- Oct 2023
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www.sciencefocus.com www.sciencefocus.com
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The melting of the polar caps at the end of Earth’s regular ice ages has also played a halting role. These are long-term trends. More short-term effects include an earthquake in Chile in 2010 that sped up the planet and shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. In fact, 29 June 2022 was the shortest day ever directly recorded. But something strange appears to be occurring in the short-term trends. Since 2020, the average day has been getting longer – in other words, Earth is slowing down. This goes against a previous pattern of the average day shortening for the half-century before that.
What is the estimated day length of an average day in 2000 compared to today?
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- Mar 2017
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nfnh2017.scholar.bucknell.edu nfnh2017.scholar.bucknell.edu
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seismic trail
Industry blazed a trail, rather physically, across the North. Big oil companies came in, ran tests, drilled wherever they pleased, and left scars on the fragile landscape. Before they could drill though, they had to find out where the oil was and to do so, seismic crews would do a survey of the area using what is called the single line method. “This method required the use of several tracked vehicles in a caravan, setting off blasts and collecting the data from them, and gashing vast stretches of the Arctic landscape” (114). These trails are what Berger is referring to and they are very much still visible today, decades after being created. The seismic testing left an impact on the physical substrate and the vegetation growing on it. The trails “are physical legacies of the ways multinational oil companies, governmental policies, and geological science combined to enroll Arctic nature into global energy economies. To those who know their full history, though, they are also a reminder of how ecological disturbance became a focal point for scientific and Inuit activism in the 1960s and 1970s” (115). As Berger goes on to say, the land itself could be, and was, taken from the native people and they are reminded every day of that when they see these trails.
Annotation drawn from Stuhl, Andrew. Unfreezing the Arctic: Science, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Inuit Lands. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016. For aerial images and more information on seismic trails visit: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/seismic.html
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nfnh2017.scholar.bucknell.edu nfnh2017.scholar.bucknell.edu
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seismic exploration camps
Seismic exploration camps are outposts of southern oil and gas exploration activities. They are constructed to shelter scientists during their surveys of the north in search of oil and gas resources. Geologists and related scientists set off explosions to induce waves underground. Theses waves 'echo' off the different layers of material allowing geologists to interpret if/where oil and/or gas could be located.
Though it is considered a non-invasive way to see into the subsurface when compared to drilling test holes, creating the infrastructure to allow seismic exploration to take pace and setting off explosions takes a toll on arctic ecosystems. In his book Unfreezing the Arctic Andrew Stuhl "This method [seismic] required the use of several tracked vehicles in a caravan, setting off blasts and collecting the data from them, and gashing vast stretches of the Arctic landscape" (Stuhl 114).
Legacy of this seismic exploration is felt today, as the scars Stuhl references still exist.
For more information and photos visit: (https://www.fws.gov/refuge/arctic/seismic.html )
Stuhl, Andrew. Unfreezing The Arctic. 1st ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Print.
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