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/04/new-fossils-rewrite-... ... you could have fooled me but we are told here that scientists have long opposed the idea that dinosaurs lived in aquatic habitats. Now, researchers have actually found unambiguous evidence that spinosauros was an aquatic hunter and lived on a diet of fish. It used its tail for propulsion - to locomotively swim in a massive river system. Dinosaurs, previously, have been said to inhabit swamps and marshland but this one is a swimming dinosaur. |
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6 May 2020 Sea Floor Venting Robert sent in this one and it is a cracker - go to https://phys.org/news/2020-05-window-world-life-seafloor-petroleum.html ... window to another world beneath the waves, bubbling up on the seafloor with petroleum from deep below. A hydrocarbon seep in the Gulf of Mexico emits a viscuous petroleum - much like asphalt. This sounds somewhat familiar - the tar traps in California spring to mind (but these are above sea level). Most life forms that inhabit such seeps, for exampel mussels and crabs, depend on micro-organisms that oxidise the petroleum compounds. |
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4 May 2020 14,650 years ago At arch warmer site https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/a-puzzling-past-sea-level-rise-m... .... tells us sea levels have jumped surprisingly quickly and steeply in the past. It is funny how problems for the consumption of the general public are glossed over, or ignored - and then someone lets the cat out of the bag. I have often wondered how a now recognised smaller northern hemisphere ice sheet equates with a jump in sea level rise at the end of the Late Glacial Maximum (LGM). Apparently, it doesn't. |
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4 May 2020 Up in the Sky At https://spaceweather.com (30th April 2020) we have an image of Comet Swan with a very long tail trailing behind. It will make its closest approach to earth on May 12th which should be eyeball visible.
At https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2020/04/0/research-reveals-possible-acti... ... research seems to suggest the moon could well be tectonically active. |
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4 May 2020 Why people didn't get the plague Actually, the title is wrong. Why people do not seem to have suffered the same dramatic effects of the Black Death in earlier incidents of bubonic plague. One can see that with the current corona virus outbreak that new forms of virus can occur that are more devastating the earlier one. Does this mean bubonic plague is a virus comparable to covid 19? Who knows. We require more data. At www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/why-people-in-ancient-times-didnt-... ... |