Web Science Made Silly: “Scientists Warn Gulf Of Mexico ‘Supervolcano’ About To Erupt”
Visitor geological storytelling by David Middleton
In my latest submit, How Local weather Change Buried a Desert 20,000 Toes Beneath the Gulf of Mexico Seafloor, we mentioned the rifting that enabled the opening of the Gulf of Mexico. In one of many feedback, TTY introduced up a latest paper on long-extinct volcanic exercise within the Japanese Gulf of Mexico, which jogged my memory of the “volcano” that was drilled again within the 1960’s close to New Orleans. Once I Googled Gulf of Mexico volcanic rocks, I discovered extra science fiction than science.
I’ll begin with the science…
Cretaceous volcanoes within the Gulf of Mexico
Door Level is in Louisiana State waters, simply offshore St. Bernard Parish, in an space that was regarded as freed from Mesozoic volcanic exercise.
Determine 1. Door Level location map. (Braunstein & McMichael, 1976)
The Door Level “volcano” was found by Shell after they drilled into it in 1963.
Determine 2. Cross Part of Door Level Construction.
(Braunstein & McMichael, 1976)
The Door Level construction technically isn’t a volcano.
An exploratory properly, the Shell Oil Firm, State Lease 3956 No. 1, Offshore St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, was accomplished in 1963 at a complete depth of 8538 toes. The final 1300 toes of gap was cored and drilled by volcanic materials of Late Cretaceous Age. The situation of this properly is proven on Determine 1.
Pre-drilling seismic knowledge had revealed the presence on this prospect of intrusive materials with a density barely increased than that of the encircling sediments. Gravity knowledge outlined a weak most right here, and no salt was believed to be current.
The igneous materials consisted of angular fragments of altered porphyritic fundamental rock. In cores it proved to be evenly bedded and cemented by sparry calcite. Radioactivity age relationship mounted a minimal age of crystallization of this rock at 82 m.y.+eight, or center Late Cretaceous (Austin). Bulk density of the igneous rock ranged from 2.02 gm/cc close to the highest of its incidence to 2.53 gm/cc close to the underside of the properly.
Three fuel accumulations, with an mixture thickness of 38 toes, had been encountered within the Miocene part between 5092 and 6219 toes within the Shell properly. Gasoline-bearing sands weren’t current in two different wells drilled afterward the identical construction (Fig. 2).
Though proof of Late Cretaceous volcanic exercise is widespread in northern Louisiana, in addition to in Mississippi, and southeast of Louisiana within the Gulf of Mexico, the Door Level prospect lies inside an space that had been beforehand designated as being freed from volcanism.
Braunstein & McMichael, 1976
Though it’s clearly composed of reworked volcanic materials.
The Door Level construction penetrated by the Shell Oil S.L. 3956 properly no. 1, situated offshore in St. Bernard Parish Louisiana represents the singular noticed subsurface incidence of igneous rock in the whole offshore area of the GoM that’s Cretaceous in age. Recognized within the literature as a volcano, sill or different major intrusive/extrusive function, with an age of 82 ± eight Mya, the Door Level “Volcano,” has obtained little or no research since its discovery within the 1970’s.
Preliminary research of the core reveals that the unit consists of volcaniclastic rocks. Preliminary overview of the geophysical logs offered by Shell Oil and Drilling Data present a drastic and obvious offset within the resistivity, with a maligned or absent deflection of the Spontaneous Potential curve. The sequence of volcanics prolong vertically a minimal of 396m with no base recognized, and the singular cored interval taken of the ultimate eight.5m. Preliminary petrographic examination has revealed there to be each large un-bedded polymictic agglomerates in addition to bedded volcanic ash. The basalt cobble agglomerates sequentially alternate with the packages of finer grained volcanic ash. Grain dimension for the igneous cobbles throughout the agglomerates vary in diametric extremes from a most of 5 cm to a minimal of 1 – 2 cm. Sedimentary constructions are absent within the coarser sequences, however are exhibited within the volcanic ash beds, within the type of cross bedding. The clast populations range in composition from fragments of sedimentary rock, to the igneous rocks of curiosity. Possessing a porphyritic texture and angular in look the clasts comprise seen clinopyroxene phenocrysts, in an aphanitic groundmass; CI > 90.
