PLEASE NOTE:
*
CCNet 91/2003 - 23 October 2003
HERE COMES THE SUN: CORONAL MASS EJECTION EXPECTED TO ARRIVE
TOMORROW
---------------------------------------------------------------------
An explosion near giant sunspot 484 on Oct. 22nd hurled a coronal
mass ejection toward Earth. Forecasters expect it to arrive on
Oct. 24th
and possibly trigger a strong geomagnetic storm.
--Spaceweather, 23 October 2003
If you think about the effect that 9/11 had on our nation and on
the world,
that was merely 3,000 people and a few buildings. The same number
of people
die on the nation's highways in the month of September as died in
the World
Trade Center, yet the impact on society was totally enormous. So,
it doesn't
necessarily take a civilization-destroying asteroid to have a
profound effect.
--Clark Chapman, Denver Post, 22 October 2003
(1) HERE COMES THE SUN: CORONAL MASS EJECTION EXPECTED TO ARRIVE
TOMORROW
Spaceweather, 23 October 2003
(2) SUNSPOT NUMBERS
Spaceweather.com
(3) THE SUNSPOT CYCLE
Marshall Space Flight Center
(4) BRIGHT LIGHTS CAUSED BY METEOR SHOWER
The Herald (South Carolina), 21 October 2003
(5) GROUP SEEKS TO ZAP ASTEROIDS
Denver Post, 22 October 2003
(6) METEORITE FRAGMENTS BELONG TO IRON METEORITE
Indian News, 22 October 2003
(7) METEORITE REMNANTS HANDED OVER TO GSI
Indian News, 20 October 2003
(8) SCIENTISTS REVISIT AN AEGEAN ERUPTION FAR WORSE THAN KRAKATOA
The New York Times, 21 October 2003
(9) PLEISTOCENE ALBATROSSES OF BERMUDA
Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>
(10) RE: EVIDENCE FOR AN UNUSUALLY ACTIVE SUN SINCE 1940
David E. Fisher <dfisher@miami.edu>
(11) THE BOOK OF THE CELESTIAL COW: AN IMPACT AT THE CITY OF
HERAKLEOPOLIS
(HENSU) CA. 3114 BCE AND THE UNIFICATION
OF EGYPT
E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
(12) AND FINALLY: A SPOUT OF SURPRISE
The Hindu, 21 October 2003
===========
(1) HERE COMES THE SUN: CORONAL MASS EJECTION EXPECTED TO ARRIVE
TOMORROW
Spaceweather, 23 October 2003
http://www.spaceweather.com/
An explosion near giant sunspot 484 on Oct. 22nd hurled a coronal
mass ejection (CME, pictured right) toward Earth. Forecasters
expect it to arrive on Oct. 24th and possibly trigger a strong
geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers at middle latitudes should be
alert for auroras.
============
(2) SUNSPOT NUMBERS
Spaceweather.com
http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html
Scientists track solar cycles by counting sunspots -- cool
planet-sized areas on the Sun where intense magnetic loops poke
through the star's visible surface.
Counting sunspots is not as straightforward as it sounds. Suppose
you looked at the Sun through a pair of (properly filtered) low
power binoculars -- you might be able to see two or three large
spots. An observer peering through a high-powered telescope might
see 10 or 20. A powerful space-based observatory could see even
more -- say, 50 to 100. Which is the correct sunspot number?
Yearly-averaged international sunspot numbers from 1610-2000 http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/sunspotnumber.html]
There are two official sunspot numbers in common use. The first,
the daily "Boulder Sunspot Number," is computed by the
NOAA Space Environment Center using a formula devised by Rudolph
Wolf in 1848: R=k (10g+s), where R is the sunspot number; g is
the number of sunspot groups on the solar disk; s is the total
number of individual spots in all the groups; and k is a variable
scaling factor (usually <1) that accounts for observing
conditions and the type of telescope (binoculars, space
telescopes, etc.). Scientists combine data from lots of
observatories -- each with its own k factor -- to arrive at a
daily value.
The Boulder number (reported daily on SpaceWeather.com) is
usually about 25% higher than the second official index, the
"International Sunspot Number," published daily by the
Sunspot Index Data Center in Belgium. Both the Boulder and the
International numbers are calculated from the same basic formula,
but they incorporate data from different observatories.
