Strange Sounds

Geologists unravel plate tectonic chain reaction

Utrecht University
Thu, 03 Mar 2022 18:58 UTC

Geologists at Utrecht University are working hard to unravel the secrets of plate tectonics, the mechanism that continuously shapes Earth's crust and is causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. This time, another mystery has been dissected. In the Earth's geological past, there were 'short' periods of a few million years during which many tectonic plates around the world suddenly changed their speed and direction. What caused these abrupt changes in plate movements? Earlier research showed that changes in movement between two plates can result from continental collisions or rising mantle plumes. But could such collisions or mantle plumes set off a global chain reaction? Now geologists have succeeded in finding evidence that supports this. "With this discovery, we are able to better understand the driving forces behind plate movements, and thus processes such as mountain formation or volcanism."

This paper, published in Nature Geoscience, was a collaboration between geoscientists from Utrecht University, Australian National University, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. To test their hypothesis, the researchers asked themselves the following question: did the formation of a new subduction zone north of Arabia that was triggered by a mantle plume that caused a super volcano near Madagascar ~100 million years ago set off a chain reaction? Utrecht professor of plate tectonics and paleogeography Douwe van Hinsbergen, geologist, former Utrecht PhD student and first author Derya Gürer, and geophysicist Roi Granot, analysed the consequences step by step. "If our hypothesis is correct, the new subduction zone that formed north of Arabia should have caused forces that accelerated, and rotated the African Plate in the 10 million years after subduction initiation. However, to analyse this, we had to solve a major problem," says Gürer.

Geomythology looks to ancient stories for hints of scientific truth

Prof. Timothy John Burbery
The Conversation
Sat, 07 Aug 2021 00:40 UTC

Everyone loves a good story, especially if it's based on something true.

Consider the Greek legend of the Titanomachy, in which the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, vanquish the previous generation of immortals, the Titans. As recounted by the Greek poet Hesiod, this conflict makes for a thrilling tale - and it may preserve kernels of truth.

The eruption around 1650 B.C. of the Thera volcano could have inspired Hesiod's narrative. More powerful than Krakatoa, this ancient cataclysm in the southern Aegean Sea would have been witnessed by anyone living within hundreds of miles of the blast.

© Steve Jurvetson, CC BY
The massive eruption of the Thera volcano more than 3,500 years ago left behind a hollowed out island, today known as Santorini.

Historian of science Mott Greene argues that key moments from the Titanomachy map on to the eruption's "signature." For example, Hesiod notes that loud rumbles emanated from the ground as the armies clashed; seismologists now know that harmonic tremors - small earthquakes that sometimes precede eruptions - often produce similar sounds. And the impression of the sky - "wide Heaven" - shaking during the battle could have been inspired by shock waves in the air caused by the volcanic explosion. Hence, the Titanomachy may represent the creative misreading of a natural event.

In 2021 I published the first textbook in the field, Geomythology: How Common Stories Reflect Earth Events. As the book demonstrates, researchers in both the sciences and the humanities practice geomythology. In fact, geomythology's hybrid nature may help to bridge the gap between the two cultures. And despite its orientation toward the past, geomythology might also provide powerful resources for meeting environmental challenges in the future.

Twelfth century literature and space-age data help map 3,000 years of auroras

National Institute of Polar Research
Mon, 11 Oct 2021 23:47 UTC

Researchers from National Institute of Polar Research and the Institute of Statistical Mathematics published maps indicating how the auroral zone has moved over the last three millennia.

"The Poetic Edda", an Old Norse collection of poems believed to have been most likely drawn up between 1000 and 1100 AD, contains the gods and giants of ancient Scandinavian lore but lacks perhaps the most magical of real phenomena — auroras. A century later, another Old Norse text, called "The King's Mirror", describes auroras over modern-day Greenland. Around the same time, auroras were witnessed across Japan, including written records of red and white curtain-like lights just north of Kyoto.

