CREATION ART

Nature Creates Wierd and Wonderful

2009-12-19T05:35:00.000-08:00

Australia creatures

Thirty Thousand Feet - Weather, Sunsets

2009-12-06T21:09:00.001-08:00

Sunset Over Hawaii

Sunset Over Corpus Christi, Texas

Sunset Over St. Croix, VI

WaterSpout Over St. Croix, VI

Storm System Over Flint, Michigan

Sunset Over Talkeetna, Arkansas

Sunset Over Everglades City, Florida

Sunset Over Daytona Beach, Florida

Clouds Over Dallas, Texas

30,000 Feet Above McKinley Park, Arkansas

Sunset Over Denver, Colorado

Sunset Over Nashville, Tennessee

Sunset Over Macon, Georgia

30,000 Feet Above Sierra Nevada Mts.

Sunset or Sunrise Space Shuttle Launch

30,000 Feet Over Chicago, Illinois

Sunset Storm Over Minneapolis, Minnesota

Sunset Over North Sea

Sunset Over Logan, Ohio

Sunset Over Denver, Colorado

Sunset Over Denver, Colorado-2

Rain Clouds Over Albuquerque, New Mexico

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Deep Ocean Life Creations

2009-11-25T23:34:00.001-08:00

Glowing Crystal Jellies

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Photo Gallery: Ocean Survey Reveals World of Deep-Sea Creatures

May 11, 2006—This heart-shaped jellyfish, called a comb jelly, was among thousands of tiny creatures captured in an expedition conducted last month to collect and catalog the world's deep-sea denizens.

The 20-day mission, sponsored by the international research group Census of Marine Life, brought 28 leading marine experts from 14 countries together in the Sargasso Sea, an area of the North Atlantic near the Bermuda Triangle.

The scientists used scuba divers and highly specialized nets and trawls to collect specimens from the ocean's deepest waters, 0.6 to 3 miles (1 to 5 kilometers) below the surface.

The researchers used a special onboard DNA sequencer to analyze more than 220 organisms, and at least a dozen new species were identified.

The research trip was funded by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and organized by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Photograph by Larry Madin, courtesy UAF/NOAA/Census of Marine Life
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This tiny, iridescent marine animal, called a zooplankton, is one of a dozen new species identified by scientists during the Census of Marine Life expedition conducted April 2006. This species is a member of the shrimplike copepods, which are among the most abundant creatures on Earth and a vital food source for many fish and marine mammals, including whales.

Census of Marine Life sponsored the mission as part of its Census of Marine Zooplankton initiative, a ten-year study begun in 2000 to inventory the biodiversity of the world's oceans.

The group plans to use the data it collects to assess the long-term effects of global warming, pollution, and ocean acidification on zooplankton, the critical first link in the ocean food chain.

—Photograph by Russ Hopcroft, courtesy Census of Marine Life
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This tiny sea snail, or pteropod, curiously resembles a Roman soldier's helmet. The specimen was brought up from the deep sea during last month's Census of Marine Life mission, conducted near the Bermuda Triangle.

Because most sea life exists in the ocean's upper levels, few studies until now have focused on the region below 1,000 meters (3,281 feet). But scientists believe the deeper ecosystems may play a particularly crucial role in regulating the global climate.

—Photograph by Russ Hopcroft, courtesy Census of Marine Life
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This tiny deep-sea snail called Atlanta peroni may be a bellwether of global warming.

Increased levels of carbon in the atmosphere, caused by burning fossil fuels among other things, is known to elevate the acidity of deep ocean water. This spike in acid levels in turn inhibits snails from growing shells.

The Earth's oceans and other bodies of water act as enormous carbon sinks that help regulate the planet's climate. Surface-dwelling plankton absorb carbon from the atmosphere and are consumed by animals called zooplankton, which come to the surface to feed and then return to the depths.

This feeding cycle transports huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere to the sea bottom, where the crushing pressure keeps it trapped.

—Photograph by Russ Hopcroft, courtesy Census of Marine Life
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This baby octopus was probably using its large black eyes to search for a meal when it was snared by Census of Marine Life scientists last month.

In addition to collecting zooplankton, worms, snails, and jellies, the expedition gathered over 120 fish species, including a young oarfish, a rare male anglerfish, and what may be a new species of black dragonfish.

—Photograph by Russ Hopcroft, courtesy Census of Marine Life
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Beautiful South Africa

2009-11-11T21:20:00.001-08:00

This is a personal blog for owner's appreciation. For any readers who happen by: to fully appreciate the magnificent beauty of Steven Pinter's artistic photography, go to the original site at:
http://www.getwonder.com/04/pictures-from-south-africa.html
These small copies do not do justice to their beauty and to his artistry as a photographer.

http://www.getwonder.com/04/pictures-from-south-africa.html

Stephen Hawkin on the Hadron Collider

2009-11-09T09:02:00.001-08:00

Stephen Hawking on the Hadron Collider: I would have given an "end of the world party but I was afraid the media would have taken it seriously". re: fear it would create a mini-black hole and destroy the earth.

Large Hadron Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia More info...

Main article: Safety of particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider ... cheer as protons complete first circuit of Large Hadron Collider". Times Online. ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider - 163k - Cached
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Unable to use his hands, legs or voice, Hawking can only use his facial expressions using the muscles around his eyes, eye brows and mouth to communicate. Otherwise, he relies on a computer to talk for him in a synthesized voice. The computer is attached to his wheelchair and allows him to choose words on a computer screen via a sensor that detects motion in his cheek.

Earth's Geological Carvings

2009-11-03T21:37:00.001-08:00

Eilat - Israel

600 ft above sea below
Grand Canyon

Pulpit Rock - 1 kilometer high

Norway

New Zealand

600 ft. above sea below

Pulpit Rock - 1 kilometer to bottom

colca canyon-peru

china road

china road

colca canyon

caminito del rey

caminito del rey

pruv hole in wall

i kilometer down from pulpit rock

Earth's Largest Creatures Endangered by Man

2009-10-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2009/10/091022-blue-whale-washed-ashore-picture-california.html

Blue Whale Beached -- Flipper to be Amputated?

Blue Whales Sing at Same Pitch, Study Says
Blue Whale Pictures (National Geographic Magazine)
slide show-click on thumbnails to view.
VIDEO: Dozens of Beached Whales Rescued

October 22, 2009—The apparent victim of a ship collision, a dead 70-foot (20-meter) blue whale (pictured) washed ashore in a forbidding northern California cove this week.

Though unable to move the blue whale, scientists and students are leaping at the research opportunity, scrambling down rock faces to take tissue samples and eventually one of the 11-foot-long (3.5-meter-long) flippers.

Though relatively infrequent off California until recent years, ship collisions are "the number one human threat to blue whales," according to marine biologist Joe Cordaro of the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service.

This week's collision, he said, marks the second time this year that a ship off California has fatally wounded a blue whale.

The world's largest animals, blue whales can grow to about a hundred feet (30 meters) long—about the length of a space shuttle. Listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the whales are said to face a very high risk of extinction in the wild, largely due to heavy hunting prior to a 1966 ban.

A Shudder and, Later, a Beached Blue Whale

On Monday, Cordaro received a report from a ship mapping the seafloor for the fisheries service. The researchers had "felt a shudder underneath the ship" about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from shore.

Soon after, a whale surfaced, bleeding profusely, Cordaro said. Several hours later, the beached blue whale was spotted near the city of Fort Bragg.

Given the evidence—timing, location, a fresh propeller wound—Cordaro said, "I don't think there's any doubt" that the mapping ship is the culprit.

Blue Whale Tragedy Turned Scientific Windfall

"I'm as sorry as anybody that that animal perished," said Humboldt State University mammologist Thor Holmes (pictured above atop the whale). But to find "a fresh, female blue whale in a place that's accessible—that is amazing."

On Tuesday, Holmes and two students drove several hours to study the blue whale.

After he'd scrambled down the "scary" rock faces, he told the eager students to stay put for their own safety. "Man, I knew from the looks on their faces there was an insurrection brewing," he said. The others eventually found another, wetter way around.

On the shore, the researchers took blubber samples, which Holmes expects will shed light on the whale's pre-collision health.

"Just the fact that the whale has a good, thick blubber layer," he said, "shows it was a really, really healthy animal."

Blue Whale to Be Left in Place

The blue whale will be left on the Fort Bragg beach, the National Marine Fisheries Service's Cordaro said. Given the cove's inaccessibility to vehicles, he added, "That whale ain't going anywhere."

But researchers are planning more tests, including an amputation of one of the blue whale's flippers this week—a potential windfall for an ongoing Humboldt State study comparing the limbs of cetaceans, which include whales, dolphins, and porpoises.

The university is also sending more students to examine the rare specimen, and a dermatologist at Humboldt is hoping to secure hair follicles for study.

For Holmes, the specimen holds great scientific promise, but also serves as a painful reminder of humanity's role in the blue whale's rarity.

"The presence of that animal on the beach," he said, "is another sign that we're malefactors on this planet."

—Ted Chamberlain

Blue whale photograph by Larry Wagner, AP
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Baby Blue Whale Caught on Film Underwater

March 4, 2009—A baby blue whale (shown with photographer) filmed off Costa Rica may be the first to have been photographed underwater and adds to evidence that a blue whale hot spot in the Pacific Ocean is a birthing ground for the endangered species.

During a January 2008 expedition to the "Dome"—a warm-water region that draws blue whales from hundreds of miles away—the researchers had begun to lose hope of finding a calf. Then two telltale spouts began erupting at the sea surface.

"Oh, tell me that one of them is a small blow, please," Bruce Mate, of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, says in the documentary.

One of the spouts did turn out to be that of a calf, which approached the research boat—surprising the scientists, given blue whale mothers' protective reputations.

A photographer and videographer dived in and soon had the visual evidence needed to identify the whale as a baby blue.

Video-Baby Blue Whale:

Averaging 25 feet (7.6 meters) long at birth, blue whale babies nurse for about seven months until they double in size. Gaining about 200 pounds (90 kilograms) a day, they are the biggest babies ever known to have roamed the Earth.

Blue whales were heavily hunted until a worldwide ban in 1966. Today they are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, meaning they face a very high risk of extinction in the wild.

Migration Mystery

By comparing new and old photos of blue whale spot patterns—which can be as distinct, in their way, as human fingerprints—expedition member John Calambokidis later identified the Dome mother as a summer resident of California's Channel Islands. The researchers speculate that mother and baby returned to the islands, rich with krill but fraught with danger from increasing shipping traffic.

The destinations of other whales at the Dome remain a mystery—unfortunately for conservationists looking to safeguard blue whale migration routes.

On a previous trip, researchers had found that more than 75 percent of the whales at the Dome were from the U.S. West Coast. But the recent expedition found only 25 percent.

