Satellite race between Iran and Israel

As tension mounts between Iran and Israel, both countries are planning to launch new space satellites to peer into each other’s military domains as they prepare for possible conflict.Israel, which has the most advanced defense industry in the region, is technologically years ahead of the Islamic Republic, but the Iranians are racing to narrow the gap.

And putting satellites into space is the best way of developing the rockets that will become intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Israel already has an arsenal of Jericho missiles buried in silos in the Judean Hills. Iran is working on matching that.It will take a few years, but every step that takes Tehran closer to that objective, such as the satellite launches it plans, increases Israel’s alarm.

In early 2008 Israeli also launched the TecSar spy satellite from India, extending its surveillance over Iran. Satellites launched from Israel have to travel westward, against the Earth’s rotation, to eliminate the possibility of debris falling on Arab states.

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Fifth Ocean?

In 2000, the International Hydrographic Organization created the fifth and newest world ocean – the Southern Ocean – from the southern portions of the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific Ocean. The new Southern Ocean completely surrounds Antarctica.

The Southern Ocean extends from the coast of Antarctica north to 60 degrees south latitude. The Southern Ocean is now the fourth largest of the world’s five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and Indian Ocean, but larger than the Arctic Ocean).

For some time, those in geographic circles have debated whether there are four or five oceans on earth.

Some consider the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific to be the world’s four oceans. Now, those that side with the number five can add the fifth new ocean and call it the Southern Ocean or the Antarctic Ocean, thanks to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). The IHO has attempted to settle that debate through a year 2000 publication by declaring, naming, and demarcating the Southern Ocean.

The IHO published the third edition of Limits of Oceans and Seas (S-23), the global authority on the names and locations of seas and oceans, in 2000. The third edition in 2000 established the existence of the Southern Ocean as the fifth world ocean.

There are 68 member countries of the IHO and membership is limited to non-landlocked countries. Twenty-eight countries responded to the IHO’s request for recommendations on what to do about the Southern Ocean. All responding members except Argentina agreed that the ocean surrounding Antarctica should be created and given a single name. Eighteen of the twenty-eight responding countries preferred calling the ocean the Southern Ocean over the alternative name Antarctic Ocean so the former is the one that was selected.

The Southern Ocean consists of the ocean surrounding Antarctica across all degrees of longitude and up to a northern boundary at 60° South latitude (which is also the limit of the United Nations’ Antarctic Treaty.) Half of the responding countries supported 60° South while only seven preferred 50° South as the ocean’s northern limit. The IHO decided that, even with a mere 50% support for 60°, since 60°S does not run through land (50°S does pass through South America) that 60°S should be the northern limit of the newly demarcated ocean.

Why the need for a new Southern Ocean? According to Commodore John Leech of the IHO, “A great deal of oceanographic research in recent years has been concerned with ocean circulations, first because of El Nino, and then because of a wider interest in global warming…(this research has) identified that one of the main drivers of ocean systems is the ‘Southern Circulation,’ which sets the Southern Ocean apart as a separate eco-system. As a result the term Southern Ocean has been used to define that huge body of water which lies south of the northern limit. Thinking of this body of water as various parts of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans makes no scientific sense. New national boundaries arise for geographical, cultural or ethnic reasons. Why not a new ocean, if there is sufficient cause?”

At approximately 20.3 million square kilometers (7.8 million square miles) and about twice the size of the U.S.A., the new ocean is the world’s fourth largest (following the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian but larger than the Arctic Ocean.) The Southern Ocean’s lowest point is 7,235 meters (23,737 feet) below sea level in the South Sandwich Trench.

The sea temperature of the Southern Ocean varies from -2°C to 10°C (28°F to 50°F). It’s home to the world’s largest ocean current, the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that moves east and transports 100 times the flow of all the world’s rivers.

Despite the demarcation of this new ocean, it’s likely that the debate over the number of oceans will continue nonetheless. After all, there is but one “world ocean” as all five (or four) oceans on our planet are connected.