Right: Rudolf Wolf devised the basic formula for calculating
sunspots in 1848. Today, Wolf sunspot counts continue, since no
other index of the sun's activity reaches into the past as far
and as continuously. An avid astronomical historian and an
unrivaled expert on sunspot lore, Wolf confirmed the existence of
a cycle in sunspot numbers. He also more accurately determined
the cycle's length to be 11.1 years by using early historical
records. [more]
As a rule of thumb, if you divide either of the official sunspot
numbers by 15, you'll get the approximate number of individual
sunspots visible on the solar disk if you look at the Sun by
projecting its image on a paper plate with a small telescope.
=========
(3) THE SUNSPOT CYCLE
Marshall Space Flight Center
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sunspots.htm
Sunspot Numbers
In 1610, shortly after viewing the sun with his new telescope,
Galileo Galilei made the first European observations of Sunspots.
Daily observations were started at the Zurich Observatory in 1749
and with the addition of other observatories continuous
observations were obtained starting in 1849. The sunspot number
is calculated by first counting the number of sunspot groups and
then the number of individual sunspots. The "sunspot
number" is then given by the sum of the number of individual
sunspots and ten times the number of groups. Since most sunspot
groups have, on average, about ten spots, this formula for
counting sunspots gives reliable numbers even when the observing
conditions are less than ideal and small spots are hard to see.
Monthly averages (updated monthly) of the sunspot numbers (25 kb
GIF image), (37 kb postscript file), (62 kb text file) show that
the number of sunspots visible on the sun waxes and wanes with an
approximate 11-year cycle.
(Note: there are actually at least two "official"
sunspot numbers reported. The International Sunspot Number is
compiled by the Sunspot Index Data Center in Belgium. The NOAA
sunspot number is compiled by the US National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (. The numbers tabulated in
spot_num.txt are the monthly averages (SSN) and standard
deviation (DEV) derived from the International Sunspot Numbers)
The Maunder Minimum
Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a
period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots
were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715 (38 kb JPEG image).
Although the observations were not as extensive as in later
years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and
this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar
inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the
"Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free
froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes.
There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of
inactivity in the more distant past. The connection between solar
activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.
The Butterfly Diagram
Detailed observations of sunspots have been obtained by the Royal
Greenwich Observatory since 1874. These observations include
information on the sizes and positions of sunspots as well as
their numbers. These data show that sunspots do not appear at
random over the surface of the sun but are concentrated in two
latitude bands on either side of the equator. A butterfly diagram
(142 kb GIF image) (610 kb postscript file) (updated monthly)
showing the positions of the spots for each rotation of the sun
since May 1874 shows that these bands first form at
mid-latitudes, widen, and then move toward the equator as each
cycle progresses. The cycles overlap at the time of sunspot cycle
minimum with old cycle spots near the equator and new cycle spots
at high latitudes. An alternate version of this diagram with
different colors for even and odd numbered cycles is available as
a 610kb postscript file.
The Greenwich Sunspot Data
The Royal Greenwich Observatory data has been appended with data
obtained by the US Air Force Solar Optical Observing Network
since 1976. This newer data has been reformatted to conform to
the older Greenwich data and both are available in a local
directory of ASCII files. Each file contains records for a given
year with individual records providing information on the daily
observations of active regions.
Sunspot Cycle Predictions
MSFC Solar Physics Branch members Wilson, Hathaway, and Reichmann
have studied the sunspot record for characteristic behavior that
might help in predicting future sunspot activity. Our current
predictions of solar activity for the next few years can be found
at this link. Although sunspots themselves produce only minor
effects on solar emissions, the magnetic activity that
accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the
ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over
the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth's upper
atmosphere.
=========
(4) BRIGHT LIGHTS CAUSED BY METEOR SHOWER
The Herald (South Carolina), 21 October 2003
http://www.heraldonline.com/local/story/2962813p-2716565c.html
Bright lights in tri-county night sky were caused by meteor
showers, experts say. No confirmed reports of fragments hitting,
emergency officials say
By Wendy Bigham
The Herald (South Carolina)
October 21, 2003
If you saw bright lights in the sky Monday night, it
wasn't a UFO or a crashing plane. It was a meteor
shower.
The lights in York, Lancaster and Chester county skies
were from meteor showers generated from the
constellation Orion, said meteorologist Rick
Neal with the National Weather Service.
The showers began about 9 p.m. and were expected to
continue through the early hours this morning,
meteorologists said. Meteorologists predicted
10 to 15 meteors would streak across the sky per hour.
