penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a..

So do about 100 other species of birds, wo whats your point?
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

geopelia wrote:
|> I heard that an iceberg had moved around in such a way that penguins
|> could not reach water to hunt for food in. According to the story,
|> penguins had to walk for 40 miles to get food, and they couldn't get
|> back in time to keep their goslings or babies alive. Most penguins
|> are very monogamous, and when one spouse goes to fetch food, the mate
|> will take care of the baby.
|>
|> I'd assumed that the penguin's iceberg would have broken up a little from
|> the impact of the tsunami.
|
|The iceberg is 3,000 square kilometres. It is blocking McMurdo Sound.

Okay.

|I doubt if even a very large tsunami would make any difference to a mass
|that size.

But it could have done something, somehow. Fissures could have widened.

|The penguins are Adelies, expected to decline by 70%.

Geeeze!

|New Zealand has had to issue an iceberg warning as several are to the
|south of the South Island.

Okay, so what kind of explosives deployed at the bottom of a suitably
deep shaft drilled in the ice, would be sufficient to crack open the
iceberg? Can a tactical nuclear weapon rip the ice apart without also
injuring the penguins?
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

penguins are the best birds
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

geopelia wrote:
|> |The iceberg is 3,000 square kilometres. It is blocking McMurdo Sound.
|>
|> Okay.
|>
|> |I doubt if even a very large tsunami would make any difference to a mass
|> |that size.
|>
|> But it could have done something, somehow. Fissures could have widened.
|>
|> |The penguins are Adelies, expected to decline by 70%.
|>
|> Geeeze!
|>
|> |New Zealand has had to issue an iceberg warning as several are to the
|> |south of the South Island.

May I assume that the tsunami failed to propagate around Australia to
the area of South Island, an area somewhat south of New Zealand? I
guess that loose icebergs are considered worse than starving penguin
populations...

|> Okay, so what kind of explosives deployed at the bottom of a suitably
|> deep shaft drilled in the ice, would be sufficient to crack open the
|> iceberg? Can a tactical nuclear weapon rip the ice apart without also
|> injuring the penguins?
|
|Are you seriously suggesting using a nuclear weapon in Antarctica?

A low yield tactical weapon detonated within a sheet of ice isn't going
to create a mushroom cloud, and it isn't going to irradiate any soil -
there isn't any soil to speak of - it ought to merely melt the ice, and
fracture the ice it doesn't melt.

|Heaven help us!

Let's not just throw up our hands in despair - sitting at a desk and
thinking about the proposal is a lot more productive.

|Do you realise just how big 3,000 square kilometres is?

If it's rectangular in shape, it is about 50 miles to a side. But I
think that the extent of its volume needs more analysis. An iceberg
is often said to be 10 percent visible, 90 percent invisible.

|Or how long a mass of ice like that will take to melt, if it breaks off
|and gets into the open ocean?

Well, I was hoping that an initial blast would induce a number
of fracture lines, and lighter explosives could be used to excavate
along those lines, creating channels. There were articles in
Scientific American twenty years ago about using nuclear weapons
to dig canals or channels in Panama and India, for instance. In
this instance, the material to be excavated is mostly ice, and
the explosions are correspondingly cleaner. And more importantly,
the purpose is arguably humanitarian.

|It may be necessary to use some other kind of explosives to enable
|supplies to get through to the humans there, though.

An ordinary tanker used as an icebreaker is probably most effective where
the iceberg is but a few meters thick.

|Possibly if some kind of fissure of open water is formed, the penguins may
|be able to use it. Perhaps a few could be herded through and the others will
|follow.
|
|This sort of thing has probably happened before, in the long history of
|Antarctica. No doubt the penguin colonies have been decimated but recovered
|as the ice has moved around. Let us hope they can survive this time.
|
|Geopelia
|
|
|
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

geopelia wrote:
|> |> Okay, so what kind of explosives deployed at the bottom of a suitably
|> |> deep shaft drilled in the ice, would be sufficient to crack open the
|> |> iceberg? Can a tactical nuclear weapon rip the ice apart without also
|> |> injuring the penguins?
|> |
|> |Are you seriously suggesting using a nuclear weapon in Antarctica?
|>
|> A low yield tactical weapon detonated within a sheet of ice isn't going
|> to create a mushroom cloud, and it isn't going to irradiate any soil -
|> there isn't any soil to speak of - it ought to merely melt the ice, and
|> fracture the ice it doesn't melt.
|
|The wildlife there (seals and penguins) would carry radiation products
|in their fat maybe for generations.

