One thing I like about physics is how the same math and physics principles can be used to understand a variety of different phenomena. In a recent post I briefly reviewed the use of refraction and reflection of seismic waves for learning about the layering of the sea floor. Other types of waves that can be refracted and reflected include sound waves, light (waves in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum), and other types of electromagnetic waves.
I came across two interesting articles in the last few days about wave phenomena that I wanted to mention. So let's call today's post just a little bit of (geo)physics, maybe because I am too lazy to dig into the next IGY Bulletin article.
The first article appeared Tuesday in The Guardian, one of three newspapers I look at every day and financially support. (The other two are the New York Times and the local Lancaster LNP.) The article was about a mysterious "iceberg"that appeared off the coast of Vancouver Island, a sighting that was surprising because it had not been otherwise noticed.
Simone Engels’s photograph of the apparent iceberg off the coast of Vancouver Island (The Guardian, 25 Jan. 2022)
The photographer Simone Engels was actually seeing the Cheam mountain range on the mainland of British Columbia, nearly 125 miles away, and below the horizon from where she was standing. This optical illusion was caused by what is known as a “superior mirage” which can occur when there is an atmospheric temperature inversion with a band of warm air resting on a layer of cold air. In such a situation, light rays from the source object are refracted (bent), projecting an image into the "wrong" position. The temperature boundary of the inversion represents a discontinuity in terms of light velocity, so the light waves are bent and seen to be at ground level even though the object actually lies below the horizon.
The Italian term for such a superior mirage is Fata Morgana, and this video also explains and shows how it works: This is the opposite of an "inferior mirage." For example, when you drive on a hot day and see mirage “puddles” on the pavement, that’s basically a repeated image of the sky that’s bent into a visible spot on the ground.
An article in the Smithsonian Magazine from 2012 that I came across described the hypothesis that a superior mirage led to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and the more than 1500 deaths that resulted. According to this idea, a thermal inversion and corresponding optical distortion camouflaged the presence of the looming iceberg to those on the Titanic until it was too late, and then distorted the distress signals that the Titanic sent out to the nearby freighter Californian after it was hit.
As for a stamp that shows seismic reflection and refraction, the former German Democratic Republic (aka GDR, East Germany, or Deutsche Demokratische Republik -- DDR -- auf Deutsch) issued a set of four geophysics stamps in 1980. These stamps are what philatelists call "se-tenant": two or more stamps of different colors, designs or values that are printed adjacent to each other on one sheet. (The American and Swedish sets on stamp collecting showed in my recent posts were also se-tenant.) The German 35-pfennig (pre-Euro) stamp (Scott #2145) shows seismic waves that are both reflected and refracted by layers in the geologic subsurface, used for reconnaissance exploration of oil and natural gas deposits.
Cover from my collection showing GDR Scott block #2146a, including stamps #2143-2146, on the topic of geophysical exploration
In the next couple of months, I am involved in two events relating to my stamp collecting interests. Of course, my main interest is in the IGY (duh) and related stamps and covers. More recently I have also been collecting covers related to U.S. earthquakes. I would include both of these under the rubric of "geo-philately," or stamp collecting related to the geosciences.
One of the major professional geoscience societies is the Geological Society of America, with some 20,000 members. There is an annual national meeting, and also annual regional meetings. This year the Northeastern Section meeting is here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Several people associated with Franklin & Marshall College and Millersville University (and others) are on the organizing committee. I am in charge of workshops/short courses, and I'm also convening an online short course on geo-philately. Anyone, regardless of GSA membership, can participate. Since the workshop is online, you do not have to physically attend the meeting. I hope the workshop would have something to offer to established collectors, beginners, and people who are just curious. There will be two featured presenters, and short presentations from anyone else who would like to (time permitting). Here is a link with the current blurb for this workshop. Registration for the workshop can be done here.
Please contact me if you have interest or questions or suggestions for this workshop. You can leave me a comment via the blog, or send an email to rssternberg@gmail.com.
The second event is a presentation I will make on my IGY collection at a regular virtual meeting of the Philatelic Society of Lancaster County. I am scheduled for Wednesday, April 27, during the group's bimonthly meeting that lasts from 6:30-8:00 pm, Eastern time. The meeting is open to all, so see the web page for instructions on how you can join in to the Zoom meeting.
The description of the talk is as follows:
A Thematic Collection on the International Geophysical Year, 1957-58, by Rob Sternberg.
The International Geophysical Year (1957-1958) was an ambitious cooperative enterprise involving thousands of scientists from sixty-seven nations. A great variety of experiments and measurements were made on, above, and below the Earth's surface. The first artificial satellites were launched as part of the IGY, and there were coordinated and extensive scientific studies of Antarctica and the Arctic. Geophysicist Rob Sternberg will tell the story of the IGY through stamps, covers, and other related ephemera and memorabilia.
