I would find that calculator more useful if I could find any where on the site an short explanation of what the table of results mean other than 'azimuth and GMT psvelo'. Is the last just computer code? I'm a little annoyed the several web-page site does not bother to give a short comment even just to confirm what his result table is (confirm the reference point for example).
He must be an engineer at heart. Can someone sum up in a sentence or what an example result means for the non-GPS geologist specialist?
The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa One of the most interesting mysteries of Death Valley National Park is the sliding rocks at Racetrack Playa (a playa is a dry lake bed). These rocks can be found on the floor of the playa with long trails behind them. Somehow these rocks slide across the playa, cutting a furrow in the sediment as they move. Some of these rocks weigh several hundred pounds. That makes the question: "How do they move?" a very challenging one.
An odd phenomenon has been identified on Earth and other members of the solar system. Large landslides don't just fall to the base of the mountain the way small ones do; they often go great distances, some up to 30 times the distance they fell. Dr. H. J. Melosh has proposed that long-runnout landslides, earthquake slip, and the making of complex craters reveal a characteristic of the crust. Put simply, it temporarily acts like a fluid when enough stress is applied. Well known on a small scale as a Bingham Fluid, Melosh suggests that fluidization at the base of large landslides reduces friction to near zero. He calls it acoustic fluidization.
* Mike at the New Geology site said such landslides have been observed on Mars too. * My suspicion is that this so-called acoustic fluidization may be electrical and or magnetic repulsion or levitation that produces nearly frictionless movement. And the same may be involved with these rocks in Death Valley. * In the Breakthrough ... thread I also suggested that even continents might be able to slide in the same way, since it's very possible that the Mojo layer that underlies the continents and seafloors is plasma, as EU theorist Peter James has suggested. Thus, "continental drift" would have been an electrical event.
Lloyd
Re: Electrical Rock Slides?
[url][/url]* Wow, I just found out that there was even one of those landslides in Death Valley, so the sliding rocks are in the same area as a long runout landslide. Since the landslides apparently occur in arid regions, i.e. Death Valley and the Mars canyon, my prediction is that the sliding rocks also slide on dry ground, not wet. http://daveslandslideblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/intriguing-l~
Intriguing long runout landslide in Death Valley Thanks to reader Gregory T. Farrand who brought my attention to a very intriguing feature located in Death Valley in California. This is a feature that was first identified and mapped as a long runout landslide by Michael W. Hart. Greg and Michael, together with Brian Olson and Phil Shaller, are currently studying this slide, which they are terming the "Eureka Valley Landslide". The source rocks for the landslide are Cambrian marine sediments, mostly dolomite (dolostone). The slide is partially buried by Holocene alluvial fan deposits. The landslide shows up really well on Google Earth.
* Their image of that landslide may not seem so impressive here: but they also have an image of the Mars landslide: * It apparently occurred in Coprates Chasma, probably part of Valles Marineris, the Mars canyon. This image is called Coprates Chasma Landslides in IR: (Click on the link:) http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/detail/nasaNAS~4~4~2~
jjohnson
Re: Electrical Rock Slides?
I took your image and inverted it and got a more realistic looking landslide. ALso changed the orientation to get the sunlight coming from above and from the left, so the cliff is in shadow while the upper plateau is lit, and the slide base is raised-looking relative to the surrounding valley floor. I wonder if NASA distributes and publishes B&W pix as negatives on purpose.
Jim
Inverted and sharpened a little
Lloyd
Re: Electrical Rock Slides?
* Thanks, Jim. * I thought I posted the image of one of the rocks that slid. One of the images shows paths of many rocks that slid in various directions. Anywhere here's an image of one rock and its trail:
seasmith
Re: The end of the lines for Geology?
Matt,
Been puzzling over this image since you first posted it. Not long after, was watching something on meteorites on purportedly educational glass teat and saw a polished/etched macro-section (which is actually a microscopic view, go figure) of a meteorite piece from Meteorite Crator, Arizona, usa, which had a remarkable likeness to the image above. Electric and heat (shock?) oriented macro-grain, i would typify, in light of a materials modification background.
