Related? Maybe, maybe no. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080625/sc_afp/sciencegeologyoceansvolcano AFP Volcanic eruptions reshape Arctic ocean floor: study PARIS (AFP) - Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday. The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia. Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms. But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished. What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor. Previous research had concluded that this kind of so-called pyroclastic eruption could not happen at such depths due to the crushing pressure of the water. "On land, explosive volcanic eruptions are nothing exceptional, although they present a major threat," said Vera Schlindwein, a geologist with Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Sea and Polar Research, which took part in the study. But the new findings, published in Nature, showed that "large-scale pyroclastic activity is possible along even the deepest portions of the global mid-ocean ridge volcanic system." The mid-ocean ridge runs 84,000 kilometres (52,000 miles) beneath all the world's major seas except the Southern Ocean, and marks the boundary between many of the tectonic plates that make up the surface of the Earth. When continental plates collide into each other, they can thrust up mountain ranges such as the Himalayas. But along most of the mid-ocean ridge -- including the Gakkal Ridge -- the plates are pulling apart, allowing molten magna and gases trapped beneath the crust to escape. Sohn and his colleagues gathered their data in July last year aboard the ice breaker Oden, using state-of-the-art instruments including a mutlibeam echo sounder, two autonomous underwater vehicles and a sub-ice camera designed for the mission. Both sonar and visual images showed an ocean valley filled with flat-topped volcanos up to two kilometres (1.2 miles) wide and several hundred metres high.
Those people are idiots. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies on their assertion: Regarding the sun... and NASA Goddard again (after a bunch of science talk I don't understand): and the Hadley Centre:
That "test" is the equivalent of a "push" poll. Was that developed by Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force?
There was a good show on the Discovery channel regarding something similar to this....I believe it was a repeat of something originally aired in 2003, but I'm not 100% sure...they blamed it on global warming...Not sure its new news, but a sign of the times... by the time the earth freezes over again, we'll all be 6 ft under anyway...or gone by 2012 like the Mayans said...
it's just so comforting to know that global warming really doesn't matter in the face of the mayan calendar. i mean, we're all reasonably certain that we can through the next 4 years without global warming taking us out.
It is all about . .. . THE HAPPENING!! don't you know that Global Warming CAUSES VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS!!! GOSH!!!! Rocket River
after taking that test i must say i'm extremely disappointed. they took a bunch of statistics and tried to spin them into making it seem like humans have not had a great effect on global warming. remember the old saying? there are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics. some of the logic behind the questions were ridiculous - "carbon dioxide makes up less than 1/10th of 1% of greenhouse gases, therefore it must NOT have a big impact on global warming" Jesus christ I wanted to reach through the monitor and strangle whoever wrote that question. Talk about willful ignorance!
