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Scientists Solve Mystery of Ireland's Moving Boulders
Hugh Pickens writes "How has a 78-ton boulder traveled 130 meters inland from the sea since 1991? Live Science reports that geologists have puzzled for years over the mysterious boulders that litter the desolate coastline of Ireland's Aran Islands that somehow move on their own when no one is looking. The sizes of the boulders in the formations range 'from merely impressive to mind-bogglingly stupendous,' writes geoscientist Rónadh Cox. While some researchers contend that only a tsunami could push these stones, new research finds that plain old ocean waves, with the help of some strong storms, do the job. Some boulders move inland at an average rate of nearly 3 meters per decade, with one rock moving 3.5 meters vertically and 69 meters horizontally in one year. The team compared modern high-altitude photos of the coastline to a set of meticulous maps from 1839 that identified the location of the boulders' ridges — nearly 100 years after the most recent tsunami to hit the region, which struck in 1755. The Aran cliffs rise nearly vertically out of the Atlantic (video), leaving very deep water close to the shore. As waves slam into the sheer cliff, that water is abruptly deflected back out toward the oncoming waves. This backflow may amplify subsequent waves resulting an occasional storm wave that is much larger than one would expect. 'There's a tendency to attribute the movement of large objects to tsunami,' says Cox. 'We're saying hold the phone. Big boulders are getting moved by storm waves.'"
Next thing "science" will probably try and explain moving statues.
I was always told the cause of seeing boulders move in Ireland was Whiskey.
Why would anyone think that sea aliens would do such a thing, when there are Selkies about?
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Maybe the boulders can float. These rocks don't look like basalt/granite and can therefore move around more easily when submerged.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
It was a local man that told the US students about how the sea "washed" a 78 tonne boulder up onto the beach. I would suggest the locals knew this happened and just didn't care or bother to work out why. Occasionally a storm will blow sea-weed from the beach 2 miles to my front door during a storm, so I assume that's normal because it always happens. Their rocks are just a bit bigger :D
Sorry to burst your bubble but the Irish are not a race.
My bubble's quite intact, never fear.
Sure they are, they share many characteristics of being a race, similar cultural background, they share a Celtic background with the Scottish, Cornish, welsh and French, shared language in Irish Gaelic, small geographic ancestry from the west of Europe, and distinct physical appearance, they are all small, red headed drunks with a perchance for green and pots of gold.
Shut it O'Malley.. we need to be goin', the pub is about to open and I need a pint in me to deal with these english bastards.
I can do that, I'm irish!
Cosnóimid Tír na nÓg go deo!!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In the middle of one of our courtyards, we had a small shrine with a statue of Mary, depicting the appearance of her at Lourdes. There was also a lot of rocks and plants for decoration.
One day, we came into school and one of the larger boulders had been moved across the yard to the other side. It had a note attached to it saying "It's a miracle, it moved!".
True story.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Depends if you are taking a Sociological or Anthropological view of race.
Unintended self defeating irony, you don't see that too often these days.
Are they sure that it wasn't Ireland that was moving instead?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
...it's the Leprechauns.
We just take our cue from all those Irish people who still live in the 1920's and think it's just fine hating each other for backing the wrong religion team.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Thats northern ireland, a british adminstered territory, a completely different country. Racial and sectarian tensions springing up wherever the yucks go? say it ain't so.
has no one heard of the sailing stones?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones
Sailing stones, sliding rocks, and moving rocks all refer to a geological phenomenon where rocks move in long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. They have been recorded and studied in a number of places around Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, where the number and length of travel grooves are notable. The force behind their movement is not confirmed and is the subject of research.
Which by the way- occur on land masses devoid of water????
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Well I'm Irish, living in Ireland, and as far as I can tell from watching the country fall apart around me; no, things don't seem to have moved on very much at all.
The country was bankrupted by a drunken Taoiseach, and is now being pauperised by religious one. People are emigrating in droves and TDs respond by complain about the problems of "fornication". Landlords, lawyers, and bankers are living high on an ascendancy hoc while everyone else is being squeezed dry, and the country is once again a pawn in the games of European great powers.
Frankly, things here don't seem to have moved on very much from the 1850s.
Personally, I found the joke amusing. I'm faced with enough incompetence to know that it's probably half true anyway.
May the Maths Be with you!