But then there is also this: (knowing you also appreciate an holistic perspective) of a purported grain-cracked rock with sedimentary inclusions lithified [which probably wont fit in the meagre local image file allocation], which you may have to cut and past in your browser gogether: 3.2 Boxwork Weathering
Magnesite after dunite, developed along the pressure release joints around the dunite pipe mined for platinum (Bushveld Igneous Complex, South Africa).
are some of these variations of Dyke Swarms? some look like fulgurites ... are they all variations of fulgurites from the smallest to the largest like Mackenzie dike swarm? are they completely different things?
click on the text link below the image for lots more photos of these great geology features
Malta's great fault line may be the result of a discharge event. the lines shown above are found at the one end of the fault line or discharge line at Pembroke. the other lines are found on its top. the or a discharge spot is found at Fomm ir-Rih bay where you have the amazing syncline. At Pembroke end you also have the amazing lines at Qrejten Point.
the lines or dyke swarms themselves go along the direction of the fault line but they dont appear to go towards the edge of the headlands
fault line malta
from reading in the past about how they create lichtenberg patterns in plastic you get a crater at the point of discharge and the pattern looks like it is fanning out from that point but it is actually the other way round. the dendritic pattern goes into the discharge point. if that is wrong please let me know as still feeling the effects of last night!
fault line malta and its geology features
so the or a discharge point looks to be Fomm ir-Rih bay where you have the syncline and a semi circular crater in the cliffside. the article in the link was one of the first i wrote and its not been updated since then so it may be even worse than normal.
Fomm ir-Rih bay discharge crater in cliffside - note the brilliant orange/red of the middle of the syncline
Fomm ir-Rih bay syncline or discharge point?
is the syncline the actual point of discharge for the fault line or where there a number of events and places involved in formation of Malta's fault line?
something amazing has happened at Fomm ir-Rih bay but is the syncline event enough energy to be the discharge point? is what the event that forms a syncline enough energy to be this specific point or was it another area in the bay or is it the bay itself? is Fomm ir-Rih bay the actual discharge area or is it somewhere else? or was Fomm ir-Rih bay where the energy come from and it pumped the energy out into malta including along to pembroke?
synclne formation geology or eu formation?
the lines of different material in synclines are interesting. how were they formed? was it by different current flows along them or by the pressure lines of some form of plasma bullet? did the discharge event that caused the Fomm ir-Rih syncline go up or downwards or horizontally?
if it went up or down is an important issue, was it the earth discharging as the initiator or was it another planet that started all the trouble? did more energy go up or downwards. did it even go out of our planet or could it have been a discharge from the land to the sea or something like that.
the image above is of the pressure waves created by a bullet. the lines in it have always fascinated me as it looks like a syncline. you even have the chaotic middle similar to synclines where you get the strange boulders/soil/conglomerate in its top center bit.
1st Post: Tectonics; 2nd Post: Earth's Interior Impossible Subduction * I learned of the following interesting article from this post: http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&~. What's interesting is the claim that Earth's mantle rock is more rigid than the crust and comparing subduction to trying to drive a wooden nail into a canon ball using gravity.
- If we, for argument's sake, accept that decoupling and horizontal movement is, however, possible, the following question is raised: How is it possible for a lithospheric plate even to begin to gravitationally ''sink'' into the mantle at all, due to a marginal density difference gradient? This would require that the plate be metaphorically as hard as a nutshell and dense as lead, and for the mantle to be softer than butter. The actual physical data from seismic wave propagation distinctly indicate that both materials have approximately the same mechanical properties, namely, both are solid, of similar density, stiffly rigid and basically, mechanically unyielding materials, at the scales involved in geotectonics. The viscosity and rigidity of the crust and the mantle is higher than 10^20 Pa and 10^10 Pa, respectively. - These values materially approximate well only with plastic solids; furthermore, these properties of mechanical stiffness and decreasing deformability are observed to increase with depth, i.e., the material becomes even more rigid and harder to mechanically deform as depth in the mantle increases. The deformational introduction of one solid into and through another solid, as per alleged subduction settings, cannot occur unless the energy required to overcome the tremendously strong net inter-atomic crystalline bonding forces which hold the rock's atomic solid-state matrix together is somehow directly provided, when and where it is needed, in time and space. For example, the electrostatic attractive force between an electron and a proton is 10^39 times stronger than their gravitational attraction. That is because gravity only effectively dominates energy processes on the larger cosmic scale, i.e., 10^25 m, while the much more concentrated short-range electromagnetic force overwhelmingly dominates and is effective only at a particle's quantum electro-dynamic interaction scale of about 10^-14 m distance between quantum particles. It is not physically possible for a nail or a bullet projectile to gravitationally sink into the interwoven bonded cellulose matrix of a piece of wood, simply because it is denser than the wood and also has a small sectional area. The scale of the nail is far too small for gravity to make a difference, even after a very long time of applied gravitational force. Only if the nail receives a sudden concentrated overwhelming energy impulse, a ''hammer blow'', can penetration occur. - More realistically, the appropriate and credible physical metaphor of subduction would be of a wooden nail being projected very slowly into a cannon ball. This is, of course impossible, even over infinite time; but even if the wooden nail were to suddenly receive such a hammer blow, required to project it into the steel sphere, the energy impulse gradient itself would simply incandescently disintegrate the wooden nail at the surface. The steel sphere may oscillate minutely, but otherwise would not be penetrated or deformed by the shattered nail.