Links and Sources:
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National Geographic

wikipedia

A New Ocean is Born:
The fifth “Southern Ocean

The World Factbook. 2008

New Hubble Maps of Pluto Show Surface Changes

NASA has released the most detailed set of images ever taken of the distant dwarf planet Pluto. The images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show an icy and dark molasses-colored, mottled world that is undergoing seasonal changes in its surface color and brightness.

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Breccia

Breccia is a rock made of smaller rocks, like conglomerate. But breccia contains sharp, broken clasts while conglomerate has smooth, round clasts. Breccia (pronounced /ˈbrɛtʃiə, ˈbrɛʃiə/, Italian: breach) is a rock composed of angular fragments of minerals or rocks in a matrix (cementing material), that may be similar or different in composition to the fragments. The word is a loan from Italian, and in that language indicates both loose gravel and stone made by cemented gravel. A breccia may have a variety of different origins, as indicated by the named types including sedimentary breccia, tectonic breccia, igneous breccia, impact breccia and hydrothermal breccia.

Breccia is usually listed under sedimentary rocks, but igneous and metamorphic rocks may become shattered, too. It is safest to think of brecciation as a process rather than breccia as a rock type. As a sedimentary rock, breccia is a variety of conglomerate.

There are many different ways to make breccia, and usually geologists add a word to signify the kind of breccia they’re talking about. A sedimentary breccia arises from things like talus or landslide debris. A volcanic or igneous breccia forms during eruptive activities. A collapse breccia forms when rocks are partly dissolved, such as limestone or marble. One created by tectonic activity is a fault breccia. And a new member of the family, first described from the Moon, is impact breccia.

Types

Sedimentary

Sedimentary breccias are a type of clastic sedimentary rock which are composed of angular to subangular, randomly oriented clasts of other sedimentary rocks. They are formed by either submarine debris flows, avalanches, mud flow or mass flow in an aqueous medium. Technically, turbidites are a form of debris flow deposit and are a fine-grained peripheral deposit to a sedimentary breccia flow.

The other derivation of sedimentary breccia is as angular, poorly sorted, immature fragments of rocks in a finer grained groundmass which are produced by mass wasting. These are, in essence, lithified colluvium. Thick sequences of sedimentary (colluvial) breccias are generally formed next to fault scarps in grabens.

In the field, it may at times be difficult to distinguish between a debris flow sedimentary breccia and a colluvial breccia, especially if one is working entirely from drilling information. Sedimentary breccias are an integral host rock for many SEDEX ore deposits.
Collapse

Collapse breccias form where there has been a collapse of rock, typically in a karst landscape. Collapse breccias form blankets in highly weathered regolith due to the removal of rock components by dissolution.

Tectonic

Tectonic breccias form where two tectonic plates create a crumbling of the interface, by their relative movements.

Fault

Fault breccias result from the grinding action of two fault blocks as they slide past each other. Subsequent cementation of these broken fragments may occur by means of mineral matter introduced by groundwater.

Igneous

Igneous clastic rocks can be divided into two classes.
Broken, fragmental rocks associated with volcanic eruptions, both of lava and pyroclastic type
Broken, fragmental rocks produced by intrusive processes, usually associated with plutons or porphyry stocks
Volcanic

Volcanic pyroclastic rocks are formed by explosive eruption of lava and any rocks which are entrained within the eruptive column. This may include rocks plucked off the wall of the magma conduit, or physically picked up by the ensuing pyroclastic surge. Lavas, especially rhyolite and dacite flows, tend to form clastic volcanic rocks by a process known as autobrecciation. This occurs when the thick, nearly solid lava breaks up into blocks and these blocks are then reincorporated into the lava flow again and mixed in with the remaining liquid magma. The resulting breccia is uniform in rock type and chemical composition.

Lavas may also pick up rock fragments, especially if flowing over unconsolidated rubble on the flanks of a volcano, and these form volcanic breccias, also called pillow breccias.