This IGY Bulletin article is based on material supplied by Henri Bader of the U.S. Army Snow, Ice, and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE).
The major IGY effort in glaciology was directed towards the study of ice and snow in the polar regions, particularly the glaciers and ice sheets, not only to study ice behavior, but to yield data on climate.
As the Bulletin article points out, summer melt on the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets is minimal, so annual layers of snow are preserved under later layers, and gradually compressed to ice. Extracting annual layers from pits can allow the determination of a chronology of ice layers, which then allows a time series of data on precipitation, contents of trapped atmospheric gases, volcanic ash, etc., within the ice pores. The first such pit was dug to a depth of 15 meters at Eismitte in the middle of the Greenland ice cap by Ernst Sorge in 1930. This was part of the last expedition of Alfred Wegener, who died during that venture. Wegener was trained as an astronomer, worked as a meteorologist and polar scientist, and formulated the first cogent hypothesis of continental drift.
SIPRE drilled through the Greenland ice sheet to a depth of 300 meters in 1956, and to 411 meters in 1957. By the mid-1960s, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (see below) had further cored to a depth of almost 1400 meters, dating back to about 100,000 years ago.
Equipment for deep core drilling was also delivered to Byrd station in Antarctica in October, 1957.
A more complete history of ice core drilling done before, during, and after the IGY is given in the 47-page document, The History of Early Polar Ice Cores, written by Chester C. Langway, Jr. for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2008.
That publication includes the following entry on the International Geophysical Year, focusing on Henri Bader who was responsible for the Bulletin article:
Henri Bader – the Swiss scientist who helped form SIPRE in 1949 – was a renowned expert on mining and snow, having co-written Snow and Its Metamorphosis, which argued that snow and ice contain geological secrets similar to rock. After the formation of SIPRE, Bader began open pit experiments in Greenland measuring ice strata using Sorge’s Law of Densification, which he had reduced to a mathematical formula.
In 1956, he and assistants Chester “Chet” C. Langway and B. Lyle Hansen continued experiments with ice drilling in Greenland, achieving 991- then 1,336-foot samples.
At the 1957 International Geophysical Year conference, Bader as a member of the National Academy of Sciences proposed extracting a deep ice core in Antarctica with a pilot project in Greenland. Due to the heat and friction caused by heavy oil drills damaging the ice cores, the CRREL team had to develop a thermal drill cooled with a trichloroethylene-based fluid and a vacuum that removed meltwater. Using National Science Foundation (NSF) funding, the team started drilling at Camp Century, Greenland, in 1961, reached bedrock in 1966, and reached bedrock drilling at Byrd Station, Antarctica, in 1968.
The International Polar "Year" of 2007-2009 was actually the Fourth IPY, following the First International Polar Year (1882–1883), the Second International Polar Year (1932–1933), and the IGY (1957–58) which was also the Third IPY. A number of stamps were issued for the Fourth IPY; I bought two joint postal portfolios of stamps issued by the countries of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the USA to honor the IPY. Below is a scan of the booklet cover, and the stamps from Greenland, including one showing ice coring. Jay Smith & Associates calls the souvenir sheets issued by these eight countries joint issues; in my last post I had suggested the missed opportunity during the IGY for a joint stamp issue.
Greenland stamp showing ice coring, Scott catalog #491 (2007), for the Fourth IPY
I don't think I ever knew that there was an underlying zany Cold War endeavor for which the important scientific work at Camp Century was partly a smokescreen. Camp Century was also an underground military base with its own nuclear reactor. Wired magazine puts it as follows:
long after Camp Century had been abandoned, it would come to light that the US military was proposing something called the Iceworm system: a nuclear arsenal of 600 ballistic missiles, trained toward the Soviet Union, which would be in constant motion by rail under the Greenland ice sheet. Iceworm was never built. The military soon understood that Camp Century was doomed. At best it would last 10 years, they acknowledged, at which point the overburden of snow would push down on the roof, compress the walls, and thus destroy it. [Duh, ice flows and deforms, as is known from glaciers.]
Camp Century was a perfect example of Cold War paranoia and eccentricity: an improbable outpost that was expensive to build, difficult to maintain, and unpleasant to live within.
I'd encourage you to read the Wired article, which presents some fascinating details about both projects at Camp Century. Henri Bader is cast in a less glowing light in this writeup. One moral of this story is that you can certainly suspect that whenever the U.S. Army or other service branch is coordinating a "research" program, there are likely some military motivations.
This British Channel 4 video summarizes this military aspect of Camp Century, and its environmental impact:
