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MegaFloods-PastandFuture

Future Space Settlements

STARSHIP HUMANITY
“How future generations will make the voyage from our eartyhly home to the planes and beyond – an what it means for our species

By Cameron M. Smith

Picture of proposed new mars One Settlement due to start in 2013

When Space Atlantis rolled to a stop in 2011, it did not mark, as some worried, the end of human spaceflight. Rather, as the extinction of the dinosaurs allowed early mammals to flourish, retiring the shuttle signals the opening of far greater opportunities for space exploration. Led by ambititious private comp[anies, we are entering the early stages of the migration of our species away from Earth and our adaption to entire new worlds. Mars is the stated goal of Elon Musk of PayPal fortune; polar exporers Tom and Tina Sjorgen, who are designing a private venture to Mars; and Europe’s privately funded MarsOne project, which would establish a human colony by 2023. The colonization of space is beginning now.

But technology is not enough. If space colonization is to succeed in the long run, we must consider biology and culture as carefully as engineering. Colonization can not be about rockets and robots alone – it will have to embrace bodies, people, families, communities and cultures. We must begin to build an anthropology of space colonization to grapple with the fuzzy, messy, dynamic and often infuriating world of human biocultural adaption. And we must plan this new venture while remembering the clearest fact of all regarding living things. They change through time, by evolution.

Three main concepts shape current thought about space colonization.

First is the colonization if Mars. Widely publicized by the peppery space engineer and president of the Mars Society, Robert Zubrin, Martian colonies would be self-sufficientm using local resources to generate water and oxygen as well as to make construction materials. Next is the concept of free-floating colonies – enormous habitats built from lunara or asteroid metals. Popularized by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill in the 1970’s, these would house thousands of people, could rotate to provide an Earth-like gravity ( as beautifully envisioned in the 1988 film 2001: A Space Odyssey), and could either orbit Earth or hang motionless at so-called Lagrabgian points, spots where an object’s orbital motion balances the gravitational pull of the sun, moon and Earth.

Finally. We might also consider the concept of the space Ark, a giant craft carrying thousands of space colonists on a one-way, multigenerational voyage far from earth. I have been working with the nonprofit foundation Ucarus Interstellar to design such a mission.

Each of these approaches has its merits, and I think they are all technically inevitable. But we must never confuse space colonization with the conquest of space. The world beyond ours is unimaginably vats; it will be what it has always been. When humankind begins to make its home in space, it is we who will change….”

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The day the Earth froze: An hour-long storm started a mini ice age, say scientists

Dr Bateman and his team confirmed the path of the floodwaters from Lake Agassiz that covered part of what is now Canada and the northern United States. The lake had formed in front of the ice-sheet that once covered a large part of North America.

Scientists had previously guessed that a giant flood unleashed from the lake probably caused the Younger Dryas cooling but couldn't confirm the route of the floodwaters.

research team

A research team log sediments in a cliff exposure at Liverpool Bay, Northwest Territory, Arctic Canada. They said a massive flood caused the Gulf Stream to shut down 13,000 years ago.

Dr Bateman found that the waters flowed down the Mackenzie River, Canada's longest, rather than the Saint Lawrence Seaway that had previously seemed the most likely route.

Studying sediments from cliff sections along the river delta, he said the evidence spanned a large area at many altitudes. This could only be explained by a mega-flood from Lake Agassiz.

Dating of the sediments helped the team pin down the date of the flooding, showing that it occurred right at the start of the Younger Dryas.

Satellite observations and computer models by scientists have shown that the Greenland ice sheet is melting at an accelerating rate, dumping large amounts of ice and meltwater into the North Atlantic.

A study published in the journal Science last November said recent summers further accelerated Greenland's mass loss to the equivalent of 273 cubic kilometers of water per year in the period 2006-2008.

http://creation.com/two-more-megafloods

Figure 1. Scientists suggest an ice dammed lake behind a narrow isthmus linking Britain to continental Europe burst through the ridge, carving the English Channel in a spectacular fashion.

Figure 2. A mega-flood, caused by the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet, which covered much of North America, emptied ancient Lake Agassiz sending floodwaters into Hudson Bay, Lake Superior and across North America

Two more late Ice Age megafloods discovered

Geologists could not comprehend or see any evidence for these megafloods before the possibility entered their minds.

by Michael J. Oard

It took 40 years for mainstream geologists to accept the Lake Missoula flood, despite hundreds of pieces of obvious evidence.¹ The acceptance forced many geologists to shift from strict uniformitarianism (the reason they rejected the Lake Missoula flood in the first place) to believing in neo-catastrophism—the idea that the earth in rare instances does have huge catastrophes. The meteorite impact hypotheses for the extinction of the dinosaurs² and Ager’s discovery that some sedimentary units were quickly laid down over hundreds of kilometers³ has reinforced the trend towards neo-catastrophism among mainstream geologists.

Numerous Ice Age megafloods

It is interesting that once the Lake Missoula flood was accepted in the 1960s, numerous other Ice Age megafloods have come to light. Geologists could not comprehend or see any evidence for these megafloods before the possibility entered their minds. Similar to the effect of the Ice Age megaflood controversy, I believe the worldview of mainstream scientists keeps them from seeing the copious evidence for the Genesis Flood in the rocks and fossils.

Some of the megafloods discovered include the Bonneville flood down the Snake River of southern Idaho and southeast Washington, caused by pluvial Lake Bonneville overspilling a low point in southeast Idaho with the top of the lake dropping over 100 m.⁴ A dammed glacial lake burst in the Altai Mountains of south central Siberia sending a huge flood on the scale of the Lake Missoula flood down the Chuja and Katun Rivers.⁵ The floor of the eastern English Channel is now believed to have been carved by the catastrophic drainage of a huge lake in the area of the southern North Sea (figure 1).⁶ Two megafloods have been postulated,⁷ but, regardless, the flood/s probably severed England from mainline Europe.

Numerous Ice Age megafloods from glacial Lake Agassiz in central Canada have been claimed.⁸ These floods are believed to have flooded south down the Mississippi River, east through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway, north into Hudson Bay and out into the North Atlantic, and northwest down the Mackenzie River and into the Arctic Ocean.

Glacial Lake Wisconsin was formed along the edge of the Green Bay Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. As the ice receded, the lake breached catastrophically and flowed down the Wisconsin River.⁹ This flood overtopped another ridge, creating what is now a water gap. Many water gaps were also formed during the Lake Missoula flood. Both of these floods provide analogs for the thousands of water gaps across the Earth caused by the channelized runoff of the Genesis Flood.¹⁰

These are only the well-established Ice Age megafloods. There is also the category of superfloods, around an order of magnitude larger, that supposedly flowed under the ice sheets and out the edge. The study of these superfloods has been pioneered by John Shaw of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Shaw has published numerous papers linking unique landforms to subglacial floods.¹¹Superfloods issuing from under the ice are also postulated for southwestern Russia and Antarctica. Subglacial superfloods are not popular with the majority of scientists, but the evidence for them seems substantial.¹²

Two new megafloods

Recently, at least two new megafloods have been added to the list. The first is actually an old one, but is now considered much larger based on new evidence. This is an outburst megaflood from glacial Lake Agassiz that swept northwest into the Mackenzie River and out into the Arctic Ocean.¹³

The second megaflood is one of several postulated to have spilled out of the intermontane Cooper River Basin of south central Alaska. As the Alaska Range ice cap in southern Alaska melted, a huge lake, called Lake Atna, was trapped in the Cooper River Basin and overtopped several outlets. One outlet passed westward down the Matanuska Valley through Wasilla and into Cook Inlet.¹⁴ The amount of water released is estimated to have been 500–1,400 km³, with a depth over the Wasilla area of 34–70 m, and a flow velocity estimated between 13–57 m/sec. The evidence for the flow of water can be seen from space in a series of long north-south mega-ripple marks.

Did the megaflood down the Mackenzie River cause the Younger Dryas?

The megaflood into the Arctic Ocean from glacial Lake Agassiz (figure 2) is claimed to have caused the Younger Dryas, a cold snap that occurred during deglaciation, when temperatures were warming. The claimed temperature drop of around 10°C, based on oxygen isotope data, occurred mainly in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Younger Dryas has been detected in many climatic records, such as ice cores.¹⁵ Although these ice core records have been dated using uniformitarian assumptions, in particular that annual layers can be counted to near the bottom of Greenland ice cores, the Younger Dryas is still represented by a large negative deviation in the oxygen isotope ratio during the time when the oxygen isotopes are strongly increasing during deglaciation.

The major suggestion for how such a megaflood pulse cools the atmosphere is that freshwater floating over denser saltwater stops the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation.¹⁶ The thermohaline circulation is part of the large-scale ocean circulation, or meridional overturning of the ocean water, that is driven by ocean density gradients, caused by differences in temperature and salt content. Such a freshwater pulse would result in much more sea ice that would reflect more sunlight back to space and stop evaporation from the capped ocean, thus cooling the atmosphere, especially in the Northern Hemisphere.

However, the origin of the Younger Dryas is still much debated.¹⁷ It has been assumed that the pulse of freshwater had to have entered the North Atlantic Ocean by e.g. the St. Lawrence Seaway, but the traces of such a megaflood flowing directly into the North Atlantic have been hard to find.¹⁸ So, some researchers think that a pulse into the Arctic Ocean could have made it to the North Atlantic Ocean.¹⁹ That is why some researchers are excited about the enhanced megaflood from glacial Lake Agassiz into the Arctic Ocean. But how does the pulse affect the North Atlantic?

There are several problems with the Younger Dryas originating from the freshening of the Arctic Ocean. First, the freshwater pulse may become so diluted moving from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic as to be of no consequence for the thermohaline circulation.

Second, it is assumed that a pulse of freshwater from a megaflood would have floated on the denser seawater and under the sea ice. But the megaflood meltwater pulse would also have been very muddy and possibly dense enough to sink to intermediate depths or to the ocean bottom. In the latter case, the meltwater pulse would have become a turbidity current and dissipated in the deep Arctic Ocean. The idea of a freshwater pulse capping the North Atlantic Ocean and stopping the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation, although widely believed,²⁰ is still controversial.²¹ Researchers are finding out that the ocean circulation is driven more by ocean current eddies and wind and not so much by density differences: “The wind and its spatial structures are drivers of the entire top-to-bottom [ocean] circulation, including that part which many authors regard as buoyancy driven. Oceanic response to wind-driving is generally extremely fast and efficient.”²²Therefore, a pulse of freshwater flowing out into the North Atlantic, either directly through the St Lawrence Seaway or indirectly through the Arctic Ocean, likely would not stop the thermohaline circulation. Besides, one megaflood, even into the North Atlantic, likely would not be significant enough to stop the circulation because of the large size of the North Atlantic Ocean.

All these megafloods reinforce the idea that the Ice Age ice sheets melted catastrophically.

Creationist Ice Age implication

All these megafloods reinforce the idea that the Ice Age ice sheets melted catastrophically.²³Furthermore, the creationist Ice Age model has the potential to cause the Younger Dryas cold snap because there was very little sea ice, even in the Arctic Ocean, late in the Ice Age. (It is difficult to freeze the top of seawater, but a less dense cap of freshwater makes it much easier.) So pulses of freshwater floating over the saltwater from many megafloods and the catastrophic melting of the ice in general could have triggered the Younger Dryas.²⁴ The effect would have been most dramatic over the Arctic Ocean. Of course, the Younger Dryas in the creationists scheme did not last on the order of a thousand years, as assumed by uniformitarian scientists, but would have been on the order of tens of years.

Wild, wild floods!
Only one Lake Missoula Flood
Iceland’s recent ‘mega-flood’
Megaflood origin of Box Canyon, Idaho, and implications for sapping erosion
Ice Age and Mammoths Questions and Answers
Geology Questions and Answers
Noah’s Flood Questions and Answers

References

Oard, M.J., The Missoula Flood Controversy and the Genesis Flood, Creation Research Society Books, Chino Valley, AZ, 2004. Return to text.
Alvarez, L.W., Alvarez, W., Asaro, F. and Michel, H.V., Extraterrestrial cause for the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction, Science 208:1095–1108, 1980. Return to text.
Ager, D., The New Catastrophism: The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1993. Return to text.
O’Connor, J.E., Hydrology, Hydraulics, and Geomorphology of the Bonneville Flood, GSA Special Paper 2974, Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO, 1993. Return to text.
Rudoy, A.N., Glacier-dammed lakes and geological work of glacial superfloods in the Late Pleistocene, Southern Siberia, Altai Mountains, Quaternary International 87:119–140, 2002. Return to text.
Gupta, S., Collier, J.S., Palmer-Felgate, A. and Potter, G., Catastrophic flooding origin of shelf valley systems in the English Channel, Nature 448:342–345, 2007. Return to text.
Silvestru, E., Wild, wild floods! J. Creation 22(1):12–14, 2008. Return to text.
Teller, J.T. and Leveringson, D.W., Glacial Lake Agassiz: a 5000 yr history of change and its relationship to the δ18 O record of Greenland, GSA Bulletin116(5/6):729–742, 2004. Return to text.
Clayton, J.A. and Knox, J.C., Catastrophic flooding from glacial Lake Wisconsin, Geomorphology 93:384–397, 2008. Return to text.
Oard, M.J., Flood by Design: Receding Water Shapes the Earth’s Surface, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 94–109, 2008. Return to text.
Shaw, J., The meltwater hypothesis for subglacial bedforms, Quaternary International 90:5–22, 2002. Return to text.
Silvestru, E., Catastrophic subglacial drainage and rapid landscape formation in Canada, with special emphasis on the Niagara Escarpment; in: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism, Snelling, A.A. (Ed.), Creation Science Fellowship and Institute for Creation Research, Pittsburgh, PA, and Dallas, TX, pp. 357–370, 2008. Return to text.
Murton, J.B., Bateman, M.D., Dallimore, S.R., Teller, J.T. and Yang, Z., Identification of Younger Dryas outburst flood path from Lake Agassiz to the Arctic Ocean, Nature 464:740–743, 2010. Return to text.
Wiedmer, M., Montgomery, D.R., Gillespie, A.R. and Greenberg, H., Late Quaternary megafloods from glacial Lake Atna, Southcentral Alaska, USA,Quaternary Research 73:413–424, 2010. Return to text.
Oard, M.J., The Frozen Record: Examining the Ice Core History of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, TX, pp. 123–132, 2006. Return to text.
Broeker, W.S., Thermohaline circulation, the Achilles Heel of our climate system: will manmade CO2 upset the current balance? Science 278:1582–1588, 1997. Return to text.
Broecker, W.S., Denton, G.H., Edwards, R.L., Cheng, H., Alley, R.B. and Putnam, A.E., Putting the Younger Dryas cold event into context, Quaternary Science Reviews 29:1078–1081, 2010. Return to text.
De Vernal, A., Hillaire-Marcel, C. and Bilodeau, G., Reduced meltwater outflow from the Laurentide ice margin during the Younger Dryas, Nature 381:774–777, 1996. Return to text.
Peltier, W.R., Vettoretti, G. and Stastna, M., Atlantic meridional overturning and climate response to Arctic Ocean freshening, Geophysical Research Letters33:doi:10.1029/2005GL025251, 2006. Return to text.
Schiermeier, Q., River reveals chilling tracks of ancient flood, Nature 464:657, 2010. Return to text.
Lozier, M.S., Deconstructing the conveyer belt, Science 328:1507–1511, 2010. Return to text.
Wunsch, C., Greenland—Antarctic phase relations and millennial time-scale climate fluctuations in the Greenland ice-cores, Quaternary Science Reviews22:1,641, 2003. Return to text.
Oard, M.J., Frozen in Time: Woolly Mammoths, the Ice Age, and the Biblical Key to Their Secrets, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, pp. 95–106, 2004. Return to text.
Goodenow, S., A catastrophic cause for the Younger Dryas, Master’s Thesis, Institute for Creation Research Graduate School, Dallas, TX, 2004. Return to text.

The below article is a good reason for the rich and powerful to build Off-Earth Space Arks to be away from planet Earth
while things like mega earth quakes and mega floods, and other geographic emplossions play out their destructive and dramatic forces and run out of steam.

THE COMING MEGA FLOODS

    Huge flows of vapor into the atmosphere, dubbed "atmosphere river",
have unleashed massive floods every 200 year, and climate change could bring more of them.


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By Michael D. Dettinger and B. Lynn Ingram

Michael D. Dettinger : is a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Society

and a research associate at the Climate Atmosphere Sciences and Physical Oceanography Division at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla California.

B. Lynn Ingram is a professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkley and co-author of The West Without Water ( University of California Press, Spring, 2013)

ALL WEST COASTS CAN BE HIT

Atmospheric rivers form over tropical waters and flow poleward toward the west coasts of many continents (one hit England in November 2009). They are prominent along the U.S, Pacific Coast but can occasionally arise in unusual places, such as the Gulf of Mexico (one flooded Nashville in May 2010). Atmospheric rivers could become larger in the future as the climate warms.

THE INTENSE RAINSTORMS SWEEPING IN FROM the pacific Ocean to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada mountains along the state's eastern border into raging torrents that swept away entire communities and mining settlements. The rivers and rains poured into the state's vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 200 miles wide. Thousands of people died, and one quarter of the state's estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown water filled with debris from countless mudslides on the region's steep slopes. California's legislature, unable to function, moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out - six months later, By then, the state was bankrupt.

A comparable episode today would be incredibly more devastating. The Central Valley is Home to more than six million people, 1.4 million of them in Sacramento. The land produces about $20 billion in crops annually, including 70 percent of the world's almonds- and portions of it have dropped 30 feet elevation because of extensive groundwater pumping, making those areas even more prone to flooding, Scientists who recently modeled a similarly relentless storm that lasted only 23 days concluded that this similar visitation would cause $400 billion in property damage and agricultural losses. Thousands of people could die unless preparations are evacuations worked very well indeed,

Was the 1861-62 flood a freak event?

It appears not.

New studies of sediment deposits in widespread locations indicate that cataclysmic floods of this magnitude have inundated California. every two centuries or so for at least the past two millennia. The 1861-62 storms also pummeled the coastline from northern Mexico and southern California up to British Columbia, creating the worst floods in recorded history. Climate scientists now hypothesize that these floods, and others like them in several regions of the world, were caused by atmospheric rivers, a phenomenon you may have never heard of. And they think California, at least, is overdue for another one.

TEN MISSISSIPPI RiVERS, ONE MILE HIGH

ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS are long streams of water vapor that form at about

one mile up in the atmosphere. They are only 250 miles across but extend for thousands of miles - sometimes across an entire ocean basin such as the Pacific.

These conveyer belts of vapor carry as much water as 10 to 15 Mississippi Rivers from the tropics and across the middle latitudes. When one reaches the U.S. West Coast and hits inland mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada, it is forced up, cools off and condenses into vast quantities of precipitation.

People on the West Coast of North America have long known about storms called "pineapple expresses" which pour in fro the tropics near Hawaii and dump heavy rain and snow for three to five days. It turns out that they are just one configuration of an atmospheric river. A s many as nine atmospheric rivers hit California every year, according to investigations. Few of them end up being strong enough to yield mega-floods, but even the "normal" storms are as about as intense as rainstorms get in the rest of the U.S., so they challenge emergency personnel as well as flood-control authorities and water managers.

Atmospheric rivers also bring rains to the west coasts of other continents and can occasionally form in unlikely places. For example, the catastrophic flooding in and around Nashville in May 2010 - which caused some 30 deaths and more than $2 billion in damages -was fed by an unusual atmospheric river that brought heavy rain for two relentless days up into Tennessee from the Gulf of Mexico/ In 2009 substantial flooding in southern England and in various parts of Spain was also caused by atmospheric rivers. But the phenomenon is best understood along the Pacific Coast, and he latest studies suggest that these rivers of vapor may become even larger in the future as the climate warms.

SUDDEN DISCOVERY

DESPITE THEIR INCREDIBLE DESTRUCTION, atmospheric rivers were discovered only recently and in part by serendipity.