These outcomes counsel the cobbles are sourced from a number of volcanic facilities, and have undergone a multistage cooling historical past. Coupled with the presence of the calcite cement, the cross bedding is indicative of a marine or fluvial depositional system. We’re in a position to reconstruct a regional story of episodic volcanism within the nascent Gulf of Mexico Rift throughout the late Cretaceous.
Session No. 320–Sales space# 503
Anderson, 2015
Door Level is almost certainly a salt or shale diapir (piercement construction) that carried volcanic materials up with it.
It’s not the one volcanic oddity within the Northern Gulf of Mexico.
Determine Three. Location maps for Door Level (left) and Alderdice Financial institution (proper, Rezak & Tieh, 1984). Click on for picture.
Alderdice Financial institution is a salt diapir, which seems to have transported a number of giant blocks of basalt to the seafloor.
A basalt outcrop was found on Alderdice Financial institution on the outer Louisiana continental shelf. The basalt reveals an age of 76.eight ± Three.Three × 106 years. Textural, mineralogical, and chemical traits point out that it’s an alkali basalt of shallow intrusive origin. It was most likely dropped at the seafloor by salt tectonics and uncovered attributable to salt dissolution.
Rezak & Tieh, 1984
Determine four. “Alderdice Financial institution is an oval salt dome about 100 miles northeast of East Flower Backyard Financial institution”… with three basalt spires protruding of the seafloor. (NOAA)
Backside Depth Vary: 165-240 toes (50-73 meters)
Alderice Financial institution is situated about 52.5 km (32.5 mi) southeast of Sonnier Banks, about 60 km (37 mi) west northwest of McGrail Financial institution, and 157 km (97 mi) east northeast of East Flower Backyard Financial institution. The financial institution is an oval mendacity in an east-west path, and covers an space of about 16 km2 (10 mi2).
Three spectacular basalt spires of Late Cretaceous origin (~77 million years outdated) are discovered at Alderdice Financial institution. These are the oldest identified uncovered rocks on the continental shelf off of Texas and Louisiana, and distinctive geologic options for this area. The outcroppings crest at about 50 m (165 ft), with their bases at about 73 m (240 ft).
NOAA
Determine 5. “A basalt spire at Alderdice Financial institution” (NOAA)
The basalt at Door Level and Alderdice Financial institution shaped shortly after the deposition of the Austin Chalk formation.
Determine 6. Left to proper: Generalized cross part alongside northern GOM area (Galloway et al., 2009), depositional phases are numbered. Relative sea degree (Miller et al., 2005), atmospheric CO2 (Berner & Kothavala, 2001) and temperature anomalies (Royer et al., 2004). Alderdice and Door Level are indicated with stars in depositional part four. For extra detailed references, see How Local weather Change Buried a Desert 20,000 Toes Beneath the Gulf of Mexico Seafloor . Click on for picture.
Analyses of latest gravity, magnetic and excessive decision seismic surveys have pretty clearly revealed the traditional rift system within the Japanese Gulf of Mexico (Lin et al., 2019).
An extinct, late Jurassic-to-earliest Cretaceous ridge-and-fracture zone geometry within the western Gulf of Mexico (GOM), and extinct seafloor ridge segments within the japanese Gulf of Mexico (EGOM), had been beforehand recognized utilizing the vertical gradient of satellite-derived free-air gravity knowledge. Round gravity anomaly lows, and magnetic anomaly highs, over the middle of spreading ridge segments are interpreted as giant volcanic facilities that erupted inside a late Jurassic-to-earliest Cretaceous,
slow-spreading heart. Detailed mapping of oceanic basement utilizing oil business seismic knowledge signifies that the EGOM oceanic ridge system is characterised by 30-60-km-long spreading ridge segments, that embrace 15-km-wide, 2-km-high axial volcanoes of their facilities, and nodal basins at their ends. Stratigraphic proof from seismic reflection knowledge tied to a
deepwater properly signifies that volcanism alongside the spreading ridge ended across the similar time (Berriasian), or barely after (Valanginian), the cessation of seafloor spreading within the EGOM. Flowlines of late Jurassic-to-earliest Cretaceous seafloor, based mostly on a pole of rotation from the geometry of GOM spreading ridges and fracture zones, present a great match with gravity and magnetic anomalies alongside the Florida and Yucatan conjugate margins of the EGOM. Mapping of age-dated, stratigraphic downlaps onto the oceanic crust is in line with an interpreted ridge bounce firstly of seafloor spreading (Kimmeridgian) to the southwest, and in the identical southwestward path of a beforehand inferred mantle plume within the central
GOM. Our Three-D gravity structural inversion of the Moho requires 6.four km thick oceanic crust within the northwestern EGOM, and 5.5 km thick oceanic crust in southeastern EGOM. We interpret this along-ridge, thickness variation to replicate quicker spreading and thicker oceanic crust farther from the opening pole situated within the southeastern GOM.
