Slashdot Mirror
Hot Water, Hot Earth
Calopteryx notes a New Scientist article on the discovery of "supercritical" water emerging from a vent in the Atlantic Ocean at 407 deg. C (765 deg. F). One of its discoverers actually said, "It's water, but not as we know it"; it's the hottest water ever found on earth. The cause seems to be a huge bubble of magma beneath the ocean floor, 3 km below the sea surface. Meanwhile Nymz shares a journal entry on a hot spot on land: a 2-acre patch in Ventura county, in California, that has heated up to 433 deg. C (812 deg. F). Here geologists blame buried hydrocarbons burning as they get access to air through cracks in the ground. That high temperature was measured a foot below the ground surface.
Burning hydrocarbons?! Sounds like a good place to put a combo drill/refinery/gas station!
ON DELETE CASCADE
Pfffft. Sounds like a bunch of hot air to me.
I think I saw a special about black smokers on TV, I believe they were discovered in 1977 and I remember watching an interview of miniature sub (Alvin) pilot explaining that his temperature sensor melted when they came upon one of them and he decided to get a reading. If I recall the anecdote correctly, they were slowly drifting toward it as his friend explained to him that the hull of their craft was made of the same metal as the thermometer. He then very carefully began to operate the propellers in reverse.
I think it was even back then that speculation began of life starting around this geothermal energy. That these minerals only populated the sea and made for nutrient rich sea water in which life could propagate.
The only news here is that the 400 ÂC has been passed on record. I think everyone knew these could get insanely hot.
My work here is dung.
Buy an electric car TODAY people! That petrol is causing the ocean to heat up... Wait, what? Magma? Really? Wasn't that around before we invented cars?
Hang on folks, I'll have to get back to you...
"It's water JIM, but not as we know it". Yeash. If you're going to make pop culture references, at least get them right!
In other news, I vote we go to war against California. They are obviously attempting a scorched earth policy against the world's oil supply. Once we've secured the area, we can bring John Wayne in to take care of the problem.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
an awful lot of effort to go through for some parboiled prawns. The Ventura county site sounds like a great spot for a barbecue, though. Don't even have to bring any charcoal.
We are the 198 proof..
Seriously, though, wouldn't the water just convert to steam at that point, even if it WAS under that much water? What are the properties of water at that temperature? Could this conceivably be used to power locomotivators (more commonly known as "iron horses") across large distances on metal rails? This could help solve that whole oil problem!
Also, they found my luau pig! Awesome... seriously, I forgot where I buried it. It's probably too burnt to eat by now, though...
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
See! humans aren't at fault for causing Global Warming! The Earth itself isdoing it!
Get a boat out to that vent, stat. You could fish up pre-boiled lobster there!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As pressure increases, boiling point rises for (almost?) any substance.
As heat increases, density decreases due to increased movement of the particles.
Therefore, shouldn't water at the bottom of the ocean have an unusually high boiling point - and water which is heated to near that boiling point be much less dense?
To me it seems like they're backing up existing thermodynamic properties with evidence
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
Once you put water under enough pressure (think 4000 PSI), you can pump almost an infite amount of heat into it without it undergoing a phase change. Useful for all sorts things, like breaking down any organic compound into constituant atoms. So the water in the story isn't the hottest on earth, only the hottest naturally occuring.
Here geologists blame buried hydrocarbons burning as they get access to air through cracks in the ground.
Does carbon sequestration still sound like a great idea?
It happens that I'm not far from Fillmore, so I went to see the spot. It was intensely hot, and the smoke emanated from a particular bush. I left a mashed up recording of Jeremy Irons playing on a loop. The recording says "You must lead my people out of captivity and into the promised land."
Bar and grill built over hot land! Think of the savings on overhead oven costs!
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
Does this mean that global warming is not caused by Al Queda? Or that Al Bore's coal company is not to blame either? How will Nancy Pelosi save the Earth Now?
Eviscerate the Proletariat!
Plant baked potatos in California?
alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls
global warming is a myth. hot water from magma is causing the earth to warm.
go back to your long hair and pot, you anti-american pro-global warming hoax hippies!
So can we conclude from this that Ventura==hot air?
Of course, many Minnesotans already knew that... (and others learned it the hard way)
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Someone dumped their Honda Magna with a full tank of gas and it is still burning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Magna
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Toss another whale on the barbie!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Don't buck trend buddy! These days it's called "Global Warming!"
You don't want to piss off the Gore groupies!
...That's Hot!