There isn't one sentence in there resembling reality. The country was bankrupted by a lying scumbag (Ahern) and an incompetent Finance Minister (Lenihan). Cowen was just a puppet. I must have missed the great fornication debate that seems to be taking up 100% of the time of 100% of the politicians in the country. Oh wait, no I didn't, because it was one back country TD making one ridiculous comment. More news you appear to have missed, the landlords of some twenty plus houses were forcibly evicted from their own palatial residence recently, there are plenty of unemployed solicitors, and even bankers have joined the dole queues. I know a few of them personally.
Perhaps the time has come for you to take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself who is looking back, because its not someone with a firm grasp on reality. That's even if you are in Ireland, because nobody here refers to solicitors as "lawyers".
Oh no; we're a competition.
May the Maths Be with you!
Proof would be to measure a REAL storm wave moving the bolder.
Or use the simulation and see if a wave occurs as predicted by it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
FTFA (first line):
How did a 78-ton boulder travel 17 miles above high water, 130 meters inland?
This is the start of an entirely different news article that I can complete in two words: it didn't.
I can't believe that this was a mystery. This is completely obvious to anyone who can think. There is a similar phenomenon with the moving rocks in the Death Valley. If you have water and wind you can basically move anything given enough time.
That suggestion was quickly met with a fiery and typically bolshie response from Brian Cowen -- the man on whose watch as finance minister most of the worst crimes were committed. "We're not fucking nationalising Anglo," he shouted as he slammed the table.
Context is everything. The comments were made in the middle of a debate about
I'll just refer you and all your friends who have run off to London and transferred assets to their wives and children to this article on the grand delusions of property "victims".
The time has come for you to go back to reading the Irish Times and pretending that there's nothing wrong with the country. Why don't you spend today reading their latest barrage of pro Fiscal Treaty propaganda. And while you're at it, ask yourself where a newspaper in the middle of a recession got the money to pay for all those columnists and shiny new supplements.
It's a collective term for barristers, laywers, and crooks. I suspect you're friends with quite a few yourself.
May the Maths Be with you!
Cool! An Irish flame war - that's something I haven't seen on /. before! *GB fills his cup, sits back to watch.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Thats northern ireland, a british adminstered territory, a completely different country.
If only all the Irish thought this way there would never have been a conflict.
That suggestion was quickly met with a fiery and typically bolshie response from Brian Cowen -- the man on whose watch as finance minister most of the worst crimes were committed. "We're not fucking nationalising Anglo," he shouted as he slammed the table.
So what? He took his orders from Ahern, and Ahern set things in motion in such a way that a crash was inevitable. Lenihan then authorised the disastrous blanket banking guarantee after a tense and secret midnight meeting with the top bankers.
Context is everything. The comments were made in the middle of a debate about
...what does that have to do with what I said? You're painting visions of politicians tearing their hair out over "fornication" when it was just one nutty backwoods TD, who has since been kept firmly muzzled by the party.
I'll just refer you and all your friends who have run off to London and transferred assets to their wives and children to this article on the grand delusions of property "victims".
Oh right so all of the investment property owners in the country have run off to London have they? What nonsense. You're again trying to paint a picture of champagne-quaffing nascent upper classes, when the reality is that anyone unwise enough to have invested in property over the last twelve years here is in deeper trouble than anyone.
The time has come for you to go back to reading the Irish Times and pretending that there's nothing wrong with the country.
And he finishes off by putting words in my mouth. I never said there was nothing wrong with the country. I said it was racist to stereotype Irish people as stupid, which it is. And if that's not patently obvious, there really is something wrong with you. Here try this experiment: replace the word "Irishman" in the op with "black man" and see how that goes down.
Aren't leprechauns much more parsimonious?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The oceans are just receding
Dr. Brian O'Nolan, aka Miles nCopaleen, one of Ireland's greatest humorous writers and a great student of the Irish language, once remarked that the only four words you really needed to know to get by in Western Ireland were downpour, eternity, whiskey and potatoes. The French, on the other hand, were frequently militarily successful until the start of WW2 (and, as the US discovered, weren't the only round-eyes who couldn't hold on to Vietnam), whereas the Russians themselves joke about the perversity of life in Russia. So: sarcastic exemplar fail.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
But what are we supposed to do when the stereotype starts ringing true? Pretend there's no basis to it? Or that anyone pointing out flaws in the Irish is always wrong, or racist, or should be ignored?