Lin et al., 2019
The EGOM volcanics pre-date Door Level and Alderdice Financial institution by about 50 million years
It’s slightly shocking that these volcanic oddities haven’t obtained extra analysis consideration… Possibly if there was oil in basalt, they might have… 😉 Nonetheless, they’ve obtained some latest consideration from some “alternate media retailers.”
“And now for one thing utterly totally different”
Lew Rockwell is an fascinating libertarian web site. They really have some first rate articles on Mises, Hayek and different legends of the Austrian Faculty of economics. Nonetheless, in terms of science, it’s full-Artwork Bell…
One thing Extremely Unusual Is Going On In The Gulf Of Mexico As Temperatures Hit 130+ Levels Repeatedly In One Location – Is Lengthy Dormant Volcano Awakening Or Simply A Weird Anomaly?
By Stefan Stanford
All Information Pipeline
March 10, 2018
Again on January 11th, we reported on ANP that a number of days earlier than a large, 7.6 earthquake struck within the Caribbean Sea, inflicting a tsunami warning to be issued to a number of Caribbean islands, ocean water had out of the blue and mysteriously ‘disappeared’ in places greater than 2,000 miles aside, each north and south of the epicenter of that quake.
As videographer MrMBB333 instructed us in a video that we used inside that story, “water is making an attempt to inform us one thing”.
Nicely if water out of the blue and mysteriously disappearing within the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean then was making an attempt to inform us one thing, then actually temperature spikes of over 130 levels within the Gulf of Mexico have to be making an attempt to inform us one thing, too!
As we see from MrMBB333 within the 1st video under, one thing extremely unusual is occurring within the Gulf of Mexico with air temperatures recorded at over 130 levels again and again the previous week, with temperatures fluctuating between ‘regular’ temperatures within the 75 to 80 levels vary earlier than out of the blue capturing as much as at the least 133 levels as we see in movies and the 2nd picture under.
[…]
Again on March 19th of 2013, Nesara Information printed a narrative titled “A Buried Historical Volcano In Southeast Louisiana” during which they instructed us about proof of Late Cretaceous period volcanic exercise being widespread in Louisiana in addition to in Mississippi and southeast of Louisiana within the Gulf of Mexico.
Known as ‘Door Level’, the proof of volcanic exercise was discovered inside an space which had beforehand been designated as being freed from volcanism as seen within the subsequent picture under. Apparently, that ’igneous free’ space consists of the place we at the moment are witnessing these excessive temperature spikes within the Gulf of Mexico as seen within the photographs above and the movies under.
May an historic and long-dormant volcano be beneath the water of the Gulf of Mexico, out of the blue coming again to life, its venting inflicting these temperature spikes we’re witnessing? Rather more on that principle under with proof that certainly we may be about to witness one thing un-thought of ought to a long-dormant volcano within the Gulf of Mexico be awakening.
[…]
Lew Rockwell
The article options this picture… Does it look acquainted?
When you click on Learn the Complete Article, it takes you straight into The Twilight Zone…
Whereas the ‘Ring of Fireplace’ has been heating up with volcanoes throughout the planet now erupting and massive earthquakes indicating an excellent larger one is unquestionably forward as we hear within the third video under from Infowars, it’s not misplaced on these paying consideration that the Gulf of Mexico borders the ‘Ring of Fireplace’ as we see within the subsequent picture under.
[…]
The largest Gulf on the planet, is it only a coincidence that the Gulf of Mexico is formed nearly just like the mouth of a big volcano, with one facet ‘blown out’ that simply occurs to align with the Caribbean islands? We discover the idea of the origins of the Caribbean to be very fascinating, particularly understanding that the Caribbean is a ‘giant igneous province’, volcano created.
Whereas we will’t see any underwater volcanoes within the Gulf of Mexico, what if the whole Gulf of Mexico was the ‘mouth’ of the traditional volcano and the ‘supply’ of the Caribbean islands after they had been created between 69 million and 139 million years in the past? Whereas Wikipedia says the islands are regarded as linked to the Galapogos Hotspot, which is kind of far-off, is the reality nearer to dwelling?