"It caught us by surprise," Calambokidis told National Geographic News. A whale expert from the Cascadia Research Collective in Washington State, Calambokidis has received funding from National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

The Dome's importance to the struggling species, though, is no mystery.

"We're quite confident now that this is one of the very, very important areas for blue whales in the entire world," Mate said.

Corrected March 5, 2009: The original version of this story stated that experts believe the calf in the video above may be the first live newborn blue whale caught on camera. Researchers cast doubt on that claim, and the story has been amended accordingly.

—Ted Chamberlain

Photograph by Flip Nicklin/NGS

Earth's Tiniest Creatures Who Share Our Planet

2009-10-25T23:46:00.000-07:00

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2009/10/photogalleries/new-species-underground-creatures-missions/photo2.html

NEW SPECIES PICTURES: 850 Underground Creatures Found

More
News
Photos

Global Warming -- Bergs melting - videos

2009-10-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=melting+iceberg+videos&fr=fp-today&cs=bz&sado=1
IceBerg Melting:

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Iceberg Collapsing; To view other videos, click on thumbnails beneath video:

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Devil's Pit

2009-10-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

Article: Click here to open and then go to page 21 (PDF)

exposed ledge over the Devil's Pit, which. for decades had been the known limit of ... The sinkhole as it currently appears showing. the main entrance (center) ...

caves.org/committee/conservation/www/april06_for screen2.pdf - 5113k

Earth's Masterful Creations # 2

2009-10-14T15:42:00.000-07:00

The following 6 photos may be natural or may be photoshopped creations. However, they are interesting. All following photos are natural.

cat mountain
old man's face mountain

animal drinking
possibly a camel?
a fish head
an alligator
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Mt. Olympus, Greece; Mytikas (Throne of Zeus)

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Mt. Olympus, Greece; viewed from Litochoro

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Butterloch Canyon, Italy - Dolomites

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Guadalupe Mountains, Texas/New Mexico

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Mt. Rundle; Alberta, Canada

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Capital Reef National Park; Temples of Sun and Moon

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Sella Massif, Italy, Dolomites

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Petrified Forest, Arizona

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Bolivia's salt flat lake
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An aerial view of patterns in Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat, suggests an enormous tree. The massive Bolivian salt flat was formed by a prehistoric lake.

Photograph by Robert B. Haas

Bolivia's salt flat

Winter-mountains, tree

Waterfall to creek near Cousin Glendon's cabin outside of Phoenix

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Yellowstone National Park: Prismatic Spring

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Joshua Tree: Joshua Tree Natl Park

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Japanese Maple - Biltmore, North Carolina

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Hubbard Glacier- Alaska

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Carpathian Cliffs - Transylvania

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Bryce Canyon Hoodoos

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Mount Olympus - Greece

2009-09-21T22:50:00.001-07:00

Mount Olympus - Mytikas (Throne of Zeus)

Mount Olympus as seen from Litochoro

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Olympus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the mountain range in Greece. For other uses, see Olympus (disambiguation)








	/ 40.0833333; 22.35

Olympus' highest peak, Mýtikas or the "Throne of Zeus"

Mount Olympus (Greek: Όλυμπος ; also transliterated as Ólympos, and on Greek maps, Óros Ólimbos) is the highest mountain range in Greece, its highest peak Mýtikas rising to 2,919 metres high (9,577 feet).^[1] Since its base is located at sea level, it is one of the highest peaks in Europe in terms of topographic prominence, the relative altitude from base to top. It is located in the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 km away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city.

Mount Olympus is noted for its very rich flora with several endemic species. The highest peak on Mount Olympus is Mitikas at 2,919 metres high (9,577 feet), which in Greek means "nose" (an alternative transliterated spelling of this name is "Mytikas"). Mitikas is the highest peak in Greece, the second highest being Skolio (2912 m).

In Greek mythology the mountain was regarded as the "home of the gods", specifically of the Twelve Olympians, the twelve principal gods of the ancient Hellenistic world.^[2]

Coin

The Mount Olympus and the national Park around it was recently selected as main motif for a high value euro collectors' coin: the €10 Greek National Park Olympus commemorative coin, minted in 2005. On the reverse, the War of the Titans on Mount Olympus is portrayed along with flowering branches on the lower part of the coin. Above the scene is written, in Greek, "National Park Olympus", while on the bottom of the coin, close to the edge, is the issuing year.

Climbing

Climbing Mount Olympus is a non-technical hike, except for the final 30 minute section from Skala summit to Mitikas summit, which is YDS class 3 rock scramble. It is estimated that 10,000 people climb Mount Olympus each year, most of them reaching only the Skolio summit (which does not involve rock scramble). Most climbs to Mount Olympus start from the town of Litochoro, which took the name City of Gods because of its location on the roots of the mountain. From there a road goes to Prionia, where the hike begins

Teide volcano on Tenerife, one of Spain's Canary Islands

2009-09-21T22:39:00.001-07:00

The Teide volcano on Tenerife, one of Spain's Canary Islands, is among the new sites added to the World Heritage list.

Teide was selected because of its natural beauty and important geological history. The volcano is more than five million years old, so it provides valuable geological information about the evolution of oceanic islands.

The volcano's summit reaches to an elevation of 12,188 feet (3,715 meters), making it the third largest volcano on Earth. It is toped by the Las Canadas caldera, a 7- to 12-mile-wide (12- to 20-kilometers-wide) depression created by an ancient volcanic eruption.

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Video-

Turn off audio, many commericials and continued narration

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http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/volcanoes/volc_images/africa/tenerife.html

WebTenerifeUK.co.uk

Search results

Teide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Legends|
Name|
Formation|
Historical eruptions
Mount Teide or, in Spanish, El Teide, is the highest elevation of Spain and the islands of the Atlantic is 3.718 meters. Is an active volcano which last erupted in 1909 from the El...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teide - 115k - Cached
Secret Tenerife: Teide volcano, Tenerife, Canary Islands
Teide (28.3N, 16.6W) is the third largest volcano on Earth. ... Teide volcano, Tenerife, Canary Islands | Permalink | (1) Comments | Post a Comment ...
secret-tenerife.com/.../04/teide-volcano-tenerife-canary-islands.shtml - Cached

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks - Geological History

2009-09-12T22:36:00.001-07:00

For Photo Gallery of the Monument Structures, see post below.

Figure 2 – Index map showing the location of the monument.

Introduction

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument is on the southeast side of the Valles and Toledo calderas, large collapse features that formed during voluminous eruptions in the Jemez Mountain volcanic field 1.61 and 1.25 million years ago. Tent Rocks encompasses a fascinating landscape in the southeastern Jemez Mountains. Kasha-Katuwe means 'white cliffs' in Keresan, the traditional language of the nearby Pueblo de Cochiti. Delicately layered sand, gravel, volcanic ash, and tuff of the Peralta Tuff Member of the Bearhead Rhyolite and sand and gravel of the Cochiti Formation, which are older units (2 to 6 Ma) in the Jemez Mountain volcanic field, have been eroded into fragile to robust spires with balanced rocks perched on top (Figures 1 and 3). The hoodoos, erosional cones, and pedestal rocks that characterize Tent Rocks form as the result of differential erosion (Smith, 1996). Water and, to a lesser extent, wind erosion preferentially attacks the moderately-indurated sand and ash grains around the base of large blocks in the gravel-rich beds. Eventually, the gravel clasts rest on pedestals, thus protecting the underlying sand and ash from further erosion. As time passes, the capstones are gradually undermined and the rocks topple, leaving an unprotected cone.

Figure 3 – Balanced rocks and erosional cones in the Peralta Tuff (white unit at the base of the cliff) and Cochti Formation (gray unit higher in the cliff) near the entrance to Tent Rocks.

Regional Setting

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument lies on the southeastern margin of the Jemez volcanic field, a volcanic system that has been active for the past 15 million years. The volcanic field formed at the intersection of the Rio Grande rift, an extensional feature that bisects the state of New Mexico, and the Jemez lineament, an ancient northeast-trending structure that has been a locus of volcanism for the last 10 million years.

Geology of the Tent Rocks Area

Two main rock units are exposed in the monument. The older unit is the white to orangish-tan Peralta Tuff Member of the Bearhead Rhyolite and the younger unit is the gray Cochiti Formation. The uppermost part of the Peralta Tuff and the Cochiti Formation are exposed near the parking lot at Tent Rocks, while lower Perlata Tuff is exposed on the northwest side of a down-to-the-southeast splay of the Pajarito Fault zone in the slot canyon on the northeast portion of the monument (Smith et al., 1991; Smith, 1996). The Peralta Tuff was deposited during an episode of intense rhyolitic volcanism in the Jemez Mountains 6.5 to 7 million years ago (Justet and Spell, 2001). At least twenty vents that extruded rhyolite domes and flows (Bearhead Rhyolite) have been identified in the southern Jemez Mountains (Smith, 1996), and several more vents have been recognized in the northeast wall of the Valles caldera and in the northern Jemez Mountains (Loeffler, 1988; Kempter et al., 2004, Gardner et al., 2006). The distribution of the Bearhead Rhyolite suggests that a magma chamber comparable in size to the chamber that created the Quaternary Valles and Toledo calderas lay beneath the Jemez Mountains in late Miocene time (Justet and Spell, 2001). Justet and Spell (2001) speculate that a caldera did not form in late Miocene time because extensional faulting associated with the Rio Grande rift may have kept the system vented, preventing the buildup of fluid and gas pressure that often triggers caldera eruptions.

Figure 4 – Geologic map of the Tent Rocks area modified from Lynch et al. (2004). The entrance to the monument is marked with a black box and the arrow points to the slot canyon in Figure 1.

Approximately 35 eruptive events are recorded in the Peralta Tuff in the vicinity of Tent Rocks (Smith, 1996). Pumice and ash-fall layers derived from distant vents are the most common indication of these events; however, 14 tuffs that erupted from nearby sources, including Bearhead Peak, the prominent peak located about 5 miles to the northeast, are also preserved in the section at Tent Rocks. The tuffs and tephras are interbedded with sand, gravel, reworked tuff, and ancient soil horizons (Smith and Katzman, 1991). The more coarse-grained Cochiti Formation overlies the relatively fine-grained Peralta Tuff. The glassy rhyolite and pumice in the Peralta Tuff gives way to devitrified rhyolite clasts in the Cochiti Formation, which causes the Cochiti Formation to have a gray color. Devitrification is a process whereby glass is transformed into crystalline minerals. The Cochiti Formation contains very few tephras compared to the Peralta Tuff. Smith et al. (1991) and Smith (1996, 2001) interpret this upsection change in clast composition and grain size to mark the time that erosion breached the cores of the Bearhead Rhyolite domes after rhyolitic volcanism waned about 6.5 million years ago.

