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  • From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Climate change and Natural Disasters....was Homesteading on the beach?
  • Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:46:03 -0500

It is synchronistic that you mention this, Sandy.
Yesterday, I was surfing the web, reading stories and such, and came
across this picture
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page2899.html?theme=light

which surprised me. I suppose I knew there were geysers in Nevada, but
I hard forgotten, so I started reading up on Nevada geology and
specifically geysers there(I am geo-nerd). The picture did not name the
geyser, but I am guessing that this is Steam Geyser. Nevada apparently
used to have multiple geyser basins, but man has destroyed them by
attempting to exploit geothermal energy. When the drilling began, the
geysers disappeared. Apparently, this affected the groundwater and huge
underground aquifer, and may even be related to the issues you describe.
The key link for me was your mention of Lahontan. In reading about
Pyramid Lake, I learned of Lake Lahontan, an ancient, pre-historic lake
of which Pyramid was the deepest part and remains.

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

So, if Lahontan was that large and deep 10000 years ago, I find it odd
that it would 'dessicate' on climate change alone. I believe that there
is also a geothermal link, just a hunch there, because of what has
happened in the last 30 years alone with drilling and the area's
geysers...I just wonder if the water truly evaporated, or did it
disappear below ground into some vast aquifer? Fun to ponder...

Also, there is ancient Lake Bonneville, which also dried up except for
the Salt Lakes and a few other smaller lakes. They say that ancient
Lake Bonneville was as large as, yet deeper than, Lake Michigan. It is
hard to imagine that climate change alone would account for the loss of
a lake that is 1000 feet deep, but apparently the ancient lake has come
and gone 28 times in 3 million years...if you average that out, it puts
the lake regeneration on a 107,000 year cycle..lol...so you guys out in
Utah can expect the GSL to expand over the next 100000 years or so
instead of evaporating. :)

I don't want this post to sound like I don't believe that climate change
is a big deal. I only need to look at my creek to know that the climate
is changing rapidly (for geologic time) now. I question not that the
changes are happening, but whether or not mankind's presence and actions
are solely responsible. Surely, we must take responsibility for some
changes, like the drilling and the disappearance of geysers in Nevada
and the disruption of aquifers, but it seems like every day we learn
more and more that Mother Earth has her own agenda for change, and IMO,
it is a bit arrogant of our species to even assume that we have
irreversibly harmed Mother. Granted, global thermonuclear war would
have an impact, but that hasn't happened yet... A good example of the
kinds of stuff I am talking about is the recent finding that North
America was hit by a large asteroid about 13000 years ago, an event
which is probably what ended the last Ice Age and what destroyed the
Clovis culture of native inhabitants on this continent. Now for most of
my life, I was taught that animals like the saber toothed tiger and the
mammoth and such were in North America before the last ice age, but they
were hunted to extinction by neolithic peoples. I no longer believe
this. I believe that these animals were lost as a result of the
asteroid. Could this asteroid, or another similar one, been the cause
of the Lake Bonneville rupture, when it overflowed and broke through a
natural dam draining a large part of the lake? I just think that
there is so much we do not know or understand yet. The loss of a lake
the size of ancient Lake Bonneville or Lake Lahontan affects climate,
too. Nearby areas become deserts, and we see this in those places. You
end up with a cascading effect and what was a local event becomes
regional, etc. etc....it is like the butterfly effect. Asteroid melts
glacial ice, which drains into the ocean disrupting the salinity and
currents...etc...
Sure man has damaged the Earth..no question that things have changed,
especially since the age of industrialization, but natural processes are
also in play, whether it is a variation in solar output, a variation in
Earth's spin, or the resulting increase in earthquakes and all types of
disasters and especially mega disasters like the Toba eruption or the
Yellowstone eruption...it has happened before, it will happen again.

Bev


Bunjov AT aol.com wrote:
I may have mentioned before...

Our really scary drop in groundwater level over the last 25-30 years
has been blamed on the (ever-decreasing number of) alfalfa farmers,
and the (few remaining) dairies, but is, in fact, the result of
uncontrolled growth in Victorville and Apple Valley, etc.

Major developers - before the recent 'bust' - were / are paying
dearly for the right to build all kinds of nasty sprawl, and the
cities and county agencies just ate it up.

Meantime, our community (Newberry Springs) - give-or-take 120 square
miles - has had folks potentially interested in buying / building
turned off by the fact that several years ago the water level was at
way less than 100' and now is down to 500' or more, and so - even
though the land is cheap enough, it is way offset by the price of
digging a new well.

Local water agency (based in Lawhontan - hundreds of miles away from
our desert - somewhere up near Lake Tahoe) made a big whoopteedoo
back in 2005 of installing a 'pipeline' which ended in a 5 acre
detention pond not 2 miles from my front door.


--
"The world is my country, all mankind are my
brethren, and to do good is my religion."
Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809)




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