Whereas we’re unable to see them, underwater volcanoes are nothing new and as the LA Instances reported again in 2014, scientists had not too long ago created a high-resolution map of the ocean ground revealing 1000’s of underwater mountains and extinct underwater volcanoes that had by no means been identified earlier than then. And whereas their map was twice as correct as any map of the ocean ground earlier than it, they shortly admit that it might solely resolve options at the least a mile excessive or larger.
Enter this Could of 2017 story from Nationwide Geographic which makes use of a brand new ocean ground map created by a authorities company most have by no means heard of referred to as the “Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration” but as we see within the this new imaging offers under, we nonetheless know little or no in regards to the ground of the Gulf of Mexico with the picture on the correct the very best high quality decision that we now have, in contrast with the picture on the left exhibiting what we’d identified earlier than.
[…]
All Information Pipeline
The key authorities company’s map is outwardly speculated to be proof of a volcano.
Anybody acknowledge this? The excessive decision bathymetry mapping was coated right here: U. S. BOEM Releases Highest-Decision Bathymetry Map of the Gulf of Mexico… Evah! Watts Up With That? Could 30, 2017. The precise picture is from an Eos article and it’s the seafloor expression of a salt dome rimmed by a salt withdrawal basin.
Determine 7. “Horseshoe Basin within the western Gulf of Mexico, as in contrast utilizing (left) the historic NOAA bathymetry map and (proper) BOEM’s new map. The basin accommodates a salt dome at its heart and is flanked by salt sheets. Motion of the salt is clear from the community of faults and rifts expressed on the seafloor across the basin, in addition to from the sediment particles flows seen falling down the slopes of the basin and onto its ground. Credit score: BOEM” (Eos)
The excessive decision bathymetry map was derived from 3d seismic surveys, which comparatively clearly picture the salt domes, sills, massifs and different halokinetic options that kind a lot of the hydrocarbon traps within the Gulf of Mexico and the rugose geomorphology of the seafloor on the continental slope. Calling this proof of a volcano is the equal of crater hunters circling up roundish options on satellite tv for pc photographs and declaring them to be impression options… with out ever wanting on the geology.
Oh… But it surely will get higher (or worse relying in your perspective)… That is from “Information Punch, The place Mainstream Fears to Tread”…
Scientists Warn Gulf Of Mexico ‘Supervolcano’ About To Erupt
March 15, 2018 Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Scientists have warned that extraordinarily excessive temperature readings emanating from the Gulf of Mexico within the final week may be a precursor to a deep underwater supervolcano eruption.
Scientists engaged on the RFS Viktor Leonov CCB175 recorded water off the South American nation of Ecuador disappearing on January 5. Three days later, on January eight, waters started disappearing off the North American Florida shoreline – which was adopted 24 hours later by an enormous 7.6 magnitude earthquake within the Caribbean Sea adjoining to the Gulf of Mexico.
[…]
With the common sea floor temperature of the Gulf of Mexico by no means falling under 23 levels Celsius (73 levels Fahrenheit) over the winter for the primary time on document final yr, and whose “Lifeless Zone” has grown to its largest dimension in recorded historical past, scientists aboard the analysis vessel say that no proof suggests these occasions are attributable to local weather change.
Not like their Western counterparts, these Russian scientists, when confronted by such mysteries, look backward in time to our Earth’s most historic tales and myths to see if parallels may be drawn to what’s taking place now—and that led an examination of the Maya peoples who in historic occasions inhabited this complete area—even stretching into the American States of Florida and Georgia.
As documented by Carleton Faculty researcher Lyndon DeSalvo in his 2008 analysis paper titled “Bleeding Earth: Volcanoes because the Prototypical Mountains in Mayan Cosmological Previous”, the Mayapeoples tales and legends of their previous communicate of the whole Gulf of Mexico as being the place the place mountains come from—and, additionally disappear into—and whose solely modern-times rationalization of is somebody describing the actions of a volcanic caldera—that may be a giant cauldron-like despair that varieties following the evacuation of a magma chamber/reservoir in a supervolcano eruption.
Disregarding the Maya peoples historic legends, tales and myths that the Gulf of Mexico might, certainly, be a large volcanic caldera, Western scientists have lengthy sought to find as to how got here to it got here to be formed like one—with the most recent try being made in 2002 when American geologist Michael Stanton printed a speculative essay suggesting an impression origin (comet/asteroid) for the Gulf of Mexico—however that every one international geologists shortly rejected for its not having any credibility.