Why the discrepancy? Researchers set out to better understand the auroral zone and its movement over the last 3,000 years in an effort to predict how it might change in the future. The team published maps indicating how the auroral zone has moved over the last three millennia on Aug. 20 in the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate.

"The accurate knowledge of the auroral zone over the past 3,000 years — via worldwide old witness record of auroras, including those even from low-latitude Japan — helps us understand the extreme magnetic storms," said first author Ryuho Kataoka, associate professor at the National Institute of Polar Research.

Cooling atmosphere: Sun halos, sun pillars spotted in sky over central Pennsylvania

Christy Shields
WTAJ
Wed, 12 May 2021 21:13 UTC

Sun halos and sun pillars are created from ice crystals in the sky refracting sun light, but the both look different and can form at different times of the day.

Sun halos are created when sunlight or moonlight is reflecting off ice crystals in the sky. These crystals will then form a halo around the sun. Most of the ice crystals are found in cirrus clouds or cirrostratus clouds. It usually forms a white circle or even sometimes you will see rainbow colors in the halo.

Ancient conch makes music for the first time in 17,000 years

Cosmos Magazine
Thu, 11 Feb 2021 01:29 UTC

© Carole Fritz et al. 2021 / drawing: Gilles Tosello
Reconstruction of the instrument being played. In the background, a red dotted buffalo decorates the walls of the Marsoulas Cave; similar motifs decorate the instrument.

How old-fashioned is your taste in music? Researchers have recreated notes from a 17,000-year-old conch shell, found in a cave in southern France.

Discovered in the Marsoulas Cave, just north of the Pyrenees mountains, in 1931, the shell was initially thought to be a drinking cup. But a more detailed analysis, published today in the journal Science Advances, showed that the shell had been subtly modified by humans to attach a mouthpiece and use as a musical instrument.

The researchers enlisted the help of a musicologist specialising in wind instruments, who played the instrument in a recording studio. With the mouthpiece of the shell protected to avoid damage to the artefact, the musicologist blew air through the shell in a similar manner to playing trumpet or trombone, which allowed the shell to vibrate at its natural resonance and produce notes. Three distinct tones were recorded, which were similar to the modern notes C, D and C sharp.

Analysis of gravitational-wave data leads to wealth of discoveries

Lauren Fuge
Cosmos Magazine
Fri, 30 Oct 2020 19:04 UTC

© LIGO/T. Pyle
An illustration showing the merger of two black holes and the gravitational waves that ripple outward as the black holes spiral toward each other.

A global network of scientists has completed the first major analysis of gravitational wave data, providing exciting insights into some of the most exotic objects in the Universe.

"We are announcing the discovery of 44 confirmed black hole mergers, which is a more than a four-fold increase in the number of previously known gravitational-wave signals," says Shanika Galaudage from Australia's Monash University, who was part of the research team.

"With so many black holes to study, we can start to answer deep questions about how these systems came to merge."

It's been just five years since physicists shook the scientific world with the long-sought-after detection of gravitational waves. This Nobel Prize-winning feat recorded the ripples in spacetime created by a colossal crash between two orbiting black holes - a phenomenon first predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Since then, detections have generally been announced one by one. But now, as detectors such as the LIGO and Virgo observatories improve, observations have exploded.

"Gravitational-wave astronomy is revolutionary - revealing to us the hidden lives of black holes and neutron stars," says Christopher Berry, co-author and astrophysicist from the University of Glasgow. "In just five years we have gone from not knowing that binary black holes exist to having a catalogue of over 40."

These new detections create a diverse family portrait of black hole binaries, showing that they are stranger and more common than thought, as well as illuminating their origins.