Meteor showers are caused by fragments left over from
passing comets that heat up as they fall through the
atmosphere.
No one reported any damage from the meteors, emergency
officials said.
Sgt. Carson Neely with the York County Sheriff's
Office said dispatchers fielded several calls about
bright lights. Some thought a plane had crashed, he
said.
Many residents also felt their houses shake and some
said items fell off shelves in their homes,
authorities said.
The Sheriff's Office and the York County Office of
Emergency Management is working with other agencies to
see if something actually hit, said Ralph Merchant,
the center's 911 director.
"There have been no solid reports of damage or
something hitting the ground,"
Merchant said. It may not be until sometime today when
an airplane can see for sure if a meteor hit the
ground, he said.
In Chester, callers reported flashes that made the
night appear like daytime for a moment, said a
supervisor at Chester County's 911 center.
Sgt. Kevan Waiters of the Lancaster County Sheriff's
Department and other deputies weren't sent to check
any sightings.
Unlike his co-worker who saw flashes of light in the
city of Lancaster, Waiters didn't see anything in the
part of Lancaster County closer to Fort Mill. For him,
it was a normal night of calls, but no meteors.
"I've been so busy, I didn't have a chance to look at
the sky," Waiters said.
Contact Wendy Bigham at 329-4068 or
wbigham@heraldonline.com.
============
(5) GROUP SEEKS TO ZAP ASTEROIDS
Denver Post, 22 October 2003
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1714277,00.html
By Diedtra Henderson
Denver Post Science Writer
Hulking masses of rock lurk outside our solar system, threatening
to obliterate cities, spawn massive tsunamis and end
civilization, were they to strike Earth. While the odds are tiny,
the devastation such killer asteroids could cause lurches off the
scale of human imagination.
What to do?
Tow the thugs safely out of harm's way, says a coalition of
scientists that includes a Boulder- based researcher.
The team makes the case for its tugboat theory of protecting
Earth's inhabitants in next month's issue of Scientific American.
An asteroid "with a diameter bigger than 1 kilometer would
strike Earth with the energy equivalent of 100,000 megatons of
TNT, far greater than the combined energy of all the nuclear
weapons in existence," wrote the authors, led by former
astronaut Rusty Schweickart. "Impacts of this size and
larger have the potential to wipe out human civilization, and
there is a chance of perhaps one in 5,000 that such a strike will
occur in this century."
For as little as $1 billion, technology already in the works for
upcoming NASA missions could be cobbled together for a craft that
would jet into space, attach itself to a killer rock, and scoot
the asteroid off its rendezvous path with Earth.
The project would start with just a few million dollars in
private funding to create a detailed study. That project would
include enough specifics for NASA to take the tug concept
seriously enough to fund the bulk of the $1 billion price tag for
a 2015 demonstration mission.
"At the moment, a mission of this sort is not on NASA's
drawing boards. Or the European Space Agency. Or any other space
agency," said Clark Chapman, a space scientist at the
Southwest Research Institute in Boulder who is part of the B612
Foundation. "A number of people have tried to get NASA, in
particular, interested for some years about dealing with the
impact hazard."
Apart from spending $3 million a year finding and cataloging
potentially killer rocks, NASA hasn't funded such prevention
efforts.
Scientific American editors chide the space agency for its
"penny-wise, planet-foolish" stance. "(K)iller
rocks are a fact of life on our planet. Doubters can ask the
dinosaurs for their opinion," wrote the editors in a
perspective piece.
Most space debris that rains down on Earth is as small as grains
of rice. It burns with pretty sparks as shooting stars. But Earth
- like the Moon, Mercury and Mars - has been battered by hulking
asteroids as well. In Earth's early history, at least four
asteroid impacts were sizable enough to cause mass extinction.
Smaller, far-flung rocks are just as worrisome. The Eltanin
Impact event, a crash into the southern Pacific Ocean 2 million
years ago, was less than half the size of the object that ended
the Age of Dinosaurs.
"Had that impact occurred a few hours earlier, it would have
been in southern Africa and wiped out," man's ancestors,
said Gary Byerly, a geology professor at Louisiana State
University. "So, timing and location are just as important
as size in trying to understand the effects of impacts."
The B612 Foundation, named after an asteroid made famous in
"The Little Prince," has created snazzy graphics,
snagged 501C3 status for tax-free donations and will appear in an
upcoming CBC/BBC documentary.
Chapman said the public response spans the gamut.