Since every 10 metres of depth gives you one atmosphere of pressure, the pressures at depth are very high and so are boiling points.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"The 812-degree temperature was measured Friday about a foot below the surface."
Buried AND cremated for the price of one.
That should even stop a troll.
hmmm toxic waste dump...
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
WTF?
That was like me saying "Hey, check out my haircut!" with you responding "Yea, my iPhone does that!"
The original article has since been updated with a picture, a map, and even a video. But the 800 degree temperature still lacks a -°-F designation IMO. Here was my original submission:
Ground temperatures exceeding 800 degrees (C? F? HOT!) are being recorded at the Los Padres Forest in Ventura County, California. Geologists are uncertain why, but a popular theory is that hydrocarbons in some form (petroleum, gas, coal) are being exposed to air through cracks formed in dry ground. (Fuel + Oxygen + Heat = Fire Triangle) The last thing California needs are forest fires from below, after so recently fighting off forest fires from lightning above, so fire fighters are closely monitoring the area.
This isn't the town that had to be condemned because the coal underground was ignited?
Could it be that Hot Vents Under the Ice could melt the ice? Well from a basic test you can do in your kitchen - put ice in hot water - proves that it could be the case that the hot vents could melt the ice cap!
Maybe it's not ALL man after all! Maybe mother nature is just doing her thing not caring one bit about us which is the NORMAL course of events in objective reality.
Also, it couldn't be that the sun hitting the earth warms the planet. Nope that's not a factor either even though the sun's gotten a bit hotter over the last four centuries that it's been monitored by humans.
It all must be man. Evil vile man.
How do we pin this on man-made global warming? It's a stretch, but the populace has accepted longer stretches than this. Can I buy credits to offset the effects of this?
WTF?
That was like me saying "Hey, check out my haircut!" with you responding "Yea, my iPhone does that!"
That's what SHE said.
When I first read this article I was immediately reminded of Yellowstone National Park with the phrase "huge bubble of magma". Yellowstone is a well known super volcano. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano
With over 75% of the earth being water, it seems natural to assume that there are supervolcanos underwater. My question is ... does anyone know and if so what sort of effect do such eruptions have on the marine ecosystem?
The cost of refinancing the 2 acres under the mortgage rescue bill immediately shot up to $433,433,433.
The CO2 triple point is interesting to watch. The discovery in the article is regarding water hot enough at high enough pressure to cross this point in nature.
Video of CO2 crossing this point is here;
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Carbon+Dioxide+critical&hl=en&emb=0#q=CO2%20phases&hl=en&emb=0
In a nutshell, it's the point where the vapor is just as dense as the liquid state. Watch to video to the triple point.
The truth shall set you free!
Global warming exists, and it's a figment of some loony leftwing person's imagination. The world is overpopulated, and thats why we need more children to pay for our pensions. Pollution is rife, and we need industries to combat it. But this natural source of energy, it defies us... we must shoot those who would take it's energy and nuke the source. Only then will we be safe... Ok enough bullshit. I've read the comments here and the only ones that rise above the radar are "funny", or pointlessy but "informatively" pointing out obvious facts without pointing out the enourmous potential. Who gives a shit about funny or the fact that boiling point is higher at higher pressures. If you're reading this you should bloody well know that. I expected a discussion of how this can exploited for the benefit of mankind. A massive source of heat nicely placed right bang in the middle of the most humongous heatsink on the planet... Anyone have more constructive comments about this phenomenon?
I don't know why you all are being deliberately ignorant. The underground fire has been burning since the eighties. The fire was started by a certain oil company that claims to be cleaner and greener. They injected super heated air into several wells to improve oil recovery. When the soil moisture drops, poof, you get surface fires, poisonous vents etc. Tapping the energy from these outcroppings is hazardous. Poison gas (H2S)extreme unpredictable heat and sink holes just to name a few hazards. In Granada Hills PG&E injected massive quantities of natural gas in the ground as a means of storage. Unfortunately the gas found its way to the surface through faults. Spontaneous eruptions of flame shooting out of the hillsides caused all kinds of fun. If you really want something to worry about check out the Southern Pacific pipeline condition reports. Those 50 plus year old pipes run right under several dozens of cities from the LA basin to Texas. Texas City will seem tiny in comparison when these pipelines inevitably rupture. Well thats enough for now.
How does water get above 212 deg. F (100 deg. C)?
It's a very dark ride.