I don't think the wildlife there will incorporate any radiation products
into their fat. Low-yield nuclear explosions are not inherently 'dirty'
when the only elements that are being doped are hydrogen and oxygen.

|Look at the effect Chernobyl had on sheep in Norway and the Shetlands.

You shouldn't judge your apples by looking at somebody else's bags of
oranges. Chernobyl, a nuclear reactor now encased in concrete after
having lifted up soil that was irradiated and doped for months, is the
classic case of a *dirty* reaction that went out of control.

|Do you really want to risk the genetic mutations that would result?

It is true that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in the wrong place, you
could surely induce a lot of genetic mutations in the species in the
area. But at a distance of 20 miles and at a depth of 200 feet, the
kind of risk you are alarmed about is reduced to a bare minimum.

|Life in Antarctica is on a knife edge anyway, the slightest genetic
|change could be a disaster.

Genetic changes are usually disastrous, that's true. That's another
reason to keep explosions a fair amount away from the species effected.

|The penguins must handle a natural calamity in Nature's way, as they
|have done for millennia.

It is clear that Mother Nature is far more cruel than human beings
usually are.

|> |Heaven help us!
|>
|> Let's not just throw up our hands in despair - sitting at a desk and
|> thinking about the proposal is a lot more productive.
|
|But don't rush into something that you cannot reverse. Maybe conventional
|explosives followed by icebreakers to open a channel?

That sounds like a viable alternative.

|It depends how thick the iceberg is, doesn't it? No doubt the scientists
|there are busy trying to work something out. They must, to get supplies
|for themselves.

I was wondering why there aren't more news stories about this very
calamity we (and the penguins) are facing.

|> |Do you realise just how big 3,000 square kilometres is?
|>
|> If it's rectangular in shape, it is about 50 miles to a side. But I
|> think that the extent of its volume needs more analysis. An iceberg
|> is often said to be 10 percent visible, 90 percent invisible.

Has anybody performed radar imaging of the iceberg in question?

|> |Or how long a mass of ice like that will take to melt, if it breaks off
|> |and gets into the open ocean?
|>
|> Well, I was hoping that an initial blast would induce a number
|> of fracture lines, and lighter explosives could be used to excavate
|> along those lines, creating channels. There were articles in
|> Scientific American twenty years ago about using nuclear weapons
|> to dig canals or channels in Panama and India, for instance. In
|> this instance, the material to be excavated is mostly ice, and
|> the explosions are correspondingly cleaner. And more importantly,
|> the purpose is arguably humanitarian.
|
|Ice melts.

Yes.

|If it carries radioactivity that will get into the ocean.

I believe that doping hydrogen or oxygen with extra neutrons tends to
create lightweight elements with halflives that decay very rapidly. It's
the kind of radioactivity that disappears very quickly.

|Ocean currects will carry it around the Southern Hemisphere and affect
|all ocean life from Whales to Krill.

The scenario that Nevil Shute propagated through his book, "On the Beach"
has been widely discredited for the last 30 years. His scenario required
access to some fairly heavy elements whose halflives involved millennia
upon millennia to reduce themselves to nothing. Icebergs consist mostly
of water ice and air bubbles - lightweight elements for the most part.

|> |It may be necessary to use some other kind of explosives to enable
|> |supplies to get through to the humans there, though.
|>
|> An ordinary tanker used as an icebreaker is probably most effective where
|> the iceberg is but a few meters thick.
|
|If it is only a few metres thick the penguins could dive under it, but
|they must surface to breathe. The extent of the ice probably makes that
|impossible. And just how thick woould such a vast iceberg be?

Do you know of a link with pictures of the iceberg?

|> |Possibly if some kind of fissure of open water is formed, the penguins
|> |may be able to use it. Perhaps a few could be herded through and the
|> |others will follow.
|> |
|> |This sort of thing has probably happened before, in the long history
|> |of Antarctica. No doubt the penguin colonies have been decimated but
|> |recovered as the ice has moved around. Let us hope they can survive
|> |this time.

The problem with mass extinctions is that the surviving fragments of
the species almost always represent what is, unfortunately, a genetic
bottle-neck. When this happens over and over again for a million years,
the species becomes prone to diseases peculiar to them, and not their
cousins elsewhere. I think that "Scientific American" magazine had
an article on the genetic bottleneck of the African tiger, for instance.
(And to think that some people complain about crossing tigers with lions.)