The volcanic breccia environment is transitional into the plutonic breccia environment in the volcanic conduits of explosive volcanoes, where lava tends to solidify and may be repeatedly shattered by ensuing eruptions. This is typical of volcanic caldera settings.

Intrusive

Clastic rocks are also commonly found in shallow subvolcanic intrusions such as porphyry stocks, granites and kimberlite pipes, where they are transitional with volcanic breccias.

Intrusive rocks can become brecciated in appearance by multiple stages of intrusion, especially if fresh magma is intruded into partly consolidated or solidified magma. This may be seen in many granite intrusions where later aplite veins form a late-stage stockwork through earlier phases of the granite mass. When particularly intense, the rock may appear as a chaotic breccia.

Clastic rocks in mafic and ultramafic intrusions are known and form via several processes;consumption and melt-mingling with wall rocks, where the felsic wall rocks are softened and gradually invaded by the hotter ultramafic intrusion (termed taxitic texture by Russian geologists)
Accumulation of rocks which fall through the magma chamber from the roof, forming chaotic remnants
Autobrecciation of partly consolidated cumulate by fresh magma injections or by violent disturbances within the magma chamber (e.g. postulated earthquakes)
Accumulation of xenoliths within a feeder conduit or vent conduit

Impact

Impact breccias are thought to be diagnostic of an impact event such as an asteroid or comet striking the Earth, and are usually found at impact craters. Impact breccia, a type of impactite, forms during the process of impact cratering when large meteorites or comets impact with the Earth or other rocky planets or asteroids. Breccia of this type may be present on or beneath the floor of the crater, in the rim, or in the ejecta expelled beyond the crater. Impact breccia may be identified by its occurrence in or around a known impact crater, and/or an association with other products of impact cratering such as shatter cones, impact glass, shocked minerals, and chemical and isotopic evidence of contamination with extraterrestrial material (e.g. iridium and osmium anomalies).

Hydrothermal

Hydrothermal breccia, Cloghleagh Iron Mine, near Blessington in Ireland, composed mainly of quartz and manganese oxides, the result of seismic activity about 12 million years ago.

Hydrothermal breccias usually form at shallow crustal levels (<1 km) between 150 to 350oC, when seismic activity (an earthquake) causes a void to open along a fault deep underground. The void draws in hot water and as pressure in the cavity drops, the water violently boils – akin to an underground geyser. In addition, the sudden opening of a cavity causes rock at sides of the fault to destabilise and implode inwards, the broken rock gets caught up in a churning mixture of rock, steam and boiling water. Rock fragments hit each other and sides of the fault, and attrition quickly rounds angular breccia fragments. Volatile gases are lost to the steam phase as boiling continues, in particular CO2. As a result, the chemistry of the fluids change and ore minerals rapidly precipitate.

Sources:

Wikipedia

About.com

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India is on the road of anti-satellite capabilities: DRDO

India is making the “building blocks” of the technology to develop anti-satellite capabilities as part of its space security measures according to DRDO chief V K Saraswat .He was responding to queries on India’s plans to develop capabilities to destroy satellites in space while speaking on the sidelines of a function to sign MoUs between DRDO laboratories and private industries to commercialise technologies developed by the defence research organisation.Asked about the developments in the indigenous Ballistic Missile Defence programme, he said, “the (BMD) test is going to be conducted in February.” DRDO is working on the BMD programme, under which it is developing a system to destroy incoming enemy ballistic missiles both in space and in earth’s atmosphere.

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Antarctic as World Park

Antarctica constitutes a large polar desert, characterized by year round below zero temperatures, scarce precipitations and strong winds. The continent is around 14 million km2, of which less than 2% is ice-free. The ice sheet rises to over 4000 meters above the sea level and represents two thirds of the total freshwater reserves of the planet.

The region comprises approximately one tenth of the Earth’s land surface and plays a significant role in the climate of the Earth. The Southern Ocean – comprising parts of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian – the largest and stormiest of the oceans, surrounds the continent. The Antarctic and Southern Ocean host a unique and fragile ecosystem characterized by unique fauna and flora.