Underground hydrocarbon-fueled fires are not new. Centralia, Pennsylvania has been on fire, underground, since 1961. That's forty-seven years. Second, those 'black smokers' are old news, also -older than most /. readers.
Sig this!
It must be all those SUVs in Bikini Bottom!
Or maybe just the grill at the Krusty Krab.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
The whole deal with the Rankine fluid phase change cycle in everthing from your airconditioner to a steam power plant is that the phase change results in a massive volume change (reduction in V). This means that the PV work to bring your working fluid up to pressure is small, or at least small in relation to the work done expanding that fluid in ratio of the V in the vapor phase to V in the liquid phase.
The problem with all gas phase heat engines such as the gas turbine is that since there is no phase change, the amount of compressor power is large compared to the amount of turbine power, and a good fraction of the turbine power runs the compressor. To get good efficiency, you need high mechanical efficiencies for both compressor and turbine.
Since the supercritical state eliminates the phase change, doesn't the supercritical cycle become more like the gas turbine cycle in that a lot of the energy from the turbine is now needed to run the feedwater pump? Or am I missing something here?
Ojai yo!
(Bad pun that makes more sense if you're in the right time zone.)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Lot for sale in california. HOT! HOT! HOT!
Sea monsters, for unknown reason, are related to cows and dogs and thus we can -easily- domesticate them. A generation from now, every child will want and have a pet sea monster. There will be shelters of abandoned sea monsters and giant mounds where the kids that got a sea monster for christmas but didn't really understand the commitment go. PETA will protest, for sure.
This is my sig.
The ocean is riddled with these geological vents heating the sea water at the bottom to more than 700 degrees, all coming out of molten magnum plumes that are miles high wide, and deep, and you don't know how many they are that, there might be a lot, and you are telling me that my Dodge pickup is the thing that's melting the ice caps... just let me get that straight? Maybe there's some effect from the CO2, but I would think that giant molten magma plumes conducting heat to the oceans might, just might, have more to do with heating.
This is my sig.
Whoa! This sounds like HELL! I never thought it was THIS close to the surface. Guess its time I quit my wicked ways....
So is Al Gore going to charge us for our "hot water footprint" now?
A greenie, who had never heard of the naturally-occurring oil seep/hotspot, instantly predicted gloom and doom for California Condors:
That's right, it's a disaster, no matter what! That about sums up their position re: anything remotely environmental; panic, regardless.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Like people have already said, just not feasible for energy use.
Of course these plumes could have a huge impact on ocean currents and that could screw up the climate. Look at what La Nina and El Nino do!
See, I don't see it as censorship per se. What's really happening is that we've long encoded scientific knowledge into the calculus and to a point we've moved beyond that into pure computer models, and our models are telling us some pretty disturbing things about the environment. Intuitively, I don't believe in these models at all, but, by the same token, I don't think we should adopt the skeptic's approach and simply ignore them. Rather, I think researchers need to refine these models so that they are more encompassing, not less, and that, if we have, more example, Hansen saying his model is the "last word", then, its easy enough to topple him - just make a better model. So, the answer is out there for skeptics - its just they have to quit being so lazy and get to work.
This is my sig.
Manga car?
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
you were a hardened skeptic that global warming is measureably being caused by man-made CO2 emissions.
Actually, I flip flop on the issue. First I thought it was crap. Then, I listen to the proponents of global warming, read up on climate modelling and what they are trying to do, and I did some simple calculations of my own and yes, the increase of CO2 in the air is reasonably caused by man and some increase in temperature can be expected from it. The question really is, how much, of both.
What really struck me though, is that, something in space could be screwing with the earth's climate, coupled with that paper from the guy from MIT who hoped there was no life on Mars, because if there was, it was a sign of some future disaster about to hit humanity that has wiped out all life in the galaxy. A few scary science shows about the earth getting roasted by a supernova, then, reading about the lack of sunspots and now, well, I'm actually thinking man is pretty small in all of this. With that said, i do think we need to manage the atmosphere and so some carbon regulation is inevitable. But, I don't think we need the draconian solutions envisioned by the greens. Instead, we're looking at more baby steps and using the fossil fuels we have to power the economy sufficiently to develop a transportation system based on some form of energy that man stores.
The satellite data show no temperature rise at all since 1970s.
Actually, there is a slight rise in the satellite data, until very recently, but now, temperatures are actually falling.
But, even if the satellite aren't calibrated, they serve as certainly a more consistent baseline as to atmospheric temperatures of the planet than a collection of thermometers in random places, and so are way more useful for monitoring trends going forward.
This is my sig.