In January 1998 the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration's Environmental Technology Laboratory began a project called CALJET to improve the forecasting of large storms that hit the California Coast. The lab's research meteorologist Marty Ralph and others flew specially outfitted aircraft over the North Pole into an approaching winter storm to directly measure the conditions.

That storm was described as a "jet" - a zone of high winds. The reserachers found that the single storm, for several days running, was carrying about 20 percent of the atmosphere's moisture that was moving poleward at middle latitudes. The jet was concentrated at about a mile above the ocean's surface, high enough to have been difficult to identify using traditional meteorological observations from the ground.

Also in 1998 researchers Yong Zhu and the late Reginald Newell, then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noticed an odd feature in simulations of global wind and water-vapor patterns that had been made by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. They found that, outside of the tropics an average of about 95 percent of all vapor transport toward the poles occurred in just five or six narrow bands,distributed somewhat, randomly around the globe, that moved west to east across the middle latitudes. To describe these bands, they coined the term "atmospheric rivers"

At the same time, satellites carrying the new Special Sensor Microwave Imager were for the first time providing clear and complete observations of water-vapor distributions globally. The imagery showed that water-vapor tended to concentrate in long, narrow, moving corridors that extend most often from the warm, moist air of the tropics into the drier, cooler regions outside the tropics. The tentacles appeared and then fell apart on timescales from days to a couple of weeks.

Needles to say, researchers soon put together these three remarkably complementary findings. Since then, scientists have conducted a growing number of studies to better characterize West Coast atmospheric rivers. New observatories with upward-looking radars and wind profilers have been established to watch them. NOAA's Hydrometeorological Testbed program is peering farther inland to find out what happens when atmospheric rivers penetrate the interior.

Using data from these networks, forecasters are getting better and better at recognizing atmospheric rivers in weather models and at predicting their arrival at the West Coast. IN recent years some storms have been recognized more than a week before they hit land. Atmospheric rivers are also appearing in climate models used to predict future climate changes. Forecasters, feeling more confident in their prediction abilities, are beginning to warn the public about extremely heavy rains earlier than they would have in the past.

This improvement is providing extra time for emergency managers to prepare.

A MEGA-FLOOD EVERY CENTURY

DESPITE GRETER SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING, the 1961-62 floods are all but forgotten today. Communities, industries and agricultural operations in California and the West have spent the past century spreading out onto many of the same flood-plains that were submerged 150 years ago. Residents everywhere are unaware or unwary of the obvious risks to life and property. Meanwhile, though, anxious climatologists worry about the accumulating evidence that a mega-strim could happen against and soon.

The concern grows out of research that is looking 2,000 year back in time to piece together evidence revealing the occurrence and frequency of past floods. like detectives returning to a crime scene of long ago. They are sifting through evidence archived in sediments from lake beds, flood-plains, marshes and submarine basins. As floodwaters course down slopes and across the landscape, they scour the hills, picking up clay, silt and sand and carrying material in swollen currents. When the rivers slow on reaching a flood-plain, marsh, estuary or ocean, they release their loads of sediment: first the larger gravels, then the sands, and finally the silts and clays. Nature rebuilds after such events, and over time the flood deposits are themselves buried beneath newer sediments left by normal weather. Scientists extract vertical cores from these sediments and, back at the tab, analyze the preserved layers and date what happened when.

For example, flood deposits have been found under tidal marshes around San Francisco Bay in northern California. Typically the inflowing river waters that spread across the marshes deposit only thin traces of the finest sediments 0 clays and silts.

The more vigorous flows of major floods carry larger particles and deposit thicker and coarser layers. The flood payers can be dated using the common radiocarbon-dating method, which in this application is accurate to within 100 years. A study of the Malamud-Roam revealed deposits from massive flooding around A.D. 1100, 1400 and 1650. A distinct layer from the 1861-62 event is difficult to distinguish, however, because the decade before and after the flood moved whatever traces the floodwaters might have left.

Sediment cores taken beneath San Francisco Bay itself also indicate that in 1400 the bay was filled with freshwater (as it was during the 1861-62 event), indicating a massive flood.

Geologists have found more evidence in southern California, where two thirds of the state's nearly 38 million people live today, along the coats of Santa Barbara. Sediments there settle to the sea-floor every spring ( forming a light-coloured layer of algae known as diatoms) and again in winter (forming a dark-algae known as diatoms) and again in winter (forming a dark colored silt layer). Because the oxygen, concentrations in the deep waters there are inhospitably low for bottom-dwelling organisms that would usually churn and burrow, the annual sediment layers have remained remarkably undisturbed for thousands of years. Sediment cores there reveal six distinct mega-floods that appear as thick gray silt layers in A.D. 212, 440, 603, 1029, 1418 and 1605. The three most recent dates correlate well with the approximate 1100,1400 and 1650 dated indicated by the marsh deposits around San Francisco Bay - confirming that truly widespread floods have occurred every few hundred years. )In October, Ingrid Hendy of the University of Michigan and her colleagues published a paper based on a different dating method; it found a set of Santa Barbara dates that were offset from the six specific dates by 100 to 300 years, but the same basic pattern of mega-floods every 200 years or so holds).

The thickest flood layer in the Santa Barbara Basin was deposited in 1605. the sediment was two inches thick, a few miles offshore. The 440 and 1418 floods each left layers more than an inch thick. These compare with layers of 0.24 and 0.08 inch near the top of the core that were left by large storms in 1958 and 1964. respectively, which where among the biggest of the past century. The three earlier floods must have been far worse than any we have witnessed.

Evidence for enormous floods has also been found about 150 miles northeast of San FRancisco Bay, in sediment cores taken from a small lake called Little Packer that lies in the flood-plain of the Sacramento River, the largest river in northern California. During major floods, sediment-laden floodwaters spill into the lake, and the sediment settles to the bottom, forming thick, coarse layers. Geographer Roger Byrne of the University if California, Berkeley, and his graduate student Donald G. Sullivan used radio-carbon dating to determine that a flood comparable to the 1861-62 catastrophe occurred in each of the following time spans: 1235-1360, 1295-1440, 155501615, 1750-1770 and 1819-1820. That is one mega-flood every 100 to 200 years.

Certain mega-floods have also left records of their passage in narrow canyons in the Klamath Mountains in the northwestern corner of California, Two particularly enormous deposits were laid down around 1600 and 1750, once again agreeing with the other data.

When taken together, all the historical evidence suggests that the 1605 flood was at least 50 percent greater than any of the other mega-floods. And although the radiocarbon dates have significant uncertainties and could be reinterpreted if dating methods improve, the unsettling bottom line is that mega-floods as large or larger than the 1861-62 flood are a normal occurrence every two centuries or so. It has now been 150 years since that calamity, so it appears that California maybe due for another episode soon.

DISASTERS MORE LIKELY

IRONICALLY ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS that set up over California are not all bad, The smaller ones that arise annually are important sources of water. By analyzing the amount of rain and snow that atmospheric rivers brought to the U.S. West Coast in recent decades, along with records about long-term precipitation, snowpack and stream flow, researches have found that between 1950 and 2010, atmospheric rivers supplied 30 to 50 percent of California's water - in the span of only 10 days each year. They are finding similar proportions along the rest of the West Coats. In the same tome period, however, the storms also caused more than 80 percent of flooding in California rivers and 81 percent of the 128 most well-ducumented levee breaks in California's Central Valley.

Because atmospheric rivers play such terrible roles in floods and such vital roles in water supply, it is natural to wonder what might happen with then as climate change takes firmer hold. Recall that Zhu and Newell first coined the term "atmospheric rivers" to describe features they observed in computer models of weather. Those models are closely related to models used to project the future consequences of rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Scientists do not program

atmospheric rivers into weather and climate models, the rivers emerge as natural consequences of the way that the atmosphere and the atmospheric water cycle work, when the models are let loose to simulate the past, present or future. Thus, the rivers also appear in climate projection models used in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments.

A recent review by one of us (Dettinger) of seven different climate models from around the world has indicated that atmospheric rivers will likely continue to arrive in California throughout the 21st century, In the projections, air temperatures get warmer by about four degrees Fahrenheit on average because of atmospheric holds more water vapor, atmospheric rivers could carry more moisture.

On the other hand, because the tropics and polar regions are projected to warm at different rates, winds over the midlatitude Pacific are expected to weaken slightly. The rain that atmospheric rivers produce is primarily a product of the amount of vapor they hold and how fast they are moving, and so the question arises.

Will moister air or weaker wind win out?

In six of the seven climate models, the average rain and snow delivered to California by future atmospheric rivers increases by an average of about 10 percent by he year 2100, Moister air trumps weaker winds.

All seven models project that the number of atmospheric rivers arriving at the California coats each year will rise as well, from a historical average of about nine to 11. And all seven climate models predict that occasional atmospheric rivers will develop that are bigger than any of the historic mega-storms. Given the remarkable role that atmospheric rivers have played in California flooding, even these modest increases are a cause for concern and need to be investigated further to see if the projections are reliable.

TIME TO PREPARE

WITH ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS likely to become more frequent and larger and with so many people now living in their paths, society would be wise to prepare. To provide an example that California emergency managers could use to test their current plans and methods, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey recently developed the scenario mentioned at the start of the article: a mega-strom that rivaled the 1861-62 storm in size but tasted 23 days instead of 43 (so no one could claim that the scenario was unrealistic). To further ensure that the scenario, which was eventually dubbed ARkStorm (Atmospheric River 1000 Storm), was a realistic possible, scientists constructed it by stitching together data from two of the largest storm sequences in California from the past 50 years: January 1969 and February 1986.

When project leaders ran the events of ARkStorm through a variety of weather runoff, engineering and economic models, the results suggested that sustained flooding could occur over most lowland areas of northern and southern California, Such flooding could lead to the evacuation of 1.5 million people> Damages and disruptions from high water, hundreds of landslides and hurricane force winds in certain spots could cause $400 billion in property damages and agricultural losses. Long-term business and employment interruptions could bring the eventual total costs to more than $700 billion. Based on disasters elsewhere in recent year, we believe a calamity thus extensive could kill thousands of people (the ARkStorm simulation did not predict deaths).

The costs are about three times those estimated by many of the same USGS project members who had worked on another disaster scenario known as "SkakeOut": a hypothetical magnitude 7.8 earthquake in southern California. It appears that an atmospheric river mega-strom - California's "Other Bog One" - may pose even greater risks to the Golden State thna large magnitude earthquake, An ARkStorm event is plausible for California, perhaps even inevitable. And the state's flood protection systems are not designed to handle it. The only upside is that today, with improved science and technology, the mega-storms could likely be forecasted anywhere from a few days to more than a week in advance. Proper planning and continuing efforts to improve forecasts could reduce the damage and loss of life.

The same promise, and warning, holds true along the western coats of other continents. Scientists gave studied atmospheric rivers in more depth along California's coast than anywhere else in the world, but they have little reason to expect that the storms would be less frequent or smaller elsewhere. The next mega-flood could occur in Chile, Spain, Namibia or Western Australia.

California as well as people all along the West Coast, should be aware of the threats posed by atmospheric rivers and should take forecasts of storms and floods very seriously, Planners and city and state leaders should also take note as they decide on Investments for the future. He who forgets the past is likely to repeat it.

Future Space Settlements

From: Scientific American Magazine

"it is all the universe or nothing". H.G. Wells- 1936..

Picture of proposed new mars One Settlement due to start in 2013

STARSHIP HUMANITY

“How future generations will make the voyage from our eartyhly home to the planes and beyond – an what it means for our species

By Cameron M. Smith

When Space Atlantis rolled to a stop in 2011, it did not mark, as some worried, the end of human spaceflight. Rather, as the extinction of the dinosaurs allowed early mammals to flourish, retiring the shuttle signals the opening of far greater opportunities for space exploration. Led by ambitious private companies, we are entering the early stages of the migration of our species away from Earth and our adaption to entire new worlds. Mars is the stated goal of Elon Musk of PayPal fortune; polar explorers Tom and Tina Sjorgen, who are designing a private venture to Mars; and Europe’s privately funded MarsOne project, which would establish a human colony by 2023. The colonization of space is beginning now.

Three main concepts shape current thought about space colonization.

WHO WILL BE THE SPACE COLONISTS?

Here we must ditch the old concept of crew selection and the comically diabolical tests of chis-chinned space heroes depicted in The Right Stuff. Space colonists will be ordinary families and communities who will not be on a mission, but who are intending to live out their lifetimes. We will need a few Captain Picards, although most early colonists

ts will be farmers and construction workers.

Still early colonists will have to be genetically healthy. IN smallish populations, individuals, individuals carrying genetic maladies could threaten the future in ways that do not play out in a population of billions.. In a Space Ark, the biological fate of the colony is strongly conditioned by the genetic constitution of the founding population - If just a few travelers carry the genes of inherited disease, these genes will spread much more thoroughly.

We now know the details of hundreds of genes that cause disorders, from cancers to deafness ( Recently researchers announced that they could screen for more than 3,500 such traits in human fetuses.) A Genetic Screening Program seems clear - if you are carrying certain genes, you remain earth bound - but life it not so simple.Many maladies are polygenic - that is, the result of complex interactions among myriad genes. And even though one might carry the gene or genes for a certain disorder, environmental factors encountered during the course of life, can determine whether or not those genes are activated in a heathy or unhealthy way.

For example, the human ATRX gene helps to regulate processes related to oxygen transportation. But ATRX activity can be altered by environmental influences as diverse as nutrient intake or a person's state of mind. When ATRX function is significantly modified, oxygen transport is impeded, resulting in seizures, mental disabilities and stunted growth. Thus, one can not simply screen out people carrying ATRX: everyone has it. In some people, though, based on poorly understood environmental factors, ATRX will go haywire. Can be deselect someone for space colonization for something that might happen?

Complicating matters, we must also ensure broad genetic diversity of the gene pool. If all members of a population are genetically identical, a single sweep of disease could wipe everyone out. (This consideration demolishes the concept of a genetically engineered super-race of space travelers, as depicted in the 1997 film Gattaco.)

Once screened, what should be the population of space colonies? In a Mars colony, populations can grown and expand into new territory. But in a Space Ark, the population will be relatively low, and interbreeding becomes a concern. For example, in a study of Amish, Indian, Swedish and Utah populations, infant mortality was roughly double when matings occurred between first cousins than when they occurred between unrelated people.

To avoid these issues, we will have to consider the minimum population needed to maintain a healthy gene pool. Our p minimum viable population has been much debated, but several anthropologists have suggested a figure of about 500. Because small populations are always at risk of collapse, I would suggest beginning with a population at least four times that at minimum - 2,000 or about half the size of a well-staffed aircraft carrier - in a spacecraft carrier that gives this population ample room to grow. For humans away from earth, safety will tend to be found in numbers. (Even interstellar voyages will focus on reaching another solar system and inhabiting planets, where populations can grow again.)

We will also have to carefully consider the crew's demographic structure - the age and sex of colonial populations. Simulations by my colleague William Gardiner- O'Kearney show that over a few centuries, populations that begin with certain ratios of young to old and males to females persist better than others.

Early colonial populations then, should be individually healthy and collectively diverse to give future populations the best chance of having genes on hand that might be adaptive to new environments. But we cannot control everything. At some point we will have to roll the genetic dice - which we already do every time we chose to have children on Earth - and set out from cradle earth.

SPACE - BASED SELECTION

NO MATTER HOW CAREFULLY we prepare our colonial populations, life off planet earth, at least at first, will be more dangerous and perhaps a shorter life than we now have on planet Earth, Away from Earth people will be exposed to forces of natural selection that we have removed from modern life on planet Earth. Little of this selection will play out in the dramatic ways we might expect from watching science fiction movies, which tend to focus on the livers of adults. Instead it will occur during critical periods of tissue development in embryos and infants, when life is most delicate.

How could such selection play out?

For one example, consider that the human body has evolved close to sea level under an atmospheric pressure of roughly 15 pounds per square inch (psi) for the past several billion years, breathing a mix of roughly 80% nitrogen and 20% oxygen. Yet space travel requires presurized habitats that grow more expensive and laborious the build the more pressure they ned to hold. To ease the engineering requirements, atmospheric pressure in any off-Earth structure will be lower than on Earth.

Fair enough - Apollo astronauts survived just fine on 5 psi - but if you lower atmospheric pressure, you must increase oxygen as a percentage of what you are breathing. (Those same astronauts breathed 100% oxygen on their lunar voyages.)

Unfortunately lower atmospheric pressure and elevated oxygen levels interfere in vertebrate embryo development. Miscarriages and infant mortality will rise - at least for a time. Inevitably, natural selection will preserve the genes suitable for extraterrestrial conditions and remove those that are less suitable.

Infectious disease - to which small, dense populations such as space colonies are particularly vulnerable - will return as a significant concern, imposing new selection pressures as well. However careful we are with immunization and quarantine, plagues will eventually sweep through colonies, resulting in selection for people more capable of surviving the disease and selection against those less capable,

Finally, we must remember we will bring with us thousands of domesticates - plants and animals for food and materials - and that selective pressures will act on them as well. Ditto the millions of microbial species hat ride on and in human bodies - invisible genetic hitchhikers that are critical to our health (see: 'The Ultimate Social Network' by Jennifer Ackerman; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN June 2012)

Based on a few calculations, I think it is reasonable that within five 30-year generations - about 150 years - such changes will be apparent in the extraterrestrial body.

Exactly what biological adaption swill evolve will depend heavily on the atmospheric and chemical environments of the habitats we build. W can not control these to a large extent. We can not easily control two other important factors that will shape humanity in space: gravity and radiation.

Mars travelers will feel just a third of Earth's gravity. Those conditions will select for a more lithe body stature that can move with less effort than the bulky, relatively muscular builds we use to counteract Earth's gravity. In Space Ark and other free floating scenarios, gravitation might remain about Earth normal, so Earth-normal statures might persist.

Radiations causes mutations, and any space colony will be unlikely to provide the protection from radiation that Earth;s atmosphere and magnetic field provide. Will increased mutations physical errors- repeated parts like an extra finger or malformed parts like a cleft palate? Certainly, but we can not and will not know what kind. The only thing we can predict with confidence is selection for increased resistance to radiation damage. Some people have better and more active DNA-repair mechanisms than others, and they will be more likely to pas their genes on.

Could more efficient DNA-repair mechanisms have any visible correlate - such as, a particular hair color?

Again we do not know.

But is is also possible for beneficial genetics to spread when they have no visible correlates. Among Hutteritics of South Decoda, who interbreed among a relatively small number of communities, anthropologists have found that people appear to be strongly influenced in their male choice of body aroma - an the better the person's immune system, fascinatingly, the better the aroma.

On a moderate, five generation time scale, then, human bodies will subtly reshaped by their environment. We will see adaptions on the order of those natives of the high Andies and Tibet, where more efficient oxygen-transport physiology has evolved, resulting in broader and deeper chests. Each alteration is a compromise, however, and these high-altitude populations also sustain higher infant mortality when giving birth at altitude. One cultural adaption to this biological change has been for mothers to descend to oxygen-richer altitudes to deliver children, We can expect similar biocultural shifts off of Earth, and we should plan for the most likely of them. For example, on Mars, birthing mothers might shuttle to an orbiting station where delivery could happen in a rotating, 1-g facility with more Earth-normal atmosphere, but I bet that eventually they would not bother and that distinctive Martian human characteristics would evolve.

A SPACE BASED CLTURE

CULTURAL CHANGE will be more apparent than biological change on a 150-yer time span. Studies of human migrations have taught us that while migrating people tent to carry on some traditions t maintain identity, they also devise novel traditions and customs as needed in new environments. For example, the Scandinavians who first colonized Iceland after AD 800 continued to worship Norse Gods and speak the Viking language, but quickly developed a distinctive cuisine - heavy on meat (whereas rye and oats were grown in Scandanavia) and on preserved foods to survive the harsh winters - as they explored the resources of an unknown land.