Some, more concerned about down-to-Earth risks, say it's
"completely ridiculous" to worry about odds that can
rise to one in a million. Others recognize such rare strikes
imperil all of human civilization.
"If you think about the effect that 9/11 had on our nation
and on the world, that was merely 3,000 people and a few
buildings," he said. "The same number of people die on
the nation's highways in the month of September as died in the
World Trade Center, yet the impact on society was totally
enormous.
"So, it doesn't necessarily take a civilization-destroying
asteroid to have a profound effect."
Copyright 2003, Denver Post
===========
(6) METEORITE FRAGMENTS BELONG TO IRON METEORITE
Indian News, 22 October 2003
Kolkata, Oct 22 (PTI) Primary analysis of the fragments of the
cosmic fireball that fell over large stretches of Kendrapada and
Mayurbhanj districts in eastern Indian state on September 27
showed that it was an iron meteorite, heavier than its stony
version.
Based on accounts of scientists studying the fragments at GSI,
Bhubaneswar, Basab Chattopadhyay, Senior Geologist of GSI's
Central Petrological Laboratories at its headquartes here said,
the meteorite was heavier due to iron content as opposed to stony
meteorites.
"Generally meteorites are classified either as iron or stony
meteorites based on their contents. The fragments obtained from
Orissa have been found to have iron content and as such their
specific gravity is greater," he said.
The stony meteorites have a specific gravity of 3.84 as against
iron meteorites which have a specific gravity of 7.8,
Chattopadhyay explained.
He said the fragments would be transferred to the Kolkata
laboratory by Tuesday and confirmatory tests to verify its age,
density, type and rarity would be made here as well as at the
Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad.
The remnants of the meteorite weighing 5.7 kg and 500 grams
received from Purba Suniti and Paschima Suniti villages of
Kendrapada district would later be handed over to the Indian
Museum.
============
(7) METEORITE REMNANTS HANDED OVER TO GSI
Indian News, 20 October 2003
Kendrapara (Orissa), Oct 20 (PTI) The Kendrapara district of the
eastern Indian state of Orissa Monday handed over two remnants of
the meteorite which had crashed near two villages under
Mahakalapada block on September 27 last to scientists of the
Geological Survey of India (GSI).
The extra-terrestrial objects, weighing 5.7 kg and 500 grams
respectively, had been received from Purba Suniti and Paschima
Suniti villages after they were located in paddy fields on
September 28 morning.
Official sources said the remnants were handed over to the GSI as
per the directive of the Science and Technology department of the
state government.
B.K.Mohanty, Director (Operation), eastern zone of GSI, who came
here along with two other scientists to take the meteorite pieces
said that the objects would be subjected to scientific
examination at GSI laboratories at Bhubaneswar and Kolkata which
would continue for about a month.
The experiments would ascertain the metallic content of the
meteorite and whether they were radio-active. The age of the
meteorite could also be established by conducting the
petrographical test, he said.
Copyright 2003, Indian News
============
(8) SCIENTISTS REVISIT AN AEGEAN ERUPTION FAR WORSE THAN KRAKATOA
The New York Times, 21 October 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/21/science/earth/21VOLC.html?ex=1067400000&en=e4e56345f04a0a42&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
For decades, scholars have debated whether the eruption of the
Thera volcano in the Aegean more than 3,000 years ago brought
about the mysterious collapse of Minoan civilization at the peak
of its glory. The volcanic isle (whose remnants are known as
Santorini) lay just 70 miles from Minoan Crete, so it seemed
quite reasonable that its fury could have accounted for the fall
of that celebrated people.
This idea suffered a blow in 1987 when Danish scientists studying
cores from the Greenland icecap reported evidence that Thera
exploded in 1645 B.C., some 150 years before the usual date. That
put so much time between the natural disaster and the Minoan
decline that the linkage came to be widely doubted, seeming
far-fetched at best.
Now, scientists at Columbia University, the University of Hawaii
and other institutions are renewing the proposed connection.
New findings, they say, show that Thera's upheaval was far more
violent than previously calculated - many times larger than the
1883 Krakatoa eruption, which killed more than 36,000 people.
They say the Thera blast's cultural repercussions were equally
large, rippling across the eastern Mediterranean for decades,
even centuries.
"It had to have had a huge impact," said Dr. Floyd W.
McCoy, a University of Hawaii geologist who has studied the
eruption for decades and recently proposed that it was much more
violent than previously thought.
