Cartographers Redrawing Maps After Tsunami [Straits of Malacca 4K feet deep before, now 100 feet?]

AP via yahoo ^ | Jan 5, 2005 | Katherine Pfleger Shrader

[Thud]

Maybe the buoys & other markers moved, and are no longer reliable so that what a chart says is 400', relying on the buoys, is really 35'.

[Raycpa]

If only the president sent more money sooner.

[Vigilanteman]

Supposing the sensationalist story was true, what we would have is some dredging operations to widen and deepen the channel. It is not all that complicated. Two of America's businest ports are both inland with an ocean channel artificially cut-- Houston and Sacramento.

As for depositing the dredgings, Singapore is ready to take them for land reclamation projects near the tiny island city-state.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

The straights of Malacca are notoriously shallow.

SHIPPING LANES: A TARGET FOR TERRORISM?
Posted by WhoDaresWins on Tuesday, 18 May 2004 (18:55:45) CDT
Contributed by WhoDaresWins

The straits of Malacca and Singapore form one of the world's busiest sealanes, with 50,000 vessels a year passing through, carrying half the world's oil supplies and two-thirds of its liquefied natural gas to the energy-dependent economies of China, Japan and Korea.

The narrow and shallow straits are also one of the most dangerous, topping the global list for piracy attacks in a region where there are several well established terrorist groups.

[pa_dweller]

"Maybe there's less pirates now," says Peter Doherty, who works at the agency

Possibly even fewer, too.

[Petronski]

LOL

[John Valentine]

IF the story were true (and it is not, or at least the facts have been hugely distorted), all of Singapore's land reclamation projects would have been destroyed by a tidal wave orders of magnitude larger than the one that came ashore in Aceh, Thailand and Sri Lanka. You can't dump that much land into water without moving the water out of the way. That's just plain old physics.

And, IF this story were true, where would this approximately 200 cubic miles of sediment have suddenly come from? That's a LOT of earth. Now, if this was NOT a sudden shift of the ocean bottom, but the gradual filling in of this huge body of water by erosion, then why make this sensational claim just now?

Let's also clear up one other thing right away. The water depths between Singapre and the Indonesian Islands opposite (Bataam, Karimun, etc.) has always been rather shallow as such things go. Depths of 100 feeet are common. In fact, the shallowness of the straits has been a continuing concern, not because this depth is intrinsically problematic, but because a sinking in the straits would create a shipping hazard with serious economic consequences.

If these people are talking 4000 foot depths that have suddenly disappeared, they have to be talking some distance either northwest or east of Singapore. That is, far beyond any distance where hydraulic dredging could be used. And barge dredging would probably result in fill material priced out of the market.

[Vigilanteman]

As you pointed out, any way you slice this story, it is pure sensationalist bull. Much like the latest evidence of global warming.

So far, we have had a very warm January in SW Pennsylvania. The amount of moisture has been excessive. Proof of global warming? Not hardly. The collision of warm fronts and cold fronts which cause moisture in excessive amounts also cause warming trends.

Once the cold front pushes south as it is forecast to do later this month, the clouds move out and the steady downpours turn into occasional snow flurries with cold, clear evenings. It ain't rocket science and it ain't sensational. So it ain't news.

[geopyg]

"Mother Earth doesn't move this quickly."

Well, not in an earthquake anyway. However, in eastern Washington State there are 300-foot tall ridges that are "ripple marks" left over from floods during the last glaciation. (Okay - the glaciation was slow - but when the ice dam broke it created the landscape in a few days.)

I wonder if they have their meters and feet crossed up - was 400 feet, now 100 meters (328 feet). But don't see how that can mess up shipping.

[Capt. Tom]

These guys prefer a little bit more depth than the container ships do.

That's a good reason not to have the channel over 45 feet. - Tom

[SunkenCiv]

A catastrophism topic for the digest, from January. Not a ping.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 1/05/2005. Thanks Mike Fieschko.

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[Cvengr]

I'd like to know exactly where these twits say the Straits of Malacca were 4000 feet deep before and now only 100 feet deep.

Directly below the submarine parked on station during the govt shutdown.