In the News

The Iceland volcano has sparked back into life for the third time since roughly December of last year - see https://livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/iceland-volcano-erupts-for-3rd-time-triggering-lava-fountains-over-200-feet-tall ... the Icelandic volcano,

I couldn't resist the title. Not planets but comets and asteroids breaking up or smashing each other about. Let's begin at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32---phaethon ... which is

At https://www.livescience.com/animals/sharks/325-million-year-old-shark-graveyard-discovered-deep-within-mammoth-cave-harbors-new-fossilized-species ... at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky two new shark species that lived 325 million years ago on the geological column have

At https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/event-horizon-telescope-spies-gargantuan-energy-jets-erupting-from-nearby-supermassive-black-hole ... The Event Horizon Telescope has witnessed a 'gargantuan' burst of energy erupting from a supermassive black hole. What is really meant is

This is now a perennial update since the Clovis dam was breached not so long ago. Fourteen projectile points from Coopers Ferry in Idaho have

The paper in the title has just been published in Physics Essays 37, January 2024, Alasdair Beal .. ISSN 0836-1398 [print] and 2371-2236 [online]. Special

Sink Holes as big as a skyscraper and as wide as a city street open up on the Arctic sea floor.  See https://www.livescience.com/sinkholes-opening-arctic-seafloor ... there

At https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/mystery-of-siberias-giant-exploding-craters-may-finally-be-solved ... this is a subject that has fascinated many people, from geologists to global warmers, and from the guy in the pub to

At https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/babylons-ishtar-gate-may-have-a-totally-different-purpose-than-we-thought-magnetic-field-measurements-suggest ... archaeologists made use of the clay bricks at Babylon's Ishtar Gatte to measure the magnetic field to determine the construction date. This

At https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/fountains-of-diamonds-that-erupt-from-earths-center-are-revealing-the-lost-history-of-supercontinents ... diamonds, it is thought, reach the surface of the earth during massive volcanic eruptions - as supercontinents break up. In Late Cretaceous,

At https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/superstructure-bigger-than-idaho-has-been-growing-on-the-seafloor-by-fiji-since-the-dinosaur-age ... a hguge plateau, or superstructure as it is called at the link, has been growing near Fiji since the Cretaeous period. It

This one will surprise a few. At https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/fossils/462-million-year-old-fossilized-eyes-and-brains-uncovered-in-secret-welsh-fossil-site ... in what must have been instantaneous burial and preservation we have a fossil deposit at a

At https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/iceland-volcano-situation-in-grindavik-has-become-very-bleak-following-new-eruption ... the Iceland volcano has sparked back into life, once again. Lots of pictures at this link - and many other links on

At https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/4000-year-old-wall-found-around-oasis-in-saudi-arabia-likely-defended-against-raids-from-nomads ... a nine mile long wall has been found at the Khaybar Oasis - dating back to around 4000 years ago. It was

At https://www.livescience.com/space/a-big-cosmological-mystery-newfound-cosmic-corkscrew-defies-our-understanding-of-the-universe  ...  astronomers have discovered a cosmic ring - a gigantic  spiral of galaxies and galaxy clusters. It is 1.3 billion light years wide

Putting the 'hottest year evah' into perspective - go to https://climatedebate.co.uk/global-temperature/ ... where we are told about different ways of measuring global temperatures produce small

Sent in by Gary ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67940671.amp ... a lost Amazon valley full of settlements, in numbers comparable to the Maya. These lost settlements are in

William sent in the link https://www.yahoo.com/news/astronomers-accidentally-discover-dark-primordial-130045610.html ... but you can read the same story at https://www.sciencealert.com/bizarre-galaxy-discovered-with-seemingly-no-stars-whatsoever ... The galaxy appears to have no stars to

The consensus is that inter glacials occur every 100,000 years, or thereabouts. Not strictly true but never mind. That is the Milankovitch process adopted by

At https://thunderbolts.info/wp/2024/01/01/currents-of-thought-3/ ... is a post by Rens van der Sluijs. In the last issue of C&C Review there was a book review of Stuart