The scientists say Thera's outburst produced deadly waves and
dense clouds of volcanic ash over a vast region, crippling
ancient cities and fleets, setting off climate changes, ruining
crops and sowing wide political unrest.
For Minoan Crete, the scientists see direct and indirect
consequences. Dr. McCoy discovered that towering waves from the
eruption that hit Crete were up to 50 feet high, smashing ports
and fleets and severely damaging the maritime economy.
Other scientists found indirect, long-term damage. Ash and global
cooling from the volcanic pall caused wide crop failures in the
eastern Mediterranean, they said, and the agricultural woes in
turn set off political upheavals that undid Minoan friends and
trade.
"Imagine island states without links to the outside
world," Dr. William B. F. Ryan, a geologist at Columbia's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told a meeting of the American
Geophysical Union.
Scientists who link Thera to the Minoan decline say the evidence
is still emerging and in some cases sketchy. Even so, they say it
is already compelling enough to have convinced many
archaeologists, geologists and historians that the repercussions
probably amounted to a death blow for Minoan Crete.
Rich and sensual, sophisticated and artistic, Minoan culture
flourished in the Bronze Age between roughly 3000 and 1400 B.C.,
the first high civilization of Europe. It developed an early form
of writing and used maritime skill to found colonies and a trade
empire.
The British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans called the
civilization Minoan, after Minos, the legendary king. His
unearthed palace was huge and intricate, and had clearly been
weakened by many upheavals, including fire and earthquakes.
Nearby on the volcanic island of Thera, or Santorini,
archaeologists dug up Minoan buildings, artifacts and a whole
city, Akrotiri, buried under volcanic ash like Pompeii. Some of
its beautifully preserved frescoes depicted Egyptian motifs and
animals, suggesting significant contact between the two peoples.
In 1939, Spyridon Marinatos, a Greek archaeologist, proposed that
the eruption wrecked Minoan culture on Thera and Crete. He
envisioned the damage as done by associated earthquakes and
tsunamis. While geologists found tsunamis credible, they doubted
the destructive power of Thera's earthquakes, saying volcanic
ones tend to be relatively mild. The debate simmered for decades.
In the mid-1960's, scientists dredging up ooze from the bottom of
the Mediterranean began to notice a thick layer of ash that they
linked to Thera's eruption. They tracked it over thousands of
square miles.
Dr. McCoy of the University of Hawaii, then at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod, took part in these
discoveries, starting a lifelong interest in Thera. By the early
1980's, he was publishing papers on the ash distribution.
Such clues helped geologists estimate the amount of material
Thera spewed into the sky and the height of its eruption cloud -
main factors in the Volcanic Explosivity Index. Its scale goes
from zero to eight and is logarithmic, so each unit represents a
tenfold increase in explosive power. Thera was given a V.E.I. of
6.0, on a par with Krakatoa in 1883.
The similarity to Krakatoa, which lies between Sumatra and Java,
helped experts better envision Thera's wrath. Krakatoa hurled
rock and ash more than 20 miles high and its blasts could be
heard 3,000 miles away. Its giant waves killed thousands of
people.
Despite the power of Thera, the Danish scientists' evidence
raised doubts about its links to the Minoan decline. Their date
for Thera's explosion, 1645 B.C., based on frozen ash in
Greenland, is some 150 years earlier than the usual date. Given
that the Minoan fall was usually dated to 1450 B.C., the gap
between cause and effect seemed too large.
Another blow landed in 1989 when scholars on Crete found, above a
Thera ash layer, a house that had been substantially rebuilt in
the Minoan style. It suggested at least partial cultural
survival.
By 1996, experts like Prof. Jeremy B. Rutter, head of classics at
Dartmouth, judged the chronological gap too extreme for any
linkage. "No direct correlation can be established"
between the volcano and the Minoan decline, he concluded.
As doubts rose about this linkage, scientists found more evidence
suggesting that Thera's eruption had been unusually violent and
disruptive over wide areas. Scientific maps drawn in the 1960's
and 1970's showed its ash as falling mostly over nearby waters
and Aegean islands.
By the 1990's, however, the affected areas had been found to
include lands of the eastern Mediterranean from Anatolia to
Egypt. Scientists found ash from Thera at the bottom of the Black
Sea and Nile delta.