... [The] velocity of seismic waves ... increases progressively as depth increases and as rock continuity, rigidity, and elasticity increase. - ... [A]ccording to the Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) ... the velocity of P and S waves in the upper-most crust is about 5.8 [for P] and 3.2 km/s [for S], respectively, while at the mantle-core boundary they reach 13.7 [for P] and 7.3 km/s [for S], respectively. - ... The linear dependence between velocity (Vp) and density (Birch's law) actually produces a closer molecular-level material compaction with [increasing] depth, and therefore an inter-atomic electronic pressure increase effect, and of course, higher inertia-density. - ... [The observed] increasing seismic velocity with depth completely disallows the popular ideal of increasing heat with depth. - ... [The] higher conductivity of upper mantle olivine disappears at temperatures above 700°C, giving merit to the notion of a relatively cool to cold and also electrically conductive silicate rock mantle. - Thus, evidence indicates that the mantle is certainly not hot at depth and becomes increasingly denser and implicitly more rigid and electrically conductive with depth. ... - Atomic freedom to move in thermal vibratory oscillation gets shorter and shorter in wavelength, [as mantle depth increases,] due to the rising incompressibility of solid matter.... - As vibratory oscillation [decreases], the solid mantle will inevitably grow cooler with depth, a result which is consistent with seismic data showing increasing elastic moduli and wave velocities with increasing depth.
Lloyd
Re: Tectonics and Earth's Interior
* The article above seems to have a lot of new info about Earth's interior. I'm curious to find out if it supports or denies hollow Earth evidence, as discussed here http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4~ and in several of the following posts there. * It does seem to support expanding Earth theory somewhat, but I don't know the details yet and don't know how much expansion would be considered likely.
webolife
Re: Tectonics and Earth's Interior
Not arguing for subduction here, just for clarity and understanding. When I first learned about subduction in geology class at UW[1973], I objected on the same basis as the wooden nail and cannon ball analogy, and the prof [actually a post grad TA] replied that the resistance to subducting crust by the mantle was what drove the crustal heating that fires up the volcanic chains [eg notably the ring of fire]. It made some sense to me then, and the anti-subduction arguments I've heard here and on the expanding earth thread don't overthrow this assertion for me. Again, I have never spoken of or taught subduction without the clear language of "some geologists think that...", and it is not an essential part of my catastrophic earth history model.
Aveo9
Re: Tectonics and Earth's Interior
That's a very interesting read.
Scientists have observed definite discontinuities at various depths in the mantle and the core using seismic waves. If the Earth was solid and perhaps built up in stages like a hailstone or a concretion then the discontinuities would be expected. But I've never seen a clear explanation on how these discontinuities could form in a planet that slowly gets warmer and gooier as you get deeper. In my mind this could potentially provide more evidence for the electric universe and electric birth of the Earth.
But this raises several nagging questions to my mind, namely:
- How would you account for the presence of magma under volcanoes? - How would you account for the observed movement of the crust in various directions (ie. continental drift)? - The measurements of seismic waves also completely disallow a large hollow void (ie. hollow Earth theory) in the Earth's core, don't they?
Forgive my noobishness if the answers are obvious to people who are more familiar with the subject
The Japanese have designed an interesting ship with the purpose of drilling right down through the Moho and into the mantle. It's going to be an extremely interesting project to follow!