If there are enough penguins in the world that wiping out 70 percent of
them does little towards exterminating the species as a whole, then
maybe it isn't that important in the long run.
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

|It is true that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in the wrong place, you
|could surely induce a lot of genetic mutations in the species in the
|area. But at a distance of 20 miles and at a depth of 200 feet, the
|kind of risk you are alarmed about is reduced to a bare minimum.

A more serious objection might be the effects of the rapid shaking
of the icesheet there. If there is too much shaking, it could break
the penguin eggs (they *are* kind of leathery, aren't they, like
iguana eggs?) and make the problem worse than it is to start with.
Or imagine breaking the penguin's legs from the intense shaking,
that would be worse, wouldn't it?

||Life in Antarctica is on a knife edge anyway, the slightest genetic
||change could be a disaster.
|
|Genetic changes are usually disastrous, that's true. That's another
|reason to keep explosions a fair amount away from the species effected.

affected

||The penguins must handle a natural calamity in Nature's way, as they
||have done for millennia.
|
|It is clear that Mother Nature is far more cruel than human beings
|usually are.

Yet nuclear technology is not inherently evil. In a circumstance such
as this, saving a species from extinction, is exactly what low-yield
nuclear explosions would be good for.
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

geopelia wrote:
|> |> |New Zealand has had to issue an iceberg warning as several are to the
|> |> |south of the South Island.
|>
|> May I assume that the tsunami failed to propagate around Australia to
|> the area of South Island, an area somewhat south of New Zealand? I
|> guess that loose icebergs are considered worse than starving penguin
|> populations...
|
|Yes, the tsunami got here, but was only about half a metre high and recorded
|by tide measurements. Nobody noticed it.

Interesting...

|Just as well Australia was in the way.

Yes...

|We do care about the penguins, but what can we do?

Well, if nothing else, someone should go and record the numbers of
penguin now alive, and compare this with the number found alive a
year from now.

|A fish drop by Hercules over the colonies would be impossible for so
|many birds.

And arguably more expensive compared to detonating dynamite at a series
of locations in the iceberg. But doing this all at once, might produce
some interesting seismic patterns. The real question is 'how much'
needs to be detonated, and whether it is worth the effort to drill
into the sheet to deploy the explosives.

|The brooding parents would have to leave their eggs and chicks to get
|the fish, so the chicks would die of cold anyway.

Hmmmm.

|New Zealand's penguins are protected species here.

That is problematical.
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

"Matthew Montchalin" <mmontcha.DeleteThis@OregonVOS.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0501170355140.3823-100000@lab.oregonvos.net...
> geopelia wrote:
> |> I heard that an iceberg had moved around in such a way that penguins
> |> could not reach water to hunt for food in. According to the story,
> |> penguins had to walk for 40 miles to get food, and they couldn't get
> |> back in time to keep their goslings or babies alive. Most penguins
> |> are very monogamous, and when one spouse goes to fetch food, the mate
> |> will take care of the baby.
> |>
> |> I'd assumed that the penguin's iceberg would have broken up a little
from
> |> the impact of the tsunami.
> |
> |The iceberg is 3,000 square kilometres. It is blocking McMurdo Sound.
>
> Okay.
>
> |I doubt if even a very large tsunami would make any difference to a mass
> |that size.
>
> But it could have done something, somehow. Fissures could have widened.
>
> |The penguins are Adelies, expected to decline by 70%.
>
> Geeeze!
>
> |New Zealand has had to issue an iceberg warning as several are to the
> |south of the South Island.
>
> Okay, so what kind of explosives deployed at the bottom of a suitably
> deep shaft drilled in the ice, would be sufficient to crack open the
> iceberg? Can a tactical nuclear weapon rip the ice apart without also
> injuring the penguins?



Are you seriously suggesting using a nuclear weapon in Antarctica? Heaven
help us!

Do you realise just how big 3,000 square kilometres is? Or how long a mass
of ice like that will take to melt, if it breaks off and gets into the open
ocean?

It may be necessary to use some other kind of explosives to enable supplies
to get through to the humans there, though.
Possibly if some kind of fissure of open water is formed, the penguins may
be able to use it. Perhaps a few could be herded through and the others will
follow.

This sort of thing has probably happened before, in the long history of
Antarctica. No doubt the penguin colonies have been decimated but recovered
as the ice has moved around. Let us hope they can survive this time.