"Apache tears," which are small, rounded pieces of obsidian, are common at Tent Rocks. DO NOT collect them! The obsidian is coming out of glassy clasts in the gravels in the Peralta Tuff and the Cochiti Formation. Groundwater moving through the sediments is hydrating the glass, causing black obsidian to become gray perlite. Often the clasts are not completely hydrated, leaving a core of obsidian surrounded by perlite. The obsidian is easily removed from the fractured perlite by erosion, which results in a concentration of tear-drop shaped obsidian pieces in drainage bottoms.

Kasha-katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.

2009-09-12T22:26:00.001-07:00

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

Tent Rocks:⁶
Tent Rocks is truly a magical area! Delicately layered gravels and volcanic ashes of the Peralta Tuff Member of the Bearhead Rhyolite have been eroded into interesting shapes, including spires with balanced rocks at the top. The deposits are about 6.8 million years old and were shed off volcanic domes of the Jemez volcanic field. This scenic area is located about 5 miles northwest of Cochiti Pueblo in Sandoval County.

What is a Lava Dome?

Volcanic Banding:⁷
Close inspection of the fragile tent rock formations reveals their susceptibility to erosion. Some of the rocks standing farthest away from the cliff have lost their hard caprock and are disintegrating. An examination of the cliff face reveals small ravines leading inward. Wind and water prevail here, scooping holes of all shapes and sizes in the rock and contouring the ends of the ravines into smooth semicircles. As the result of uniform layering of volcanic material, bands of gray are interspersed with beige-colored rock along the cliff face.

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks is located 40 miles southwest of Santa Fe and 50 miles north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the most direct access from Interstate 25. Take the Cochiti Reservoir exit from I-25 to NM Route 22 and follow the signs to Cochiti Pueblo. Turn right at the pueblo water tower (painted like a drum) onto Tribal Route 92 (connects to Forest Service Road 266). Travel 5 miles on a dirt road to the Tent Rocks parking area, which is marked with a sign. This is the only parking area for Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks.

earthmother

2009-09-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/mother-earth-water-the-lifeblood-of-our-planet/586

Nature Creates Ice Art # 5 - Estonia

2009-08-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

5Estonian Ice Storm

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Impact Events on Earth

2009-08-11T21:57:00.001-07:00

Impact event

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Artist's impression of a major impact event. The collision between Earth and an asteroid a few kilometers in diameter may release as much energy as several million nuclear weapons detonating, one after another.

An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Impact events have been a plot and background element in science fiction since knowledge of real impacts became established in the scientific mainstream.

[hide]

Sizes and frequencies

Small objects frequently collide with the Earth. There is an inverse relationship between the size of the object and the frequency that such objects hit the earth. Asteroids with a 1 km diameter strike the Earth every 500,000 years on average.^[1] Large collisions—with five kilometer objects—happen approximately once every ten million years. The last known impact of an object of 10 km or more in diameter was at the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago. Asteroids with diameters of 5-10 m enter the Earth's atmosphere approximately once per year, with as much energy as Little Boy, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, approximately 15 kilotonnes of TNT. These ordinarily explode in the upper atmosphere, and most or all of the solids are vaporized.^[2] Objects of diameters of over 50 meters strike the Earth approximately once every thousand years, producing explosions comparable to the one observed at Tunguska in 1908.^[3] At least one known asteroid with a diameter of over 1 km, (29075) 1950 DA, has a calculated probability of colliding with Earth in March 2880, with a Torino scale rating of two.

Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events (and exploding bolides) have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage, or other significant localised consequences.^[4]

The geology of Earth-impact events

The Earth has gone through periods of abrupt and catastrophic change, some due to the impact of large asteroids and comets on the planet. A few of these impacts may have caused massive climate change and the extinction of large numbers of plant and animal species. The Moon is widely attributed to be the result of a huge impact early in Earth's history. Impact events even earlier in the history of Earth have been credited with creative as well as destructive events; it has been proposed that the water in the Earth's oceans was delivered by impacting comets, and some have suggested that the origins of life may have been influenced by impacting objects bringing organic chemicals or lifeforms to the Earth's surface, a theory known as exogenesis.

Eugene Merle Shoemaker was first to prove that meteor impacts have affected the Earth.

These modified views of the Earth's history did not emerge until relatively recently, chiefly due to a lack of direct observations and the difficulty in recognizing the signs of an Earth impact. Large-scale terrestrial impacts of the sort that produced the Barringer Crater in Arizona are rare. Instead, it was widely thought that cratering was the result of volcanism: the Barringer Crater, for example, was ascribed to a prehistoric volcanic explosion (not an unreasonable hypothesis, given that the volcanic San Francisco Peaks stand only 30 miles (48 km) to the west). Similarly, the craters on the surface of the Moon were ascribed to volcanism.

It was not until 1903–1905 that the Barringer Crater was correctly identified as being an impact crater, and it was not until as recently as 1963 that research by Eugene Merle Shoemaker conclusively proved this hypothesis. The findings of late 20th-century space exploration and the work of scientists such as Shoemaker demonstrated that impact cratering was by far the most widespread geological process at work on the Solar System's solid bodies. As literally every surveyed solid body in the Solar System was found to be cratered, there was no reason to believe that the Earth had somehow escaped bombardment from space. The first observation of a major impact event occurred in 1994: the collision of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter; to date, no such events have been observed on Earth.

Based on crater formation rates determined from the Earth's closest celestial partner, the Moon, astrogeologists have determined that during the last 600 million years, the Earth has been struck by 60 objects of a diameter of five kilometers or more. The smallest of these impactors would release the equivalent of ten million megatons of TNT and leave a crater 95 kilometers across. For comparison, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba, had a yield of 50 megatons.

Recent pre-historic impact events

In addition to the extremely large impacts that happen every few tens of millions of years, there are many smaller impacts that occur much more frequently but which leave correspondingly smaller traces behind. Due to the strong forces of erosion at work on Earth, only relatively recent examples of these smaller impacts are known. A few of the more famous or interesting examples are:

Aerial view of Barringer Crater in Arizona

Barringer Crater in the USA, the first crater to be proven the result of an impact
the Rio Cuarto craters in Argentina, produced by an asteroid striking Earth at a very low angle around 10,000 years ago
the Henbury crater in Australia, and Kaali crater in Estonia, apparently produced by objects which broke up before impact.
the Wabar craters in Arabia, which may have been created sometime during the past few hundred years

The Clovis comet hypothesis is a theory that an air burst from a large comet above or even into the Laurentide Ice Sheet north of the Great Lakes set all of the North American continent ablaze around 12,900 years ago. The theory attempts to explain the extinction of most of the large animals in North America and the demise of the North American stone age Clovis culture about at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Proponents claim the existence of a mysterious charred carbon-rich layer of soil found at some 50 Clovis-age sites across the continent.^[5] It has been criticized for not being consistent with paleoindian population estimates.^[6]

More recent prehistoric impacts are theorized by the Holocene Impact Working Group, including Dallas Abbott of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.^[7] This group points to four enormous chevron sediment deposits at the southern end of Madagascar, containing deep-ocean microfossils fused with metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. All of the chevrons point toward a spot in the middle of the Indian Ocean where newly discovered Burckle crater,^[8] 18 miles (29 km) in diameter, lies 12,500 feet (3,800 m) below the surface. This group posits that a large asteroid or comet impact 4,500—5,000 years ago, produced a mega-tsunami at least 600 feet (180 m) high. If this and other recent impacts prove correct, the rate of asteroid impacts is much higher than currently thought.

Years 533–534 CE ± 2 impact events have been proposed by the dendrochronologist Mike Baillie as a possible cause of several brief (typically 5-10 year) climatic downturns recorded in ancient tree ring patterns. In his book 'Exodus to Arthur: Catastrophic encounters with comets,' he highlights four such events and suggests that these might have been caused by the dust veils thrown up by the impact of cometary debris.

Modern impact events

In China's Shanxi Province, 10,000 people were said to have been killed in 1490 by a hail of "falling stones" that some astronomers surmise may have been triggered by the breakup of a large asteroid.^[9]

Trees knocked over by the Tunguska blast.

The most significant recorded impact in recent times was the Tunguska event, which occurred in Siberia, Russia, in 1908. This incident involved an explosion that was probably caused by the airburst of an asteroid or comet 5 to 10 kilometers (3–6 mi) above the Earth's surface, felling an estimated 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometers (830 sq mi). Although the Tunguska event was both spectacular and unparalleled in any historical record, it no longer seems as unique and unusual as it once did.^{[citation needed]}

The late Eugene Shoemaker of the U.S. Geological Survey came up with an estimate of the rate of Earth impacts, and suggested that an event about the size of the nuclear weapon that destroyed Hiroshima occurs about once a year. Such events would seem to be spectacularly obvious, but they generally go unnoticed for a number of reasons: the majority of the Earth's surface is covered by water; a good portion of the land surface is uninhabited; and the explosions generally occur at relatively high altitude, resulting in a huge flash and thunderclap but no real damage.

Some have been observed. Noteworthy examples include the Sikhote-Alin Meteorite fall in Primorye, far eastern Russia, in 1947, and the Revelstoke fireball of 1965, which occurred over the snows of British Columbia, Canada.

A small number of meteorite falls have been observed with automated cameras and recovered following calculation of the impact point. The first of these was the Pribram meteorite, which fell in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1959.^[10] In this case, two cameras used to photograph meteors captured images of the fireball. The images were used both to determine the location of the stones on the ground and, more significantly, to calculate for the first time an accurate orbit for a recovered meteorite.

Following the Pribram fall, other nations established automated observing programs aimed at studying infalling meteorites. One of these was the Prairie Network, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1963 to 1975 in the midwestern US. This program also observed a meteorite fall, the Lost City chondrite, allowing its recovery and a calculation of its orbit.^[11] Another program in Canada, the Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project, ran from 1971 to 1985. It too recovered a single meteorite, Innisfree, in 1977.^[12] Finally, observations by the European Fireball Network, a descendant of the original Czech program that recovered Pribram, led to the discovery and orbit calculations for the Neuschwanstein meteorite in 2002.^[13]

The only reported fatality from meteorite impacts is an Egyptian dog that was killed in 1911 by the Nakhla meteorite, although this report is disputed. The meteorites that struck this area were identified in the 1980s as Martian in origin.

The first known modern case of a human hit by a space rock occurred on November 30, 1954 in Sylacauga, Alabama.^[14] There a 4 kg stone chondrite crashed through a roof and hit Ann Hodges in her living room after it bounced off her radio. She was badly bruised. Several persons have since claimed to have been struck by 'meteorites' but no verifiable meteorites have resulted.

On August 10, 1972, a meteor which became known as The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball was witnessed by many people moving north over the Rocky Mountains from the U.S. Southwest to Canada. It was filmed by a tourist at the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming with an 8-millimeter color movie camera.^[15] The object was in the range of size from a car to a house and could have ended its life in a Hiroshima-sized blast, but there was never any explosion. Analysis of the trajectory indicated that it never came much lower than 58 kilometers off the ground, and the conclusion was that it had grazed Earth's atmosphere for about 100 seconds, then skipped back out of the atmosphere to return to its orbit around the Sun.

