What rocks tell and how we came to understand it
"I love to sail forbidden seas, ... " Herman Melville in " Moby Dick " (1851)Strange tracks cover a muddy plain, located in a remote part of Death Valley National Park , named appropriately Racetrack-Playa ...
July 20, 1969 marks the landing of "the Eagle" on the moon - and despite the crew didn´t encounter any moon-monsters, there is in fact some Silly Science between the moon and fossil beasts.According to an ancient Norse myth Mánagarmr , or Hati (translated into " the enemy "), was a terrifying wolf, born from the unholy union of the giantess Angrboda with the demonic Fenris ...
" So, naturalists observe, a flea Hath smaller that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite 'em; And so proceed ad infinitum. Thus every poet, in his kind, Is bit by him that comes behind...
The " HMS Beagle ", with on board amateur geologist Charles Darwin, arrived at the volcanic island of St Helena July 8, 1836, where it stayed until afternoon of July 14, afterwards proceeding its journey back to Great Britain.Since Van Diemen´s Land Darwin's written notes and observations had become very fragmentary - maybe because of the short stops by the Beagle , maybe due Darwin´s homesickness after four years on sea ...
" I have plenty of theories. " Mulder, F.W. in the “ The X-Files ” (1993)Summer is traditionally Silly Season, when newspapers publish strange stories about aliens and monsters again and again to bridge holiday time - and so will July on " History of Geology " be dedicated to frivolous science stories...In 2001 the Italian geologist Luigi Piccardi presented during the Earth Systems Processes meeting in Edinburgh a hypothesis explaining the supposed appearance of the sea/lake monster " Nessie " as a result of geologic forces.According to Piccardi's idea the historic description of the monster - appearing on the surface with great (earth)shakes and rumours - could be associated with bubbles emanating from the bottom of the Scottish lake of Loch Ness in response of seismic activity along the Great Glen fault system, passing below the lake.In an interview published June 28 in the Italian newspaper " La Repubblica " Piccardi explains:" There are various effects on the surface of the water that can be related to the activity of the fault..[] If we consider the terms used by Adamnan, the beast appears and disappears with great shakes...
June 24, 1982 a Boing 747 flying from Singapore to Perth encountered a strange phenomenon in an altitude of 11.300m - a cloud of light surrounded the airplane, then suddenly all four engines lost power without apparent reason...
The latest Accretionary Wedge, the acclaimed gathering of the Geoblogosphere, is hosted this time by geologist Evelyn Mervine at her “ Georneys ” and she is asking if you “ do see geology in unexpected places?...
" The sun fades away, the land sinks into the sea, the bright stars disappear from the sky, as smoke and fire destroy the world, and the flames reach the sky.
March 1929 the German meteorologists Alfred Wegener , Johannes Georgi (1888-1972), Fritz Loewe (1895-1974) and Ernst Sorge (1899-1946) arrived to Greenland, searching a site for a coastal base camp - a starting point for an ambitious expedition to the inner ice sheet - they found it in the Kamarujuk Fjord .One year later 18 scientists, 25 Icelandic ponies and 98 tons of material were unload onto the unusual thick ice of the fjord - as the expedition couldn't reach the shore they had to wait 38 days, loosing precious time in the short Arctic summer...
" Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.
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