Dr. Peter I. Kuniholm, an expert at Cornell on using tree rings
to establish dates, found ancient trees in a burial mound in
Anatolia, what now is in the Asian part of Turkey. For half a
decade those trees had grown three times as fast as normal -
apparently because Thera's volcanic pall turned hot, dry summers
into seasons that were unusually cool and wet.
"We've got an anomaly, the biggest in the past 9,000
years," Dr. Kuniholm said in an interview.
More intrigued than ever, Dr. McCoy of the University of Hawaii
two years ago stumbled on more evidence suggesting that Thera's
ash fall had been unusually wide and heavy. During a field trip
to Anafi, an island some 20 miles east of Thera, he found to his
delight that the authorities had just cut fresh roads that
exposed layers of Thera ash up to 10 feet thick - a surprising
amount that distance from the eruption.
And Greek colleagues showed him new seabed samples taken off the
Greek mainland, suggesting that more ash blew westward than
scientists had realized.
Factoring in such evidence, Dr. McCoy calculated that Thera had a
V.E.I. of 7.0 - what geologists call colossal and exceedingly
rare. In the past 10,000 years only one other volcano has
exploded with that kind of gargantuan violence: Tambora, in
Indonesia, in 1816, It produced an ash cloud in the upper
atmosphere that reflected sunlight back into space and produced
the year without a summer. The cold led to ruinous harvests,
hunger and even famine in the United States, Europe and Russia.
"I presented this evidence last summer at a meeting,"
Dr. McCoy recalled, "and the comment from the other
volcanologists was, `Hey, it was probably larger than Tambora.'
"
Dr. Ryan of Columbia has woven such clues into a tantalizing but
provisional theory on how distant effects might have slowly
undone Crete. First, he noted that winds at low and high
altitudes seem to have blown Thera's ash into distinct plumes -
one to the southeast, toward Egypt and another heavier one to the
northeast, toward Anatolia. Even if the changes wrought by Thera
helped trees there, they apparently played havoc with delicate
wheat fields.
Mursilis, a king of the Hittites, set out from Anatolia on a
rampage, traveling between the plumes to strike Syria and Babylon
and seize their stored grains and cereals. The subsequent
collapse of Babylon into a dark age, Dr. Ryan said, also undid
one of its puppets, the Hyksos, foreigners who ruled Egypt and
traded with the Minoans.
He theorized that the new Egyptian dynasty had no love of Hyksos
allies. So Minoan Crete, already reeling from Thera's fury,
suffered new blows to its maritime trade.
In an interview, Dr. Ryan said he and other scholars were still
refining dates on some of the ancient events, promising to better
fix their relation to the eruption. The outcome of that work, he
said, could either strengthen or undermine his thesis.
Even without such distant upsets, some prominent archaeologists
have concluded that the volcano's long-term repercussions meant
the end of Minoan Crete. For instance, they argue that the revolt
of nature over the predictable certainties of Minoan religion
probably crippled the authority of the priestly ruling class,
weakening its hold on society.
In scholarly articles, Dr. Jan Driessen, an archaeologist at the
Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and Dr. Colin F.
MacDonald, an archaeologist at the British School in Athens, have
argued that changes to Cretan architecture, storage, food
production, artistic output and the distribution of riches imply
major social dislocations, and perhaps civil war.
By 1450 B.C., Mycenaean invaders from mainland Greece seized
control of Crete, ending the Minoan era.
Thera's destructiveness was probably the catalyst, Dr. Driessen
and Dr. MacDonald wrote, "that culminated in Crete being
absorbed to a greater or lesser extent into the Mycenaean, and
therefore, the Greek world."
Copyright 2003, The New York Times
=========== LETTERS =========
(9) PLEISTOCENE ALBATROSSES OF BERMUDA
Tommy Tyrberg <tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com>
Hello!
I've been a lurker at the CCC for quite a while, but now I would
like to
comment on a matter within my field (I'm an ornithologist with a
special
interest in palaeontology).
The interglacial (MIS 11) that killed off the albatrosses on
Bermuda was
probably no more sudden than any other one. Just rather warmer
and/or
longer since the sea level rose higher than during any other
recent
interglacial (which probably means that the West Antarctic ice
melted -
there being no other credible source for the water).
The thing is that albatrosses require a reasonably large,
flattish,
temperate and predator-free island to breed, and when Bermuda was
flooded
there simply wasn't any other suitable breeding site in the North
Atlantic,
so the population went extinct.