On the dark morning hours of January 18, 2000, a fireball exploded over the city of Whitehorse in the Canadian Yukon at an altitude of about 26 kilometers, lighting up the night like day. The meteor that produced the fireball was estimated to be about 4.6 meters in diameter and with a weight of 180 tonnes. This blast was also featured on the The Science Channel series Killer Asteroids, with several witness reports from residents in Atlin, British Columbia.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's scar on Jupiter (Dark area at the above-left of the image)

A picture of the Jupiter 2009 impact event blemish captured by the Keck II telescope and its near-infrared camera at Mauna Kea Observatory, on July 20.

A meteor was observed striking Reisadalen in Nordreisa municipality in Troms County, Norway, on June 7, 2006. Although initial witness reports stated that the resultant fireball was equivalent to the Hiroshima nuclear explosion, scientific analysis places the force of the blast at anywhere from 100-500 tonnes TNT equivalent—at most, around 3% of Hiroshima's yield.^[16]

On September 15, 2007, a chondritic meteor crashed near the village of Carancas in southeastern Peru near Lake Titicaca, leaving a water-filled hole and spewing gases across the surrounding area. Many residents became ill, apparently from the noxious gases shortly after the impact.

Many impact events occur without being observed by anyone on the ground. Between 1975 and 1992, American missile early warning satellites picked up 136 major explosions in the upper atmosphere. In the 21-Nov-2002 edition of the journal Nature, Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario reported on his study of US early warning satellite records for the proceeding 8 years. He identified 300 flashes caused by 1 m to 10 m sized meteors in that time period and estimated the rate of Tunguska sized events as once in 400 years.^[17] Shoemaker estimated that one of such magnitude occurs about once every 300 years, though more recent analyses have suggested he exaggerated by an order of magnitude.

The 1994 impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter also served as a "wake-up call", and astronomers responded by starting programs such as Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR), Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT), Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS) and several others which have drastically increased the rate of asteroid discovery. However, many objects undoubtedly still remain undetected.

On October 7, 2008, a meteroid labeled 2008 TC3 was tracked for 20 hours as it approached Earth and as it fell through the atmosphere and impacted in Sudan. This was the first time an object was detected before it reached the atmosphere and hundreds of pieces of the meteorite were recovered from the Nubian Desert.^[18]

On July 19, 2009, a new black spot about the size of Earth was discovered in Jupiter's southern hemisphere by an amateur astronomer. Thermal infrared analysis showed it was warm and spectroscopic methods detected ammonia. JPL scientists confirmed that another impact event on Jupiter had occurred, probably a small undiscovered comet or other icy body.^[19]^[20]^[21]

Close-approaches and forecasts

On May 19, 1996 a 300–500 m asteroid, 1996 JA1, passed within 450,000 km of Earth; it had been detected a few days before.

On March 18, 2004 a 30 m asteroid, 2004 FH, passed within 40,000 km of Earth only a few days after it had been detected. This asteroid probably would have detonated in the atmosphere and posed negligible hazard to the surface, had it been on impact course.

On March 31, 2004, a 6 m meteoroid, 2004 FU162 made the second closest approach on record (closest so far was The Great Daylight 1972 Fireball) with a separation of only 1.02 Earth radii from the surface (6,500 km). Because this object is certainly too small to pass through the atmosphere, it is classed as a meteoroid rather than an asteroid.

Path of risk where 99942 Apophis may impact Earth in 2036.

In 2004, a newly discovered 320 m asteroid, 99942 Apophis (previously called 2004 MN4), achieved the highest impact probability of any potentially dangerous object. The probability of collision on April 13, 2029 is estimated to be as high as 1 in 17 by Steve Chesley of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, though the previously published figure was the slightly lower odds of 1 in 37, calculated in December 2004. Later observations showed that the asteroid will miss the earth by 25,600 km (within the orbits of communications satellites) in 2029, but its orbit will be altered unpredictably in a way which does not rule out a collision on April 13 or 14, 2036 or later in the century. These possible future dates have a cumulative probability of 1 in 45,000 for an impact in the 21^st century.

Asteroid 2004 VD17, of 580 m, previously was estimated to have a probability of 1 in 63,000 of striking earth on May 4, 2102 (as of July 2006), with risk 1 on the Torino scale, but further observations lowered the estimate. As of the observation on December 17, 2006, JPL assigns 2004 VD17 a Torino value of 0 and an impact probability of 1 in 41.667 million in the next 100 years.

Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA has a potential to collide with Earth on March 16, 2880. The probability of impact is either 1 in 300 or zero, depending on which one of the two possible directions for the asteroid's spin pole is correct. This asteroid has a mean diameter of about 1.1 km. The energy released by the collision would cause major effects on the climate and biosphere and may be devastating to human civilization.

Asteroid 2007 TU24, with an estimated diameter between 300-500 meters, came very close to earth orbit by 1.4 ld (lunar distance) on January 29, 2008. The orbit of the asteroid is shown on NASA's website.^[22]

Relatively small objects that burn up in the atmosphere can be dangerous beyond their own capabilities. In 2002, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon P. Worden told members of a U.S. House of Representatives Science subcommittee that the U.S. has instruments that determine if an atmospheric explosion is natural or man-made, but no other nation with nuclear weapons has that detection technology. He said there is concern that some of those countries could mistake a natural explosion for an attack, and launch nuclear retaliation. In the summer of 2001 U.S. satellites had detected over the Mediterranean an atmospheric flash of energy similar to a nuclear weapon, but determined that it was caused by an asteroid.

As of March 2008, the Near-Earth Asteroid with the highest probability of impact within the next 100 years is 2007 VK184, with a Torino scale of 1.^[23]^[24]^[25]

Mass extinctions and impacts

In the past 540 million years there have been five generally-accepted, major mass extinctions that on average extinguished half of all species. The largest mass extinction to have affected life on Earth was in the Permian-Triassic, which ended the Permian period 250 million years ago and killed off 90% of all species.^[26] The last such mass extinction led to the demise of the dinosaurs and coincided with a large meteorite impact; this is the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event (also known as the K–T extinction event). There is no definitive evidence of impacts leading to the four other major mass extinctions. The cause of the Permian-Triassic extinction is still matter of debate with the age and origin of proposed impact craters, i.e. the Bedout High structure, hypothesized to be associated with it are still controversial.^[27]

In 1980, physicist Luis Alvarez, his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, and nuclear chemists Frank Asaro and Helen V. Michael from the University of California, Berkeley discovered unusually high concentrations of iridium in a specific layer of rock strata in the Earth's crust. Iridium is an element that is rare on Earth but relatively abundant in many meteorites. From the amount and distribution of iridium present in the 65 million year old "iridium layer", the Alvarez team later estimated that an asteroid of 10–14 kilometers must have collided with the earth. This iridium layer at the K–T boundary has been found worldwide at 100 different sites. Multidirectionally shocked quartz (coesite), which is only known to form as the result of large impacts or atomic bomb explosions, has also been found in the same layer at more than 30 sites. Soot and ash at levels tens of thousands times normal levels were found with the above.

Anomalies in chromium isotopic ratios found within the K-T boundary layer strongly support the impact theory.^{[citation needed]} Chromium isotopic ratios are homogeneous within the earth, therefore these isotopic anomalies exclude a volcanic origin which was also proposed as a cause for the iridium enrichment. Furthermore the chromium isotopic ratios measured in the K-T boundary are similar to the chromium isotopic ratios found in carbonaceous chondrites. Thus a probable candidate for the impactor is a carbonaceous asteroid but also a comet is possible because comets are assumed to consist of material similar to carbonaceous chondrites.

Probably the most convincing evidence for a worldwide catastrophe was the discovery of the crater which has since been named Chicxulub Crater. This crater is centered on the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and was discovered by Tony Camargo and Glen Pentfield while working as geophysicists for the Mexican oil company PEMEX. What they reported as a circular feature later turned out to be a crater estimated to be 180 kilometers in diameter. Other researchers would later find that the end-Cretaceous extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs had lasted for thousands of years instead of millions of years as had previously been thought. This convinced the vast majority of scientists that this extinction resulted from a point event that is most probably an extraterrestrial impact and not from increased volcanism and climate change (which would spread its main effect over a much longer time period).

Recently, several craters around the world have been dated to approximately the same age as Chicxulub — for example, the Silverpit crater in the United Kingdom and the Boltysh crater in Ukraine. This has led to the suggestion that the Chicxulub impact was one of several that occurred almost simultaneously, perhaps due to a disrupted comet impacting the Earth in a similar manner to the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter in 1994.

It was the lack of high concentrations of iridium and shocked quartz which has prevented the acceptance of the idea that the Permian extinction (so-called mother of mass extinctions) was also caused by an impact. However, during the late Permian all the continents were combined into one supercontinent named Pangaea and all the oceans formed one superocean, Panthalassa. If an impact occurred in the ocean and not on land at all, then there would be little shocked quartz released (since oceanic crust has relatively little silica) and much less material.

Although there is now general agreement that there was a huge impact at the end of the Cretaceous that led to the iridium enrichment of the K-T boundary layer, remnants have been found of other impacts of the same order of magnitude that did not result in any mass extinctions, and there is no clear linkage between an impact and any other incident of mass extinction. Nonetheless it is now widely believed that mass extinctions due to impacts are an occasional event in the history of Earth^{[citation needed]}.

Paleontologists David M. Raup and Jack Sepkoski have proposed that an extinction occurs roughly every 26 million years (though many are relatively minor). This led physicist Richard A. Muller to suggest that these extinctions could be due to a hypothetical companion star to the sun called Nemesis periodically disrupting the orbits of comets in the Oort cloud, and leading to a large increase in the number of comets reaching the inner solar system where they might hit Earth.

Indeed, in the early history of the Earth (about four billion years ago) bolide impacts were almost certainly common since the solar system contained far more discrete bodies than at present. Such impacts could have included strikes by asteroids hundreds of kilometers in diameter, with explosions so powerful that they vaporized all the Earth's oceans. It was not until this heavy bombardment began to slacken that life appears to have begun to evolve on Earth.

The leading theory of the Moon's origin is the giant impact theory, which states that Earth was once hit by a planetoid the size of Mars; if this theory holds then that impact was almost certainly the largest hit Earth ever suffered.

Artist's conception of a smaller planetary body striking the earth. Outflung material formed the moon. (Theory of moon's formation).

