Ophiolite

Standing outside in a storm was always convincing for me..

My money's on Texas. He is extra large, after all.

I am sure magnetic variation is a strong candidate. Certainly earthquakes do alter the local magnetic field (and local with a quake this size is a pretty big area.). Electrical properties of the rock also change: not surprising. Sensitivity to minor pre-shocks may be another factor. I know of earthquake lights. The difficulty with transient phenomena like that is that in a major earthquake observers are rarely cool and detached. (Although, that said, the third earthquake I was in brought itself to my attention through my shoes 'walking' themselves out from under a closet. I was about to replace them to see if they would do it again when my wife called me to the kitchen to observe the water slopping from side to side in the sink and up onto the drainingboard. 12th floor Mexico City, so we had some good movement going though I think it was only a 5.8) The Chinese in particular did a lot of research on animal earthquake detection. I wonder if we should be looking at the issue as an example of symbiosis. Different species may have different detection mechanisms. Individual species do not have to develop a full array of mechanisms, they just have to recognise panic in others, and then head for the hills. Pure speculation of course, but, I think, logical.

I decisively beg to differ: For example, from the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, April 2000 Abstract: "Animals living within seismically active regions are subjected episod-ically to intense ground shaking that can kill individuals through burrow collapse, egg destruction, and tsunami action. Although anecdotal and retrospective reports of animal behavior suggest that although many organisms may be able to detect an impending seismic event, no plausible scenario has been presented yet through which accounts for the evolution of such behaviors. The evolutionary mechanism of ex-aptation can do this in a two-step process. The first step is to evolve a vibration-triggered early warning response which would act in the short time interval between the arrival of P and S waves. Anecdotal evidence suggests this response already exists. Then if precursory stimuli also exist, similar evolutionary processes can link an animal’s perception of these stimuli to its P-wave triggered response, yielding an earthquake predictive behavior. A population-genetic model indicates that such a seismic-escape response system can be maintained against random mutations as a result of episodic selection that operates with time scales comparable to that of strong seismic events. Hence, additional understanding of possible earthquake precursors that are presently outside the realm of seismology might be gleaned from the study of animal behavior, sensory physiology, and genetics. A brief review of possible seismic precursors suggests that tilt, hygroreception (humidity), electric, and mag-netic sensory systems in animals could be linked into a seismic escape behavioral system. Several testable predictions of this analysis are discussed, and it is recom-mended that additional magnetic, electrical, tilt, and hygro-sensors be incorporated into dense monitoring networks in seismically active regions." Full paper here : http://www.gps.caltech.edu/users/jkirschvink/pdfs/earthquakeprediction.pdf I have no doubt at all that animals can sense approaching catastrophes in some way (or more likely, ways). I can see little logical reason why man would not also have this ability. Since it is rarely, if ever, evident it has either atrophied, or been supressed. I suspect the latter. Animals are in almost constant danger in their environment. An inattentive animal is a dead animal. Humans, by comparison, can be comparatively relaxed most of the time. I think the consequence is that animals heed the small warning signals (for tsunamis I'd suspect subtle airpressure changes), while humans ignore them.

My recollection is that string theory would permit multiple universes, not necessarily having any interconnection. One interpretation of quantum theory requires branching universes from every decision point.

I was just in a pedantic frame of mind. I certainly use the word in the plural. So many disagreements arise from differences in terminology I occasionally like to inject a small reminder, to myself at least.

Has your sense of humour deserted you today?

I need to expand what I said.. From a language point of view we could not properly call other universes, Universes. Perhaps, multiverses. From a scientific POV there may be others.. They are a theoretical possibillity, but presently there is absolutely no evidence for them. Edit: JaKiri I wasn't trying to derive a physical meaning: I'm dismayed you think me that disconnected.

This BBC site provides a basic, well illustrated explanation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/asia_pac_asia_earthquake_explained/html/1.stm

uni=one. If there is more than one then they are not Universes.......

It's worse than that JaKiri: sometimes I wont permit myself to have that last chocolate.

Recognition of a problem is accepted as an important step in solving it. Reminding people it hasn't gone away is another one. In that light we might view this as good news of a kind. "Women are being held back in the workplace by inflexible practices and outdated attitudes to family responsibilities, a new study claims." From- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4133669.stm

Deep breath.......and relax.

Top Boy, that is the first post you have made that I managed to understand, more or less fully, at one sitting. Could you try to keep that up. I'm waiting Gilded's response with interest. I expect he'll challenge the control assertion in your last paragraph, unless he interprets it as snide irony..was it?

The lowest temperature ever recorded anywhere on earth, -88.3° C (-126.9° F), was on August 24, 1960, at Vostok Station. http://ireland.iol.ie/south-aris/climate.htm

I know you know. (Did you know I knew you knew?) I'm not sure pogos does.http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif Smile

We can and we do. Yourdad is just being his usual inaccurate self. http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/NehemieCange.shtml

-78.5 C

The rush to publish did not carry the imperative it does today.

That is not carbon dioxide. It is condensed water droplets. The relatively cool air cannot hold as much water vapour as the warm air in your lungs.

Welcome. Hope you are not here just to push your site. Awaiting further posts with interest.

Of course if we take a small liberty with the phrase life based upon ... , then we can say that life on Earth may also be based on silicon. Cairns-Smith, a chemist at the University of Glasgow, my alma mater, proposed in 1966 that the first replicating systems were crystals, specifically clay minerals. These have several interesting characteristics, including complexity, residual surface charges, inter-layer spaces, and high reactivity. Cairns-Smith envisaged organic molecules adhering to the clay minerals, which acted as templates for the complex molecular entities that were thus created. A simple review of the concept, with further links, may be found here. http://originoflife.net/crystals/ Those of a philosophical bent may wish to contemplate that if the theory is true and if AI life based on the silicon chip replaces man, that life will have moved full circle: from silicon to carbon to silicon.

1. I'm not sure how to run the math' date=' but I suspect anything large enough to be spherical would have a sufficient temperature gradient to exploit for 'geothermal' power. [Though in this instance it would be titanothermal power.'] 2. No, I think you are right. I just like the notion of moving asteroids around the system, a skill we shall acquire when learning to deflect potential Earth colliders. 3. I'd overlooked the tidal lock. I'm not certain what effect that would have. Again, I just like space elevators and look for opportunities to introduce them. 4. I may have picked up the flavour of the concept from Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, where he talks of ecopoesis. [Anyone who has an interest in Mars, or loves science fiction, or is intrigued by terraforming, must read Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars]

Distance from Impact: 390.00 km = 242.19 miles * Projectile Diameter: 400.00 m = 1312.00 ft = 0.25 miles Projectile Density: 2600 kg/m3 Impact Velocity: 13.00 km/s = 8.07 miles/s Impact Angle: 44 degrees Target Density: 2500 kg/m3 Target Type: Sedimentary Rock *That was to check if it would blow out the windows in the Louvre.