This sort of thing has probably happened often enough in the
past. For
example there is evidence that a duck and a shearwater went
extinct on
Aldabra atoll in the Indian Ocean for similar reasons during the
latest
(Eeemian) interglacial. The sea only rose a few meters higher
than at
present during Eem, but Aldabra is a very low island.
Tommy Tyrberg
===========
(10) RE: EVIDENCE FOR AN UNUSUALLY ACTIVE SUN SINCE 1940
David E. Fisher <dfisher@miami.edu>
Dear Benny,
Even if it were indeed proven that the past century's rise in
temperature is totally due to increased solar activity, that
would not - repeat, not - negate the necessity to wean ourselves
from fossil fuels, for at least three reasons:
1. The greenhouse effect is real, and increases in CO2 have the
effect of piling blankets - or, if you will, thin sheets - on a
sleeping body. If the increase continues indefinitely, a warming
effect must necessarily follow. And if the sun is already
changing our climate, we would be foolish indeed to exacerbate
the result with greenhouse warming.
2. Fossil fuels are the most deadly form of energy production one
can possibly imagine using. The health effects, both in the
developed and undeveloped countries, are truly horrible, with
myriad unnecessary deaths every year.
3. Fossil fuels are finite and nonrenewable. We must
eventually go on to other forms of energy. "If not
now, when? And if not us, then who [will lead the
way]?"
Your humble servant,
David E. Fisher
==========
(11) THE BOOK OF THE CELESTIAL COW: AN IMPACT AT THE CITY OF
HERAKLEOPOLIS
(HENSU) CA. 3114 BCE AND THE UNIFICATION
OF EGYPT
E.P. Grondine <epgrondine@hotmail.com>
Hello Benny -
It is often said that fools rush in where wise men fear to tread.
I suppose
that given that I have been researching historical impact events
for some
five years now, I may be excused for just beginning with an
examination of
Egyptian mythological records relating to impact events. In other
words,
this is my first shot at Egyptian myth materials, as my
commentary on the
Egyptian historical records relating to Joshua impact event of
1588 BCE
under Thutmose I http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc012102.html
dealt solely with Egyptian historical records, and not their myth
materials.
As a further sign of my growing folly, I now wish to share with
those CCNet
participants so inclined a previously un-noted ancient Egyptian
document
"The Book of the Celestial Cow", apparently a record of
the cometary
encounter and impact ca. 3114 BCE. Although one copy of
this text was found
in one of the shrines discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun the
solar
monotheist heretic (ruled ca. 1370 BCE), and another copy of it
was found on
the walls of a small chamber in the tomb of Seti I (ca. 1300
BCE), from the
contents of the book itself it can be shown to have been composed
quite
early indeed, and this will be demonstrated immediately below.
FULL ARTICLE at http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce102103.html
=========
(12) AND FINALLY: A SPOUT OF SURPRISE
The Hindu, 21 October 2003
http://www.hindu.com/2003/10/21/stories/2003102103232200.htm
It was a tranquil sunset at the Kovalam beach here on Sunday -
until a `spout' of water sprang a surprise for those on the
beach.
Around 5-45 p.m. a quantity of water shot up from the sea and
whirled its way towards a huge cloud hovering in the sky, to the
accompaniment of what looked like smoke and sparks. `Was it a
meteorite?' asked one beach-goer. `Did a jet crash into the sea?'
ventured another. One person who had her wits about her at that
moment was Samriti Goyal, a dentist from England, who was waiting
to capture the sunset on her digital camera. She took three snaps
of `what looked like a tornado' (see picture http://www.hindu.com/2003/10/21/stories/2003102103232200.htm)
and then ran for cover when it started raining heavily. By then,
the funnel of water had moved across the horizon and had begun to
`fade away'.
An official of the India Meteorological Department, who witnessed
the phenomenon, recognised it for what it was and got word to his
department that the `strange phenomenon' was a `water spout' or a
tornado over water, caused by an unusually large cumulonimbus
cloud. According to Met officials, the funnel starts at the sea
level and is drawn upwards; quite akin to the little `dust
devils' or little swirls of air kicking up debris from the
ground.
`Fair weather water spouts', as these are known, usually form
when the sea temperature is at its highest. They have five stages
of formation and it is in the third stage that the funnel becomes
visible. Funnels as long as 2,000 feet have been recorded.
Considered less dangerous than tornados, these spouts can prove
hazardous for small craft. The last recorded episode of a spout
occurring here was a decade ago.
Copyright 2003. All Rights Reserved.
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