ON Mars, this acculturation will play out in innumerable ways. There, on low-pressure, oxygen-rich atmosphere contained in unique architectural materials and arrangements, sound might propagate differently -even if subtly - perhaps affecting pronunciation and even spacing of speech, resulting in novel ascents and dialects. The lighter gravity could influence body language, an important element of human communication, and would influence performance arts of all kinds. Cultural divergence occurs as just such small, innumerable differences accumulate.

More profound cultural change could occur in Space Ark scenarios, where life would have less to do with Earth at each moment that the star ship speeds away. Here basic concepts of space and time could well be transformed rather quickly. For example, how long would Space Ark cultures use Earth timekeeping? Without Earth's days and nights and years. civilizations might invent a base-10 time keeping scale. Or they might decide to count time down until a distant solar system is reached rather than up from some event in the past (such as the departure from an Earth to which they will never return).

LONG TERM GENETIC CHANGE

SIGNIFICANT GENETIC CHANGE occurs when new genes become widespread in a population. An example from Pre-history is the spread of genes that resulted in lactose intolerance in adults, which appeared independently in both Africa and Europe not long after the domestication of cattle. The genetic equipment allowed more energy to be derived from cattle, and in these populations, it quickly became nearly universal, or "fixed".

Although we cannot predict which mutations will arise, population genetics enables us to estimate how long it would take mutations to become fixed in the genome of space-based explorers. My calculations - based on model Mars population of 2,000 people of certain age and sex structures - indicate that it could occur in just a few generations and certainly within 300 years; we can expect significant original off-Earth physical characteristics in human populations on this time scale, These changes will be on the order of the broad geographical variation we see in humans today - a spectrum of different statures, skin, colors, hair textures and other features.

On Mars, there might be further, internal divergence as some populations elect to live most of their lives sheltered in underground habitats, while others prefer to take the increased radiation risks to lie in surface habitats offering greater mobility. In the limited- population closed-system Space Ark scenario, gene fixation, could happen much more rapidly, perhaps driving a greater uniformity than on Mars.

Whereas, there will be some biological change, long-term cultural change will be more profound. Consider that in the three centuries from the early 1600's, the English language changed so much that comprehending 17th Century English texts today requires special training, Three centuries hence, the language spoken on a Space Ark might be profoundly different.

Larger-scale cultural change is also quite likely. Exactly what divides one culture from another is a topic of tremendous debate in anthropology, but I believe that anthropologist Roy Rappaport made the distinction clear. Different cultures have different "ultimate sacred postulates" - core concepts, usually unquestionable and unquestioned, ingrained by tradition and ritual, that shape a population's essential philosophical and moral codes. For Christmas, for example, one such postulate is that "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth." How long it will take for such foundation beliefs to change off Earth - and what direction - is impossible to say, but several centuries is certainly enough time to allow new cultures to arise.

THE RISE OF HOMO EXTRATERRESTIALS

WHEN WILL WE SEE even more fundamental biological change - that is, speciation? Small populations can change quickly, as evidenced by the unusually large mice that roam the Faroe Islands 1,200 years after Viking ships dropped off ordinary house mice. But anatomically modern humans have gone more than 100,000 years - migrating from Africa into a wide variety of environments, from desert to open ocean - apparently without biological speciation. (or nearest hominin relatives. such as the cold adapted Neandertals and the apparently miniaturized "hobbit" humans of the island of Floes in the western Pacific, split from our common ancestor substantially earlier). This largely because we use culture and technology to adapt more than biology alone. It would take, then, significant natural and cultural selection to reshape extraterrestrial humans to such a degree that they could no longer productively mate with earthlings.

Unless, of curse, humans devise their own speciation. It seems inevitable that off-Earthers will eventually harness the staggering power of DNA to tailor their own bodies for many conditions. Perhaps the people of Mars will biologically engineer gill-like structures to split the oxygen from atmospheric carbon or toughened skin tissues to endure low pressure. hey might make themselves into a new species, Homo extraterrestrials, by conscious choice.

WHERE TO BEGIN?

HUMAN SPACE COLONIZATION will require plenty of engineering and technical advances. WE must also improve our understanding of how human biology and culture adapt to new conditions and use that knowledge to help space colonization succeed. I suggest beginning immediately with three courses of action.

First, we must abandon the technocrat's essential revulsion of humanity and begin procreating off of Earth, giving birth there and raising children there, to understand critical issues of human reproduction , development, and growth in new radiation, pressure atmosphere and gravity environments. Bureaucrats will recoil at the risks involved - children exposed to risk beyond that of a bicycle-helmeted, suburbanite! - but concerns will diminish as space access is privatized. Still, at times the adaption to space will e painful - but so is birth,

Second, we must experiment with growing and maintaining the health of domesticated species off of Earth. We are going nowhere without our microbes, plants and other animals.

And to promote these first few goals, an X-Prize should be awarded for the first functional, livable human habitat off of Earth; not a sterile orbiting, laboratory (as important as those are), but a home where people can grow plants, raise animals and even have children. many would shudder at the prospect of staying in such a place, but at the same time, there will be no shortage of volunteers.

Finally, we must reengage the proactive approach that has made human survival possible up to the present and use that capacity to shape our own evolution beyond our home planet.

We must be immensely bolder than our bureaucrats. Failing that, in time we will become extinct, like everything else on Earth. As H.G. Wells wrote about human future in 1936, "it is all the universe or nothing."

The below article is a good reason for the rich and powerful to build Off-Earth Space Arks to be away from planet Earth while things like mega earth quakes and mega floods, and other geographic emplossions play out their destructive and dramatic forces and run out of steam.

THE COMING MEGA FLOODS

Huge flows of vapor into the atmosphere, dubbed "atmosphere river",
have unleashed massive floods every 200 year, and climate change could bring more of them.

By Michael D. Dettinger and B. Lynn Ingram

Michael D. Dettinger : is a research hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Society

and a research associate at the Climate Atmosphere Sciences and Physical Oceanography Division at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla California.

B. Lynn Ingram is a professor of earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkley and co-author of The West Without Water ( University of California Press, Spring, 2013)

ALL WEST COASTS CAN BE HIT

Was the 1861-62 flood a freak event?

It appears not.

TEN MISSISSIPPI RiVERS, ONE MILE HIGH

ATMOSPHERIC RIVERS are long streams of water vapor that form at about

one mile up in the atmosphere. They are only 250 miles across but extend for thousands of miles - sometimes across an entire ocean basin such as the Pacific.

SUDDEN DISCOVERY

DESPITE THEIR INCREDIBLE DESTRUCTION, atmospheric rivers were discovered only recently and in part by serendipity.

This improvement is providing extra time for emergency managers to prepare.

A MEGA-FLOOD EVERY CENTURY

Sediment cores taken beneath San Francisco Bay itself also indicate that in 1400 the bay was filled with freshwater (as it was during the 1861-62 event), indicating a massive flood.

DISASTERS MORE LIKELY

Will moister air or weaker wind win out?

TIME TO PREPARE

Outburst flood

In geomorphology, an outburst flood, which is a type of megaflood, is a high-magnitude, low-frequency catastrophic flood involving the sudden release of water.^[1]^[2]During the last deglaciation, numerous glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) were caused by the collapse of either ice sheets or glaciers that formed the dams of proglacial lakes. Examples of older outburst floods are known from the geological past of the Earth and inferred from geomorphological evidence on Mars. Landslides, lahars, andvolcanic dams can also block rivers and create lakes, which trigger such floods when the rock or earthen barrier collapses or is eroded. Lakes also form behind glacial moraines, which can collapse and create outburst floods.^[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaflood

Definition and classification
Megafloods are paleofloods (past floods) that involved rates of water flow larger than those in the historical record. They are studied through the sedimentary deposits and the erosional and constructional landforms that individual megafloods have created. Floods that are known to us through historical descriptions are mostly related to meteorological events, such as heavy rains, rapid melting of snowpacks, or combination of these. In the geological past of the Earth, however, geological research has shown that much larger events have occurred.^[3] In the case of outburst floods, such floods are typically linked to the collapse of the barrier forming a lake. They fall in the following classification according to the mechanism responsible:

Collapse of glacier dams that impound proglacial lakes (Missoula Floods).

Rapid erosion, melting of ice sheets (jökulhlaups).

Collapse of earthen barriers (landslides or glacial moraines).

Collapse of volcanic dams created by lava flows, lahars, or pyroclastic flows.

Overtopping of earthen or rock barriers

Lake overtopping (e.g., Lake Bonneville).

Ocean spilling over a dividing ridge into a landlocked basin (e.g., Zanclean flood, Black Sea flood).^[1] A smaller scale example would be the Pantai Remis landslide.

Outburst flood examples

Examples where evidence for large ancient water flows has been documented or is under scrutiny include:

[edit]Tectonic basins

[edit]Lake Bonneville

The first scientific report of a megaflood (Gilbert,^[4] 1890) is that related to the overflow of Lake Bonneville about 14500 yr ago, during the Pleistocene.

[edit]The Black Sea (around 7,600 years ago)

Main article: Black Sea deluge hypothesis

Black Sea today (light blue) and in 5600 BC (dark blue) according to Ryan's and Pitman's theories

A rising sea flood, recently disclosed^{[clarification needed]} and much-discussed refilling of the freshwater glacial Black Sea with water from the Aegean, was described as "a violent rush of salt water into a depressed fresh-water lake in a single catastrophe that has been the inspiration for the flood mythology" (Ryan and Pitman, 1998).^{[citation needed]} The marine incursion, which was caused by the rising level of the Mediterranean, occurred around 7,600 years ago. It remains an active subject of debate among geologists, with subsequent evidence discovered to both support and discredit the existence of the flood, while the theory that it formed the basis for later flood myths is not proven.

[edit]The Caspian and Black Seas (around 16,000 years ago)

See also: West Siberian Glacial Lake

A theory proposed by Andrey Tchepalyga of the Russian Academy of Sciences dates the flooding of the Black Sea basin to an earlier time and from a different cause. According to Tchepalyga, global warming beginning from about 16,000 BP caused the melting of theScandinavia Ice Sheet, resulting in massive river discharge that flowed into the Caspian Sea, raising it to as much as 50 metres (160 ft) above normal present-day levels. The rise was extremely rapid and the Caspian basin could not contain all the floodwater, which flowed from the northwest coastline of the Caspian Sea, through the Kuma-Manych Depression and Kerch Strait, over the current eastern coastline of the Sea of Azov into the ancient Black Sea basin. By the end of the Pleistocene this would have raised the level of the Black Sea by some 60 to 70 metres (200 to 230 ft) 20 metres (66 ft) below its present-day level, and flooding large areas that were formerly available for settlement or hunting. Tchepalyga suggests this may have formed the basis for legends of the great Deluge.^[5]

[edit]English Channel floods

Originally there was an isthmus across the Strait of Dover. During an earlier glacial maximum, the exit from the North Sea was blocked to the north by an ice dam, and the water flowing out of rivers backed up into a vast lake with freshwater glacial melt on the bed of what is now the North Sea. A gently upfolding chalk ridge linking the Weald of Kent andArtois, perhaps some 30 metres (100 feet) higher than the current sea level, contained the glacial lake at the Strait of Dover. At some time, probably around 425,000 years ago and again around 225,000 years later the barrier failed ^[6] or was overtopped, loosing a catastrophic flood that permanently diverted the Rhine into the English Channel and replacing the "Isthmus of Dover" watershed by a much lower watershed running from East Anglia east then southeast to the Hook of Holland and (as at modern sea level) separated Britain from the continent of Europe; a sonar study of the sea bed of the English Channel published in Nature, July 2007,^[7] revealed the discovery of unmistakable marks of a megaflood on the English Channel seabed: deeply eroded channels and braided features have left the remnants of streamlined islands among deeply gouged channels where the collapse occurred.^[8]

[edit]The refilling of the Mediterranean Sea (5.3 million years ago)

Main article: Zanclean flood

A catastrophic flood refilled the Mediterranean Sea 5.3 million years ago, at the beginning of the Zanclean age that ended the Messinian salinity crisis.^[9] The flood occurred when Atlantic waters found their way through the Strait of Gibraltar into the desiccated Mediterranean basin, following the Messinian salinity crisis during which it repeatedly became dry and re-flooded, dated by general consensus to before the emergence of modern humans.^[10]

The Mediterranean did not dry out during the most recent glacial maximum. Sea Level during glacial periods within the Pleistocene is estimated to have dropped only about 110 to 120 metres (361 to 394 ft).^[11]^[12] In contrast, the depth of the Strait of Gibraltar where the Atlantic Ocean enters ranges between 300 and 900 metres (980 and 3,000 ft).^[13]

[edit]Glacial lake outburst floods in North America (15,000 to 8,000 years ago)

In North America, during glacial maximum, there were no Great Lakes as we know them, but "proglacial" (ice-frontage) lakes formed and shifted. They lay in the areas of the modern lakes, but their drainage sometimes passed south, into the Mississippi system, sometimes into the Arctic, or east into the Atlantic. The most famous of these proglacial lakes was Lake Agassiz. A series of floods, as ice-dam configurations failed, created a series of great floods from Lake Agassiz, resulting in massive pulses of freshwater added to the world's oceans.

The Missoula Floods of Oregon and Washington states were also caused by breaking ice dams, resulting in the Channeled Scablands.

Lake Bonneville burst catastrophically in the Bonneville Flood, due to its water overflowing and washing away a sill composed of two opposing alluvial fans which had blocked agorge. Lake Bonneville was not a glacial lake, but post-glacial climate change determined the lake level and its overflow.

The last of the North American proglacial lakes, north of the present Great Lakes, has been designated Glacial Lake Ojibway by geologists. It reached its largest volume around 8,500 years ago, when joined with Lake Agassiz. But its outlet was blocked by the great wall of the glaciers and it drained by tributaries, into the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Riversfar to the south. About 8,300 to 7,700 years ago, the melting ice dam over Hudson Bay's southernmost extension narrowed to the point where pressure and its buoyancy lifted it free, and the ice-dam failed catastrophically. Lake Ojibway's beach terraces show that it was 250 metres (820 ft) above sea level. The volume of Lake Ojibway is commonly estimated to have been about 163,000 cubic kilometres, more than enough water to cover a flattened-out Antarctica with a sheet of water 10 metres (33 ft) deep. That volume was added to the world's oceans in a matter of months.

The detailed timing and rates of change after the onset of melting of the great ice-sheets are subjects of continuing study.

[edit]Overflow of lakes formed by landslides

An example is the lake overflow that caused one of the worst landslide-related disasters in history on June 10, 1786. A landslide dam on Sichuan's Dadu River, created by an earthquake ten days earlier, burst and caused a flood that extended 1400 km downstream and killed 100,000 people.^[14]

[edit]See also

Altai flood

Deluge myth

Missoula Floods (pleistocene megaflood)

Glacial Lake Missoula

J Harlen Bretz

Outflow channels

Zanclean flood

[edit]References

^ ^a ^b O’Connor, J.E. and Beebee, R.A., 2009, Floods from natural rock-material dams, in: Burr, D., Carling, P., and Baker, V. editors, Megafloods on Earth and Mars: Cambridge University Press.

^ Goudie, A., 2004, Encyclopedia of Geomorphology. Routledge. London, England. ISBN 0-415-27298-X

^ ^a ^b Burr, D.M., Baker, V.R., Carling, P.A. (Eds), 2009. Megaflooding on Earth and Mars. Cambridge University Press. 319 pp.

^ Gilbert, Karl Grove (1890). Lake Bonneville. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

^ Tchepalyga, Andrey (2003-11-04). "Late glacial great flood in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea (abstract)". Abstracts with Programs. 35-6. The Geological Society of America 2003 Seattle Annual Meeting. Seattle, Washington. pp. 460. Retrieved 2007-07-24.

^ Schiermeier, Quirin (18 July 2007). "The megaflood that made Britain an island". Nature. Retrieved 8 April 2012.

^ Sanjeev Gupta et al. in Nature 448 (2007), pp 342-345.

^ BBC News, "Megaflood' made 'Island Britain'"; "Geological evidence supports theory of surge down the English Channel." News at Nature

^ Garcia-Castellanos, D., et al., (2009). "Catastrophic flood of the Mediterranean after the Messinian Salinity Crisis". Nature, 462, 778-782.

^ Hsu, K.J., 1983, The Mediterranean Was a Desert, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

^ Lambeck, K., 1996, "Sea-level change and shore-line evolution in Aegean Greece since Upper Palaeolithic time". Antiquity. v. 70, no. 269, pp. 588-611.

^ Lambeck, K., 2005, "Sea-level change in the Mediterranean Sea since the LGM: model predictions for tectonically stable areas". Quaternary Science Reviews. v. 24, no. 18-19, pp. 1969–1988.

^ .See Robinson, Allan Richard and Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli, Ocean Processes in Climate Dynamics: Global and Mediterranean Examples. Springer, 1994, p. 307, ISBN 0-7923-2624-5.

^ Schuster, R.L.; Wieczorek, G.F. (2002). "Landslide triggers and types". Landslides: Proceedings of the First European Conference on Landslides (A.A. Balkema Publishers): 59–78.ISBN 978-90-5809-393-6.

[edit]External links

Alexei N. Rudoy. Glacier-dammed lakes and geological work of glacial superfloods in the Late Pleistocene, Southern Siberia, Altai Mountains

Catastrophic floods in the English Channel - Inundations

Lasafam Iturrizaga. GLACIER LAKE OUTBURST FLOODS / "Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers" Springer, 2011/Eds. Vijay P. Singh, Pratap Singh and Umesh K. Haritashya

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/megafloods-of-the-ice-age.html

Megafloods of the Ice Age

Posted 09.20.05

NOVA

About 15,000 years ago, in the waning millennia of the Ice Age, a vast lake known as Glacial Lake Missoula suddenly burst through the ice dam that plugged it at one end. In the space of just 48 hours, geologists believe, the collapse sent 500 cubic miles of water cascading across the Pacific Northwest, creating overnight such unusual landscapes as the scablands of eastern Washington State. In this interview, geologist and scablands expert Vic Baker of the University of Arizona talks about what it would have been like to witness the flood, what such floods are teaching us about Mars, and what J Harlen Bretz, the colorful geologist who first proposed that cataclysmic flooding had carved the scablands, was really like.

Photo credit: Created to scale with ArcView and Visual Nature Studio by Rick Lovel, HDR Engineering, Boise Idaho.

Scores of times during the Pleistocene epoch, Baker says, floodwaters from Glacial Lake Missoula (lower right in image) punched through the ice dam, inundating vast swaths of the Pacific Northwest.Enlarge

IN THE PATH OF THE FLOODS

NOVA: What would it have been like to observe the floods from a safe vantage point?

Vic Baker: Pretty frightening. A lot of water was transferring very quickly to the land surface, so this would probably have caused some vibration. Maybe not full-scale earthquakes, but depending on how far away you were, there would have been a lot of stress and a lot of noise from boulders banging together. You might also have seen rather bizarre things—huge waves, for instance, perhaps even particles flying out of the flow. That would have been rather disconcerting.

You mean like an explosion of particles?

I don't know if it's an explosion. It's just that there are turbulent forces with tremendous lift. You can think of it like tornadoes that lift large objects into the air. This would happen in the water, and if the momentum was sufficient, particles could be thrown out of the water. Certainly the Missoula flows were of the magnitude that that sort of thing could have happened.

Any chance there were people around at the time who could have witnessed them?

There's no direct evidence that people were impacted by the flood. The flood occurred prior to the major evidence for the first large group of prehistoric Americans, the so-called Clovis culture of big-game hunters. Clovis occurred at least a few thousand years after the flood. But it's possible people were there.