Geopelia
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

"Matthew Montchalin" <mmontcha.DeleteThis@OregonVOS.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0501171337190.25187-100000@lab.oregonvos.net...
> geopelia wrote:
> |> |The iceberg is 3,000 square kilometres. It is blocking McMurdo Sound.
> |>
> |> Okay.
> |>
> |> |I doubt if even a very large tsunami would make any difference to a
mass
> |> |that size.
> |>
> |> But it could have done something, somehow. Fissures could have
widened.
> |>
> |> |The penguins are Adelies, expected to decline by 70%.
> |>
> |> Geeeze!
> |>
> |> |New Zealand has had to issue an iceberg warning as several are to the
> |> |south of the South Island.
>
> May I assume that the tsunami failed to propagate around Australia to
> the area of South Island, an area somewhat south of New Zealand? I
> guess that loose icebergs are considered worse than starving penguin
> populations...

Yes, the tsunami got here, but was only about half a metre high and recorded
by tide measurements. Nobody noticed it.
Just as well Australia was in the way.

We do care about the penguins, but what can we do? A fish drop by Hercules
over the colonies would be impossible for so many birds. The brooding
parents would have to leave their eggs and chicks to get the fish, so the
chicks would die of cold anyway.
New Zealand's penguins are protected species here.
>
> |> Okay, so what kind of explosives deployed at the bottom of a suitably
> |> deep shaft drilled in the ice, would be sufficient to crack open the
> |> iceberg? Can a tactical nuclear weapon rip the ice apart without also
> |> injuring the penguins?
> |
> |Are you seriously suggesting using a nuclear weapon in Antarctica?
>
> A low yield tactical weapon detonated within a sheet of ice isn't going
> to create a mushroom cloud, and it isn't going to irradiate any soil -
> there isn't any soil to speak of - it ought to merely melt the ice, and
> fracture the ice it doesn't melt.

The wildlife there (seals and penguins) would carry radiation products in
their fat maybe for generations. Look at the effect Chernobyl had on sheep
in Norway and the Shetlands. Do you really want to risk the genetic
mutations that would result? Life in Antarctica is on a knife edge anyway,
the slightest genetic change could be a disaster.
The penguins must handle a natural calamity in Nature's way, as they have
done for millennia.
>
> |Heaven help us!
>
> Let's not just throw up our hands in despair - sitting at a desk and
> thinking about the proposal is a lot more productive.

But don't rush into something that you cannot reverse. Maybe conventional
explosives followed by icebreakers to open a channel? It depends how thick
the iceberg is, doesn't it? No doubt the scientists there are busy trying to
work something out. They must, to get supplies for themselves.
>
> |Do you realise just how big 3,000 square kilometres is?
>
> If it's rectangular in shape, it is about 50 miles to a side. But I
> think that the extent of its volume needs more analysis. An iceberg
> is often said to be 10 percent visible, 90 percent invisible.
>
> |Or how long a mass of ice like that will take to melt, if it breaks off
> |and gets into the open ocean?
>
> Well, I was hoping that an initial blast would induce a number
> of fracture lines, and lighter explosives could be used to excavate
> along those lines, creating channels. There were articles in
> Scientific American twenty years ago about using nuclear weapons
> to dig canals or channels in Panama and India, for instance. In
> this instance, the material to be excavated is mostly ice, and
> the explosions are correspondingly cleaner. And more importantly,
> the purpose is arguably humanitarian.

Ice melts. If it carries radioactivity that will get into the ocean. Ocean
currects will carry it around the Southern Hemisphere and affect all ocean
life from Whales to Krill.
>
> |It may be necessary to use some other kind of explosives to enable
> |supplies to get through to the humans there, though.
>
> An ordinary tanker used as an icebreaker is probably most effective where
> the iceberg is but a few meters thick.

If it is only a few metres thick the penguins could dive under it, but they
must surface to breathe. The extent of the ice probably makes that
impossible. And just how thick woould such a vast iceberg be?
>
> |Possibly if some kind of fissure of open water is formed, the penguins
may
> |be able to use it. Perhaps a few could be herded through and the others
will
> |follow.
> |
> |This sort of thing has probably happened before, in the long history of
> |Antarctica. No doubt the penguin colonies have been decimated but
recovered
> |as the ice has moved around. Let us hope they can survive this time.
> |
> |Geopelia
> |
> |
> |
>
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

geopelia wrote:
|> I don't think the wildlife there will incorporate any radiation products
|> into their fat. Low-yield nuclear explosions are not inherently 'dirty'
|> when the only elements that are being doped are hydrogen and oxygen.
|
|How can you explode a nuclear device without radiation escaping?

