831 Chapter 7 Volcanoes and other "natural" disasters

Message no. 831[Branch from no. 828] Posted by Thomas Culhane (1311520071) on Sunday, April 15, 2007 6:09pm Subject: Re: Pat Friedrichs chapter7 Relational summary

Thanks for the link to one of my favorite websites, http://space.com, the sister website to http://livescience.com. After reading the article on vulcanism on mars, though, I have to say I wouldn't worry too much about volcanic activity raining on your eutopian parade -- seems the youngest activity is at least a million years ago, and more likely 3 to 10 million, and if it is active it would be "one every 10,000 years or so". Given that people still build houses around Mt. St. Helens (which erupted in 1980, remember?) I shouldn't worry about Mars volcanoes! Might rather worry about Volcanoes in Los Angeles (Have you seen the Tommy Lee Jones film, "Volcano" about just that? Great flick, which I think about every time I pass the La Brea Tar Pits on Wilshire Blvd on my way to UCLA from the L.A. Eco Village!

Have you seen Dante's Peak, with Pierce Brosnan?

That is another fun "volcano destroys real estate on the west coast so don't build here" movie!

Speaking of carbon dioxide, did you know that navy divers use "oxygen rebreathers" or CO2 scrubbers that chemically bind with and remove CO2 from the air we breathe? They will be no doubt necessary on Mars. Usually what happens is that we pass out from a surfeit (too much) CO2 before we run out of oxygen. A Co2 scrubber removes the CO2 we breathe out so we can go on breathing the air until all the oxygen is gone. Here is a website that you might get some good facts from your Mars colony from:

http://www.frogdiver.com/scrubber.html

As ever, I enjoyed your post!