Geology of the Seattle area – Video

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If you’ve ever lived in the Seattle area, you will find this video by geologist Nick Zentner absolutely fascinating.

The geology of the Seattle, Washington, area is a direct result of multiple glacial advances that left drumlins, outwash, glacial troughs, and scattered glacial erratics as evidence of their passage.

Old tidelands filled by early residents of Seattle are now home to the SODO district, an active commercial area where both the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners stadiums are located.

This video, entitled “Geology of Seattle and the Puget Sound,” was originally published on March 2, 2015

Tom Foster (http://HUGEfloods.com) and Nick Zentner (Central Washington University) have been hiking together in Washington for years. ’Geology of Seattle’ is part of an “I-90 Rocks” video series.

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May 15, 2017 at 09:22PM

Dinosaur asteroid hit ‘worst possible place’ 

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Credit: quora.com

The energy that went into making the impact crater is thought to be equivalent to 10 billion Hiroshima A-bombs, as BBC News explains. Nowhere to run/hide/escape.

Scientists who drilled into the impact crater associated with the demise of the dinosaurs summarised their findings so far in a BBC Two documentary on Monday.

The researchers recovered rocks from under the Gulf of Mexico that were hit by an asteroid 66 million years ago. The nature of this material records the details of the event.

It is becoming clear that the 15km-wide asteroid could not have hit a worse place on Earth.

The shallow sea covering the target site meant colossal volumes of sulphur (from the mineral gypsum) were injected into the atmosphere, extending the “global winter” period that followed the immediate firestorm.

Had the asteroid struck a different location, the outcome might have been very different.

“This is where we get to the great irony of the story – because in the end it wasn’t the size of the asteroid, the scale of blast, or even its global reach that made dinosaurs extinct – it was where the impact happened,” said Ben Garrod, who presents The Day The Dinosaurs Died with Alice Roberts.

“Had the asteroid struck a few moments earlier or later, rather than hitting shallow coastal waters it might have hit deep ocean.

“An impact in the nearby Atlantic or Pacific oceans would have meant much less vaporised rock – including the deadly gypsum. The cloud would have been less dense and sunlight could still have reached the planet’s surface, meaning what happened next might have been avoided.

“In this cold, dark world food ran out of the oceans within a week and shortly after on land. With nothing to eat anywhere on the planet, the mighty dinosaurs stood little chance of survival.”

Continued here.

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May 15, 2017 at 08:27PM

German Green Party Collapsing In ‘Existential Crisis’

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
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Germany’s Green Party is collapsing and the party could lose all its seats in the national legislature, according to a Monday article in the magazine Der Spiegel.

The Greens are polling very poorly in upcoming national elections scheduled for September, and the party doesn’t seem to have a plan to solve the problem, according to Der Spiegel. The magazine notes the party is in ‘existential crisis.’

The Greens currently control 63 of the 630 seats in Germany’s national legislative body, but this is almost certain to decline during the elections. If the party doesn’t receive at least 5 percent of the vote, it will not have a representative at the federal level.

“The Greens are dying in entire regions,” writes Der Spiegel. “Their ten-nation-wide governmental participation is an illusion because the Greens are often needed as majority-makers to be an alternative to the Grand Coalition at all. But there is no sustainable electoral commitment.”

The Green Party lost every seat it held in a regional German legislature after a crushing election defeat in March. The party did not receive the 5 percent of votes required to have a representative in regional government.

Other far-left parties in Germany only received a combined 12.9 percent of the vote in the last election, which isn’t enough to form a coalition with other left-leaning parties, such as the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats saw their percentage of the vote fall in the regional elections as well.

Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel’s party, gained the most, earning 40.7 percent of the vote. The right wing anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party also did well, earning 6.2 percent.

Full story

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May 15, 2017 at 08:09PM

Kiwi Community Backlash Forces Wind Farm Shutdown & Gets All New Noise Rules

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*** Kiwis fight. And we are not talking about the dowdy little flightless birds that scurry about on the forest floor at night. The Maori are a people who fought their British colonists to a standstill in the early 19th century and forced upon them the Treaty of Waitangi, which enshrined terms the envy of … Continue reading Kiwi Community Backlash Forces Wind Farm Shutdown & Gets All New Noise Rules

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May 15, 2017 at 07:32PM