If there were people, they would have been swept away, of course. We know that large animals were taken up by the flooding. Vertebrate bones of various late Pleistocene animals, including mammoths, have been found in flood slackwater deposits. If they were around, people would have been similarly inundated. But nothing has been found

Computer generated image of a kolk

Photo credit: © Mentorn/WGBH Educational Foundation, animation by Darkside @ Molinare

Kolks, a kind of underwater tornado that occurs in deep flows of fast-moving water, tore huge potholes in the scablands and probably also flung debris right out of the floodwaters.

You said "flood." I read an article recently claiming that there's evidence for only one Glacial Lake Missoula flood or perhaps several. Where do most geologists stand on this?

The evidence is overwhelming that there were multiple floods. Actually, the issue isn't so much were there multiple floods, but how big were the floods in the late Pleistocene? There's pretty good evidence that we're talking about scores of floods, maybe 100 or more. But it's less clear how big each was. There's a fair bit of evidence that many of them were extremely large by modern standards, but many were much smaller than others.

"Portland, Oregon would be under several hundred feet of water."

The number of really big floods is important because we think that in order to do significant erosion and deposition—at least in the main channels, not in the slackwater areas—you have to have a very high threshold for the activity. And therefore, the question is more, Did one flood (or a small number of large floods) in the late Pleistocene do most of the work? Or was this the accumulated work of about 100 much smaller events? We still don't know the answer to that question.

If one of the biggies happened today, what would be lost? Spokane, for instance, lies right in the path of the floods, right?

Well, it's not just Spokane. Portland, Oregon would be under several hundred feet of water. The whole system along the Columbia River would be affected tremendously by the flow.

But there hasn't been a lot of interest in what would be lost other than the Hanford nuclear site. Since they had put a whole lot of nuclear technology and radioactive materials right in one of the major confluent zones of Missoula flooding, they actually did, 20 years ago, some studies of the effects Missoula floods might have there. It was an academic exercise, of course, because it's not likely this would occur again unless there was an ice age. And an ice age would cause a lot of problems besides just nuclear waste!

A glacier in Iceland

Photo credit: © Mentorn/WGBH Educational Foundation
Icelandic glaciers like this one have released damaging floods, but nothing on the scale of those generated by Glacial Lake Missoula.Enlarge

MEGAFLOODS AROUND THE WORLD

Are there any other places in the world where such massive glacial floods could happen today?

Nothing of the magnitude that occurred in the late Pleistocene. The Glacial Lake Missoula flooding—and other floods we know about that occurred around the same time in geological history—were associated with extremely large ice sheets. When you have large ice sheets, you have not just the water in the ice but big lakes that those ice sheets dam up. So there's a lot of water available for producing the volume that such megafloods would entail.

Today, we only have two big ice sheets on Earth, and both of them almost completely fill landmasses—Greenland and Antarctica. So you don't have so-called ice marginal lakes, though in Antarctica you do have some subglacial lakes.

That brings up another issue: could big subglacial lakes release floods? Doesn't look like that's the case today, except with much smaller glaciers like those in Iceland. There you can get subglacial lakes, particularly associated with volcanism, that release floods. But neither the glaciers nor the lakes are nearly as big as anything we saw in the past.

"One reason I study the Channeled Scabland is that it’s helpful in understanding Mars."

You mentioned other great floods in the Pleistocene. Where else have multiple megafloods taken place?

We had huge floods around many of the big ice sheets, such as the Laurentide, which blanketed much of arctic Canada east of the Rocky Mountains and southward to the Great Lakes. Huge megafloods were associated with its surrounding lakes, particularly Glacial Lake Agassiz, which covered much of central Canada centered around Winnipeg. That released floods both to the south through the Mississippi River system and also under the ice out through the straits that enter Hudson Bay.

There were also massive megafloods in Asia. Some of them were associated with big ice sheets that blocked the rivers that currently flow north from Russia into the Arctic Ocean. Others were associated with mountain areas, such as the Altai Mountains, the Sayan Mountains, and some of the mountains around Lake Baikal. All of these are in southern Siberian Russia, along its borders with Kazakhstan and China and Mongolia. These mountain floods were comparable in magnitude, though perhaps not in volume, to the Missoula floods.

Mars

Photo credit: Courtesy NASA
Billions of years ago, Mars hosted megafloods that dwarfed those that formed the scablands

LANDSCAPES OF MYSTERY

Getting back to the scablands, are there geologic features there that still puzzle geologists as to their origin? Or have most of them been figured out?

There are always puzzling things. For one thing, many of the processes that occurred during the cataclysmic flooding are of a scale that we can't reproduce in the laboratory, and they're difficult to evaluate theoretically because of not having that kind of experimental test. There are features of erosion and sediment transport, for instance, that we don't fully understand. We have hypotheses for most things we see, but we still have to see how effective these hypotheses are.

We try to advance this by finding other places and other examples where we can get some kind of constraint on how those processes operated. So these other megaflood areas I mentioned are important in helping us understand cataclysmic glacial breakout floods as a general phenomenon, not something unique, say, to Missoula.

Are there other entire landscapes that stump geologists as to their origin, as Washington's Channeled Scabland once did?

We're finding them all the time. Most interesting and puzzling are those we're finding on other planets. We know from work over the past 30 years that Mars, for instance, has had even bigger floods on its surface than we see in the Channeled Scabland. Those floods seem to have been both similar to and somewhat different from the Missoula floods. In many cases they involved much more water and even larger flood-eroded landscapes than in the Channeled Scabland.

We could spend this whole interview talking about Mars, because there's so much that is not fully understood there, and we only have incomplete information about it. One reason I study the Channeled Scabland is that it's helpful in understanding Mars as well as what we might find on other planets in the future, not just in our own solar system but beyond.

A computer rendering of the Cordilleran ice sheet

Photo credit: Created to scale with ArcView and Visual Nature Studio by Rick Lovel, HDR Engineering, Boise Idaho.

"Some of the most puzzling landscapes are those that developed beneath the big ice sheets," Baker says. Here, a rendering of the Cordilleran ice sheet, whose Purcell lobe periodically dammed up the Clark Flork River, creating Glacial Lake Missoula.

What about here on Earth? Are there whole landscapes that still leave geologists scratching their heads?

Yes, and they're in surprising places. I think some of the most puzzling landscapes are those that developed beneath the big ice sheets. We have a few such landscapes today under Antarctica and Greenland. Also puzzling are ones that were exhumed from beneath the big ice sheets in British Columbia, which was covered by the Cordilleran ice sheet, and in much of eastern North America where the big Laurentide ice sheet was.

Those landscapes are not very well understood because we don't really have a modern analogue to them. In geology, we try to understand things to a large extent by a sophisticated use of analogy, where we have features that are being formed by processes today or in some way that we can get a handle on how those processes operated long ago. Where we understand the relationships and then we try to extrapolate that into unknown landscapes.

"Some people think science is the collection of facts and truths and everything about the world. Absolutely not."

The big ice sheets of the last ice age were in many cases warm-based ice sheets. That is, there was a lot of water underneath the glaciers. The landscapes that form there are a complex combination of ice and water processes involving meltwater and high pressures. There are all kinds of bizarre features on those landscapes that we don't fully understand. That's one category. I could go into other parts of the world, say in the tropics, where there are completely different situations going on that also pose puzzles.

I guess I was just wondering if there's still a lot remaining to be solved geologically at the landscape level, and from what you're saying there is.

Yeah, the fact that we have science today is by definition an indication we haven't solved things. This is an important point. Some people think science is the collection of facts and truths and everything about the world. Absolutely not. Science is about raising questions about the things we don't know and being very sophisticated about pursuing those problems. If everything was solved, there would be no science. There'd be discussion of facts, but there wouldn't be science.

J Harlen Bretz

Photo credit: Courtesy Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library

J Harlen Bretz, whose first name was "J" (no period necessary)—just one of the many idiosyncrasies of this colorful geologist

THE TWO WHO FIRST KNEW

So you knew J Harlen Bretz. What was he like?

Oh, he was one of the real characters in geology. That's one of the great things about geology, as in science as a whole. We have our regular bookish-type people, but we also have what you might call characters—people who've got their warts but also their shining sides.

Bretz was a complete geologist. He was obsessed with his work, and he was true to wholly geological things, like multiple working hypotheses and looking in the field for evidence as opposed to theorizing from an armchair. He formed strong opinions. He loved working with students, but he pressed those students hard by making them think for themselves. He was a Socratic teacher, where you don't tell people, you let them figure it out for themselves. You're more like a guide in their process of understanding.

Bretz also enjoyed life. He liked making his own wine. He liked telling jokes. He liked going on family trips. But he was also an extremely difficult person to live with, I'm sure. He was tough on wife and family, and probably a bit full of himself. So he was remarkable in many ways.

Now, if Bretz had given solid evidence for catastrophic draining of Glacial Lake Missoula at that 1927 geological meeting, do you think geologists there would have accepted his theory? [Editor's note: At the meeting, Bretz presented his theory that a massive flood had formed the Channeled Scabland, though he admitted he had no idea where such a volume of water had come from; he was lambasted by other geologists that day and for years afterward.]

I don't think at that meeting that that evidence would have carried the day. But in subsequent reflection, if the evidence was as Joseph Pardee later presented it in the 1940s, then I think they would have to have come around to Bretz's view earlier. Because that was clearly a process that had occurred and was of the magnitude to have generated the flooding.

People have said geology's kind of like a murder mystery, where you sometimes get a smoking gun that indicates the culprit. By that view of geology—which I think is partially right but not completely—the Missoula breakout would be the smoking gun that helped solve the mystery. So yeah, it could definitely have had a major impact.

Photo credit: © Geological Society of America
Joseph Pardee suspected as early as the 1920s that Glacial Lake Missoula was the source of the floods that scoured out the scablands, but he didn't publish his theory until 1942.

Why didn't Pardee speak up at that 1927 meeting if he knew then where the water to carve such landscapes had come from, namely, Glacial Lake Missoula?

Well, we don't know much from Pardee himself, because he was very quiet about that. Certainly Bretz had an extremely strong view on why that was the case. Bretz told me this himself, and he wrote about it. He felt that Pardee was prevented from speaking up. Pardee was an employee of the United States Geological Survey, and his superior was a fellow named Alden, who was extremely conservative and antagonistic to the flood hypothesis. Alden had been one of the critics at the meeting in Washington.

"He was happy to be alive, for one thing."

Thus Pardee was there as a junior person with other more senior USGS people, all of whom were against the flood hypothesis. So Pardee himself, being a rather quiet, taciturn person, was certainly not going to speak up at that meeting. Bretz felt—and this has not been completely verified by the paper trail—but Bretz felt from people he had talked to that Pardee had actually thought of cataclysmic flooding as a possibility for the landforms he observed around Spokane a few years prior to Bretz thinking of it.

That may be another reason Pardee didn't speak up: he saw Bretz getting in trouble for the exact thing that Pardee had thought of but hadn't been able to publish because of the conservative nature of his superiors. So it was kind of a combination of not wanting to go against his superiors and also being a little bit miffed that Bretz had come up with the same idea that he had had earlier.

Photo credit: © Mentorn/WGBH Educational Foundation

Vic Baker returns regularly to the bizarre landscapes known as the scablands, in part because of what they can tell us about similar terrain on Mars.

Eventually, of course, Bretz was vindicated. Did he ever talk to you about how he felt when he finally was?

Oh, well, he was delighted about that. He didn't gloat about it to me, but clearly he was happy to be alive, for one thing. He had gotten through the process; he had outlived his critics; and he could see things come around to what he had been saying, because people finally went out in the field and saw what he was talking about. He was also happy to see that new stuff was happening, that people were building upon the train of thought he set in motion.

I think that's the kind of thing that we in science take satisfaction in—not that you have absolutely solved the problem, because then there's no science left. It's that you have helped in pointing the direction toward a productive line of work and are part of this larger human enterprise of discovery and creativity. I think he probably felt a bit of that. You can get self-centered in science, but I think to be a good scientist, you've got to break away from that. I think Bretz was able to do that.

This feature originally appeared on the site for the NOVA program Mystery of the Megaflood.

Catastrophic Geology: Megafloods

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=47JUeua2dX0

PeterThenn 2 years ago

I remember reading about two other megafloods.

One from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean Basin and another from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea.

Since one or both of these may be the basis of the Flood Myth, I would like to hear your opinion on these.

WildwoodClaire1 2 years ago

There's good evidence for both. The flooding of the Mediterranean, however, happened long before man evolved

Larvemannenz001 2 years ago

Do you believe the increase in natural disasters is the cause of global warming, or natural causes? I'd like to hear the opinion of a rather awesome geologist.

WildwoodClaire1 2 years ago

I see no evidence to suggest an increase in the number of natural disasters. Have you considered that your perceived "increase in natural disasters" has to do with the fact that people usually do not pay much attention to volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. unless they affect human population and that population has grown exponentially over the past two centuries?

Larvemannenz001 2 years ago

No, not really :D

But are your thoughts around global warming? Because some geologists say that it is a serious threat, whereas some thinks that the temperature change is natural. Also, Clint Dempsey just missed a penalty that could've won them the game! :)

WildwoodClaire1 2 years ago

Legitimate climatologists accept that global warming over the past century has been the result of burning fossil fuels. Industries involved with extraction of fossil fuels have spent billionsof dollars muddying the waters, confusing the public and creating the illusion that there is controversy, much as creationists have created the illusion among a poorly informed public that there is controversy concerning evolution.

http://www.icr.org/article/3476/277/

Megafloods in the English Channel

by William A. Hoesch, M.S.

Sir Charles Lyell, the father of geological gradualism, may have just turned in his grave. A hidden series of gouges on the floor of the English Channel suggests that huge torrents of water once traveled west from Dover Straits. The massive valleys, 50 meters deep and tens of kilometers wide, have puzzled geologists since the 1970s, but a recent high resolution sonar survey has sharpened the focus of scientific research.

The picture that has emerged includes long ridges and grooves that run parallel to the Channel, v-shaped scours that taper upstream, streamlined islands, and at least one "hanging valley." All these features are remarkably well-preserved in the subsea bedrock, and represent geological scars from a decidedly non-gradual event.

The sub-sea features point in the direction of the 21-mile-wide Dover Straits. For over a hundred years geologists have been puzzled by these narrows that connect the English Channel to the North Sea. The scenic chalk cliffs that line the straits on both the English and French sides are familiar to many. What is perhaps less obvious is that the cliffs are the interrupted edges of a once-continuous ridge that spanned the straits, called the Weald-Artois anticline.

At a time when sea level was about 100 meters lower, during the post-Flood Ice Age, this ridge apparently formed a dam that held a large lake, perhaps the size of one of the smaller Great Lakes. Breaching of the rock dam at Dover Straits instigated catastrophic drainage of the lake; peak discharges on the order of one million cubic meters per second (200 times the discharge of Niagara Falls) are demanded to explain the scours in the lowlands below. The scours resemble those caused by the Lake Missoula Flood (17 times this discharge), another Ice Age deluge. When sea level rose to present levels following the Ice Age, the scoured lowland became the English Channel and the Dover "dam breach" became the Dover Straits. The course of English history was forever changed.

The new findings add to a swelling body of evidence for Ice Age megafloods as major landform-generating agents. Evidence suggests that the Ice Age ended abruptly and catastrophically. A few regions of the world that have been shaped by Ice Age megafloods include: a major portion of Washington state, the Snake River Plain of Idaho, the Altai region of southern Siberia, the Black Sea basin, the upper Mississippi River Valley, the Hudson River Valley including New York City, Wyoming's Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Owens River Gorge in California, and the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence drainage basin, including Niagara Falls. Now the English Channel and Dover Straits can be added to the list. A few decades ago it would have been preposterous to appeal to such non-observable events. Mere extrapolation of the processes operant in observed historic floods cannot approximate the power of the megaflood. For example, cavitation is a rock-pulverizing process that operates only when certain thresholds of velocity and power are crossed. There is a need to break away from the kind of linear thinking that was so encouraged by Lyell and others; secular scientists are to be praised for being unafraid to do so today.

Catastrophism has finally come of age.

* William A. Hoesch, M.S. geology, is Research Assistant in Geology.

Cite this article: Hoesch, W. 2007. Megafloods in the English Channel. Acts & Facts. 36 (10): 14.

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Mega Floods- American Scientific Journal

http://tenaya.ucsd.edu/~dettinge/Dettinger_Ingram_sciam13.pdf
The intense rain storms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued
virtually unabated for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada mountains along the state’s eastern border into raging torrents that swept away
entire communities and mining settlements. The rivers and rains poured into the state’s vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of
people died, and one quarter of the state’s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown water filled with debris from countless mudslides on the region’s steep slopes. California’s legislature, unable to function, moved to San
Francisco until Sacramento dried out—six months later. By then, the state was bankrupt.

Geologic evidence shows that truly massive floods, caused by rainfall alone, have occurred in California about every 200 years. The most recent was in 1861, and it bankrupted the state.
Such floods were most likely caused by atmospheric rivers: narrow bands of water vapor about a mile
above the ocean that extend for thousands of miles.
Much smaller forms of these rivers regularly hit California, as well as the western coasts of other countries.
Scientists who created a simulated mega-storm, called ARkStorm, that was patterned after the 1861 flood but was less severe, found that such a torrent could force more than a million people to evacuate and cause $400 billion in losses if it happened in California today.
Forecasters are getting better at predicting the arrival of atmospheric rivers, which will improve warnings about flooding from the common storms and about the potential for catastrophe from a mega-storm.

Megastorms Could Drown Massive Portions of California[Preview]

Huge flows of vapor in the atmosphere, dubbed "atmospheric rivers," have unleashed massive floods every 200 years, and climate change could bring more of them

By Michael D. Dettinger and B. Lynn Ingram

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=megastorms-could-down-massive-portions-of-california

The intense rainstorms sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean began to pound central California on Christmas Eve in 1861 and continued virtually unabated for 43 days. The deluges quickly transformed rivers running down from the Sierra Nevada mountains along the state’s eastern border into raging torrents that swept away entire communities and mining settlements. The rivers and rains poured into the state’s vast Central Valley, turning it into an inland sea 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Thousands of people died, and one quarter of the state’s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned. Downtown Sacramento was submerged under 10 feet of brown waterfilled with debris from countless mudslides on the region’s steep slopes. California’s legislature, unable to function, moved to San Francisco until Sacramento dried out—six months later. By then, the state was bankrupt.

A comparable episode today would be incredibly more devastating. The Central Valley is home to more than six million people, 1.4 million of them in Sacramento. The land produces about $20 billion in crops annually, including 70 percent of the world’s almonds—and portions of it have dropped 30 feet in elevation because of extensive groundwater pumping, making those areas even more prone to flooding. Scientists who recently modeled a similarly relentless storm that lasted only 23 days concluded that this smaller visitation would cause $400 billion in property damage and agricultural losses. Thousands of people could die unless preparations and evacuations worked very well indeed.
Comments:

1. Carlyle08:25 AM 11/30/12

Then again they may become smaller & less frequent.
NOAA: ’2012 was an active [hurricane] year, but not exceptionally so …10 busier years in the last three decades’

2. paulus12:37 PM 11/30/12

I don't disbelieve the information given in the article. What I find confounding, however, is the dearth of contemporaneous accounts of thousands of deaths in the 1861-2 flood year. Why is there so little information about the flood in California histories?
I find it utterly fascinating, especially as Mark Twain's quote ("Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,") is actually being stood on its head by global warming. (Yes, Virginia, there is a phenomenon called that. 97% of the National Academy of Sciences--a 'conservative' group of professionals if there ever was one-- says so.)
Please be warned, however. Any attempt to exaggerate the numbers of dead in this history will be used to attack part of your underlying contention, that global warming may impact adversely the size of future storms.
I am sorry so many continue to question global warming, whose jibes we see attacking this story. What do you think is causing the increase in warming if not greenhouse activity? Where do you think all the carbon dioxide magically disappears to?
The level of ignorance in this society is extraordinary. Unless we educate our people against the ignorance they hang on to, we leave our children and their children's children a harsher planet on which to survive an uncertain future.

Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
3. julianpenrod12:38 PM 11/30/12

"Atmospheric rivers" are described as only about a mile high and massive conveyors of water vapor. And they were not realized even after all the decades of weather balloons, rockets and airborns observation? That is questionable to the point of being non credible.
Interesting, and probably important, to note is that they described "atmospheric rivers" are being "discovered" in 1998. 1997 was the year chemtrails were first acknowledged being seen, by Art Bell. Interestingly enough, in California, the area this article suggests may be particularly hardest hit. 1998 was also the warmest year on record; the year of the largest year-to-year drop in Arctic sea ice coverage; and the beginning of the unnaturally massive spate of hurricane seasons which included the unprecedented 2005 season, which saw events such as Hurricane Katrina. It's often suggested that that was the year chemtrails began. In fact, it appears chemtailing has been ongoing since the beginning of the age of jets, around 1950. 1997 seems to be the year chemtrail chemicals became so saturated in the atmosphere that new loads precipitated out to form chemtrail lines! The number of tornadoes in the U.S. also exploded in number from a fairly constant 180 per year, starting in about 1952 to about ten times as many today. 1952 is also when the first new cloud species in a long time was announced, the cirrus intortus. The next new cloud species, the undulatus aspiratus, was announced only in the past few years, after chemtrail chemicals saturated the atmosphere.
In fact, climate change is occurring, but it's not the result of industrial pollution. It's being deliberately caused by chemtrail contamination of the air.
Supporters of lies cannot rely on their "point of view" to be able to argue from it. As a result, defenders of untruth often rely on non argument techniques to counter truths. Like non justified dismissiveness, contempt, arrogance, viciousness, mockery, vulgarity. No New World Order favoring defenders of the "official story" will address what I said with anything but non argument methods.

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4. alan6302in reply to julianpenrod12:53 PM 11/30/12

Absolutely correct.The spaying has been heavy over my head lately.

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5. alan630212:58 PM 11/30/12

Was the flood related to the 1859 solar storm . Perhaps there was a solar backlash or whatever to the solar storm. That is what Nostradamus predicts.

1. A massive solar storm
2. massive floods
3. ice age of unspecified length.

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6. Sisko01:29 PM 11/30/12

The article is an exmple of why robust infrastructure should always be a high priority when building or maintaining cities. The US does only a fair job, but many other counties do a terrible job.

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7. Cramerin reply toScienceproofreader01:35 PM 11/30/12

Scienceproofreader,

Climate change is "shoehorned" into the study of "atmospherice rivers" because prudent people want to study the likelihood of occurance of more disasterous storms in the future. It's called being prepared for the future -- a conservative value, but a value lacked by people who call themselves conservatives. Are you suggesting that scientists not attempt to model this and merely rely on the historical evidence that these megafloods occur only once every 100 to 200 years?

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"Will moister air or weaker winds win out? In six of the seven climate models, the average rain and snow delivered to California by future atmospheric rivers increases by an average of about 10 percent by the year 2100. Moister air trumps weaker winds.

All seven models project that the number of atmospheric rivers arriving at the California coast each year will rise as well, from a historical average of about nine to 11."

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8. HugoFerreirain reply toScienceproofreader01:39 PM 11/30/12

No shoehorning there 'Scienceproofreader', if you RTFA you will see that the same meteorological event now observed, was predicted before in derivatives of the computer models that model global warming.

How about you read the article and apply rational thinking as your name erroneously suggests you do?

And the fact that something happened before does not invalidate the hypothesis that both frequency and intensity are increased by shifting climate.

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9. Trulahn02:19 PM 11/30/12

When detractors citing certain specific year being warmer than present, or another year that had worse disasters than present as examples of how our weather conditions today is not unusual, they are showing their total lack of understanding of weather "pattern." There will always be extraordinary data points when you plot the data of any natural phenomenon. There is such thing called random chance that cause those events to occur almost inexplicably. However, when scientists examine global warming or climate change, they are looking at overall trend and the effects of and projections of those trends. As they get more and more data, they can better model and predict the future of those trends. Early global warming predictions were off because we still didn't have enough understanding of what's going on. But that's the difference between science and fantasy, science continues to collect data and make improvements. Fantasy pretends that it knows everything and ignores anything that it doesn't agrees with.

With more observation, what scientists have shown us is that the added heat energy that got trapped by the green house gasses (CO2, methane, water vapor, etc) are not simply warming the Earth. Heat is energy and energy does work. Earth's weather is not just determined by the temperatures of the atmosphere but much more so by the temperatures of the oceans as waters hold far more energy than gasses. As the oceans and the atmosphere take in the added heat energy, all the regular engines that drive our weather systems are now getting an extra push like you stepping on the gas peddle in your car. The weather system is now revving harder and faster, creating wider swings and more erratic weather systems.

Google "ocean temperature change" data that NASA and NOAA had been collecting. That's the true measure of warming. 1 degree Celcius change may not seem a lot to you, but 1 Calorie (kilocalorie) is the energy to heat 1 kiloliter of water 1 degrees Celcius and there are 1.3 sextillion kiloliters of water. That's enough Calories to feed all 7 billion people on this planet for 250 years.

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10. Acoyauh202:45 PM 11/30/12

"The next megaflood could occur in Chile, Spain, Namibia or Western Australia". HA! It *never* rains in Western Australia.

Dang, I just cannot find some recent study of geological evidence of megafloods in Western Mexico states (Jalisco, Clima, Nayarit). A UNAM study (I think), but boy is their DB arcane... just wanted to correlate the timeframes with this... fat chance anyone here saw it, huh.

Mars Colony Project Signs Deal to Study Spacesuits, Life Support

by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Date: 11 March 2013

Mars One

http://www.space.com/20164-mars-colony-life-support-systems.html

A non-profit organization that aims to land four astronauts on Mars in 2023 has signed its first deal with a supplier for the ambitious space colonization effort.

The Netherlands-based Mars One has contracted with Paragon Space Development Corp. to perform a conceptual design study into Red Planet life-support and spacesuit systems, officials announced today (March 11).

"We are extremely proud to have been selected by the Mars One team to provide such a vital role on the project," Paragon chief engineer and co-founder Grant Anderson said in a statement. "The objective of this conceptual design study will be to provide a well-defined pathway to mature the technologies and architectures required for long-term human habitation in the Martian environment."

Paragon will look into developing an Environmental Control and Life Support System, which would provide colonists with safe living quarters and clean air and water. The company will also investigate spacesuit concepts that would allow Mars explorers to roam the Red Planet surface, officials said. Terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed. [Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project (Gallery)]

The work is not Arizona-based Paragon's first foray into the world of private manned Mars flights. The company is also providing life-support expertise for original space tourist Dennis Tito's Inspiration Mars Foundation, which plans to launch two astronauts on a Red Planet flyby mission in January 2018.

Mars One estimates that landing four settlers on Mars in 2023 will cost about $6 billion. The organization plans to foot the bill by staging a global reality-TV event, with cameras documenting all phases of the one-way mission from astronaut selection to the colonists' first years on the Red Planet.

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Mars One

Mars One has also secured some money from investors, which it is using to fund conceptual design studies like the one being performed by Paragon.

"At Mars One we thoroughly believe in the feasibility of our manned Mars mission, but we are well aware that the mission’s success is also dependent on securing finances to facilitate technological progress," Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp said in a statement. "We are, therefore, grateful to sponsors, donors, and other partners from all walks of life that contribute to our ambition to land humans on Mars in 2023."

Mars One hopes the first four Mars colonists will form the vanguard of a permanent settlement that is bolstered by new arrivals every two years thereafter. There are no plans at the moment to bring any of these interplanetary adventurers back to Earth.

The organization released its astronaut requirements in January and plans to begin its televised selection process sometime this year, officials have said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

Reality TV Show On Mars To Follow Settlers? | Video

The Boldest Mars Missions in History

Poll: Do You Want to Be a Mars Colonist?

inShare1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mars One is a private spaceflight project led by Dutch entrepreneur, Bas Lansdorp, to establish a permanent human colony on Mars.^[1]

Announced in June 2012, the plan is to send a communication satellite and path finder lander to the planet by 2016 and, after several stages, land four humans on Mars for permanent settlement in 2023.^[2] A new set of four astronauts would then arrive every two years.^[3]

The project is endorsed by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Gerard 't Hooft.^[2]^[4]

Mars One became a not for profit foundation (Stichting under Dutch law) in early October 2012.^[5]^[6]

Program History

Country of Origin	Netherlands
Responsible Organization	Mars One
Status	Active
Program Duration	2010–
First Flight	January 2016
First Crewed Flight	September 2022
Vehicle Information
Vehicle Type	Capsule
Crew Vehicle	Mars One Dragon
Crew Capacity	Four
Launch Vehicle(s)	Falcon Heavy

Funding
Reality TV

A one way trip dramatically lowers the overall mission costs,^[7]^[8] such that putting the first four astronauts on Mars is expected to cost approximately US$6 billion.^[9]

Mars One, the not-for-profit foundation, is the controlling stockholder of the for-profit Interplanetary Media Group.^[10] A global reality-TV media event is intended to provide most of the funds to finance the expedition. It should begin with the astronaut selection process (with some public participation) and continue on through the first years of living on Mars.^[3]^[11]

Although reported to be to the contrary by the Mars One founder, this appears influenced by the radio play script of the short story Juxtaposition,^{[citation needed]} which was submitted to BBC Radio 4 in 2009 by author Dirk George Wickenden. The script was ultimately rejected in 2009 (as was the short story itself for Interzone magazine) but finally published in February 2013 on Amazon's Kindle, together with the original short story in the collection Inside Outside My Head. ^[12]

Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project (Gallery)

by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Date: 11 March 2013

Ind. man with 47 guns arrested after school threat

Associated Press

CEDAR LAKE, Ind. (AP) — A northern Indiana man who allegedly threatened to "kill as many people as he could" at an elementary school near his home was arrested by officers who later found 47 guns and ammunition hidden throughout his home.

Von. I. Meyer, 60, of Cedar Lake, was arrested Saturday after prosecutors filed formal charges of felony intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement against him. He was being held Sunday without bond at the Lake County Jail, pending an initial hearing on the charges, police said in a statement.

Cedar Lake Police officers were called to Meyer's home early Friday after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, the statement said.

Meyer also threatened to enter nearby Jane Ball Elementary School "and kill as many people as he could before police could stop him," the statement said. Meyer's home is less than 1,000 feet from the school and linked to it by trails and paths through a wooded area, police said.

Police said in the statement that they notified school officials and boosted security at all area schools Friday — the same day 26 people, including 20 students, were shot and killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

On Saturday, officers served warrants at Meyer's home and arrested him. The statement said police had learned that Meyer kept many weapons in his older, two-story home and "is a known member of the Invaders Motorcycle Gang."

Officers searched the home, finding 47 guns and ammunition worth more than $100,000 hidden throughout the home. Many of the weapons were collector's guns.

Cedar Lake is about 45 miles southeast of Chicago.

A dispatcher with Cedar Lake Police said that the police chief was not available for interviews until Monday.

Lake County police spokeswoman Patti Van Til said Sunday that a SWAT team from the department assisted in serving Saturday's warrants.

Glen Kealy Speaks out about his 40 year research of
the past present and future of planet earth and the history and future of the Human Race on Planet Earth..

"...What Glen Kealy has to is interesting, provocative and very thought provoking...
It is certainly worth hearing what he has to say.. Glen Kelly is not trying to convince you to believe any particular idea or concept and just suggests you listed to what he has to say and then watch yourself for the signs and the reality of it all.. and make up your own mind....
Either way it is a good way to spend a few minutes a day watching and hearing what Glen Kealy has to say... it will certainly not do you any harm.. and it is very entertaining and you may even learn something... or at least get you thinking and open up interesting discussions in your local community..and around the breakfast or dinner table.."

The Editor -The INL News Group

In conversation with Glen Kealy Vidoe One

In conversation with Glen Kealy Video Two

Glen Kealy Speaks Out Video One

Glen Kealy Speaks Out Video Two

Glen Kealy Speaks Out Video Three

Glen Kealy Speaks Out Video Four

Glen Kealy Speaks Out Video Five

Glen Kealy Speaks Out Video Six

Glen Kealy In Conversation- Video three

Glen Kealy-Video Seven

Glen Kealy -Video Seven A

Glen Kealy- Video Eight

Glen Kealy - Video Nine

Glen Kealy -Video Ten

Glen Kealy- Video Eleven

Glen Kealy - Video Twelve

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video One

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Two

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Three

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Four

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Five

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Six

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Seven

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Eight

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Nine

Glen Kealy Work Shop Video Ten

Glen Kealy Work Shop -Video Eleven

Glen Kealy on the Farm- Video One

Glen Kealy on the Farm- Video Two

Glen Kealy on the Farm _ Video three

Glen Kealy on the Farm - Video Four

Glen Kealy on the Farm - Video Five

Australian readers of INLNews.com and awn.bz who have read all about the murder of Thomas Allwood,

INL News Under-Cover Investigative Journalist and co producer with Stephen Carew-Reid and the INL News Group of Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Shows Have, on the 21st June, 2012 in Broxburn Scotland which is about an hour's drive from Edinburgh... and how the Scottish Lothian Borders Police and the Scottish Prosecution known in Scotland as the Procurator Fiscal's Office and the world's media are clearly not looking closely enough the evidence brought out at the recent trial of Kyle Montgomery heard from the 19th November to the 26th November 2012 in Scotland's High Court in Livingston, who had been charged by the Scottish Lothian Borders Police for the murder of Thomas Allwood ..the evidence clearly indicates strongly that Thomas Allwood was not murdered by Kyle Montgomery who locals in Broxburn say is a well known local mentally depressed Scitzophrenic at around 2.20am on the 21st July, 2012 ... as implied by his father John Montgomery in his sworn evidence at by Kyle Montgomery's trial... when the much more believable independent evidence from two next door neighbours who have a common wall with John Montgomery's house in Galloway Cresent, Broxburn was produced at the trial that say they both heard and felt an enormous bang on their bedroom wall that felt like their bedroom wall was about to cave in...coming from John Montgomery's house at about 3.15 am on the 21st June, 2012.... which was the loudest bang that they had ever heard coming from John Montgomery's house which they stated was like living next door to a pub with drinking, shouting, arguing and fighting went on all the time all hours of the day and night... they said in evidence that before the enormous bang there was loud shouting, screaming, arguing and fighting coming from John Montgomery's house... however as soon as the enormous bang happened that felt like their bedroom wall was about to cave in... there was complete silence coming from John Montgomery's house... and then they heard the back door quietly open and close ... which was first time that that door was ever opened and close without being slammed for the last couple of years since they lived next door to John Montgomery's house..... John Montgomery had given sworn evidence at his sons trial that after his son grabbed a bread knife from his kitchen draw and ran out the back door after Thomas Allwood, who was unarmed when he left the house a few minutes before, and that his son Kyle Montgomery came back into the house a few minutes later with blood on the bread knife admitting to his Dad, John Montgomery, that he had just done something bad... John Montgomery then said he took to bread knife with blood on it from his Son, Kyle Montgomery and calmly placed it back into the draw still with the blook on it... then Kyle Montgomery left the house and John Montgomery calmly had another drink and then fell asleep on the lounge and did not wake up until the police turned up and arrested him at about 5 am on the 21st June, 2012... another person who was at John Montgomery's house that early morning on the 21st June, 2012 was a lady known as Maggie whose name is Margaret Shedden (Galloway being her birth name- a very well connected and influential family in Scotland with a famous politician George Galloway and a Freemason Scottish Police Officer Hugh Galloway of 7 Tower Place Johnstone Renfrewshire Renfrewshire 791 being member of the family)...John Montgomery's family also are well connnected and respected in Scotland with war heros in the family and a Freemason Police Officer Alexander Montgomery 51 Parkhead Rd Glen Village by Falkirk Stirlingshire 484

also a member of the Montgomery Family.... so it does not seem believable that John Montgomery would not have been awake and/or woken up with the enormous bang coming from his house at about 3.15 that the next door neighbours say was the loudest bang they had ever heard from John Montgomery's house and felt like their bedroom wall was going to cave in... so this clearly indicates along with other evidence that John Montgomery had lied on the witness stand and in doing so has implicated his Kyle Montgomery as the person who was likely to have made a fatal six inch stab wound in the right chest of Thomas Allwood through cloths with a bread knife that would have cerated edge and no sharp point for stabbing anyone through clothing which is only suitable for a sawing acting rather that a stabbing action...however at the same time implicating Kyle Montgomery as the likely person who made the fatal six inch stab wound in Thomas Allwood's right chest that cut through a main archery causing the death of Thomas Allwood... John Montgomery gave evidence which is believed by the jury could get his son off the murder charge his Son Kyle Montgomery was facing and to try and convince the jury that his son

Kyle Montgomery was only guilty of culperable homicide... which is like an accident homicide crime that resulted in the death of a person without intent in a drunken fight that got out of hand ... even though the bar maid gave evidence at the trial that Thomas Allwood was only drinking soft drinks that night... and Kyle Montgomery had been alcohol drinking heavily since about 1pm on the 20th June, 2012.....and so was his father John Montgomery drinking alcohol heavily since at least 8pm and likely most of the day since he received his government benefit cheque that day... in fact the jury based mainly on his father's evidence... very conveniently for all those Scottish Government officials involved in the investigation into the murder of Thomas Allwood.... and others... found Kyle Montgomery not guilty of the murder of Thomas Allwood and found Kyle Montgomery guilty of the lesser charge of Culperable homicide (accidental death) of Thomas Allwood....now the evidence that came out at the trial of Kyle Montgomery seems to clearly indicate that there were at least four people... maybe more in the house of Kyle Montgomery from 10pm on the 2oth June, 2012 and about 3.30 am on the 21st June, 2012... and in fact at least voices coming from John Montgomery's house that night and early morning were heard by the next door neighbours ....these seem to include...Thomas Allwood, John Montgomery, Kyle Montgomery and Margaret Shedden (Galloway being her birth name) and maybe others who did not want to make themselves known and kept reasonable quiet while at John Montgomery's house... the evidence seems to clearly indicate that at 2am to 2.30 am on the 21st June, 2012 when John Montgomery states was the time frame when his son Kyle Montgomery was meant to have gone out the back door and meant to have stabbed Thomas Allwood with a bread knife and came back with blood on the knife admitting he has just done something bad...making it fairly obvious to the at least three people left at the house which at the least included John Montgomery, Kyle Montgomery and Margaret Shedden (Galloway being her birth name)... that Kyle Montgomery had just stabbed Tomas Allwood outside in the back yard and/or a nearby street .. and that Thomas Allwood would be likely have been badly hurt from a stab wound and would have needed urgent medical attention.... regardless if was considered that stabbing of Thomas Allwood by Kyle Montgomery deliberate and/or in self defence... either way it would have been clear to these three people and anyone else that may have been at John Montgomery's house at that time, that they should call an ambulance and the police immediately to make sure that Thomas Allwood obtained urgent medical attention which if had been done then could well have saved the life of Thomas Allwood... sure the fact that neither of these people bothered to ring the police and/or an ambulance to try and get urgent help for Thomas Allwood at around 2.20-2.30 am...if what John Montgomery says is true.... they all should be charged with being responsible for the murder and/or death of Thomas Allwood as they seemed to just let him die on the street or the back yard.. and under Australian law could well be charged as accessories after the fact and at least charged with some serious charge that resulted in the death of Thomas Allwood... very similar to walking away from a serious car accident where it is clear someone had been seriously hurt and not calling the police and/or an ambulance....