In the late 1960 Antarctic Treaty started receiving enquiries and request about the possibility of exploring and exploiting minerals hydrocarbons in Antarctica. These enquiries for the first time pointed out the so called ‘resources gap’ in the Antarctic Treaty. This promoted ATCPs to informally discuss the subject of resource development and regulation in Antarctica during 1970 consultative meeting in Tokyo. The mineral issue got another impetus after the discoveries of Glomar challenges expedition to the red sea in 1972-73 and also by Arab oil embargo.

Between 1972 to 1981, discussion on Antarctic mineral took place in the regular ATCP sessions. The main principals, set out by ATCPs, should play responsible role in dealing with questions of Antarctic mineral resources, and while doing this, Antarctic environment and its dependent eco system should be protected, and the interest of all mankind should not be prejudiced.

However, the Antarctic Treaty did not free Antarctica from imminent exploitation of mineral resources. At the beginning of the 1980s the Treaty began to negotiate the Convention for Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources, which was meant to regulate the exploitation of mineral resources without destabilizing the fragile balance that the Treaty provided to the relation between countries confronted by territorial claims and the Cold War. The Convention signaled the end to the concept of Antarctica as a place destined to scientific research and as a potential reserve of natural resources.

Arguments in favour of an Antarctic Mineral Regime have been strongly criticized by some environmental organizations whose lobbies were particularly active during the negotiations. They maintain that a mineral regime is neither necessary nor desirable simply because no mineral activities should ever take place in Antarctica. On this assumption, they forcefully argue for the designation of the continent as a ‘World Park’, a solution that would better guarantee the preservation of the Antarctic environment.

Consequently during the 1980s an intensive campaign effort took place to prevent exploitation of Antarctic natural resources and to promote the designation of the continent as a World Park, based on the following concepts:

• The recognition of Antarctica as the last wilderness continent;
• The protection of the Antarctic fauna and flora (both in the continent itself and in the Southern Ocean) based on the precautionary principle;
• The use of the continent for scientific research and international cooperation; and
• The maintenance of Antarctica as a zone of peace, free of nuclear and military activities.

The Madrid Protocol is positive but not enough

In 1991 the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties signed The Protocol of Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. This is a unique instrument that protects an entire continent, without establishing political or administrative boundaries. It establishes comprehensive measures of environmental protection, including the prohibition of mineral activities for at least fifty years. The Protocol has five annexes that detail obligations relating to: mandatory environmental impact assessments that must proceed all activities; strict regulations for the conservation of Antarctic fauna and flora; waste management; prevention of marine pollution; and the possibility of establishing protected areas with an additional protection regime.

Beginning to implement of the Protocol has not been an easy process and, more than ten years after its signature, implementation is still far from being complete and adequate. One of the main limitations of the Antarctic conservation regime is that the Protocol does not apply to the exploitation of marine resources. This gives place to a grossly incongruous situation: strict environmental protection on the continent, in contrast to the exploitation of marine resources that is regulated using considerably less strict controls. This ignores the fact that both the continent and the surrounding ocean belong to the same ecosystem, as is recognized by the Protocol itself in its Art. 3.

The marina fauna of the Southern Ocean has been intensely exploited for over a century, particularly krill (Euphasia superba) and several species of seals and whales. Sealing and whaling were followed by the exploitation of deep-sea fish such as Patagonian tooth fish (Dissostichus eleginoides and D. mawsonii). In addition to the legal exploitation of marine living resources in the Southern Ocean, which we consider excessive, there is the impact of illegal fishing, currently focused on Patagonian tooth fish, which threatens with the collapse not only of this species but also with different species of seabird that are accidentally captured as “by catch”.

The latest threat to Antarctica is a growing pressure from tourism, which puts at risk the fragile equilibrium of both the Antarctic ecosystems and the political regime of governance of the Antarctic region. Tourism is not only an environmental but also a political issue.

