Sunspots and Activity Under Mauna Kea Volcano Keep Scientists Busy
The sun at the center of our solar system goes through an 11-year solar cycle during which magnetic fields emerge, forming sunspots. At maximum points in the solar cycle, hundreds of such sunspots emerge. At a minimum, sunspots are almost altogether absent.
What difference does it make? At solar-cycle maximums, those sunspots are indicative of solar flares that release storms of magnetized solar plasma. These, in turn, produce not only beautiful northern and southern lights (the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis) here on Earth, they also can wreak havoc on satellites, power lines, and Earth’s climate. In fact, at the extreme end of the scale, high stellar activity can sweep away an orbiting planet’s atmosphere!
Scientists had thought our sun was stemming its magnetic activity cycle and heading toward a less active state, but, per a recent report in the journal Science, studies of other stars indicate that our sun may be just warming up. Our sun’s magnetic activity level would seem to be lower than comparable stars out there in the universe. Could this mean our sun might reach higher activity levels? And if so, what would be the consequences to our power grids, astronauts circling in space, and the atmosphere enveloping and protecting us all?
Scientists are turning ever more eyes on both our own sun and other stars, striving to resolve such questions for those of us down here on Earth.
AND THE FIRST OILMEN WERE…NEANDERTHALS??
Oil has been a prime Earth resource running our modern way of life for better or for worse. With unyielding abandon, we’ve sucked it from the Earth, burnt it, and spewed the results into the atmosphere. We’ve reshaped it to make the infamous plastics that now surround us and will outlive that circle and us in “the Pacific trash vortex.” Even before the internal combustion engine sparked the modern oil boom, Native Americans in my home region of Southern California had been using oil for centuries. The Chumash caulked canoes known as tomols and crafted
leakproof water jugs after collecting asphalt from natural oil seeps that continue oozing along the beach today. (I should know! I’ve often had to remove it from the feet of my dog and from my shoes.)
But, according to a recent article by Zayn Bilkadi, a petroleum historian in the ancient Middle East, the use of oil goes back not just centuries but tens of thousands of years! Bikadi cites the work of a joint team of French and Syrian researchers led by Eric Boëda of the University of Paris, who dug ever deeper into a mound in central Syria called “Umm el Tlel” or the “Mother of all Mounds.” The excavations have revealed signs of human habitation here for thousand so years. They found chipped stone artifacts they initially thought were 30,000 years old!
In taking a closer look at the lab, one surprise for the team was the discovery of oil residues on some of the spear points, scrapers, and knives. The residue’s placement indicates that these artifacts were attached to handles or shafts (either wood or bone) using oil-derived bitumen as an adhesive. And in some instances, the bitumen may have been molded and shaped like plastic to serve as a handle in and of itself.
Another big surprise came when they discovered the artifacts were not 30,000 years old but 70,000! Furthermore, the so-called Levallois flaking technique used in shaping these stone implements was typical not of modern humans (Home sapiens) but of our Ice Age Neanderthal relatives (Homo neanderthalensis) were known to frequent the Levant at this time.
Thus, modern humans were apparently not the only ones to use oil products on the way to our current oil dependency. We can now shift blame to the Neanderthals!
RUMBLES CONTINUE BENEATH A DORMANT HAWAIIAN VOLCANO
Just when we thought it was all over, the rumbles continue!
Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island of Hawai’i is supposedly dormant and inactive. In studying volcanoes, scientists often monitor for earthquakes, which they interpret to be early warning signs of impending eruptions. They’ve found many originating from beneath the supposedly quite Mauna Kea, causing them to wonder just what’s up below.
Writing in a recent issue of the journal Science, a team led by Aaron Welch of the U.S. Geological Survey reports finding more than a million so-called “deep long-period earthquakes” (DLPs) over 19 years. These DLPs seem to be speaking of the cooling of the magma body deep beneath the volcano. This theory is in opposition to what scientists thought was happening, a warning of a pending eruption.
As the magma cools and minerals crystalize down below, a “second boiling” process seems to be venting gasses. The resulting pressure is opening cracks. But these cracks, and the earthquakes that result from them, seem to be telling of cooling and quiescence, not of heating and imminent eruption.