End of civilization

An impact event is commonly seen as a scenario^[28]^[29] that would bring about the end of civilization. In 2000, Discover Magazine published a list of 20 possible sudden doomsday scenarios with impact event listed as the number one most likely to occur.^[30] Until the 1980s this idea was not taken seriously, but all that changed after the discovery of the Chicxulub Crater which was further reinforced by witness to the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 event. Since then there has been more interest from the scientific community and greater public awareness of the possibility of impact events.

Impact events in popular culture

Numerous science fiction stories and novels center around an impact event; possibly the best selling was the novel Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama opens with a significant asteroid impact in northern Italy in the year 2077 which gives rise to the Spaceguard Project, which later discovers the Rama spacecraft. In 1992 a Congressional study in the US led to NASA being directed to undertake a 'Spaceguard Survey' with the novel being named as the inspiration for the name to search for Earth-impacting asteroids.^[31] This in turn inspired Clarke's 1993 novel The Hammer of God. A variation on the traditional impact story was provided by Jack McDevitt's 1999 novel Moonfall, in which a very large comet travelling at interstellar velocities collides with and partially destroys the Moon, fragments of which then collide with the Earth. The 1974 Niven and Pournelle novel The Mote in God's Eye features the examination of the effects of planetary warfare conducted by an alien species that culminates in the use of asteroids to bombard the planet, creating very large craters and the species' near extinction.

Several disaster movies have also been made: When Worlds Collide (1951), deals with two planets on a collision course with Earth – the smaller planet a "near miss," causing extensive damage and destruction, followed by a direct hit from the larger planet^[32]. Meteor (1979) features small asteroid fragments and a large five-mile-wide asteroid heading for Earth. Orbiting US and Soviet nuclear weapons platforms are turned away from their respective earthbound targets, and towards the incoming threat. In 1998, two films were released in the United States on the subject of attempting to stop impact events: Touchstone Pictures' Armageddon, about an asteroid; and Paramount/DreamWorks' Deep Impact, about a comet. Both involved using Space Shuttle-derived craft to deliver large amounts of nuclear weapons to destroy their targets. Also in 1998, the award-winning Canadian film Last Night described the behavior of several characters anticipating the end of the world due to some certain but unstated peril with a known due date – thus resembling a civilization terminating impact event.

Some effort has also been made to consider biblical predictions of armageddon to include an impact event. The "Wormwood Star Prophecy" in the Bible alludes to a futurist interpretation suggesting a chemical change in the atmosphere coinciding with a comet or asteroid impact with Earth. An applicable scenario theorizes a chemical change in the atmosphere due to "heat shock" during entry and/or impact of a large asteroid or comet, reacting Oxygen and Nitrogen in the atmosphere to produce Nitric Acid rain.^[33] The bitterness produced by the Wormwood Star upon a third of the Earth's potable waters could be the Biblical prediction of "acid rain" from the "heat shock" of a large comet or asteroid's impact with Earth.^[34]

global warming - iceberg melt videos

2009-08-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

Melting Icebergs - Video
Melting icebergs. Watch Video about Ice,Melting by Metacafe.com ... Videos: 3. International. Comments: 6. Views: 54,083. Added: 10-Jun-07. Melting icebergs ...
www.metacafe.com/watch/641790/melting_icebergs - 79k - Cached
.Play Video
Blue Iceberg - Video
... Blue Iceberg are melt. Watch Video about Blue,Icebergs by ... Wen the iceberg is on the way of melting it looks like that is take's the color of the sea. ...
www.metacafe.com/watch/3025424/blue_iceberg - 77k - Cached
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YouTube - Our Iceberg Is Melting
Watch this video in a new window. Our Iceberg Is Melting ... Related Videos. Added. 6:31. Our Iceberg is Melting. 2,908 views. RonnaPorter. Added. 0:19 ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyzZVWriH4g - 83k - Cached
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YouTube - Ice berg melting
Upload Video File. Record from Webcam. Watch this video in a new window. Ice berg melting ... 0:19. Icebergs Melting and Collapsing. 48,300 views. dizzo95 ...
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Magnificient Displays: Volcanoes and Lightning

2009-07-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

Chaiten; Chile
Several days ago, a volcano that had been dormant for 9,000 years near the coast of Chile erupted spectacularly, hurling liquified metals and lightning many miles into the sky. The results, which you see here, are called a "dirty thunderstorm," and are quite rare. Nobody is certain what causes them, but according to National Geographic it's believed to be "the result of rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collid[ing] to produce static charges—just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms."
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Redoubt; Alaska
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Tavurvur, Papua New Guinea
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To view original post from which the following segment is taken, go to:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/volcanoes-versus-lightning/10282
This post was written by:

Karl Fabricius - who has written 160 posts on Environmental Graffiti.

Karl was raised in Wales and currently lives in Bristol, though his family tree branches to both sides of the Atlantic. Besides holding an English MA, he’s made a documentary on grassroots boxing, played drums in punk rock bands, and traveled some lush parts of the globe. Back from copywriting in Dubai’s desert, he’s thirsty to get scribbling about things worth scribbling about – especially the environment.

Volcanoes Vs. Lightning [Pics]

Thu, Apr 23, 2009

Chaiten, Chili
Photo by Carlos Gutierrez via BLDGBLOG

At Environmental

Graffiti, we’re a bit partial towards all things volcanic. Smouldering fumaroles, bubbling mud volcanoes, sizzling lava lakes, they’ve all been covered here over recent months. Little surprise then, that the idea of volcanoes combined with another extreme and volatile natural phenomenon – lightning – really got us rubbing our hands together. Prepare for fire and brimstone clashes of epic proportions as two of Mother Earth’s most powerful forces go head to head – and we marvel at the mystery of volcanic lightning.

Face off: Chaiten, Chile, 2008

Photo by Carlos Gutierrez via BLDGBLOG

These opening images depict the eruption of Chile’s Chaiten volcano, which last year unexpectedly began to vent its volcanic fury for the first time in over nine thousand years. With volcanic lightning getting in on the act, from a purely photographic point of view it was worth the wait. The awesome power of charged electricity violently grabbing hold of and coursing through the plume of volcanic smoke and ash leaves one breathless.

Charged atmosphere: Chaiten again

Photo by Carlos Gutierrez via BLDGBLOG

However, there was a more ominous side to this geologically explosive incident, likewise brilliantly captured by these apocalyptic looking shots. Once it had escaped the grip of the lightning, Chaiten’s eruption column rose to an estimated height of over 98,000 feet (30,000 m), prompting the evacuation of its nearby village and surrounding areas, and sending out dense ash clouds that contaminated water supplies and coated one town 30 cm deep.

Clash of the Titans: Rinjani, Indonesia, 1995

Photo: Oliver Spalt

But let’s concentrate on the volcanic lightning itself, shown here in the form of a bolt looking to lock horns with lava issuing from Mount Rinjani in Indonesia. When volcanic gasses and materials are thrust high into the air, lightning can be triggered inside the ash clouds. Yet despite the fact that such electrical activity frequently accompanies large eruptions, and have done so at least 150 times in the past two centuries, these spectacular natural light shows are not clearly understood.

Fingers on triggers: Redoubt, Alaska, 2009

Photo: Bretwood Higman via National Geographic

For years geologists talked about dry volcanic dust particles colliding with one another and building up enough static charge to cause sparks in an attempt to explain volcanic lighting. However, a new theory focuses on the surprising water content of magma and volcanic debris, which would make this rogue phenomenon more like a typical thunderstorm. Before the recent eruption of Alaska’s Mount Redoubt – pictured above with fingers of lightning clutching at an ash cloud – scientists daringly set up mapping gear to try and see how lightning is born and spreads through the volcanic plumes.

Thrust into the melee: Galungung, Indonesia, 1982

Photo: R. Hadian, U.S. Geological Survey

Curiously, some volcanoes with large plumes generate little or no lightning, while those whose clouds are smaller produce a lot more. This suggests that while all volcanoes have electric potential, lightning only occurs when there is high resistance to the volcanic current in the air. Size isn’t everything – and yet a large show of volcanic and electrical force can be a warning to expect a pretty major event. The massive 1982 eruption of Indonesia’s Galunggung – shown in the incredible shot above beset by lightning strikes – resulted in 68 deaths, and its ash column forced two Boeing 747s to make emergency landings.

Seeing red: Sakurajima, 1991

Photo: Sakurajima Volcananological Observatory via thunderbolts.info

The branching of lightning in this image of Sakurajima volcano in Japan is just one example of the types of lightning known to take place over volcanoes. According to one source: “The 1981 eruption of Mt St Helens featured a spectacular display of sheet lightning, with truck-sized balls of St Elmo’s fire seen rolling along the ground 29 miles north of the mountain.” Volcanic lightning surely is one of nature’s most powerful and awe-inspiring pyrotechnic exhibitions, yet mystery still shrouds its origins.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

jack frost art - do pics

2009-07-15T22:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/the-real-jack-frost/5311

Is this the Real Jack Frost? [PICS]

Mon, Dec 29, 2008

Images by Jeremy Olden

It looks as if Jack Frost is getting brave. This icicle hanging from a house in Lake Stevens, Washington bares an uncanny resemblance to a face, could it be the infamous ice sprite’s calling card?

The eyes, nose and lips are clearly defined in this frozen spectacle, but who says if Master Frost was to appear to us that he would be in human form? After all, he is meant to be an elf or pixie of some sort.

Hailing from Viking folklore, Jack Frost is thought to be the anglified version of Jokul Frosti, meaning ‘icicle frost’. The mythical creature dances at night decorating the land with intricate ice patterns and icicles, some of which we featured recently in 10 Abstract Masterpieces of Frost.

Source Komo News via Telegraph

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/abstract-masterpieces-frost/4336

Earth's Mighty Cliff Faces

2009-07-15T22:04:00.000-07:00

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white cliffs of dover

white cliffs of dover-2

beachyhead - white cliffs

cliffs of Moher

cliffs of Moher-2

croaghaun cliff

cabo girago cliffs

vinyard at base of cabo Girago

Preikestolen cliffs

preikestolen-2

lysefjorden

kjeragbolten boulder

ramnjefellsfossen waterfall cliff

troll wall or trollveggen

Mt. asgard

mt. thor

half dome

half dome-2

kalaupapa cliffs-highest sea cliffs in world

Auyantepui or Devil's Mountain - angel falls

great trango tower

Nature Creates Ice Art #4 - waterfalls

2009-07-15T21:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/ice-waterfalls/2682

10 Most Incredible Waterfalls of Ice

Thu, Oct 9, 2008

Featured

Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.

Image: Herman Erberr

We’re used to seeing stunning images of cascading waterfalls in all their fluid glory, but have you ever wondered how they would look if Jack Frost was let loose on them? Well, you need wait no longer as we have compiled a range of fantastic frozen waterfalls.

