Geology

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Opportunity Finds Evidence of Past Water on Mars

March 2, 2004

Liquid water once drenched the surface of Mars at Meridiani Planum and made it a suitable habitat for life, according to Ed Weiler at a NASA briefing today. Four pieces of evidence from the Mars Exploration Rover named Opportunity led principal scientist Stephen Squyres to this conclusion: (1) the spherules appear to be concretions grown […]

Dating Methods

Hundreds of Whales Buried Suddenly in Diatoms

February 2, 2004

A remarkable fossil find has been found in Peru: 346 whales buried in diatomaceous earth. The preservation of the whales is so pristine and complete, the authors of the paper in the Feb. 2004 issue of Geology1 conclude that the whales had to be buried rapidly, in days or weeks. If so, it represents a […]

Origin of Life

Early Oxygen Causes Evolutionary Gasps

January 24, 2004

The rise of oxygen in the primitive Earth’s atmosphere has been pushed back 100 million more years, according to Sid Perkins writing for the Jan. 24 issue of Science News. This is based on studies of sediments in South Africa. Though estimated at just a millionth of today’s concentrations, the finding comes as a surprise. […]

Bible and Theology

Accepted Science or Censorship by National Park Service?

January 8, 2004

What’s a national park bookstore vendor to do? A beautiful new book of photographs and quotations on Grand Canyon, entitled Grand Canyon: A Different View by veteran river rafting captain Tom Vail, went on sale in the national park bookstore. One would think it would not stand out too much along with hundreds of other […]

Dinosaurs

If a Meteor Roasted the Dinosaurs, Wheres the Charcoal?

December 4, 2003

A majority of scientists continue to believe that a falling asteroid felled the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, but problems remain. London geologists went looking for evidence of charcoal at the Cretaceous-Tertiary layers, when the assumed impact occurred, assuming that the force of impact would have ignited a worldwide conflagration (thus the extinction of the […]

Uncategorized

Crystals Envision Crusty Earth

November 20, 2002

Reuters reported that “Tiny zircon crystals dug up from ancient Australian deposits appear to have been formed right after the birth of the planet – a finding that suggests that early on, Earth had a cool crust much like today’s that could have harbored life, scientists said on Thursday.” (see MSNBC News). This interpretation comes […]

Origin of Life

Miller-Frankenstein Ghost Rises from the Dead

October 20, 2002

51; Stanley Miller died last year, but his friendly ghost lives on. Famous for his Halloweenish spark-discharge apparatus that brought naturalism to life, Miller subsequently began to doubt the simplistic “primordial soup” vision that took on a life of its own, making apparitions in many a textbook. He realized that improbably atmospheric conditions—a reducing atmosphere […]

Physical Science

Radioactive Dating: Science or Alchemy?

September 20, 2002

Richard Kerr had some surprising things to say about uranium-lead dating in the Sept. 17 issue of Science1 – surprising, because as a believer in the method and an evolutionist, he admitted there is a fair amount of unscientific methodology and controversy involved. “For years, different laboratories using uranium-lead radiometric dating—the gold standard of geochronology—have […]

Physical Science

Mars Methane May Be Geological, Not Biological

September 20, 2002

Just when the ESA Mars Express spacecraft was collecting data on methane emissions on Mars, leading some to speculate it might be a biomarker, Science Now reported new findings that indicate methane can form naturally in Earth’s mantle by heating water, iron oxide and calcite under pressure (see also Physics Web). This demonstrates […]

Astronomy

Reality or Hubris in Scientific Claims?

January 20, 2002

51; The amount of trust the public puts in scientific claims stems partly from their incomprehensibility. The claims presented in scientific papers are often so dense and abstruse as to be unapproachable by all but specialists. Undoubtedly many people trust scientists because of their specialized education, their knowledge of mathematics, their special equipment, and their […]

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