Red sprites captured in slow motion over Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia in August

Starvisor
YouTube
Sun, 20 Sep 2020 11:50 UTC

Red sprites captured over the Sverdlovsk oblast in the summer of 2020. The abundance of nighttime thunderstorms this season has made it possible to capture this rare phenomenon in great detail:

00:00 - sprite №1 close-up, real time
00:10 - sprite №1 close-up, speed is slowed down 2 times
00:13 - sprite №1 close-up, speed is slowed down 5 times
00:19 - sprite №1, stack of frames
00:27 - sprite №2 close-up, real time
00:29 - sprite №2 close-up, speed slowed 2 times
00:35 - sprite №2 close-up, speed is 5 times slower
00:39 - sprite №2, stack of frames
00:48 - sprite №3, real time
00:52 - sprite №3 close-up, speed slowed 2 times
00:56 - sprite №3 close-up, speed slowed down 5 times
01:00 - sprite №3, stack of frames

Weakening of Earth's magnetic field probed

Sputnik News
Mon, 15 Jun 2020 18:27 UTC

Geophysicists have been puzzling over a gradual weakening of the Earth's magnetic field in an area stretching from Africa to South America, which has resulted in technical disturbances in satellites orbiting Earth.

Scientists have resorted to data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swarm constellation to probe the disturbing weakening of Earth's magnetic field in the area known as the "South Atlantic Anomaly".

Jurgen Matzka, from the German Research Centre for Geosciences, and a team of experts from the Swarm Data, Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC) have been using data from ESA's Swarm satellite constellation to identify and measure the different magnetic signals that comprise Earth's magnetic field.

"The new, eastern minimum of the South Atlantic Anomaly has appeared over the last decade and in recent years is developing vigorously. We are very lucky to have the Swarm satellites in orbit to investigate the development of the South Atlantic Anomaly. The challenge now is to understand the processes in Earth's core driving these changes," said Matzka.

Australians report mysterious halo around the moon

Shive Prema
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 07 May 2020 14:33 UTC

Australians observed a mysterious halo around the moon on Wednesday night.

People living in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory observed differently sized rings around the moon, which appeared to change depending on where people viewing them lived.

Canberrans reported seeing a ring around the moon while others in the NSW towns of Moss Vale, Callala Bay, Woonona, Camberwarra and Culburra also saw it.

Many people posted pictures of the night sky phenomenon to social media, questioning what exactly had caused the ring to appear.

Strange sounds heard in the skies of Drogheda, Ireland (again)

Sott.net
Tue, 14 Apr 2020 18:22 UTC

On April 14, 2020, YouTube user 'Merz' recorded strange sounds he heard in the sky over Drogheda, Ireland:

The above clip is his second video of strange sounds. He recorded another event back in March of 2016. He states that the sounds have been heard since that time, but not as hectic:

Comment: Previously: Loud metallic scraping noises heard in Drogheda, Ireland

This headline is misleading and downright wrong. It was NOT the coldest May on record. There were some locations that recorded individual mornings...

Third_Density_Learner

The Europeans seem incapable of saying 'no' to America. Blackmail has this effect. Probably got footage from Epstein island.

Christian83

The funny thing is, Graham came out afterwards, lamenting that he never said such a thing. Obviously the Ukrainian compiled (faked) his statements...

codis

The Epoch Times is a Chinese outlet, more or less. I don't read articles like this anymore, they are lagging a year or so behind the curve. But...

codis

Andrey Martianov had a nice analysis of trend in the Chinese vs. Russian aircraft industry - somewhere on his blog. The Chinese one's still...

codis

Strange Sounds

Geologists unravel plate tectonic chain reaction

Geomythology looks to ancient stories for hints of scientific truth

Twelfth century literature and space-age data help map 3,000 years of auroras

Cooling atmosphere: Sun halos, sun pillars spotted in sky over central Pennsylvania

Ancient conch makes music for the first time in 17,000 years

Analysis of gravitational-wave data leads to wealth of discoveries

Red sprites captured in slow motion over Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia in August

Weakening of Earth's magnetic field probed

Australians report mysterious halo around the moon

Strange sounds heard in the skies of Drogheda, Ireland (again)

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