Now... when one looks at the evidence of the two next door neighbours that say they both heard and felt an enormous bang on their bedroom wall that felt like their bedroom wall was about to cave in...coming from John Montgomery's house at about 3.15 am on the 21st June, 2012.... which was the loudest bang that they had ever heard coming from John Montgomery's house... then the more believable truth is that at about 3.15 am Thomas Allwood was king hit by someone and/or some people with either a fist or fists and/or a hard object that was enough to knock out Thomas Allwood.. then the body of Thomas Allwood was carried outside while Thomas Allwood was still unconscious ...then someone stabbed Thomas Allwood... not with a bread knife but a sharp pen knife which made the deep six inch stab wound into the right chest of Thomas Allwood that cut a main archery so that Thomas Allwood was never wake up and would bleed to death... and then quietly they carried Thomas Allwood body to the next streets Clarkson and Pyothall Roads and quietly left the body there at about 3.30 am where the body was found at about 4.45 am by three boys walking past at that time...the neighbour that had a window open looking right over where Thomas Allwood's body was found says you can hear a pin drop in her street and there was not one sound or noise in her street that early morning... and the only noise that was heard was the sound of the police at about 5am looking at the body and the murder scene... so it is clear that there was not fighting in her street that morning at 2.00-4.00 am where the body was found that morning and so screaming or cries for help from Thomas Allwood in her street that morning at 2.00-4.00 am where the body was found that morning.. why?... because Thomas Allwood was obviously carried and left there and was already unconscious having been knocked out before he was stabbed with the six inch stab wound and then stabbed and then carried to to the next streets Clarkson and Pyothall Roads and quietly left there... private investigators employed by friends and family of Thomas Allwood have a strong belief that the evidence clearly suggests that Thomas Allwood was not murdered and/or even killed by Kyle Montgomery with a bread knife but was murdered by a contract killer well trained to know where and how to stab a person with one six inch stab wound with a very sharp and pointed pen knife which is designed to be able to kill some with just one stab wound.... the people in the world that are well known to be able to know how to murder someone with just one stab wound are agents and/or assets of MI5, MI6 and Mossad... and it is well known they work as agents for the state of the United Kingdom and the UK Prime Minister's Office to carry out murders of people like Thomas Allwood who was an undercover INL News Investigative Journalist who was working on a story to expose state of the United Kingdom and the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron and their Treasury Solicitors and Barristers for knowing being involved with having a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency document and having that false and fraudulent document presented to the High Court of Justice to stop Thomas Allwood from successfully claiming £500 million in damages claim for the wrongful arrest of USA Comedian Ronnie Prouty by the UK Border Agency on the 27th April, 2011 as a favour for the powerful Rupert and James Murdoch and their all powerful media group News Corporation as a way of commercially sabotaging the planned filming of the pilot fo the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show in Edinburgh in April- May 2011 being co-produced by Thomas Allwood, Stephen Carew-Reid (the author of the well known bboks The Triumph of Truth -Who Is Watching the Watchers? and the original founder of the INL News Group-formerly known as the Australian Weekend News Publishing Group) and the INL News Group to create an international showcase of talented entertainers that perform at the 60 year old Edinburgh Fringe Festival each year... which has become the biggest arts festival in the world with over 3,000 Fringe shows being performed during August each year in Edinburgh....

Below is some the transcripts of what was said at a court hearing in London's High Court of Justice heard on the 24th July, 2012 where applications were originally listed to be heard by Thomas Allwood prior to his murder on the 21st June, 2012 in Broxburn, Scotland for criminal contempt applications to be heard against David Cameron the UK Prime Minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, the UK Government, the UK Border Agency and their treasury solicitors for knowingly having prepared a false and fraudulent UK Border Agency document and presenting such false and fraudulent UK Border Agency document to the High Court of Justice to try to stop Thomas Allwood from suing David Cameron the UK Prime Minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, the UK Government, the UK Border Agency for £500 million in damages caused to the filming of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show by the wrongful arrest of USA Comedian Ronnie Prouty on the 27th April, 2012 at Heathrow Airport as favour David Cameron and George Osborne's good friends at the time...Rupert and James Murdoch and their all powerful multi- billion media group known as News Corporation..the murder of Thomas Allwood on the 21st June, 2012 meant that would stop Thomas Allwood continuing with his criminl contempt applications against suing David Cameron the UK Prime Minister, George Osborne, the UK Chancellor, the UK Government, the UK Border Agency and their treasury solicitors and well as other criminal contempt applications taken out against barristers and solicitors involving another legal fight Thomas Allwood and his de-facto partner Valerie Butler where involved with at the High Court of Justice in their fight over their 25 acre family farm known as Haywicks Farm, Haywicks Lane, Hardwicke, Gloucester in the UK... where Thomas Allwood alleged that powerful and well connected s Freemason solicitors and barrister in Gloucester that Thomas Allwood called the Gloucestershire Legal Mafia (GLM) were involved with the preparing a false will in the name of Valerie Butler's father Herbert Butler and presenting that false will for a wrongful grant of probate so that partners of the Gloucestershire Legal Mafia (GLM) could wrongly obtain the title deed of their 25 acre family farm known as Haywicks Farm, Haywicks Lane, Hardwicke, Gloucester in the UK which they had planned to turn into a multi-million luxury real estate development ... Thomas Allwood also had a firm belief and was not scared to openly say...that Valerie Butler's father Herbert Butler was also murdered as part of the conspiracy he alleged to defraud his de-facto partner Valerie Butler of her rightful ownership of Haywicks Farm..

Some of the reasons why the Private Investigation Team employed by friends and family of the late Thomas Allwood to investigate who and why Thomas Allwood was murdered on the 21st June. 2012 in Broxburn, Scotland strongly believe that the powerful agents of the State of the United Kingdom such as MI5, MI6 and/or Mossad and/or some other professional contract murdered was and/or were involved in the murder of Thomas Allwood on the 21st June, 2012 include:

1. The Scottish Lothian Borders Police and the Scottish Prosecution known in Scotland as the Procurator Fiscal's Office and the world's media are clearly not looking closely enough the evidence brought out at the recent trial of Kyle Montgomery heard from the 19th November to the 26th November 2012 in Scotland's High Court in Livingston, who had been charged by the Scottish Lothian Borders Police for the murder of Thomas Allwood ... seem to be risking their worldwide good reputation by quite openly protecting those at the house of John Montgomery on the evening of the 20th June, 2012 and the early morning of the 21st June, 2012 who according to the evidence of John Montgomery, and including John Montgomery knew that Thomas Allwood was likely badly wounded from a stab wound at about 2.20 am and did niot ring the police of an ambulance and simply went to sleep and left Thomas Allwood to die on the road just a street away from John Montgomery's house

2. Why is there a complete worldwide media block out.. except for one lone Scottish Journalist Vic Roderick who was the only journalist to cover the trial... who has now been silenced by the world mainstream media with what is called a "D Notice" on the reporting of the murder/death of Thomas Allwood who was an undercover INL News Investigative Journalist, Poet and TV Shows producer of the Fringe Shows have Talent TV Show...

3. Why is the a mentally sick person such as Kyle Montgomery whom the locals say is a well known Scitzophrenic which is capable to believing and/or repeating any story he is told is the truth.. being made a patsy for the death of Thomas Allwood.. .at about 2.20 am when the evidence clearly indicates that Thomas Allwood was knocked unconscious in the house of John Montghomery at about 3.15 am on the 21st June, 2012 and then carried out of the house and then stabbed with a six inch wound in the right chest cutting a main archery nd then carried to be let to die on Clarkson and Pyothall Road, Broxburn

With the more believable truth is that at about 3.15 am Thomas Allwood was king hit by someone and/or some people with either a fist or fists and/or a hard object that was enough to knock out Thomas Allwood.. then the body of Thomas Allwood was carried outside while Thomas Allwood was still unconscious ...then someone stabbed Thomas Allwood... not with a bread knife but a sharp pen knife which made the deep six inch stab wound into the right chest of Thomas Allwood that cut a main archery so that Thomas Allwood was never wake up and would bleed to death... and then quietly they carried Thomas Allwood body to the next streets Clarkson and Pyothall Roads and quietly left the body there at about 3.30 am where the body was found at about 4.45 am by three boys walking past at that time...the neighbour that had a window open looking right over where Thomas Allwood's body was found says you can hear a pin drop in her street and there was not one sound or noise in her street that early morning... and the only noise that was heard was the sound of the police at about 5am looking at the body and the murder scene...

so it is clear that there was not fighting in her street that morning at 2.00-4.00 am where the body was found that morning and so screaming or cries for help from Thomas Allwood in her street that morning at 2.00-4.00 am where the body was found that morning.. why?... because Thomas Allwood was obviously carried and left there and was already unconscious having been knocked out before he was stabbed with the six inch stab wound and then stabbed and then carried to to the next streets Clarkson and Pyothall Roads and quietly left there... private investigators employed by friends and family of Thomas Allwood have a strong belief that the evidence clearly suggests that Thomas Allwood was not murdered and/or even killed by Kyle Montgomery with a bread knife but was murdered by a contract killer well trained to know where and how to stab a person with one six inch stab wound with a very sharp and pointed pen knife which is designed to be able to kill some with just one stab wound.... the people in the world that are well known to be able to know how to murder someone with just one stab wound are agents and/or assets of MI5, MI6 and Mossad...

Part of the transcripts of hearing before Justice Vos at High Court of Justice in London on the 24th July, 2012

Miss Love: The Border Agency matter.

Mr Justice Vos: I know, but I do not have any of the core papers in the Border Agency matter. What is the action no?

Miss Love: My Lord, it is HC11C04395

Mr Justice Vos: You see that is why, I have been through all the cases, and I do not have any papers in that except your letter and the correspondence.

Miss Love: Right

Mr Justice Vos: If I just pick it up. I have this much stuff on the UKBA, but it really is just your letter and a lot of historical material, and material concerning the famous INL News Group.

Miss Love: Mr Lord, we can remedy that situation _ I am sure your Lordship does not particularily want further copies of the correspondence, but certainly of the original claim form_

Mr Justice Vos: That is what I would like. So there was an application, was there, in that matter that was returnable today?

Miss Love: There was....

Mr Justice Vos: To do what?

Miss Love: If I could just start the procedural history, the claim by Mr Carew-Reid, which in essense was apparently a claim for damages in respect of treatment by the UK Border Agency of an individual known as Mr Prouty was issued on 9th December, 2011...

Page 6:

Miss Love: as you will see, it appears to be some hybrid of striking out and appealing the order of Master Bowles, an application for the cross-examination of myself and Mr Spanton, who was acting Treasury Solicitor and a generalised, if I might respectfully say so, rather difficult to grasp criminal contempt application..

Mr Justice Vos: It is another criminal contempt

Page 8:

Mr Geis: But the point was that Mr Prouty was refused entry into the UK and I've seen the forms that Mr Carew-Reid had, and there was one form which did not have a signature on. Now, I think this does cause for a bit of alarm and I think you should carefully consider this point and. if necessary, make an adjournment.

Mr Justice Vos: Thank you, Mr Gies...

Miss Lean: My Lord may have seen in the more recent correspondence from Mr Reid and INL that clearly they have concerns that this was a murder effected by MI5 or Mossad and/or other agents of the State, but as far as we are aware it is being dealt with as a criminal murder charge (murder of Thomas Allwood)

Mr Justice Voss: Yes, and who was Mr Allwood- apart from being a party to litigation, did he occupy some important position?....

Miss Lean: My Lord, for completeness, I should mention I am afraid among the many letters and emails from members of the INL News Group I do not have that one. I think I have seen some reference in the correspondence to Mr Allwood being involved with the INL News Group in some capacity so that may be the...

Mr Justice Voss: Right, but he was a associate and friend of Mr Carew-Reid, that is what it comes to?.... Right, thank you. Well Mr Carew-Reid himself says he was a friend of Mr Carew-Reid's side, I do not think we need to go further than that.....

Jacintha Saldanha's Death: Australian DJs Behind Royal Prank May Face Police Probe

The two Australian DJs who pulled the prank call on the U.K. hospital where Kate Middleton was staying are now in hiding and may soon have to face police after the death of a nurse caught in the hoax.

This morning, there are also new questions about whether DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian, radio shock jocks at Sydney's 2Day FM broke laws after they recorded the private conversation when they pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles.

British police have also contacted Australian police about a possible probe into the prank call, The Associated Press reported Sunday.

Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of Sydney's 2Day FM radio station said no laws were broken. The prank had been cleared by the Australian radio station's lawyers. Holleran said the DJs followed the company's procedures before broadcasting the call. "I think the more important question here is that we're very confident that we haven't done anything illegal. Our main concern at this point in time is what has happened is incredibly tragic and we're deeply saddened and we're incredibly affected by that," Holleran said Saturday. The hoax has caused public outcry after the death of a nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who connected the pair to the Duchess' room.

Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard. Circumstances of her death are still being investigated, but are not suspicious at this stage, authorities said earlier. Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital, the U.K. hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was receiving treatment, condemned the prank Saturday in a letter to the Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, the Australian radio station's parent company.

Glenarthur said the prank humiliated "two dedicated and caring nurses," and the consequences were "tragic beyond words," The Associated Press reported. Max Moore-Wilton, the chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, said in a letter to Lord Glenarthur Sunday that the company is reviewing the station's broadcast policies, the AP reported. "I can assure you we are taking immediate action and reviewing the broadcast and processes involved," Moore-Wilton said in the letter. "As we have said in our own statements on the matter, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable." Saldanha came to England from India nine years ago, with her husband and two children. On Facebook, her 14-year-old daughter wrote this weekend, simply: "I miss you, I loveeee you."

Saldanha worked as a nurse at King Edward VII private hospital for four years. Her family lives 100 miles away in Bristol, but while on shift she slept in a residence for nurses. With no receptionist on duty overnight she answered the prank call and put it through. The hospital called her a "first-class nurse" and "a well-respected and popular member of the staff" and extended "deepest sympathies" to family and friends, saying that "everyone is shocked" at this "tragic event."

The duchess spent three days at the hospital undergoing treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, severe or debilitating nausea and vomiting. She was released from the hospital Thursday morning. The hospital apologized for the mistake.

A man who stabbed a photographer to death in a drunken street brawl was caught after police found a blood-stained knife in a cutlery drawer.

http://local.stv.tv/edinburgh/203156-killer-who-stabbed-man-to-death-had-bloody-knife-in-cutlery-drawer/

A man who stabbed a photographer to death in a drunken street brawl was caught after police found a blood-stained knife in a cutlery drawer.

Kyle Montgomery, 24, denied murdering Thomas Allwood after a late-night drinking session but was found guilty of culpable homicide by a jury on Wednesday.

Jurors at the High Court in Livingston took four and a half hours to return a guilty verdict on the lesser charge.

Sentence on the first-time offender, of Winchburgh, West Lothian, was deferred until December 20 for background reports.

Mr Allwood, a 56-year-old photographer who worked for the Australian-based INL News Group, was stabbed in the chest during an incident on June 21.

Giving evidence in his own defence, Montgomery claimed he grabbed the knife to frighten Mr Allwood after being attacked by him at a house in Broxburn, West Lothian.

He said the killing was an accident and that he did not know the blade had sliced through the victim's chest and severed a major artery as he struggled with the victim.

Police who were called to the scene followed a trail of blood from Mr Allwood's body to Montgomery's father’s home. They found the knife, still stained with blood, in a cutlery drawer.

Montgomery was detained as he returned to the house from a nearby shop.

Mr Allwood was a photographer with the Australian-based INL News Group. Although he was born in Scotland, his family emigrated when he was a child and he spent most of his live in Australia.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/murder-trial-told-dna-of-victim-1453803

Murder trial told DNA of victim and alleged killer found on kitchen knife

24 Nov 2012 00:01

THE knife was found in the kitchen of the dad of Kyle Montgomery, who denies murdering Thomas Allwood.

THE DNA of a murder victim and his alleged killer were found on a kitchen knife, a court heard yesterday.

The High Court in Livingston was told the odds of the DNA matching anyone other than the deceased, Thomas Allwood, were 28,600,000-1.

Blood samples lifted from the blade were a billion-to-one match for 24-year-old Kyle Montgomery, who denies murdering Thomas in Broxburn on June 21.

The knife was found in Montgomery’s dad’s kitchen.

Forensic scientist Kirsty McTurk told the jury: “The findings are consistent with Kyle Montgomery having assaulted Thomas Allwood.”

The trial was adjourned until Monday.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-news/top-stories/man-caused-stab-death-by-accident-1-2664172

Man ‘caused stab death by accident’

Published on Wednesday 28 November 2012

A MAN accused of murdering an Australian journalist has claimed he must have stabbed the victim to death by accident.

Kyle Montgomery admitted that he armed himself with a kitchen knife and squared up to 56-year-old Thomas Graham Allwood.

He claimed in evidence at the High Court in Livingston that the blade was for his own “protection” and he had no intention of using it.

After being attacked twice by the victim, he said he just wanted to “scare him off” with the knife.

He struggled with Mr Allwood, who was armed with a metal pole or iron bar, but said he was unaware of inflicting the fatal blow which severed the main artery above his heart.

Montgomery, 24, from Winchburgh, West Lothian, denies murdering Mr Allwood in Broxburn on June 21.

In his closing speech yesterday, advocate depute Martin Macari asked the jury to convict Montgomery of murder. He said: “Whatever happened between those men, Kyle Montgomery had returned to the house to get a weapon.”

Derek Ogg QC, defending, said: “If he didn’t realise he’d caused that injury, he could not and did not have any criminal intent towards Mr Allwood.”

Judge Lord Doherty was due to deliver his charge to the jury this morning.