1. This enchanting image of an ice waterfall perfectly captures the force and flow of the water underneath the ice, making it hard to comprehend how it ever manages to freeze.

photogapher unknown

2. Ice climbers flock to The Fang in Vail, Colorado. The enormous ice pillar forms from the cascading waterfall only on exceptionally cold winters, and when it does the column can measure up to 50 meters high and has been known to have a base measuring 8 meters wide.

photographer unknown

3. If you think climbing an ice waterfall is scary, imagine the fear factor when part of the cascade breaks off and collapses to the ground mere meters from you and your buddy. That’s exactly what happened climbers Albert Leichtfried and Markus Bendler on their ascent of a frozen waterfall near Hokkaido, Japan. Their friend managed to capture the frightening moment on camera. Both climbers made it to safety soon after.

Image: Herman Erberr

4. Thick layers of ice sit on St Louis Falls in Beauharnois, Quebec. The area is home to one of the largest hydroelectric generating stations in the world.

Image: Eric Begin

5. This fantastic shot shows the waterfall freezing from outside in; there’s still a considerable waterfall flowing within the ice lume.

Image: hightechredneck

6. Undulating waves and nodules of ice give this waterfall in Starved Rock State Park, Illinois, such wonderful texture.

Image: leroidude

7. This random waterfall was discovered on the road side of a seldom travelled road near Hamilton, Canada.

Image: Martin Cathrae

8. The folds at the bottom of this waterfall demonstrate how slowly waterfalls can freeze, and are in stark contrast to the jagged, spiky icicles hanging from the edge of the rock.

Image: slieb25

9. This great image was taken in Oak Creek Canyon near a place called Temple of Mother Earth on the West Fork Trail, Sedona, Arizona.

Image: Eileen Nauman

10. A simply fabulous shot from the bottom of the ice waterfall looking up. Just look how the ice has built up from the spray on surrounding twigs. That’s what you call natural beauty.

Image: Stefan Gara

Nature Creates Ice Art - Part 3- Niagra Falls

2009-07-15T20:24:00.001-07:00

More Ice Art at: http://creation-art.blogspot.com/2007/02/nature-creates-ice-art.html and at
http://creation-art.blogspot.com/2009/07/naturecreates-ice-art-2.html

The Day the Niagara Falls Froze Over

Tue, Jun 23, 2009

Image: Photographer unknown via Niagara Falls Public Library

It’s an amazing snapshot – so amazing that many have been quick to cry fake: North America’s most iconic falls, apparently frozen mid-flow – but what moment in time is frozen in sepia within this frame? One might think the answer would be simple, but with the origins of this photo veiled in a mist of uncertainty like the spray produced by the falls themselves, nothing is guaranteed.

It seems claims of Photoshop frolics are misguided in this case; yet while the shot looks authentic, because its photographer is unknown, we can’t be sure precisely when it was taken. 1911 has been the date aired most on the web, but it could just as easily be 1912, when much of the surrounding Niagara River was frozen. The other point here is that in the photo the falls are not entirely frozen over, with several small spouts of water visible gushing out from beneath the crust of ice crystals.

American Falls frozen over, probably 1936

Image: Photographer unknown via Niagara Falls Public Library

According to historical records, during only one year, 1848, has freezing weather caused the thousands of cubic feet of water per second flowing over the Niagra Falls to run dry, an event thought to have been caused by ice jamming and damming upriver. Ice bridges spanning the Niagara River from bank to bank have formed as a result of various other colder winters, and in 1936, when the photo above was probably taken, the American Falls are said to have frozen over completely.

Great mass of frozen spray and ice-bound American Falls Niagara, 1902 or 1890

Image: Photographer unknown via Niagara Falls Public Library

The years 1909, 1938 and 1949 are others in which the water usually rushing over these famous falls may have been reduced to a trickle – if not over the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side of the border the Niagara Falls straddle, then at least over the shallower American Falls. Meanwhile, back in 1912, an ice bridge broke apart as several people were crossing it, sending three to their deaths as the ice on which they stood plunged them into oblivion.

Cave of the winds in winter niagara falls, date unknown

Image: Photographer unknown via Ellishouse

To conclude, if there is one specific day when the Niagara Falls might be said to have frozen solid in recent history, it most likely took place in 1848, and even so, the news reports of the time were patchy on detail. More likely, we are looking at several days over the course of a century and a half when the falls gave the appearance of having fully frozen over, when in fact they only did so partially. One thing’s for sure though: it hasn’t happened in some considerable time. Nobody say climate change.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Frozen Niagra Falls?

by dragonhatcher (02/04/2007 - 22:56)

Niagra Falls

Do the Falls Freeze over in the Winter?

Yes and No...... We'll try to explain

The tremendous volume of water never stops flowing, However, the falling water and mist create ice formations along the banks of the falls and river. This can result in mounds of ice as thick as fifty feet. If the Winter is cold for long enough, the ice will completely stretch across the river and form what is known as the "ice bridge".

This ice bridge can extend for several miles down river until it reaches the area known as the lower rapids. Until 1912,visitors were allowed to actually walk out on the ice bridge and view the Falls from below. February 24th of 1888 the local newspaper reported that at least 20,000 people watched or tobogganed on the ice. Shanties selling liquor, photographs and curiosities abounded.

On February 4th 1912 the ice bridge broke up and three tourists lives were lost. There can also be a great deal of "mini-icebergs" which flow down the Niagara River from frozen Lake Erie. The flow of ice has been reduced considerably by the yearly installation of the "ice-boom" on Lake Erie. The ice-boom is a long floating chain (2miles- 3.2 KM) of steel floats strung across the Niagara River from Buffalo New York to Fort Erie Ontario. It is set in place during the month of December and removed during the month of March or April. It is maintained by the New York State Power Authority. The ice boom helps prevent the ice from clogging the river and most importantly the hydroelectric companies water intakes.

Spring Ice flowing underneath the North Grand Island Bridge HOWEVER.... The flow of water was stopped completely over both falls on March 29th 1848 due to an ice jam in the upper river for several hours. This is the only known time to have occurred. The Falls did not actually freeze over, but the flow was stopped to the point where people actually walked out and recovered artifacts from the riverbed!

Tag: frozenfalls niagrafalls surnriseniagrafalls

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Mountain Erosion - Eons in Reshaping

2009-05-25T18:41:00.001-07:00

o600 feet below this narrow ledge lies the ocean

Unusual Rock

2009-03-10T23:40:00.001-07:00

El Capitan

2009-03-02T21:11:00.001-08:00

El Capitan

This article is about El Capitan in California.

El Capitan
Southwest face of El Capitan from Yosemite Valley
El Capitan Location of El Capitan in the United States
Elevation	7,569 feet (2,307 m)
Location	California, USA
Range	Sierra Nevada
Coordinates	37°44′2.4″N 119°38′13.2″W / 37.734°N 119.637°W / 37.734; -119.637Coordinates: 37°44′2.4″N 119°38′13.2″W / 37.734°N 119.637°W / 37.734; -119.637
Topo map	USGS El Capitan
Type	granite rock
Age of rock	Cretaceous
Easiest route	hike

El Capitan is a 3,000-foot (910 m) vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith is one of the world's favorite challenges for rock climbers.

The formation was named "El Capitan" by the Mariposa Battalion when it explored the valley in 1851. El Capitan ("the captain", "the chief") was taken to be a loose Spanish translation of the local Native American name for the cliff, variously transcribed as "To-to-kon oo-lah" or "To-tock-ah-noo-lah". It is unclear if the Native American name referred to a specific Tribal chief, or simply meant "the chief" or "rock chief".^[1] In modern times, the formation's name is often contracted to "El Cap", especially among rock climbers.

The top of El Capitan can be reached by hiking out of Yosemite Valley on the trail next to Yosemite Falls, then proceeding west. For climbers, the challenge is to climb up the sheer granite face; there are dozens of named climbing routes, all of them long and difficult.

Geology

See also: Geology of the Yosemite area

El Capitan is composed almost entirely of El Capitan Granite, a pale, coarse-grained granite emplaced approximately 100 mya (million years ago). In addition to El Capitan, this granite forms most of the rock features of the western portions of Yosemite Valley. A separate intrusion of igneous rock, the Taft Granite, forms the uppermost portions of the cliff face. A third igneous rock, diorite, is present as dark-veined intrusions through both kinds of granite.

Along with most of the other rock formations of Yosemite Valley, El Capitan was carved by glacial action. Several periods of glaciation have occurred in the Sierra Nevada, but the Sherwin Glaciation, which lasted from approximately 1.3 mya to 1 mya, is considered to be responsible for the majority of the sculpting. The El Capitan Granite is relatively free of joints, and as a result the glacial ice did not erode the rock face as much as other, more jointed, rocks nearby.^[2]

Earth's Masterful Creations

2009-02-16T00:46:00.000-08:00

Earthquakes - Humans Can Cause

2009-02-11T02:17:00.000-08:00

How Humans Can Trigger Earthquakes

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/humans-cause-earthquakes/index.html

PHOTOS: Four Ways Humans Can Trigger Earthquakes

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News
Photos

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Heraculum Video

2008-11-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

heraculum

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Antarctica

2008-11-28T20:57:00.002-08:00

Antarctica

Antarctica Countries

Explore With MapMachine

More Continents and Countries

Antarctica Information and History

This highest, driest, and coldest continent was referred to in the 17th century as Terra Australis Incognita—unknown southern land. Although the continent is still largely a mystery, what is known is that Antarctica's delicate ecosystem is in danger.

Scientists are studying environmental changes that have resulted in a vast decline in numbers of krill—tiny, shrimplike creatures that are the backbone of the food chain in the surrounding seas. As Antarctica becomes less isolated, the challenge will be to protect these ecosystems and the seals, penguins, and whales that rely on them.

Antarctica Features

Photo Gallery: Queen Maud Land

Join an expedition of six daring mountaineers on the bottom of the world as they summit never-before-scaled peaks and explore the otherworldly terrain of Queen Maud Land.

Video: Expedition to Antarctica

Join Admiral Richard E. Byrd in 1928 as he leads a team of explorers to the coldest continent on Earth.

Crittercam Chronicles

Find all the animals, from the crabeater seal to the killer whale, and learn about their habitat in our virtual world.

Volcanic Eruptions - Slide Show and Videos

2008-11-28T14:31:00.001-08:00

Earth's Volcanoes

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Eruptions:

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Volcanic Eruption - video'

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Hawaii's Volcanoes

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Volcanoes Blow Their Tops
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Weather/popup?id=2206149

World's Volcanoes Erupt

Tonga's Undersea Volcano Erupts

For days, an undersea volcano about 6 miles off the coast of Tonga has been shooting smoke, steam and ash thousands of feet into the sky above the Pacific Ocean. Coastal residents said the steam and ash first appeared Monday. The eruption does not currently pose any threat to islanders, according to The Associated Press. So far, there have been no reports of fish or other animals being affected. About 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered in the area, geologists said. In this photo, smoke is seen after an underwater volcano erupted in Hunga Ha'apai, Tonga, March 18, 2009.
(Matangi Tonga Online, via Reuters)

Slide Show of Volcanoes erupting. Click on arrows to advance and view pics:

1 of 36

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CLOUDS

2008-11-26T15:04:00.000-08:00

Clouds

Normally, water vapor can only condense onto condensation nuclei—tiny particles that serve as kernels around which drops can form.