You need to ask yourself the question: What if the Irish really _are_ a race of feckless, stupid, drunks, and the present state of the country is the proof of it? Should we ignore the possibility, or should we actually try to examine our issues and deal with our sick culture of governance?
You said people still thought it was the 1950s, when the country really was a utter basket case. My view is that not much has changed in the last 50 years. Ireland hasn't earned any new stereotypes.
May the Maths Be with you!
True story: I was in an Irish glaziers in Kilburn when a man came in with an order. He started to read it out and the man behind the counter said "How do I know that comes from your boss? If I know him he'll deny all knowledge of it." The other guy said "Look, he's signed it at the bottom". The reply? "I know your boss, he's capable of forging his own signature." Yes, it's the sense of humour. They know precisely what they're saying.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I said it was racist to stereotype Irish people as stupid, which it is.
We all agree. But then you suggested the person making the remark was English. Pot, meet kettle.
Ah, well. What would Ireland be without pointless suffering at the hands of stupid, greedy blockheads?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
But what are we supposed to do when the stereotype starts ringing true? Pretend there's no basis to it?
What the hell is wrong with you. Every single point about the "stupidity" of Irish people above has been demolished, even the ad hominems and strawmen you wheeled out, and you're still sticking to this madness. I'm making no excuses for the government or the political system that muppet DeValera landed on us, but as if to say Ireland is the only country in the world that elected bad politicians from time to time. The Germans elected a couple of bad politicians in the not too distant past, are you calling them stupid as well?
You need to ask yourself the question: What if the Irish really _are_ a race of feckless, stupid, drunks, and the present state of the country is the proof of it? Should we ignore the possibility, or should we actually try to examine our issues and deal with our sick culture of governance?
There is no race of stupid feckless drunks, and only a stupid person would imagine there is. Although if you want to go down that road:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7616405/Britain-is-the-binge-drinking-capital-of-Europe.html
Of course that won't fit into the narrative you've constructed for yourself, even though its coming from the Torygraph, not noted for being critical of all things British. There are problems here as with every country on the planet, none of which makes a racist joke any less racist. Tell me, what part of Ireland are you from?
If only the english had stayed out of the place originally there likewise would never have been a conflict.
And thus the leprechauns secret was safe for another 100 years
Instead of "Scientists Solve Mystery of Ireland's Moving Boulders" it should read "Scientists *Deepen* Mystery of Ireland's Moving Boulders."
This is what the linked article amounts to. Scientists believed that tsunamis moved the boulders in question. Comparing aerial photos to old surveys of the islands show that can't be the explanation, because boulders have moved since the last tsunami. The scientists then speculated that it might be rogue waves. Then they ginned up a plausible mechanism by which rogue waves might be more common on Aran than thought. Because it was plausible they concluded that *must* be the explanation, because the next best thing they could think up is little green men.
For the record, I think rogue waves moved the boulders. I've seen what waves can do to stony reefs, and the power of water is not to be underestimated. But I have no proof, and neither do they. If the articles are to be believed (which is often doubtful), they researchers are building models around the *assumption* that it must have been rogue waves. Using such a model as evidence of its assumptions would be begging the question.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Or just inconsistent writing?
"How has a 78-ton boulder traveled 130 meters inland from the sea since 1991? ... Some boulders move inland at an average rate of nearly 3 meters per decade,....
The way I learned math 130m in 21 years is much greater than 3m/decade.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
If only the english had stayed out of the place originally there likewise would never have been a conflict.
s/english/scots/.
Of course we drove the Scots out of the highlands so it is still our fault indirectly.
Better to look like one than have a super tiny one that everyone thinks is a clitoris like you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_of_Ulster
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2834595&cid=39927565
This is evidence that, as suggested by Aristotle thousands of years ago, rocks have free will. They are not pulled to the center of the earth by an "invisible" force as was suggested by Newton, but the rocks prefer to be closer to larger rocks, of which our planet is a colony of closely connected rocks. The rocks in Ireland are most likely moving inland of their own free will so they can self-assemble into structures such as the one found at Stonehenge in England. Even when faced with clear and convincing evidence, the unbelievers grasp at straws and try to make up absurd explanations for the truth that is revealed in front of them. Everybody knows that there is no mechanical means that early humans could have used to drag stones hundreds of miles to Stonehenge. The same is true for the stones that assembled into the pyramids at Egypt. Now we are supposed to believe that storm waves are moving the stones, against all plausible logic or liklihood - AND WITHOUT EVIDENCE. A pure hypothesis of those who refuse to believe. It is time for all humanity to pull their heads out of the sand and embrace the reality that rocks have free will and are the dominant life form on this planet. I, for one, welcome our ancient geologic overlords!