Comment from INL News Reader: Mary Gleeson

I have read all the published stories on the trial of Kyle Montgomery who was charged with the murder of INL Journalist Thomas Allwood, and all other previous media reports I could find on the web since Thomas Allwood was first reported on the BBC website on the 22nd June 2012 that he had been murdered in Broxburn, Scotland and that Kyle Montgomery was charged with Willfull murder of Thomas Allwood... and I have come to the conclusion that the way the evidence has presented at the trial of Kyle Montgomery and what evidence has been given by the witnesses the dots simply do not add up... and the trial has created more questions than answers..... when it seems clear that this Maggie lady, described as a female friend of Thomas Allwood and tJohn Montgomery, the father of the accused ..according to John Montgomery's evidence were in the house when Kyle Montgomery deliberately went outside to chase after Thomas Allwood with a bread knife... rather than jut locking lall the doors and windows of his father's house t make sure Thomas Allwood can not get back into their house....because they were meant to be in fear of him... then ring the police and say that Thomas Allwood was threatening Kyle Montgomery and had attacked Kyle Montgomery in John Montgomery's house ( all according the John Montgomery) and was continuing to bang on their door ... then the police would have come around immediately and arrested Thomas Allwood... who would then have spent the night in the police lock up.... where he would have woken up the next morning alive and be able to explain to a magistrate and/or the police what happened that night... no it all did not happen that way... John and Kyle Montgomery both claim that having removed Thomas Allwood from John Montgomery's house.... and expecting Thomas Allwood to have been unarmed....deliberately ran out of the back door of the house to the back garden for the purpose to chase Thomas Allwood with a bread knife in his hand.... instead of staying safe in his dads house and ringing the police.... now I read in the above article the unbelievable claim by Kyle Montgomery that Thomas Allwood "was armed with a metal pole or iron bar" and thus was acting in self defence after delieberately going outside to look for Thomas Allwood to attack him with a knife... other purpose would he have grabbed the knife and run outside with it for... it can only be to stab Thomas Allwood who he thought was unarmed... now Kyle Montgomery seems on the evidence had been drinking heavily since bout 1pm at his dads house and would have been very drunk by 2am the next morning and Thomas Allwood looks like a big man and Kyle Montgomery looks like a small thin boy... and thus could easily be over powered by Thomas Allwood even without Thomas Allwood have a metal pole or an iron bar to defend himself with from a vicious knife attack... we also heard from John Montgomery who said that Thomas Allwood had his son Kyle Montgomery pinned on the floor with his foot on his chest... which shows that Thomas Allwood had no problem in over powering Kyle Montgomery without any weapon of any sort.... then se have the unbelievable story of John Montgomery that at the same time the Thomas Allwood had his son Kyle Montgomery pinned to the floor by having his foot on his chest... Thomas Allwood was meant to have his hands around Kyle Montgomery's throat trying to strangle Kyle Montgomery... this is simply physically impossible for a tall big man to do at the same time as standing up with his foot on the person's chest....it is simply also unbelievable that that Thomas Allwood was armed outside with a metal pole or iron bar because if that was the case having already being told by John Montgomery that Thomas Allwood had no problem about being able to overpower Kyle Montgomery without any weapon, the how the hell is Kyle Montgomery going to be able fatally stab Thomas Allwood with just one six inch stab wound with a bread knife ( bread knife do not have pointy tips and just a cerated edge for a sawing action for bread or meat but not a stapping action) through clothing knowing the exact place to stab (single handed) a big man to kil him with one stab wound in the front chest ( not in the back) who is well aware that of the identity of the attacked and that the attcked is likely to attack because of a previous disagreement in the house.... and Thomas Allwood is also now armed with a metal pole or an iron bar.... which in one swing would have knocked small frail drunk Kyle Montgomery for six ... there is no way Kyle Montgomery is going to have any chance of being able to make that one fatal stab wound all by himself.... no normal jury is going to beleive this story.. so there seems no doubt what ever happened that morning Thomas Allwood must have been unarmed and Kyle Montgomery would have have to hav had some helpers... if it was really Kyle Montgomery that handed the fatal stab wound on Thomas Allwood...at about 2.15 according to the timing given by his father John Montgomery... then John and Kyle Montgomery and the lasy Maggie have to explain what the enmormous bang against the wall of the next door neighbours bedroom that cam from John Montgomery's house at about 3.5 to 3.15 am that felt to them that their bedroom wall was abourt to cave in... then after there being constant arguing, shouting and fighting etc before this enormous bang at about 3.05 to 3.15 am on the 21st June 2012.. everything from John Montgomery's house suddenly went quiet and for the first tikme ever... the back door was opened and wht and the door was not slammed which indicated clearly that someone or some people went out the door of John Montgomery's very silently and quietly... and the only logical deduction as to what the enormous bang against the wall was just before that nearly push the wall in from John Montgomery's side... was someone king hitting Thomas Allwood with a fist or a heavy object.. making him unconscious....then carrying Thomas Allwood out the door while he was unconscious... then may be making soem more bruses on his boy and then the one fatal stab wound ... all while he was unconscious.... and then carrying the body of Thomas Allwood quietly to where he was found on Clarkson/Pyothall Roads... at about 4.45 am by passers by...
However if one is to discount that theory and ignore the enormosu bang at 3.05 to 3.15 am coming from John Montgomery's house... and just still to what John Montgomery sated on the witness stand under oath.. that his sone Kyle Montgomery grabbed a bread knife from the kitchen draw and ran out the back door( obviously to go to try and stab Thomas Allwood or at least chase after himw ith the knife) then coming back ten minutes later with blod on the knife and admitting he had done something bad... and John Montgomery not asking any more questions and calmly oputting the knife woth the blood on it back into the draw... having one more drink,,, the son leave the house and he falls asleep on the lounge...and is woken uop at about 5am by the police arresting him... so why didn't John Montgomery, Kyle Montgomery and/or Maggie ring the police and/or an ambulance at about 2.20 am which would haved saved the life of Thomas Allwood..

http://www.lbp.police.uk/information/latest_news/news_archives/2012/november_2012/man_convicted_of_thomas_allwoo.aspx

Man convicted of Thomas Allwood death

28 November 2012 15:59

A man who stabbed his victim in the chest, resulting in his death has today been convicted.

At the High Court in Livingston today, Kyle Montgomery was found guilty of culpable homicide after killing 56-year-old Thomas Graham Allwood during a disturbance in Broxburn in the early hours of Thursday 21st June.

Members of the public found Mr Allwood's body in Clarkson Road and alerted police who launched a major investigation to identify his killer.

Detectives quickly traced and arrested Montgomery and charged him in connection Mr Allwood's death.

The 24-year-old is due to be sentenced on Thursday 20th December at Edinburgh High Court.

Detective Inspector Stuart Houston, who led the investigation said: "It is my sincere hope, that following today's verdict Mr Allwood's family can begin to move on with their lives and put this horrendous ordeal behind them.

"I would also like to thank the members of the community who came forward and assisted with this investigation.

"Lothian and Borders Police are committed to tackling violent crime and by working closely with our partners at the Crown Office, ensure that offences of this nature are investigated thoroughly and those responsible are removed from our communities."

Thomas Allwood was born in Scotland but spent most of his life in Australia

First offender Kyle Montgomery will be sentenced next month for the killing

http://www.s1broxburn.com/news/broxburn-killer-montgomery-convicted--1.html

Broxburn killer Montgomery convicted

by Rebecca GarrettWednesday, 28 November 2012

The monster who stabbed Thomas Graham Allwood in the chest in Broxburn, which resulted in his death, has been convicted.

Kyle Montgomery was found guilty of culpable homicide the High Court in Livingston. He killed 56-year-old Allwood during a disturbance in the early hours of Thursday, June 21.

Members of the public found Mr Allwood's body in the Clarkson Road/Pyothall Road area and alerted police. A major investigation to identify his killer was launched.

Detectives quickly traced and arrested Montgomery and charged him in connection Mr Allwood's death.

The 24-year-old is due to be sentenced on Thursday, December 20 at Edinburgh High Court.

Detective Inspector Stuart Houston, who led the investigation, said: "It is my sincere hope, that following today's verdict Mr Allwood's family can begin to move on with their lives and put this horrendous ordeal behind them.

"I would also like to thank the members of the community who came forward and assisted with this investigation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-20526345

28 November 2012

Kyle Montgomery found guilty of killing journalist Thomas Allwood

A man who stabbed a journalist to death in West Lothian has been convicted of culpable homicide.

Kyle Montgomery, from Winchburgh, denied murdering 56-year-old Thomas Allwood in Broxburn in June.

A jury at the High Court in Livingston took four-and-a-half hours to find the 24-year-old guilty of the lesser charge.

Sentence was deferred until 20 December at the High Court in Edinburgh for background reports.

Montgomery had said he grabbed a knife to scare off Mr Allwood after claiming he was attacked by him at a house in Broxburn.

He said the killing was an accident and that he did not know the blade had sliced through the victim's chest and severed a major artery during the struggle.

After the attack, Mr Allwood, who was a journalist with the Australian-based INL News Group, was found on Clarkson Road by members of the public.

Police who were called to the scene followed a trail of blood from his body to Montgomery's father house.

They found the knife, still bloodstained, in a cutlery drawer. Montgomery was detained as he returned to the house from a nearby shop.

Mr Allwood was born in Scotland but his family emigrated to Australia when he was a baby and he spent most of his life there.

He was involved in producing a TV show called Fringe Shows Have Talent, to showcase entertainers performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Det Insp Stuart Houston, who led the Lothian and Borders Police investigation, said: "It is my sincere hope, that following today's verdict Mr Allwood's family can begin to move on with their lives and put this horrendous ordeal behind them.

"I would also like to thank the members of the community who came forward and assisted with this investigation.

http://local.stv.tv/edinburgh/203156-killer-who-stabbed-man-to-death-had-bloody-knife-in-cutlery-drawer/

Killer who stabbed man to death had bloody knife in cutlery drawer

STV 28 November 2012 16:45 GMT

Associated Press/Carolyn Kaster, File - FILE - In this Nov. 16, 2012, file photo, President Barack Obama acknowledges House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio while speaking to reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, as he hosted a meeting of the bipartisan, bicameral leadership of Congress to discuss the deficit and economy. Admnistration officials say President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner met Sunda, Dec. 9, 2012, at the White House to discuss the ongoing negotiations over the impeding "fiscal cliff." Spokesmen for both Obama and Boehner said the two men agreed to not release details of the conversation, but emphasized that the lines of communication remain open. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Stock market is a wild card in fiscal cliff talks

By By CHARLES BABINGTON | Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress and the White House can significantly soften the initial impact of the "fiscal cliff" even if they fail to reach a compromise by Dec. 31. One thing they cannot control, however, is the financial markets' reaction, which possibly could be a panicky sell-off that triggers economic reversals worldwide.

The stock market's unpredictability is perhaps the biggest wild card in the political showdown over the fiscal cliff.

President Barack Obama's re-election gives him a strong negotiating hand, as Republicans are increasingly acknowledging. And some Democrats are willing to let the Dec. 31 deadline pass, because a rash of broad-based tax hikes would pressure Republicans to give more ground in renewed deficit-reduction negotiations.

A chief fear for Obama's supporters, however, is that Wall Street would be so disgusted or dismayed that stocks would plummet before lawmakers could prove their newfound willingness to mitigate the fiscal cliff's harshest measures, including deep, across-the-board spending cuts that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says could significantly damage the nation's military posture. SomeRepublicans believe that fear will temper the president's insistence on a hard bargain this month. Obama and GOP House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday held their first meeting between just the two of them since the election, and spokesmen for both emphasized afterward their lines of communication remain open.

The so-called cliff's recipe of major tax hikes and spending cuts can actually be a gentle slope, because the policy changes would be phased in over time. Washington insiders say Congress and the White House would move quickly in January or February to undo many, but not all, of the tax hikes and spending cuts.

Financial markets, however, respond to emotion as well as to research, reason and promises. If New Year's headlines scream "Negotiations Collapse," an emotional sell-off could threaten the president's hopes for continued economic recovery in his second term, even if Republicans receive most of the blame for the impasse.

"Nobody can predict the markets' reaction," said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn.

Some Republicans are surprised that the White House has not made clearer efforts to reassure Wall Street that if the Dec. 31 deadline is breached, the worrisome pile of tax increases and spending cuts would not hit all at once.

A few liberal commentators are making just that case.

"If we go past the so-called fiscal cliff deadlines and all the resulting budget cuts and tax increases come into force, the administration can minimize the damage," Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote last week. "Obama can publicly announce he is delaying any cuts, on the theory thatCongress will eventually vitiate some of them. And he can make sure the bond markets know of his plans well in advance. ... Everyone (especially Wall Street) should calm down."

Some financial bloggers agree. "Although it would be bad to let the spending cuts and tax hikes fully go into effect, if this thing is addressed in early January, things will be okay," wrote Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal.

So far, the stock markets have stayed calm. The S&P 500 index is up 12 percent for the year.

That might be because investors agree that a temporary trip over the cliff wouldn't be too harmful. Chastened lawmakers, the thinking goes, would quickly minimize the economic damage with a deficit-reduction compromise that eluded them in December.

Or, it's possible that investors view the most pessimistic tones surrounding the fiscal cliff talks as posturing that will give way to a last-minute deal. If that is the thinking — and if the Dec. 31 deadline instead is breached — Obama's fear might come to pass: The expectation of a deal might produce a significant decline in stock prices if it doesn't occur.

As bad as that sounds, some liberals think it will be necessary to force many Republicans to drop their opposition to higher tax rates on the wealthy that Obama says are crucial to trimming the deficit.

Rep. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat who says temporarily going over the cliff wouldn't be so bad, noted what happened on Sept. 29, 2008. The House surprised investors by rejecting a proposed bailout of the crisis-stricken financial sector. Republicans strongly opposed the plan despite then-President George W. Bush's support. The Dow plunged 777 points, its largest one-day point drop ever. Four days later the House, shaken by the market reaction, passed a slightly modified bailout bill.

Welch said a similar market meltdown next month, in the event of a fiscal cliff impasse, "is what will force members of Congress eventually to act." Few lawmakers in either party are eager to predict how the stocks and bonds markets would react to a failure to reach a fiscal cliff accord by year's end. "Let's not pretend the markets fully understand the politicians, or the politicians fully understand the markets," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who has served in Congress for 37 years.

Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: //twitter.com/cbabington

How the 'Mayan Apocalypse' came from a New Age magic mushroom trip

The 'prophecy' does not stem from the Mayans at all. Instead, the beliefs come from two New Age books in the Seventies and Eighties, says a British academic.

Jose Arguelles, author of The Mayan Factor (Image: Wikimedia)

The so-called 'Mayan' prophecy actually comes from New Age writers in the Seventies and Eighties (Image: Rex)

People who are expecting the world to end on December 21 - the so-called 'Mayan Apocalypse' - should be in for a pleasant disappointment.

The 'prophecy' does not stem from the Mayans at all - or date from thousands of years ago.

Instead, the beliefs come from two New Age books in the Seventies and Eighties.

The two books predict outcomes as surreal as a 'upgrade' to human consciousness predicted by a spirit from the seventh century. The date itself comes from a prophecy based on a magic mushroom trip.

“December 21st will be just another Friday morning,” said Andrew Wilson, Assistant Head of Social Studies at the University of Derby. “A hippy guru called Jose Arguelles associated the date with the Mayan calendar in a book called The Mayan Factor in 1987. But it's an obsolete form of the calendar, which had not been used since the year 1100AD.”

“He claimed to be channelling various spirits, including the spirit of a Mayan king from the seventh century. He predicted a ‘shift in human consciousness’ - mass enlightenment.”

The actual date of December 21 first appeared in an earlier work - a 1975 book by Terence McKenna, a writer known for his descriptions of “machine elves” seen while under the influence of drugs.

The date appeared in McKenna's ‘Timeline Zero’ prophecy, and was based on McKenna’s own mathematics, the Chinese I Ching and a magic mushroom trip.

McKenna later met Arguelles and the two became, Wilson says, part of a circle of New Age authors who cited each other’s work, lending the ‘prophecy’ an air of believability.

“The significance of December 21 2012 in ‘New Age’ circles emerged from the work of ‘ethnobotanist’ Terence McKenna as he travelled deep into the Amazon in the 1970s,” says Wilson. His calculations of a ‘zero time wave’ suggested the world would go through a large change on December 21.”

“Arguelles, who had a long-held interest in Native American spiritualties, was inspired by McKenna’s work. He popularised the date in connection with the ‘long count calendar’ of the Mayan people in his new-age circles.”

As the belief has evolved, it has become associated with other, wilder predictions - such as the idea that Earth will be hit by a ‘rogue planet’, Nibiru, or swallowed by a black hole.

“There is no central belief,” says Wilson, “It varies from the ideas that Earth’s magnetic poles might shift, to the idea of a ‘galactic council’ visiting Earth. There’s no one, definite idea - it mirrors the New Age beliefs from which it comes.”

“It’s become part of a lot of religious movements. For instance, ‘The Galactic Federation of Light’ believes that ‘Planet X’ will make a close pass by the earth in 2012 – causing a deep transformation of human life on Earth.

“What this and other apocalyptic dates have in common across new religious movements is that they are often predicted to occur within a believer’s lifetime - making their beliefs urgent and important,” said Wilson.

“However, most people who believe in the significance of December 21 2012 have tempered their predictions of an apocalypse to, instead, signifying some significant change in humanity. Whether that is a change in culture or a world-wide event - most believers in an apocalypse won't be preparing for an earthly end but looking forward to an imminent transformation."

“A lot of people look to this story for reassurance - about the financial climate, or even about fears of, for instance, the Large Hadron Collider.”

“What’s been popularised is the dramatic stuff - but I am definitely still doing my Christmas shopping as normal this year.”

Wilson’s paper, ‘From Mushrooms to the Stars’, will be published by Ashgate in 2013.

Georgia details nuke black market investigations

By By DESMOND BUTLER | Associated Press

This June 24, 2012 photo shows the Hotel L Bakuria in Batumo, Georgia, Black Sea coast near the Turkish Border. In April 2012, three men gathered in secret at the hotel to talk about a deal for radioactive material for sale. The Georgian seller offered cesium, a byproduct from nuclear reactors that terrorists can use to make a dirty bomb.But one of the Turkish men made it clear he was after something much more dangerous: Uranium, the material used to make a nuclear bomb. The two Turks and the seller businessman Soslan Oniani, were convicted in September, 2012 in a Georgian court, according to officials, and sentenced to six years in prison each. Despite years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the fight against illicit sale of nuclear contraband, the black market remain active in the countries around the former Soviet Union. (AP Photo by Desmond Butler)

This undated handout photo provided by the Georgia Interior Ministry shows components for four cylinders containing radioactive substances seized in Batumi, Georgia on April 10, 2012. Police, who have been tracking Georgian Businessman Soslan Oniani, for over year, monitored him in a hotel room meeting with two Turskish citizens, trying to sell to sell the cylinders with the materials which included cesium-137 and strontium-90. The two Turks and the seller, Oniani, were convicted were convicted in September, 2012 in a Georgian court, according to officials, and sentenced to six years in prison each.

Associated Press/Georgia Interior Ministry - This undated photo provided by the Georgia Interior Ministry shows part of a seizure of radioactive substances including iridium-192 and europium-152. Police in Kutaisi, Georgia arrested two people involved in the smuggling in February 2011. The investigation led police to track a third man, Soslan Oniani, who would be arrested in April 2012 trying to sell radioactive material to two Turkish men. Despite years of effort and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the fight against the illicit sale of nuclear contraband, the black market remains active in the countries around the former Soviet Union. The radioactive materials, mostly left over from the Cold War, include nuclear bomb-grade uranium and plutonium, and dirty-bomb isotopes like cesium and iridium. (AP Photo/Georgia Interior Ministry)

BATUMI, Georgia (AP) — On the gritty side of this casino resort town near the Turkish border, three men in a hotel suite gathered in secret to talk about a deal for radioactive material.

The Georgian seller offered cesium, a byproduct of nuclear reactors that terrorists can use to arm a dirty bomb with the power to kill. But one of the Turkish men, wearing a suit and casually smoking a cigarette, made clear he was after something even more dangerous: uranium, the material for a nuclear bomb. The would-be buyers agreed to take a photo of the four cylinders and see if their boss in Turkey was interested. They did not know police were watching through a hidden camera. As they got up to leave, the police rushed in and arrested the men, according to Georgian officials, who were present.

The encounter, which took place in April, reflected a fear shared by U.S. and Georgian officials: Despite years of effort and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the fight against the illicit sale of nuclear contraband, the black market remains active in the countries around the former Soviet Union. The radioactive materials, mostly left over from the Cold War, include nuclear bomb-grade uranium and plutonium, and dirty-bomb isotopes like cesium and iridium. The extent of the black market is unknown, but a steady stream of attempted sales of radioactive materials in recent years suggests smugglers have sometimes crossed borders undetected. Since the formation of a special nuclear police unit in 2005 with U.S. help and funding, 15 investigations have been launched in Georgia and dozens of people arrested. Six of the investigations were disclosed publicly for the first time to The Associated Press byGeorgian authorities. Officials with the U.S. government and the International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment on the individual investigations, but President Barack Obama noted in a speech earlier this year that countries like Georgia and Moldova have seized highly enriched uraniumfrom smugglers. An IAEA official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to comment, said the agency is concerned smuggling is still occurring in Georgia.

Four of the previously undisclosed cases, and a fifth — an arrest in neighboring Turkey announced by officials there — occurred this year. One from last year involved enough cesium-137 to make a deadly dirty bomb, officials said.

Also, Georgian officials see links between two older cases involving highly enriched uranium, which in sufficient quantity can be used to make a nuclear bomb. The AP's interviews with the two imprisoned smugglers in one case suggested that the porous borders and the poverty of the region contributed to the problem. The arrests in the casino resort of Batumi stand out for two reasons: They suggest there are real buyers — many of the other investigations involved stings with undercover police acting as buyers. And they suggest that buyers are interested in material that can be used to make a nuclear weapon. "Real buyers are rare in nuclear smuggling cases, and raise real risks," said nuclear nonproliferation specialist Matthew Bunn, who runs Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom. "They suggest someone is actively seeking to buy material for a clandestine bomb." The request for uranium raises a particularly troubling question. "There's no plausible reason for looking for black-market uranium other than for nuclear weapons— or profit, by selling to people who are looking to make nuclear weapons," Bunn said.