Condensation nuclei are often nothing but natural dust. But soot particles from automobile exhaust or other types of pollution can also serve the purpose. One study has found that changing levels of air pollution cause different rates of cloud formation (and rain) on weekends and weekdays, at least in humid climates with lots of cities.

Cloud Types

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/photos/clouds/html

Photo Gallery: Clouds

1 of 12NEXT


A "mackerel sky" adds to a striking sunset scene in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England. Ripples of altocumulus or cirrocumulus clouds—resembling the markings of a king mackerel—give the phenomenon its name. Photograph by John Leslie/Alamy

lightning in chilean volcano eruption -other Ntl. Geo. Pics

2008-11-26T14:48:00.000-08:00

visions-of-earth 2008 photo #4

Slide Show. Amazing lightning in Chilean Volcano!

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/chaiten_volcano_still_active.html
multiple photos of Chaiten volcanic eruption

Deepest Places on Earth

2008-11-25T15:36:00.001-08:00

http://geology.com/records/deepest-part-of-the-ocean.shtml

Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench - Pacific Ocean

The Greatest Ocean Depth:

Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest point in Earth's oceans. The bottom there is 10,924 meters (35,840 feet) below sea level. If Mount Everest, the highest moutain on Earth, were placed at this location it would be covered by over one mile of water. The Challenger Deep is named after the British survey ship Challenger II, which discovered this deepest location in 1951.

Map of the Mariana Trench - Deepest Point in Earth's Oceans - Image by CIA

Why is the ocean so deep here?

The Mariana Trench is located at a convergent plate boundary. Here two converging lithospheric plates collide with one another. At this collision point, one of the plates descends into the mantle. At the line of contact between the two plates the downward flexure forms a trough known as an ocean trench. An example of an ocean trench is shown in the diagram below.

USGS Image.

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http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/03trench/trench/trench.html

Atlantic Ocean

Figure 1. Bathymetry of the northeast corner of the Caribbean plate. Click image for larger view and image credit.

The Puerto Rico Trench: Implications for Plate Tectonics and Earthquake and Tsunami Hazards

Uri ten Brink, Chief Scientist
U.S. Geological Survey

The Puerto Rico Trench is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, with water depths exceeding 8,400 meters (figure 1). Its depth is comparable to the deep trenches in the Pacific Ocean. Trenches in the Pacific are located in places where one tectonic plate subducts or slides under another one. The Puerto Rico Trench, in contrast, is located at a boundary between two plates that slide past each other with only a small component of subduction. The trench is less deep where the component of subduction is larger. The unusually deep sea floor is not limited to the trench, but also extends farther south toward Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Trench is also associated with the most negative gravity anomaly on earth, -380 milliGal, which indicates the presence of an active downward force. Finally, a thick limestone platform, which was originally deposited in flat layers near sea level, is now tilted northward at a uniform angle. Its northward edge is at a depth of 4,200 m, and its southern edge can be found on land in Puerto Rico at an elevation of a few hundred meters. Many tectonic models have been proposed to explain this geologically fascinating, tectonically active region; however, none have gained acceptance, and the region remains poorly understood, largely because its underwater location makes it difficult to study.

click here for remainder of article

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Mars/Earth comparison:

Deepest Canyon

The Grand Canyon of Mars, Valles Marineris, is 2,485 miles long, carving about one-fifth of the Martian circumference. The canyon is up to 370 miles wide and more than four miles deep. Compared to the Grand Canyon, the Mars canyon is almost 10 times longer, about 20 times wider and about four times deeper. But the Grand Canyon is not the Earth's deepest. The Mars canyon is two miles deeper than what is typically identified as the deepest canyon on Earth, Peru's Colca Canyon.

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Deepest Canyon

http://geology.com/records/deepest-canyon.shtml

Deepest Canyon in the World
Deepest Canyon in the United States

Cotahuasi Canyon of Peru - the world's deepest

Most people would probably bet that the "Grand Canyon" of Arizona is the deepest valley in the world. It is extremely well known and of enormous proportion. It is about 1737 meters deep - a little over one mile. Although the Grand Canyon is a very deep canyon, it is not Earth's deepest. That distinction belongs to Cotahuasi Canyon in southewestern Peru. Cotahuasi Canyon was cut by the Rio Cotahuasi, a tribuatary of the Rio Ocona, to a depth of approximately 3354 meters - over twice the depth of the Grand Canyon!

Satellite image of southwestern Peru. The Pacific ocean is in the southwest corner of the mage but covered by a layer of white stratus clouds. Two deep canyons can be seen in the image. The eastern canyon was cut by the Rio Camana river and the western canyon was cut by the Rio Ocona. The large white area between these canyons is the snow-capped peak of Nudo Coropuna, a stratovolcano. At an elevation of 6617 meters it is the highest mountain in the Cordillera Occidental. The snowcap to the west is on Nevado Solimana, another stratovolcano at an elevation of 6117 meters. The main tributary of the Rio Ocona is the Rio Cotahuasi. The bottom of the Cotahuasi Canyon is 3354 meters below the top of the adjacent plateau. NASA Image.

Hells Canyon: Deepest Canyon in the United States

Hells Canyon is the deepest river-cut canyon in the United States. The highest point on the edge of the canyon is 7993 feet (2436 meters) above the canyon floor below. It is ten miles wide and was cut by the waters of the Snake River.

Hells Canyon is a remote area. In the distance between the Hell's Canyon Dam on the southern end of the canyon and the Washington-Oregon border on the northern end of the canyon no roads cross it and only three roads make it down to the Snake River.

The canyon is a unique natural area and in 1975 the United States Congress established the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. It is now a park that anyone can visit. The park features scenic vistas, hiking, camping, mountain biking and other activities.

Satellite image of Hells Canyon. In the southern part of this image the canyon, occupied by the Snake River, can be seen trending northeast-southwest. The canyon turns northwest and meanders in that direction in the northern part of the image. A Landsat Geocover image from NASA.

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Greatest Rift

http://www.guiding-stars.com/article/destination-guides/africa/tanzania-rift-valley.html

http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml

Mars - Greatest Canyon in Solar System

2008-11-25T14:18:00.001-08:00

Mars Atlas

VALLES MARINERIS

(the grandest canyon!)

Valles Marineris, or Mariner Valley, is a vast canyon system that runs along the Martian equator just east of the Tharsis region. Valles Marineris is 4000 km (2500 mi) long and reaches depths of up to 7 km (4 mi)! For comparison, the Grand Canyon in Arizona is about 800 km (500 mi) long and 1.6 km (1 mi) deep. In fact, the extent of Valles Marineris is as long as the United States and it spans about 20 percent (1/5) of the entire distance around Mars! The canyon extends from the Noctis Labyrinthus region in the west to the chaotic terrain in the east. Most researchers agree that Valles Marineris is a large tectonic "crack" in the Martian crust, forming as the planet cooled, affected by the rising crust in the Tharsis region to the west, and subsequently widened by erosional forces. However, near the eastern flanks of the rift there appear to be some channels that may have been formed by water.
MOC image of layering in Valles Marineris	Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars	MOC image of sand dunes within the Hebes Chasma region of Valles Marineris
A color image of Valles Marineris, the great canyon of Mars; north toward top. View larger image and details
For more on Valles Marineris: University of Michigan Malin Space Science Systems

http://www.livescience.com/mysteries/080306-llm-deepest-canyon.html

The Grand Canyon of Mars

Anyone who has peeked over the rim of the Grand Canyon comes away awed, because there is nothing like it on Earth. Martians, however, would merely chuckle.

Mars has Valles Marineris, a system of canyons that stretch for 2,485 miles (4,000 kilometers -- almost the entire width of the United States.

Side canyons are often up to 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide. The central gorge is 370 miles (600 kilometers) across in places. At some spots along the rim, you'd have to look 6 miles (10 kilometers) down to find the bottom. That's six or seven times deeper than the supposedly Grand Canyon.

This image was created by the U.S. Geological Survey by merging Viking mission images with topographic data. It shows just a portion of Valles Marineris. The location, Candor Chasma, is one some scientists suspect has been sculpted at least in part by flowing water.

-- Robert Roy Britt

The upper-most layers of rock in many areas of Valles marineris on Mars have been stripped away by erosion, providing a glimpse of the subsurface that was once buried deep underground. Some fractures in the rock show evidence of fluid alteration, yielding clues into the ancient fluid chemistry and habitability of the subsurface. Credit: Science

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/valles-marineris.htmlhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/valles-marineris.htmlhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/valles-marineris.htmlhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/valles-marineris.htmlhttp://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/valles-marineris.html

Volcano - Mount St Helens 2004

2008-11-24T21:52:00.000-08:00

Rumbles in 2004: Mount St. Helens Wakes Up

Mount St. Helens: 2004 Image Gallery
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?gid=8

2004- Mount St Helens Wakes Up

USGS/John S. Pallister

The Calm Before The Storm

This Image Gallery highlights some of the notable activity, which has occurred at Mount St. Helens this year, since it has “roared back to life”. This picture was taken in the summer, on June 23, 2004, before there was any significant activity in the lava dome on Mount St. Helens. This is an oblique aerial photograph of north flank, crater, lava dome and new glacier (behind dome), Mount St. Helens, Washington state, USA. Click to enlarge.
USGS/Mike Poland and Dan Dzurisin

Early Warning Sign

A swarm of small, shallow earthquakes (smaller than magnitude 1) began on morning of September 23, peaked in midday on September 24, then declined through the afternoon of September 25. There was a significant amount of seismic activity during this week. The image above, taken as deformation of the crater floor was recognized on September 29, shows the western side of Mount St. Helens crater and dome. Notice the glacier forming at the base of the dome. The area of deformation encompassed 20,000-40,000 square meters (5-10 acres). Amount of uplift totaled several meters. New fissures had cut across ice and talus lying upon glacial ice. Click to enlarge.
USGS/John Pallister

Mount St. Helens Awakens

The picture above, taken on October 1, shows the Crater/Plume on Mount St. Helens. On October 1, the first emission of steam and ash occurred. Beginning at 11:57 a.m. and lasting about 25 minutes, a small steam eruption, with minor ash, issued from a vent just south of the 1980-86 lava dome, the culmination of a week of increasingly energetic seismicity. This vent lay within that part of the crater-floor glacier that had become increasingly crevassed and uplifted over the past few days. The plume rose to 3,700 m altitude (12,000 ft), dropped to 3,000 m (10,000 ft), and drifted southwest with minor ashfall close to the volcano. Seismic activity dropped to a low level for several hours after the eruption, then gradually increased. Click to enlarge.
USGS

