European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 25, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Hill Chiel of Tow geological Survey s office of Energy and Marino geology the results so Lar without exception we re discovering a Halicho Way we Marine geologist s thought the Ocean floor was it in to Hill says. We be discovered much morn about Iho numbers and types o geologic features their interrelationships and size the processes by which they wore formed and their hazards and importance to Energy and Mineral such information irom a deep is being gathered by a2-1on. 26-foot-Longycgow towed behind the Farnella at a depth of about 165 feet the torpedo shaped device maps the sea floor with Side scan sonar developed by Iho British Institute of oceanographic sciences it is know As Gloria geological Long Range inclined aspic Gloria 120 transducers which both Send and receive sound Waves can map a Swath up to 37 Miles wide. The device can Man Euver at Depths of Aboul 600 Teet to below 26,000 eel. Using Iho Gloria system. . And British scientists aboard the Farnella can map an area the size of now Jersey in one Day. The acoustic a representation of the sea floor is first produced As monographs images made from sounds. These images Are then enhanced by computer and photographed. The geological Survey is using advanced computers and digital mapping technology first developed for mapping the Moon and the planets. When combined in mosaics. The monographs give a View of the sea floor similar Loblack and White satellite photographs of land. On its mapping Mission the sturdy. 230-foot Farnella which was Buill As a North sea fishing trawler has been battered by Atlantic storms with 25-loot Waves and held up by hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. It already has surveyed the East West and Gulf coast sea floors and will head for Alaska this summer and Hawaii next Winter. In the Atlantic the project has answered Long debated questions Aboul How the Steep underwater Continental slope was armed says geological Survey Marine geologist James m. Hobb chief scientist aboard William t. Dillon loft end Peter Pope Ttoe of the . Geological Surv a studying rough sonar image. The Farnella for part of its East coast run some had argued Lor Large landslides others said there were processes of erosion and deposition. We were All right he explains. There wore both areas of massive landslides and Large areas of Little disturbance. To found we had been picking too Small an area and calling it understanding How these features were created can help scientists predict changes in the Ocean floor and plan Lulu re projects Aie there for instance hazards Tor Oil drilling Robb says the mapping project also turned up new data on the flow of sediments through Long sinuous canyons. Such information is critical Lor among other things the location of does Waler dump Sites. In the Gulf Gloria mapped a landslide that covers Nore than 50.000 Square Miles and May be the largest single Ealure of its Hind in the world says Bonnie a. Mcgregor the geological Survey Marine geologist who coordinated the Gull and puerto Rico mapping Gloria also discovered More undersea Salt domes sources of Oil and Gas. The geological Survey is coordinating its mapping with the National oceanic and atmospheric administration which is exploring the 200-mile . Economic zone with High Resolution depth recorders that give detailed data on the sea floor and measure its depth. The Survey mapping obo completed in 5991. Is being published As a series of atlases Road maps for the Bolto of the sea. What caused the Continental rift by Walter Sullivan new York times pollen grains and spores Hal settled i valleys More than 200 million years ago Are reshaping scientists views of the process that led to the breakup of the continents separating Europe Africa and North and South America. The telltale grains and spores which Are being extracted from shale Laid Down in rift valleys created by the pulling apart of the continents show thai the breakup of the continents began almost simultaneously. It had Long been assumed that these far Hung events occurred in stages with separation of the americas and opening of the Gulf of Mexico coming much later than he birth of the Atlantic. The findings Are raising new questions about what Tore the continents apart. Ii must have been a very exciting Lime said or. Alfred traverse of Pennsylvania slate University the author of the latest analysis. The widespread Rifting apparently resulted from one phenomenon he added and it marked the Crescendo of events thai led id one of the greatest extinctions in the Earth s history Ami apparently set the stage for origin of the flowering plants that Iho Plant kingdom. When the Rifting began dinosaurs could walk from Virginia to Africa in a matter of Days. It was a Short hike Between Arkansas and the Yucatan then wedged Between North and South America since Louisiana and the Gull of Mexico did not exist. Than forces deep within the Earth began earing he continents apart. Deep Lake tilled Rill valleys were opened from Newfoundland to Mexico As Well As in Europe and Africa. This led. Millions of years later to eruptions that hooded the landscape with lava the Atlantic and cull of Mexico began opening. Old oceanic habitats were destroyed and 100 million years before the dinosaurs were wiped out Many of the world s living creatures became extinct. The rift valleys whose formation marked the Start of these upheavals Are now largely tilled with sediment. They include the Newark basins within which lie the Jersey Meadows and the Connecticut Valley with Dinosaur footprints still imprinted in its mudstone. Since Iho directions of separation were different with South America pulling away to the South whereas Europe and Africa withdrew to the East and Southeast it seemed improbable that All these movements began simultaneously. The timetable now indicated by the pollen and spores shows Hal Rifting along these widely spaced Rentiers As Well As along corresponding rills in Europe and Africa occurred at roughly the same Lime. But the origin of such coincident yet diverse motions remain unexplained the movements that assembled the continents in the first place some 400 million years ago were also diverse Africa pressing from the East produced the appalachian folds whereas South America s push from the South produced Thomasl Wesl ouachita mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma As Well As the mountains of West Texas until now. Liming the ruptures was Milf cull because telltale fossils were missing. The timetable of rift development in Morocco and in the Rhine Valley in Europe had been established rom Marina fossils. Since those valleys were invaded by the sea. But the american nits like those now in East Africa were tilled with Freshwater lakes. This Lack of information has now been overcome by examining spores and pollen grains embedded in Shales Laid Down with the red sandstones that characterize those valleys. The spore Are predominantly from conifers other Trees resembling saturday july 25,1987 Palms and ferns Allol which flourished for Only a limited time. This Hind of vegetation preserved in the petrified Forest of Arizona extended across the continent to what was to become the East coast and beyond into Europe and Africa. It grew chiefly during the parnian period irom 225 million to 230 million years ago. Because no Ocean separated Europe and North America the same spores end pollen grains Are found in rift Valley Shales from Bolh sides of the Atlantic. According to traverse this evidence indicates that the valleys on both sides of the Atlantic had a common among the rift valleys from which evidence has been compiled Are the Newark basins Hal extend to Trenton and across Pennsylvania becoming the Gettysburg and Culpeper basins together they Are thought to have held a sin rate narrow Lake. Traverse said that they began forming Many millions of years before the separation of Africa and North America. Additional basins Cross Virginia and Noil Carolina but Many Withers Are not evident on the Sui lace. Some lying parallel to the coast on the Continental shelf from the grand Banks to Virginia have been penetrated by onshore drilling. Traverse has based his findings in part on samples found in sediment extracted from below 4.500 feet in a Well drilled by Texaco into a till extending from South Carolina across Southern Georgia into Alabama. Additional evidence cams irom Wella drilled at both ends of a deeply buried Basin running East and West bal Wen Alabama and East Texas which was formed As South America pulled away. Spores and pollen grains found in virtually All these basins show thai hair Rifting began in Early parnian Lime traverse reported in the june 12 Issue of science. In each area the Rilling was parallel to Mountain chains Ormed during the earlier continent continent collisions. The stars and stripes Page 17