Form the above discussion it can be said that if Antarctica is protected as World Park, then it will be protected by laws. People should only be able to visit certain points and still be restricted to what they can do and bring.

Antarctica is a peaceful and desolate place that needs to be left alone. It may have natural resources, beautiful scenery and wonderful animals and plants. We should not let everyone go for pleasure as there are too many dangerous resources and if people get hold of these it can cause serious wars and world damage. So PLASE LEAVE IT ALONE AND CONSERVE IT AS A WORLD PARK.

Indonesia is one of the world’s richest areas of biodiversity

Incorporating 17,000 tropical islands, Indonesia is one of the world’s richest areas of biodiversity.According to the Jakarta Post, over half of this biodiversity remains unrecorded with only 20 of the more than 400 regencies in the country recording species. Indonesia is one of the 17 largest biodiversity hotspots on the planet, but we have not recorded most of it.

Many of these species may vanish without ever being known. Indonesia’s forests, and in turn its species, are facing unparalleled pressures. Rampant deforestation for tropical wood, oil palm plantations, mining, and fuel have taken a great toll on Indonesia’s environment. Fifty years ago 82 percent of Indonesia was covered with forests. As of 2005 that percentage has dropped to 48 percent. Illegal logging is a huge issue in the nation: even its protected areas have been infiltrated in the past.

Indonesia is home to over 30,000 recorded species of plants and over 3,000 mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Its number of recorded mammals—515—is second only to Brazil. Indonesia is the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases (after China and the United States) largely due to the deforestation of its rainforests and the destruction of its peatlands.

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Satellite images to monitor peatlands

British scientists say they have developed a technique that allows monitoring of Earth’s peatlands via satellite images and airborne laser scanning data.

The researchers, led by Karen Anderson of the University of Exeter, said their new technique involves measuring spatial patterning in peatland surfaces as an indicator of their condition.The researchers said airborne laser scanning instruments are capable of measuring fine-scale structures such as hummocks and hollows that typically measure less than 13 feet in size.

The researchers said their method could help better monitor damage to peatlands caused by human activity. That damage, scientists said, contributes to global warming since peatlands might release the carbon they have absorbed and stored.

Peatlands, sometimes referred to as peat bogs, are wetland areas filled with with decaying plant matter. Peat is often used for gardening and also as fuel in certain parts of the world.

The research that included scientists from the Universities of Southampton and East London is reported in the Journal of Environmental Quality.

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RapidEye completes imaging campaign in Afghanistan

Germany: RapidEye has completed a baseline image campaign covering the Helmand river basin in Afghanistan. The imagery is now available for purchase to clients and partners worldwide. Covering over 250,000 square kilometres, the Helmand river basin is the largest in Afghanistan, accounting for almost half of the country’s territory. It is the world’s largest opium production region. The project was initiated to obtain baseline imagery maps and ground cover information prior to the beginning of the 2010 growing season.Since the river basin contains the largest production of opium in Afghanistan, it is essential to understand growth patterns and estimate yields in this area as part of the United Nations (UN), US and other efforts to suppress production. The RapidEye constellation of five satellites has the ability to image individual fields, counties, states or countries on a frequent revisit cycle. The Helmand river basin project reinforced these capabilities, as the area around and including Lahkar Gah, the capital city of Helmand, was collected seven times in 23 days.

Sources : http://www.rapideye.de

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Saudi Arabia to Replace Oil with Sun Power for Desalination Plants

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now interested in using solar energy to provide the power needed, instead of oil. According to an article on the UAE Top News media site, the Kingdom is now planning to build solar energy based desalination plants in order to save on energy costs, as well as be in tune with new environmental polices. This might be to secure membership in the International Renewable Energy Agency, otherwise known as IRENA.By using solar energy instead of oil, it will focus more on using renewable energy and even become an exporter of this clean form of energy as it has been doing with oil. A tremendous amount of oil is currently being used to provide power for the country’s desalination plants; around 1.5 million barrels per day. This has caused the price of desalinated water to rise as oil prices have risen.

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