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Georgia's proximity to the large stockpiles of Cold War-era nuclear material, its position along trade routes to Asia and Europe, the roughly 225 miles (360 kilometers) of unsecured borders of its two breakaway republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the poverty of the region may explain why the nation of 4.5 million has become a transit point for nuclear material. Georgian officials say the radioactive material in the five new cases this year all transited through Abkhazia, which borders on Russia and has Russian troops stationed on its territory. Abkhazia's foreign ministry said it has no information about the Georgian allegations and would not comment, but in the past it has denied Georgian allegations.

Russia maintains that it has secured its radioactive material — including bomb-grade uranium and plutonium — and that Georgia has exaggerated the risk because of political tension with Moscow. But while the vast majority of the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal and radioactive material has been secured, U.S. officials say that some material in the region remains loose. "Without a doubt, we are aware and have been over the last several years that not all nuclear material is accounted for," says Simon Limage, deputy assistant secretary for non-proliferation programs at the U.S. State Department. "It is true that a portion that we are concerned about continues to be outside of regulatory control."

U.S. efforts to prevent smuggling have prioritized bomb-grade material because of the potential that a nuclear bomb could flatten a U.S. city. But security officials say an attack with a dirty bomb — explosives packed with radioactive material — would be easier for a terrorist to pull off. And terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, have sought the material to do so. A study by the National Defense University found that the economic impact from a dirty bomb attack of a sufficient scale on a city center could exceed that of the September 11, 2011, attacks on New York and Washington.

The U.S. government has been assisting about a dozen countries believed to be vulnerable to nuclear smuggling, including Georgia, to set up teams that combine intelligence with police undercover work. Limage says Georgia's team is a model for the other countries the U.S. is supporting. On Jan. 6, police arrested a man in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, and seized 36 vials with cesium-135, a radioactive isotope that is hard to use for a weapon. The man said he had obtained the material in Abkhazia. In April, Georgian authorities arrested a group of smugglers from Abkhazia bringing in three glass containers with about 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of yellowcake uranium, a lightly processed substance that can be enriched into bomb-grade material.

"At first we thought that this was coincidence," said Archil Pavlenishvili, chief investigator of Georgia's anti-smuggling team. "But since all of these cases were connected with Abkhazia, it suggests that the stuff was stolen recently from one particular place. But we have no idea where. " Days later, more evidence turned up when Turkish media reported the arrest of three Turkish men with a radioactive substance in the capital, Ankara. Police seized 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of cesium-135, the same material seized in January in Tbilisi.

Georgian officials said the suspects were residents of Germany and driving a car with German plates, but that the material had come from Abkhazia. Turkish authorities said the men had entered Turkey from Georgia. Information provided by German authorities led to the arrest in June of five suspects in Georgia with 9 vials of cesium-135 that looked very similar to the vials seized in January. The Batumi investigation started after the arrest of two men in the city of Kutaisi in February 2011 year with a small quantity of two radioactive materials stolen from an abandoned Soviet helicopter factory, according to Georgian officials. The men said that a businessman, Soslan Oniani, had encouraged them to sell the material. Police interviewed Oniani and searched his house, but found insufficient evidence to arrest him, according to officials. Still, they kept monitoring him through phone taps and an informant. Georgian officials say Oniani was a braggart, who played on his relationship with his cousin, Tariel Oniani, a well- known organized crime boss convicted in Russia of kidnapping.

Early this year, Soslan Oniani started talking about a new deal. Through surveillance and phone taps, police learned of the meeting in Batumi and monitored it. While no money passed hands, the men discussed an illegal deal, which is sufficient for prosecution in Georgia. Tests by Georgian authorities later revealed that one lead cylinder held cesium-137, two strontium-90, and the fourth spent material that was hard to identify. All are useful for making a dirty bomb, although the material in the cylinders alone was not enough to cause mass casualties, according to data provided by Georgian nuclear regulatory authorities. The arrested Turks denied knowing they were negotiating for radioactive substances. They claimed to be musical instrument experts, who had come to Batumi seeking to buy violins. A skeptical interrogator asked them if they were familiar with the famed instrument maker Stradivarius.

One man said he had never heard of him. The two Turks and the seller, Oniani, were convicted in September in a Georgian court, according to officials, and sentenced to six years in prison each.

_______________

The Georgian smuggling cases suggest that the trade in radioactive materials is driven at least in part by poverty and the lingering legacy of Soviet corruption in a hardscrabble region. Georgian officials say that because of U.S. backed counter-smuggling efforts, organized crime groups seem to have concluded that the potential profit from trade in these materials doesn't justify the risk. But individuals sometimes conclude they can make a quick buck from radioactive material. For instance, in one newly disclosed case last year, authorities arrested two Georgian men with firearms, TNT and a lethal quantity of cesium-137. One was a former Soviet officer in an army logistics unit, who told police that at the end of his service in the early 90s, he had made a second career stealing from the military.

"He openly said: 'I was a logistics officer and my second duty was to steal everything possible," according to Pavlenishvili. The man kept the cesium for years before he and a relative tried to sell it last year to a Georgian undercover officer. He did not try to sell the weapons or explosives. Poverty and corruption also appear to have played into three smuggling incidents in 2003, 2006 and 2010 that involved bomb-grade highly enriched uranium.

In 2003, an Armenian man, Garik Dadaian, was arrested when he set off a radiation detector provided by an American program at a checkpoint on the Armenian-Georgian border. Days later, the man was released and returned to Armenia under murky circumstances.

Dadaian's name resurfaced in 2010 on a bank transfer slip in the pocket of the two smugglers arrested with highly enriched uranium. The men had obtained the material from Dadaian and were offering it as a sample of a larger quantity. Police say forensic analysis suggests the uranium may have come from the same batch seized in 2003. Russian investigators suspected Dadaian got the nuclear fuel from a manufacturing plant in Novosibirsk, Russia, where several disappearances of material have been documented. Pavlenishvili said Dadaian bribed prosecutors to win his release and take some of the uranium. The two smugglers in the 2010 case were Sumbat Tonoyan, a dairy farmer who went bankrupt, and Hrant Ohanian, a former physicist at a nuclear research facility in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. The AP interviewed both at a prison about 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside Tbilisi, where they are serving sentences of 13 and 14 years.

In separate interviews, each man blamed the other for the idea of smuggling uranium, and talked of financial hardship. Ohanian said his daughter needed urgent medical care that he couldn't afford, and Tonoyan said a bank had seized his house after his dairy factory collapsed. "I didn't have a job and I couldn't pay the bank," he said in Russian through an interpreter. The men also claimed they believed the material they were selling was to be used for scientific work, not nefarious purposes. Ohanian said a Georgian contact, who was also arrested, told him relations with Moscow were so bad that Georgian scientists could not get the uranium they needed from Russia on the open market. "I feel guilty because I behaved like an idiot," he said. "I should have known and I would never do something like this again."

Follow Desmond Butler at //twitter.com/desmondbutler

Questions have been raised by members of the Australian public whether MI5, MI6 and/or their well known murder partners Mossad where involved somehow in the death of  Indian-born mother-of-two Jacintha Saldanha, 46, who the UK media are claiming that she took her own life...
and it is noted that all media reports coming from the United Kingdom only ever call it a suspected suicide... but was it a murder by  MI5, MI6 and/or their well known murder partners Mossad
to make and example of the nurse who gave out the private information about Kate Middleton  who was in a U.K. hospital...

Australian readers of INLNews.com and awn.bz who have read all about the murder of Thomas Allwood,

Australian readers of INLNews.com and awn.bz who have read all about the murder of Thomas Allwood,
INL News Under-Cover Investigative Journalist and co producer with Stephen Carew-Reid and the INL News Group of Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Shows Have, on the 21st June, 2012 in Broxburn Scotland which is about an hour's drive from Edinburgh... and how the evidence brought out at the recent trial of Kyle Montgomery,
who had been charged by the Scottish Lothian Borders Police for the murder of Thomas Allwood seems to clearly show that the Scottish Lothian Borders Police
and the Scottish Prosecution known as the Procurator Fiscal's Office and the UK Government are:
not interested the fact that their own prosecution witnesses agree that they did not ring the police and/or an ambulance when it was discovered that Kyle Montgomery has allegedly placed a 6 inch knife wound into the right chest of Thomas Allwood allegedly at about 2.15 am on the 21st June, 2012 ... and just let Thomas Allwood blead to death until he was found by three boys at 4.45 am two streets away...

David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (whom he and his treasury solicitors was about to be exposed by Thomas Allwood at a High Court of Justice hearing London on the 24th July, 2012 for criminal comtempt of court); the Scottish Lothian Borders Police and/or the Scottish Prosecution known as the Procurator Fiscal's Office and the UK Government have not offered any official statement saying how sorry they are that Thomas Allwood was murdered on the 21st June, 2012..if fact they seem to be celebrating Thomas Allwood's death having appeared to have branded Thomas Allwood an enemy of the United Kingdom just for wanting the truth to be publicly known and for people who have wrongly victimised by the law obtain some fair justice...

None on the main stream international media have bothered to even report the murder of Thomas Allwood, INL News Under Cover Investigative Journalist, poet and co-producer of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show and other feature films....as there seems to be a "D Notice" stopping them reporting the murder of Thomas Allwood... which is usually issued when sectret service organisations such as MI5, MI6 and/or Mossad are involved with the murder of someone that is declared an enemy of the state as it seems that Thomas Allwood was... just because he was prepared to speak the truth and wanted the public to know the truth..

Thomas Allwood was murdered for exposing the truth and fighting for truth and justice for the ordinary people like Janice Pritchard ans her son Robert Carter who had their family home taken from them in a very wrongful way and put on the street in a very wrongful way by power powerful property developers and their even more powerful legal teams that had the power and influence to be able to tell a justice in the High Court of Justice what orders they wanted and such orders were always granted regardless of the rights and wrongs of the case presented to the judge hearing the case..
Investigators doing a two year undercover investigation into the running of the High Court of Justice have stated in their report that the London's High Court of Justice is one of the most corruptly run courts in the world...where the odds of a litigant in person who does not have formal legal representation getting fairness and justice are a million to one....where judges, justices, masters and adjudicators simply do not bother on most occasions to closely read legal and factual submissions and statements made by litigants in person and only closely read legal and factual submissions and statements filed by the licensed solicitors and barristers that are representing the other side of the legal argument....the way it works is that when a litigant in person issues a claim and/or application in the High Court of Justice without using a licensed solicitor or barrister... the  judges, justices, masters and adjudicators simply do not bother on most occasions to closely read the litigants in person's legal and factual submissions and statements and as a matter or routine simply rule against the litigant in person with an ruling that their case has no merit... whether in fairness the case had merit or not... which it may have merit but just not written in the formal legal way a licensed solicitor or barrister would have written their claim or application form... and then once one or two claims or applications have been unsuccessfully made and they are ruled as having no merit.... then a civil restraining order is made against the litigant in person to hinder them from issuing any further claims or applications to have their legal grievances aired in the courts...and thousands of pounds of legal costs are issued against them..so that their opposition solicitors and barristers sue the litigant in person for these court costs to make sure theydo not even trouble them again and/or obtain a court order that until the unfair court costs are paid that no claims and/or applications can be made by them... as another method to bury the truth...it has been found by the two year undercover operation compiled with the help of Thomas Allwood, INL News former head undercover investigative reporter, that on many instances the solicitors and barristers deliberately present false and misleading information to the court and deliberately withhold material information from the court... to obtain the court orders they require from the court... and what is even more shocking..... what Thomas Allwood and his investigation team found stated is even more shocking is that where judges, justices, masters and adjudicators are well aware that when the solicitors and barrister deliberately present false and misleading information to the court and deliberately withhold material information from the court... they simply condone such wrongful and illegal behaviour and help the solicitors and barristers cover this all up and make sure any complaint about their behaviour is completely buried by striking out any complaint made formerly to the court in a criminal contempt application and without reading the details of the complaint..strike out the criminal contempt application as having no merit and rule thousands of pounds of court costs against the litigant in person for daring to try to bring the court's attention to this wrongful and illegal behaviour ... and sometimes as in the case of Thomas Allwood have the litigant in person murdered and organise the police and prosecution to cover up who really murdered the litigant in person and why he was murdered by trying to convince the public into believing it was just an accidental death as a result of some drunken argument, and not a planned and calculated murder.... so the person that has wrongly been blamed for the death is only found guilty of being officially being involved with an accidental death... and being a person not mentally well and being a

Scitzophrenic with mental depression will simple spend a year or so in a luxury mental institution and then be let out to live a normal life taking medication... which they were taking anyway before the death of the enemy ( the litigant in person)... and the real professionally trained killer who works for some state secret service organisation like MI5, MI6 and/or Mossad is never looked for and never charged.. so he or she can be available when needed by state secret service organisation like MI5, MI6 and/or Mossad is never looked for and never charged.. so he or she can be available when needed by state secret service organisations like MI5, MI6 and/or Mossad for thei next murder assignment...

Kate Hospital: Nurse's Family Pays Tribute

Sky News

The family of nurse Jacintha Saldanha have thanked people for their support and messages of condolence.

Speaking on their behalf, Keith Vaz MP described Mrs Saldanha as a "loving mother and a loving wife".

"This is a close family, they are devastated by what has happened, they miss her every moment of every day," he said, as he stood beside Mrs Saldanha's husband Benedict Barboza and her two teenage children.

"They are really grateful for the support of the British public and the public overseas for the messages of support and kindness," he added.

The post-mortem for the nurse, who put through a hoax call made about the Duchess of Cambridge's medical condition, will take place on Tuesday.

Mrs Saldanha took the initial call from Australian DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian who posed as the Queen and the Prince of Wales when they rang the hospital where Kate was being treated for acute morning sickness.

Believing it to be genuine, she put the call through to another colleague who was duped into describing the duchess' condition in detail.

Mrs Saldanha was found dead days later, having apparently taken her own life.

Her post-mortem will take place at Westminster Mortuary.

Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of his "shock" at Mrs Saldanha's death.

He said: "I thought it was completely shocking ... I heard about the suicide of this nurse, who worked incredibly hard and obviously was incredibly dedicated.

"I feel incredibly sorry for her and her family. It is an absolute tragedy that this has happened and I am sure everyone will want to reflect on how it was allowed to happen."

It comes after the boss of Sydney radio station 2Day FM said five attempts were made to contact London's King Edward VII's Hospital about the prank call before it aired.

"Following the hoax call, the radio station did not speak to anyone in the hospital's senior management or anyone at the company who handles our media enquiries," a hospital spokesman said.

Earlier, Rhys Holleran - head of the station's parent company Southern Cross Austereo - said he was satisfied that the appropriate checks were carried out before the pre-recorded segment was broadcast.

"It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," he told Fairfax Radio, an Australian broadcaster.

"We rang them up to discuss what we had recorded ... we attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions ... we wanted to speak to them about it."

Britain's Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has told Sky News the nurse's response to the prank call does not point to a widespread breach of procedure.

Asked what lessons needed to be learned, he said: "I think we need to make sure that the right safeguards are in place, that the right training is in place, but I think it's too early for me to say whether this is something which is just an individual prank that went horribly wrong and it was an isolated breach or whether there are more widespread issues.

"My instinct is that this was an isolated incident with very exceptional circumstances."

Labour MP Mr Vaz, who visited Mrs Saldanha's family in Bristol on Sunday, has called on the hospital to hold an inquiry and provide more support to the relatives.

"What is needed, clearly, is an inquiry by the hospital into what has happened.

"The hospital has sent them a letter, which I have seen, but I'm surprised that nobody has made the journey to Bristol to sit with them and offer them the counselling that I think they need."

He said the family was in "terrible distress", adding: "More support in my view needs to be given."

A statement from King Edward VII Hospital said chief executive John Lofthouse had offered to meet Mrs Saldanha's husband.

It said it had also offered to establish a memorial fund in her name.

The statement read: "We hope that everyone will focus on doing all they can for the family of Jacintha Saldanha at this terrible time."

Royal hoax pranksters break silence

The two young 2Day FM hosts at the centre of the controversial Royal prank have broken their silence on the call that had such tragic repercussions.

Martin Frizell weighs in on royal hoax

Headlines and commentary in the UK have condemned the two young radio hosts at the centre of 2DayFM's tragic prank call.

The two young 2Day FM hosts at the centre of the controversial Royal prank have broken their silence on the call that had such tragic repercussions.

After the stunt received international coverage, the nurse who answered the call, 46-year-old Jacintha Saldanha, took her own life.

How much the prank had to do with the tragedy is open to conjecture, but what is certain is that Michael Christian and Mel Greig are two young people under unimaginable pressure.

Though they both say that they are emotionally stable in talking about the events, both Christian and Greig appear visibly distraught.

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When Greig describes hearing the dreadful results following the days after the prank she says "unfortunately I remember that moment very well because I haven't stopped thinking about it since it happened, and I remember my first question was 'was she a mother?'"

On hearing that Saldanha had indeed been the mother of two children, Greig says she was "very sorry and saddened for the family. I can't imagine what they'd be going through."

Christian says he is "gutted", "shattered", and "heartbroken".

He says "we're still trying to get our heads around everything. Trying to make sense of the situation."

According to Greig the whole tragedy doesn't even seem real. "It doesn't seem real because you just couldn't foresee something like that happening from a prank call. You know it was never meant to go that far. It was meant to be a silly little prank that so many people have done before. This wasn't meant to happen," she said.

When asked whether, in hindsight, they would they do something like that again, Christian says "I don't think that anyone could have predicted what could've happened. It was just a tragic set of circumstances. I don't think anyone could have thought that we'd be here."

Today Tonight's latest celebrity stories

So how did the idea of the prank first come up? Both Christian and Greig are clear that the idea was the whole team's - that there is no single person that can or should be blamed. "Everything's done as a team," the said.

When asked whether there was legal advice or guidance from senior staff on how best to tackle the call, both Christian and Greig are clear on the fact that the call was never meant to be more than a silly joke.

"The call to begin with wasn't about speaking to Kate. It wasn't about trying to get a scoop or anything. The call was just – I mean we'd assumed that we'd be hung up on and that'd be that," Christian said.

Indian-born mother-of-two Jacintha Saldanha, 46, is thought to have taken her own life. Photo: Supplied

However when the two weren't hung up on during the call last week, the prank was certainly treated as a scoop. The hosts were both shocked and amused when they were put through and given information about Princess Kate's health.

According to Greig "the accents were terrible. You know it was designed to be stupid. We were never meant to get that far - from the little corgis barking in the background – we obviously wanted it to be a joke."

Christian echoes that "the joke was always on us, not anyone else. It wasn't about trying to fool someone. I mean we just assumed that with the voices that we put on, you know, we were going to get told off and that was the gag – in us."

First Picture Of Kate Hospital Hoax Nurse

The first picture has been released of a nurse who apparently

First Picture Of Kate Hospital Hoax Nurse

Sky News –

The first picture has been released of a nurse who apparently committed suicide after being duped by a prank call.

Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was found dead days after taking the hoax call from an Australian radio station and putting it through to a nurse on the Duchess of Cambridge's ward, who divulged private information about her treatment.

The body of the 46-year-old mother-of-two was discovered at an address near King Edward VII's hospital in London - where she had worked for four years - on Friday morning.

Kate, who is understood to be well under 12 weeks pregnant, was admitted to the hospital on Monday with severe morning sickness and released again on Thursday.

INL News Picture of the Month December 2012

Snow on the beach after a cold snap

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-01-01/japan-earthquake/52310810/1

Japan Earthquake 2012: 6.4 Magnitude Quake Strikes Off Southeast Coast

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/17/japan-earthquake-2012-southeast-coast_n_1604183.html

Reuters | Posted: 06/17/2012

TOKYO, June 18 (Reuters) - A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan early on Monday

tp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-20526345

28 November 2012

Kyle Montgomery found guilty of killing journalist Thomas Allwood

Thomas Allwood was born in Scotland but spent most of his life in Australia

First offender Kyle Montgomery will be sentenced next month for the killing

A man who stabbed a journalist to death in West Lothian has been convicted of culpable homicide.