GEO-ILLOGICAL
The Democratic Republic of Congo has probably not discovered vibranium and a ground-breaking fossil find is actually an old beehive
REAL-LIFE VIBRANIUM?
In January a couple of videos went viral claiming to show “electric rocks” discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One showed a closeup of someone touching the two rocks together to generate an electric spark, while the second showed him connecting wires to a rock and using it to power a small lightbulb. The videos first appeared on the Facebook page of the Mohamed First University in Oujda, Morocco, with a oneword comment saying “lithium?” Lithium is used in batteries, but it is highly reactive and only exists as compounds in its natural state, and even as a refined metal doesn’t act like the rocks in the video. Once the videos went viral there was speculation that a mountain of these rocks had been discovered and claims that they would soon solve all of Africa’s energy problems; the stuff was likened to vibranium, the fictional mineral from the Marvel Universe that can store and release energy and powers the Black Panther’s African kingdom of Wakanda. Some, though, pointed out that these could just be one of the various types of rock known to be piezoelectric, which can produce small sparks when stressed, although they would not be capable of lighting a bulb. Commenting on the videos, Dr Ikenna Okonkwo, a geology lecturer at the University of Nigeria, says that the rocks look more like zinc or lead ore that would not be able to power a bulb, and while there is a slight chance they could produce small amounts of static electricity, the whole setup looks like “some kind of trick”. Professor Stuart Haszeldine of the School of GeoSciences at Edinburgh University agrees, saying, “I have never seen anything geologically like this and suggest the rocks are connected to electrical power sources not included in the tightly framed video images.” The Mohamed First University has not responded to requests for comment. BBC News; spookygeology.com, 26 Jan 2023.
CORE!
Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song, researchers at Beijing University’s School of Earth and Space Science, have published a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience saying there are indications that the Earth’s inner core has recently stopped rotating and may be in the process of changing its direction. The inner core is made of solid metal and is 75 per cent the size of the Moon. It is located 3,000 miles below our feet, sitting within a liquid outer core that allows it to rotate. The intense pressure at such depths means its temperature is equivalent to that at the surface of the Sun. Yang and Song believe the core’s rotation changes due to complex interactions between gravity and electromagnetism and say they have evidence that there is a periodic cycle that sees it reverse direction every 60 to 70 years. This “may imply dynamic interactions between the deepest and shallowest layers of the solid Earth system,” they say, as there are unexplained climatic and geological phenomena that have similar cycles, which the core reversal could be driving. These include the oscillation of global mean temperatures and sea levels, and small variations in the length of the day.Yang and Song reached their conclusions by using seismic data collected from decades of earthquake records, analysing traces of seismic waves that had refracted through the core. While the core’s movement influences the Earth’s magnetic field, the changes in its rotation are not associated with flips in the Earth’s magnetic poles, which occur on timescales of tens of thousands of years, not decades, and contrary to the plot of the apocalyptic 2003 film Core, the change will have minimal effect at the surface. vice.com, 23 Jan 2023.
NOT WHAT IT SEEMED TO BEE
The discovery of a fossil of the primitive organism Dickinsonia tenuis at the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters cave site near Bhopal in India was hailed as a major breakthrough in a paper published in the journal Gondwana Research in 2020. The find, widely reported in the media, showed that the creature was present in India when the subcontinent was part of the supercontinent Gondwanaland and helped date its formation to around 550 million years ago. However, scientists carrying out follow-up research said, “We visited the site in December 2022 and found the evidence for Dickisonia lacking,” adding that the specimen had also “seemingly decayed significantly,” which is “quite unusual” for a fossil. Professor Joseph Meert, who led the new research, said: “The fossil was peeling off the rock.” Close examination of the alleged fossil also revealed that it was not part of the rock at the site, but was instead “attached as a tracery of waxy material” above its surface and contained “honeycombed structures”. As a result, Meert concluded that “the impression resulted from decay of a modern beehive which was attached to a fractured rock surface which, at first glance, resembles Dickinsonia”. He published his findings in a paper called “Stinging News: ‘Dickinsonia’ discovered in the Upper Vindhyan of India not worth the buzz”, after which the authors of the original paper retracted their findings. Palaeobiologist Rob Sansom said: “Therein lies the cautionary tale for all palaeeontologists: Pareidolia, the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern.” independent.co.uk, 3 Feb 2023.