View from Above

The picture above, taken on October 4, is an aerial view of Mount St. Helens crater and dome, with the glacier on the right. On October 4, large-scale uplift, on the order of tens of meters, was verified on the basis of visual observations and photogrammetric analysis from the previous day. Deformation affected part of the crater-floor glacier and adjacent area of the 1980-86 dome. Also, at approximately 9:43 a.m., a small steam and ash eruption occurred, lasting 40 minutes. Associated seismic activity was trifling. The steam plume reached to about 3,700 m (12,000 ft) altitude, and its ashy fallout dusted roads southeast of the volcano. Ash thickness at 8 km (5 mi) from the volcano was 0.2 cm (less than one-eighth inch). Click to enlarge.
USGS/Jon Major

Strong Activity in the Crater

The image, taken on October 11, shows the Mount St. Helens dome and uplift from the west. On October 11, new dome breached the surface, recognized when freshly extruded rock formed a "fin" abreast the uplifted crater floor. It marked the first appearance of extruded magmatic material in the crater. Seismic activity continued at low level (1 event per 5-10 min; M1 or smaller). Also, steam plume from deforming area continued to rise to just above crater. Click to enlarge.
USGS/Steve Schilling

New Growth

The image, taken on October 21, shows the Mount St. Helens crater floor, developing glacier (lower left), dome, and uplift with new growth, as seen from the northeast. On October 21, geological and thermal-imaging observations confirmed that both the area of uplift and the new lava extrusion had increased in size noticeably since last seen on October 14. About 1 foot of new snow with a light dusting of ash covered much of the uplift, except for the new lava extrusion, which steamed heavily. A gas-sensing flight detected low levels of the volcanic gases carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide, which is consistent with magma continuing to rise from depth. Click to enlarge.
USGS/ David Wieprecht

Mount St. Helens Exposed

The image, taken on October 27, shows the top of Mount St. Helens new growth, vent area, and broken glacier ice, as seen from the west. On this date, a new GPS station on the southern part of the new dome showed motion downward and to the southeast; a station near the summit of the old dome had moved northward about 7 cm (3 in.) since October 20. Thermal imaging showed an elongate band of elevated surface temperature, locally as great as 775 degrees Celsius (1,420 deg F), along the west face of the new dome coincident with the area of exposed newly extruded lava. Samples of dome rock similar in appearance to the rock of the older dome were collected from two localities in the vicinity of the exposed new lava. Click to enlarge.
USGS/Jim Vallance and Matt Logan

Meeting with the Sun

The image, taken on November 4, shows Mount St. Helens' plume, looking into the sun. On this date, the elongate new dome, which extends southward from the 1980-1986 dome, had undergone substantial vertical growth since October 27, extruding upward by as much as 100 m (330 ft). Exposed rock faces had temperatures in the range 400-500 degrees Celsius (750-930 deg F), creating the incandescence that could be seen from the north on clear nights. The steep new faces on the dome generated small hot rock falls and avalanches within the crater. The finer particulate from these deposits, which roiled upward within the steam plume, rose to about 3,360 m (11,000 ft) altitude, or about 800 m (2,640 ft) above the crater rim. Click to enlarge.
USGS/ Steve Schilling

Up close (and personal): Lava Dome

This image, taken on November 10, shows Mount St. Helens' new growth as seen from the south. Good viewing conditions revealed continued growth of the lava dome. Estimated dimensions for the "welt"--the broad area of deformation--were about 600 m (about 1970 feet) in diameter. The new lava dome, in the central and western parts of the welt, was about 400 by 180 m (1310 by 590 ft). The highest point on the new lava dome was about 250 m (820 ft) above the former surface of the glacier that occupied that point in mid-September. Maximum surface temperatures on the new dome remained at about 700 degrees Celsius (1,300 deg F). Click to enlarge.
USGS/Willie Scott

Football Field VS The New Dome

The image, taken on November 18, shows Mount St. Helens' new growth as seen from the east, with a football field for comparison. During the week of November 12 – November 18, there wasn’t any significant activity at Mount St. Helens. Seismicity remained at a low level. Slow extrusion of new dome continued, with broadening of the surrounding uplifted area. GPS measurements continued to indicate no deformation of the volcano's outer flanks. Suitable weather for the scheduling of fieldwork proved elusive. Click to enlarge.
USGS/ Mike Poland

On a Slope

The image above, taken November 20, shows Mount St. Helens dome as seen from Sugar Bowl, on the northeast flank. Here are some notable results from November 20: The welt of deformed crater-floor material and glacial ice was pushed to the south crater wall by the growing lava extrusion. During this week, the "Elevator" GPS receiver, which sat atop the new dome, traveled south-southeast 46 cm per hour and upward about 6 cm hour, as it was carried along the advancing whaleback-like new lava extrusion. Click to enlarge.
USGS/ Jim Vallance and Matt Logan

Inside View

The image above, taken on November 29, shows from the east, a view of the glacier uplift against the south crater wall. The new lava and its surrounding uplifted welt pushed up against the south crater wall. The lava, a whaleback-shaped extrusion, increased sufficiently in height that it could be seen from the Johnston Ridge Observatory visitor center (JRO). The FLIR infrared camera noted substantial temperature readings (upward of 400 degrees C) only on the southwest and west sides of the whaleback flow. Maximum reading was 500 degrees. Also, a eulogy was given for "Elevator," the GPS receiver that was slung into the crater and set upon the new lava extrusion. It became a victim of gravity after eight days atop its lumbering lava steed. Click to enlarge.
USGS/ Jon Major

Rising, Rising…

This image was taken on December 2, showing a southwest view of glacial uplift. During the week of December 3 – December 9, was a repeat of last week’s seismic activity in nearly every way. The earthquake counts remained low, with characteristic events of magnitude 1.5 occurring every 60-90 seconds. Like the previous week, several larger earthquakes again shook the crater floor. A notable finding was small displacement of a GPS receiver high on the volcano's southeast flank. Total deflection on Dec 9: about 4 cm (1.5 inches) southeast, or about 2 millimeters per day in the eighteen days since November 20. It is thought to result from the banking of new lava against the inner crater wall. Click to enlarge.
USGS/John Pallister

Side by Side Comparison

Mount St. Helens crater from the east, with new dome (on left in crater), from December 11, 2004. The 1980-86 dome is in the crater on the right. Click to enlarge.
Image Credit: USGS/Willie Scott

Mount St. Helens Settles Down

Shown above is a view of Mount St. Helens from the northwest. Mount Hood (left) and Mount Jefferson (middle) are on the skyline. Growth of the new lava dome inside the crater of Mount St. Helens continues, accompanied by low rates of seismicity, low emissions of steam and volcanic gases, and minor production of ash. It is noted that during such eruptions, episodic changes in the level of activity can occur over days to months. This image was taken on December 16, 2004. Click to enlarge.
Image Credit: USGS/Mike Poland

Quiet…But Still a Potential Threat

This is a photograph of Mount St. Helens from the Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO), taken on December 23, 2004. There was not a significant change in the activity at the volcano; steam and volcanic gases, and minor production of ash evident. Scientists believe the eruption could also intensify suddenly or with little warning and produce explosions that cause hazardous conditions within several miles of the crater and farther downwind. Small lahars could suddenly descend the Toutle River if triggered by heavy rain or by interaction of hot rocks with snow and ice. Click to enlarge.
Image Credit: USGS/Jim Vallance and Stephanie Konfal

Predictions for 2005?

This is a picture of the top of Mount St. Helens' new dome from the east, taken on December 28, 2004. Certainly, Mount St. Helens roared back to life in 2004. Mount St. Helens began showing signs of life in late September sending clouds of steam and ash over southern Washington. Since then, the volcano has been steadily active, and most significantly, a new lava dome has formed. Scientists continue to closely monitor the volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens; many are convinced that after more than twenty years since the last mass of eruptions in 1980, it will do so again. So the question that many ponder is “What does Mount St. Helens have in store for 2005? Click to enlarge.

CREATION ART

Nature Creates Wierd and Wonderful

Thirty Thousand Feet - Weather, Sunsets

Deep Ocean Life Creations

Photo Gallery: Ocean Survey Reveals World of Deep-Sea Creatures

Beautiful South Africa

Stephen Hawkin on the Hadron Collider

Earth's Geological Carvings

Earth's Largest Creatures Endangered by Man

Blue Whale Beached -- Flipper to be Amputated?

Baby Blue Whale Caught on Film Underwater

Earth's Tiniest Creatures Who Share Our Planet

NEW SPECIES PICTURES: 850 Underground Creatures Found

Global Warming -- Bergs melting - videos

Devil's Pit

Article: Click here to open and then go to page 21 (PDF)

Earth's Masterful Creations # 2

Mount Olympus - Greece

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coin

Climbing

Teide volcano on Tenerife, one of Spain's Canary Islands

Search results

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks - Geological History

Introduction

Regional Setting

Geology of the Tent Rocks Area

Kasha-katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument.

earthmother

Related Posts

Nature Creates Ice Art # 5 - Estonia

Impact Events on Earth

Impact event

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

Sizes and frequencies

The geology of Earth-impact events

Recent pre-historic impact events

Modern impact events

Close-approaches and forecasts

Mass extinctions and impacts

End of civilization

Impact events in popular culture

See also

global warming - iceberg melt videos

Magnificient Displays: Volcanoes and Lightning

jack frost art - do pics

Earth's Mighty Cliff Faces

Nature Creates Ice Art #4 - waterfalls

Nature Creates Ice Art - Part 3- Niagra Falls

Frozen Niagra Falls?

Mountain Erosion - Eons in Reshaping

Unusual Rock

El Capitan

El Capitan

Geology

Earth's Masterful Creations

Earthquakes - Humans Can Cause

PHOTOS: Four Ways Humans Can Trigger Earthquakes

Heraculum Video

Antarctica

Volcanic Eruptions - Slide Show and Videos

World's Volcanoes Erupt

CLOUDS

Clouds

Atmospheric Decoration

Photo Gallery: Clouds

lightning in chilean volcano eruption -other Ntl. Geo. Pics

Deepest Places on Earth

Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench - Pacific Ocean

The Greatest Ocean Depth:

Why is the ocean so deep here?

The Puerto Rico Trench: Implications for Plate Tectonics and Earthquake and Tsunami Hazards

Deepest Canyon in the WorldDeepest Canyon in the United States

Cotahuasi Canyon of Peru - the world's deepest

Hells Canyon: Deepest Canyon in the United States

Mars - Greatest Canyon in Solar System

Volcano - Mount St Helens 2004

2004- Mount St Helens Wakes Up

USGS/John S. Pallister

Deepest Canyon in the World
Deepest Canyon in the United States