Three million underwater volcanoes & Unrecognized underwater volcanic activity
last...@rogers.com
Three million underwater volcanoes &
Unrecognized underwater volcanic activity
It's not global warming, it's ocean warming (heated
by underwater volcanoes), and it's leading us into
the next ice age.
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Three million underwater volcanoes
.
9 Jul 07 -
Researchers have counted 201,055 underwater
cones, 10 times more than have been found before,
and estimate that in total there could be about 3
million submarine volcanoes, 39,000 of which rise
more than 1000 meters over the sea bed.
"The distribution of underwater volcanoes tells us
something about what is happening in the centre of
the Earth," says John Hillier of the University of
Cambridge in the UK. That is because they give
information about the flows of hot rock in the mantle
beneath.
Since the late 1960s, research vessels have been
criss-crossing the oceans using sonar instruments
to measure the depth of the ocean floor. They have
generated 40 million kilometres of linear profiles
showing the topography of the ocean bed between
60E° North -- the latitude of southern Alaska --
and 60E° South -- corresponding to the tip of
Patagonia.
But until now, no one had been able to sift through
them all. So, Hillier and a colleague designed a
computer programme that was able to analyse the
huge amount of data and identify volcano-like
shapes in the sonar lines.
The programme found 201,055 volcanoes over 100m
tall. Previously, satellite data had identified 14,164
volcanoes over 1500 m high.
Hillier then extrapolated the data to estimate how
many volcanoes exist beyond the areas the research
vessels sounded out.
If you've read "Not by Fire but by Ice" then you
understand how important this is. When I
started writing this book, scientists thought
there were 10,000 underwater volcanoes in
the entire world.
Now they think there are three million!
As I've been saying all along, it's not global
warming, it's ocean warming ((heated by
underwater volcanoes), and it's leading us
into the next ice age.
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12218-thousand-of-new-volcanoes-revealed-beneath-the-waves.html
Journal reference: Geophysical Research Letters
(DOI: 10.1029/2007GL029874)
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Unrecognized underwater volcanic activity
.
13 Jul 07 - "Many earthquakes in the deep ocean
are much smaller in magnitude than expected.
Geophysicists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution (WHOI) have found new evidence that the
fragmented structure of seafloor faults, along with
previously unrecognized volcanic activity (italics
added), may be dampening the effects of these
quakes.
"Examining data from 19 locations in the Atlantic,
Pacific, and Indian oceans, researchers led by
graduate student Patricia Gregg have found that
"transform" faults are not developing or behaving
as theories of plate tectonics say they should.
Rather than stretching as long, continuous fault
lines across the seafloor, the faults are often
segmented and show signs of recent or ongoing
volcanism (italics added) Both phenomena appear
to prevent earthquakes from spreading across the
seafloor, thus reducing their magnitude and impact.
"Gregg, a doctoral candidate in the MIT/WHOI Joint
Program in Oceanography and Oceanographic
Engineering, conducted the study with seismologist
Jian Lin and geophysicists Mark Behn and Laurent
Montesi, all from the WHOI Department of Geology
and Geophysics. Their findings were published in
the July 12 issue of the journal Nature.
"Oceanic transform faults cut across the mid-ocean
ridge system, the 40,000-mile-long mountainous
seam in Earth's crust that marks the edges of the
planet's tectonic plates. Along some plate
boundaries, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, new
crust is formed. In other regions, such as the
western Pacific, old crust is driven back down into
the Earth.
"If you imagine the mid-ocean ridge as the seams
on a baseball, then transform faults are the red
stitches, lying mostly perpendicular to the ridge.
These faults help accommodate the motion and
geometry of Earth's tectonic plates, cracking at the
edges as the different pieces of rocky crust slip
past each other.
'The researchers [examined] gravity data collected
over three decades by ships and satellites, along
with bathymetry maps of the seafloor. Conventional
wisdom has held that transform faults should
contain rocks that are colder, denser, and heavier
than the new crust being formed at the mid-ocean
ridge. Such colder and more brittle rocks should
have a "positive gravity anomaly."
But Gregg "was surprised to find that the faults
were not exerting extra gravitational pull. On the
contrary, many seemed to have lighter rock within
and beneath the faults.
"What we found was the complete opposite of the
predictions," said Gregg.
[Exactly the same experience found by the team
examining the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean
in 2006]
"It is also possible that magma, or molten rock,
from inside the earth is rising up beneath the faults.
Earthquakes stem from the buildup of friction
between brittle rock in Earth's plates and faults. Hot
rock is more ductile and malleable, dampening the
strains and jolts as the crust rubs together and
serving as a sort of geological lubricant.
"The findings by Gregg, Lin, and colleagues may
also have implications for understanding the theory
of plate tectonics, which says that new crust
(2,150-degree magma) is only formed at mid-ocean
ridges. By traditional definitions, no crust can be
created or destroyed at a transform fault. The new
study raises the possibility that new crust
(2,150-degree magma) may be forming along these
faults and fractures at fast-spreading ridges such as
the East Pacific Rise.
This story was originally entitled "Fragmented
Structure Of Seafloor Faults May Dampen Effects Of
Earthquakes." I think the discovery of so much
unexpected underwater volcanic activity is the real
news here.
Lloyd
> Three million underwater volcanoes &
> Unrecognized underwater volcanic activity
>
> It's not global warming, it's ocean warming (heated
> by underwater volcanoes), and it's leading us into
> the next ice age.
> ---===0===---
You are a liar.
> http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12218-thousand-of-new-v...
Nowhere does this mention GW. You are a liar.
V-for-Vendicar
<last...@rogers.com> wrote
> Three million underwater volcanoes &
> Unrecognized underwater volcanic activity
All invisible of course, like the space aliens who broadcast their moon
beams at last-post's tinfoil covered head...