Coming nearer to the Maya peoples historic tales, nevertheless, was famous American geologist Dr. David Prior—who, whereas doing analysis at Louisiana State College (LSU), turned the primary scientist to doc volcanic eruptions had been, certainly, occurring within the Gulf of Mexico—and the invention of which he wrote about in his 1989 scientific analysis paper titled “Proof for Sediment Eruption on Deep Sea Flooring, Gulf of Mexico”.
Constructing on Dr. Prior’s scientific proof of volcanic eruptions occurring within the Gulf of Mexico, in 2003, “asphalt volcanos”—which had been by no means heard of earlier than—had been discovered forming in these waters, too—and that led to large effort, throughout the globe, to re-map all of the world’s oceans to discovery simply what number of underwater volcanoes there are—and when accomplished, in 2014, revealed 1000’s of underwater mountains and extinct volcanoes that had been beforehand unknown.
This previous Could (2017), the primary in historical past detailed seafloor map of the Gulf of Mexico was lastly launched by the Individuals—and whose beautiful findings revealed its deepwater seafloor was dominated by canyons, ridges, and faults—a few of whose fault strains unfold to the traditional Jackson, Mississippi, volcano—and with many believing that additional discoveries will quickly hyperlink the whole Southeastern United States to the dreaded Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.
[…]
Information Punch
At this level, my mind started to leak out of my left ear. If anybody wants me to clarify why nothing within the passage above is proof of volcanic exercise within the Gulf of Mexico, I will probably be pleased to take action within the feedback part… Trace: sediment expulsion, mud volcanoes and asphalt volcanoes aren’t associated to volcanism, magma or another igneous course of… at the least not within the Gulf of Mexico.
From abiotic oil, to The Weekly World Information, to Earth crustal displacement, to supervolcanoes within the Gulf of Mexico… Why is it that they nearly all the time cite “Russian scientists”?
Not like their Western counterparts, these Russian scientists, when confronted by such mysteries…
Within the case of The Weekly World Information, it was normally, “based on Russian scientists, as reported by Swedish scientists (Fill within the clean: an oil rig drilled into Hell, a WWII bomber was situated in a crater on the Moon, Batboy is advising Invoice Clinton on the 1996 election).
Why did I take the time to debunk this nonsense?
As a result of it was each 1) enjoyable and a couple of) simple… Aside from the minor mind hemorrhage.
There additionally appears to be a bent amongst some AGW skeptics to gravitate towards various “science” in areas aside from local weather. This must be accomplished with care. And generally, even when accomplished with care, it might result in malicious assaults by the Warmunists. Rejecting the so-called scientific consensus on AGW doesn’t logically require skeptics to reject all scientific consensuses. Whereas science isn’t a consensus constructing course of, most scientific consensuses are the results of hypotheses being examined and confirmed, resulting in scientific theories which display predictive talent… The speculation of the formation of the Gulf of Mexico predicted that proof of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous rifting and volcanic exercise could be discovered the place it was subsequently discovered.
References
Anderson, Peter & Jonathan E. Snow. “Door Level: Volcano within the Gulf”. 2015 GSA Annual Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Braunstein, Jules & Claude E. McMichael. “Door Level: A Buried Volcano in Southeast Louisiana”. Transactions-Gulf Coast Affiliation of Geological Societies Quantity XXVI, 1976
Lin, Pin, E. Fowl, Dale & Paul Mann. (2019). “Crustal construction of an extinct, late Jurassic-to-earliest Cretaceous spreading heart and its adjoining oceanic crust within the japanese Gulf of Mexico”. Marine Geophysical Analysis. 10.1007/s11001-Zero19-09379-5.
Rezak, Richard & Thomas T. Tieh. “Basalt from Louisiana continental shelf”. Geo-Marine Letters (1984) four: 69. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02277075
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Science Made Silly: The right way to Discomprehend the World Round Us is a 1985 guide written and illustrated by Tom Weller. The winner of the 1986 Hugo Award for Greatest Non-Fiction E-book, it’s a parody of a junior excessive or excessive school-level science textbook. Although now out of print, high-resolution scans can be found on-line, in addition to an abridged transcription, each of which have been endorsed by Weller [1]. Highlights of the guide embrace a satirical account of the creationism vs. evolution debate and Weller’s drawings of fictional prehistoric animals (e.g., the duck-billed mastodon.)
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