"Once a corral of wooden stakes was placed around two of the rocks. The team then left. (Remember, the rocks won't move when anyone is around.) When they returned, one rock had moved out, while the other stayed in the corral. The rocks seem to slide rather than roll, but to this day, no one knows why. The only certainty is that something is either pushing or pulling them."
TFA is a good theory for Ireland but there must be something else at work in Death Valley. Ice has been ruled out as well.
http://voices.yahoo.com/moving-rocks-death-valley-national-park-13323.html
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Mostly off topic, but as of this post I started reading all the comments in some sort of Gaelic descendant accent. Since I have not spent enough time around Scots and Irish, I honestly don't know if the accent was Irish, Scottish, Gaelic, Speretheriel, or simply the Sean Connery impersonator from SNL Celebrity Jeopardy.
Is that where it comes from? I'm only 1/16th Irish, but I seem to have inherited their hankering for pots of gold. Haven't found one, yet...
Sorry to burst your bubble but the Irish are not a race.
That's arguable given the cultural history of Ireland, however you would be hard put to not identify the Irish as a Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, or history.[1] In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government (for example the inhabitants of a sovereign state) irrespective of their ethnic make-up.[2][3] In international relations, nation can refer to a country or sovereign state.[1] The word nation can more specifically refer to people of North American Indians, such as the Cherokee Nation that prefer this term over the contested term tribe.
Discriminating against an entire nation is a form of xenophobia which is largely akin to racism. (If I go any further someone will call Godwin and we can all go home...)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I thought this phenomena also occurred int he high desert of chile? Ocean waves will not explain those ones..
It's pretty easy for moving water to move large rocks. Their "weight" underwater is far less than in air.
...oh it's just Tesla yet again....
I'm missing the logical leap in your response. How does a comment referring to the Ulster Plantations and displacement of the Scots somehow justify your racist remark? Are you suggesting that events of 400 years ago are paramount to modern bigotry?
I really, really, hope that you're not suggesting that the British occupation of Northern Ireland means you can simply label every member of a nationality in a derogatory fashion. That really would be an ignorant and dangerous attitude. Even stupid.
Ah, well. What would Ireland be without pointless suffering at the hands of stupid, greedy blockheads?
But its a member of the European Union now .... oh wait
Sure they are, they share many characteristics of being a race, similar cultural background, they share a Celtic background with the Scottish, Cornish, welsh and French, shared language in Irish Gaelic, small geographic ancestry from the west of Europe, and distinct physical appearance, they are all small, red headed drunks with a perchance for green and pots of gold.
You m issed out the Manx and the french are called Breton ... just making sure.
Quite simply it was on a plate (unification) ... but they missed their chance ...
Read it again slower. He is, in fact, English.
It's ghosts, and water that move the rocks. I mean, what happens when you put a rock on water? it sinks, clearly water can't move rocks~
This is all made up so scientists can get grants and force more taxes down are thought.
AGW sound like this, but 100 times worse.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As the linked comment suggests the Irish PM de Valera did not trust Churchill's secret promise - and he had some very good reasons not to.
In WWI Britain had made public expansive promises of autonomy to India in exchange for that nation's vigorous support of the war effort - only to be met with the extremely repressive Rowlatt Act in 1919, followed by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, Punjab.
In the massacre Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer had the British Army block all escape routes for a large crowd of men, women and children gathered for the festival of Baisakhi, then open fire into the crowd for 10 minutes. 1,500 Indians were casualties, the British later claimed that 379 were killed (a curiously exact number since they did not count the bodies), historians believe the number killed was much higher, Indians estimate it at 1000. Dyer was forced to retire, but was received as a hero in Britain.
In Ireland itself, home rule was promised in 1914 - but suspended when the war broke out, during which the British tried conscripting the Irish to fight in the trenches, and after the end of the war no action to deliver the promised home rule was taken, leading to the Irish War of Independence.
With this recent history in mind (only 20 years before) de Valera had little reason to trust Churchill's secret promise.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
:^D I thought that you meant Great Britain, not Gary Bickford.
testing out my trending skills
Haha! I hadn't thought of that, but it works both ways. :)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/