'Whale ribs, meteorites and chairs' [ Robert Ballard off Cyprus ]

Cyprus Mail ^ | August 19, 2012 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Famed explorer Robert Ballard's expedition over the Eratosthenes Seamount is currently collecting images during sweeps of the area using the latest technology to explore the sea floor some 70 miles off the island.

After two days of exploring, the team's underwater robots, operating at 800 to 1,000 metres, yesterday reached the summit of the Eratosthenes, going over terrain from a previous sweep and then turned west to head to unexplored territory to the west.

On Friday night they came across what appeared to be fossilised rib bones commentators suggested might have come from a whale, perhaps even 40,000 years old...

In another area what are believed could be fossilised mammal vertebrae were also spotted, and later yesterday the ROV picked up what was thought to be a meteorite. "That's what we're calling it until someone tells us different," said one of the team...

Watchers were also treated to a close-up of a kite-fin shark, totally black with huge eyes...

The expedition's main aim is to examine the Eratosthenes Seamount, one of the largest features on the Eastern Mediterranean seafloor and about 120 km long and 80 km wide. Its peak lies at the depth of 690 metres and it rises 2000 metres above the surrounding seafloor...

Past explorations of the area have shown the existence of a liquid that might contain methane...

In addition to the Eratosthenes Seamount project, Ballard says that Cyprus will feature on a television special to be broadcast on National Geographic Channel later this year.

The entire expedition is being streamed live by satellite to the internet at www.nautiluslive.org...

[SunkenCiv]

robert ballard cyprus site:freerepublic.com

Google

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/ballard-s-cyprus-sea-expedition-going-well/20120818
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/famous-oceanographer-comes-explore-sea-mountain/20120814

http://famagusta-gazette.com/titanic-explorer-ballard-in-cyprus-for-expedition-p16379-69.htm

http://www.huntingtonnews.net/40016

[SunkenCiv]

whoops.

http://famagusta-gazette.com/robert-ballard-there-is-more-to-learn-underwater-than-above-water-p16417-69.htm

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[blueunicorn6]

If they find a red and white daredevil lure, it’s mine.

[SunkenCiv]

I’d like a chaise lounge made out of meteorites and fossil whale bones.

[colorado tanker]

This sounds deep enough that it would not have been exposed during the last ice age.

[Straight Vermonter]

Awesome TED Talk by Robert Ballard.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks SV!

[SunkenCiv]

They say not. :')

• Dwarf hippo fossils found on Cyprus

  Experts believe hippos arrived on Cyprus between 100,000 to 250,000 ago, and likely got smaller to adapt to the hilly island landscape. But scientists do not know how the animals reached Cyprus, which has never been physically linked to another land mass.

• The oldest farming village in the Mediterranean islands is discovered in Cyprus
• Archaeologists uncover early Neolithic activity on Cyprus
• Was ancient Cypriot cave a prehistoric diner?
• Sailors may have cruised the Med 14,000 years ago
• Flints give Cyprus oldest seafaring link in Med
• Khirokitia

[colorado tanker]

[blam]

"This sounds deep enough that it would not have been exposed during the last ice age."

Some speculate that the Med may have been isolated at Gilbralter during the last Ice Age and the water levels of the Med may have gotten very low.

Either Ryan or Pittman, Noah's Flood, says that they have mapped deep scowering marks in the sea-floor at the entrance at Gilbralter like those leading into the Black Sea.

My research shows that the Mediterranean has completedly dried out 40+ times and the last time was five million years ago. So....

Some (Myself included) speculate that an event similar to the Black Sea deluge happend to the Med too.

[blam]

"My research"

Sorry...should read:

My search of the available data...

[colorado tanker]

Something like that could explain how those hippos got to Cyprus.

[SunkenCiv]

It might, if hippos were wandering around more than five million years ago, and felt like strolling over miles of salt flats. :’)

[blam]

"It might, if hippos were wandering around more than five million years ago, and felt like strolling over miles of salt flats. :’)

Not five million years ago.

The whole thing didn't dry up so rainwater would have washed the salt into the areas that still contained water.

There could have been large, clear land areas (connected to the mainland, rinos wandered in) during the Ice Age. Once the ice melted, the rinos were isolated on the higher areas that are now islands, etc.

[familyop]

Speaking of meteorites, I’m seeing more meteors than usual here, high on the Rockies. Saw them nightly while out for only about a couple minutes each time (temps down to the low 20s F here now), way before the recent meteor shower. Still peeking out only a few times and seeing many of them nightly.

[familyop]

Blam may have something there. I see white alkali sediment that has been washed down into a few of the wet areas by snow melts from hills covered with sterile soil on this intermontane basin (more like a plateau). Lack of fertilization here due to residents shouting ubergrazing! over the years (mostly residents in government or retired from government always engaged in keeping productive riff-raff out). The land has been mostly unused for a very long time.

Fertilization (heavy farming) eventually lowers PH levels. Hard-packed, sterile soil PH tends to rise to a high alkali content.

[Experimenting with low-cost gardening—and yaks soon—on an extremely cold and windy place at a high elevation.]

[familyop]

Oops...pH, even.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!