As I understand it, the radiation produced by splitting an atom is
twofold: 1) emitting a fast moving neutron, and 2) generating some high
energy rays that excite (that is, heat up) nearby molecules. Of the
latter instance, let me say that the excitation of molecules alone *can*
cause them to change state (like melting ice into steam) but this alone
cannot cause them to change their isotopic values. -The only way to
change their isotopic values is by adding a neutron to the atom. What
you seem to be worrying about, is creating an isotope of a heavy massed
element that is later, fortuitously, incorporated into the fat (or body
mass) of the penguin before it has occasion to decay.

In short, the products of a nuclear explosion are not always 'dirty'
and that is the main point behind that article in Scientific American
magazine about digging trenches and canals with nuclear explosives.

|You are splitting the actual structure of atoms, not simply splitting
|the H20 molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.

Yes, but we wouldn't be lifting up tons of irradiated soil into the air.

For the most part, we'd be dealing with fairly clean ice - splitting
up the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Not silicon, aluminum, nickel,
sulfur, and iron. The only elements to be doped with extra neutrons,
and that is rather infrequently anyway, would be hydrogen or oxygen.
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

"Matthew Montchalin" <mmontcha RemoveThis @OregonVOS.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0501171941000.12463-100000@lab.oregonvos.net...
> |It is true that if you detonate a nuclear bomb in the wrong place, you
> |could surely induce a lot of genetic mutations in the species in the
> |area. But at a distance of 20 miles and at a depth of 200 feet, the
> |kind of risk you are alarmed about is reduced to a bare minimum.
>
> A more serious objection might be the effects of the rapid shaking
> of the icesheet there. If there is too much shaking, it could break
> the penguin eggs (they *are* kind of leathery, aren't they, like
> iguana eggs?) and make the problem worse than it is to start with.
> Or imagine breaking the penguin's legs from the intense shaking,
> that would be worse, wouldn't it?

The eggs are normal birds' eggs as far as I know. I doubt if the penguins'
legs would break. They would be more likely to just fall over.

> ||Life in Antarctica is on a knife edge anyway, the slightest genetic
> ||change could be a disaster.
> |
> |Genetic changes are usually disastrous, that's true. That's another
> |reason to keep explosions a fair amount away from the species effected.
>
> affected
>
> ||The penguins must handle a natural calamity in Nature's way, as they
> ||have done for millennia.
> |
> |It is clear that Mother Nature is far more cruel than human beings
> |usually are.
>
> Yet nuclear technology is not inherently evil. In a circumstance such
> as this, saving a species from extinction, is exactly what low-yield
> nuclear explosions would be good for.
>
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

"Matthew Montchalin" <mmontcha DeleteThis @OregonVOS.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0501171957001.12463-100000@lab.oregonvos.net...
> geopelia wrote:
> |> |> |New Zealand has had to issue an iceberg warning as several are to
the
> |> |> |south of the South Island.
> |>
> |> May I assume that the tsunami failed to propagate around Australia to
> |> the area of South Island, an area somewhat south of New Zealand? I
> |> guess that loose icebergs are considered worse than starving penguin
> |> populations...
> |
> |Yes, the tsunami got here, but was only about half a metre high and
recorded
> |by tide measurements. Nobody noticed it.
>
> Interesting...
>
> |Just as well Australia was in the way.
>
> Yes...
>
> |We do care about the penguins, but what can we do?
>
> Well, if nothing else, someone should go and record the numbers of
> penguin now alive, and compare this with the number found alive a
> year from now.
>
> |A fish drop by Hercules over the colonies would be impossible for so
> |many birds.
>
> And arguably more expensive compared to detonating dynamite at a series
> of locations in the iceberg. But doing this all at once, might produce
> some interesting seismic patterns. The real question is 'how much'
> needs to be detonated, and whether it is worth the effort to drill
> into the sheet to deploy the explosives.
>
> |The brooding parents would have to leave their eggs and chicks to get
> |the fish, so the chicks would die of cold anyway.
>
> Hmmmm.
>
> |New Zealand's penguins are protected species here.
>
> That is problematical.

What do you mean? The problems with dogs and ferrets etc?

www.penguin.net.nz Follow the links.

Our local penguin around Auckland is the little Blue Penguin.

Geopelia
>
 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a.. 

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 >> Stay informed about: penguins are the best birds - they fly and swim.penguins a..