Bill Wattenburg’s Open Line to the West Coast

Saturday, June 22, 1996

Science Question

A caller asked about lava, and where the heat required to create it came from. The short answer is that the center of the earth is extremely hot and molten, and has been since the Earth was formed billions of years ago. Closer to the Earth’s crust, that heat will actually melt rock and other material beneath the surface, turning it into magma. This magma occasionally finds its way to the earth’s surface through cracks and fissures in the crust, which are often created by the movement of the continental plates, both at the boundaries of the plates, and at other stress points. Once the magma reaches the Earth’s surface, it is then termed lava, where it will cool and turn into a black, mineral-rich material as hard as other rock. When this “rock” is worn down into dirt, it tends to produce extremely fertile soil, making for excellent agriculture. I’ve found several resources on the Internet for learning more about volcanoes, including:

Mount St. Helens: A General Slide Set: This page describes the process of Mount St. Helens’ rebirth as an active volcano. Even though this volcano didn’t produce the more familiar lava flows (its flows were of mud, and instead of producing a fountain of magma, it produced a fountain of ash), it shows the incredible destructive force volcano can produce.
NASA EOS IDS Volcanology Team: There are currently 29 EOS IDS Teams. Most are focussed on studying the oceans, atmosphere, biogeochemical cycles, and hydrology. Only 2 are focussed on geologic processes (our Volcanology Team and the team of Bryan Isacks at Cornell: Climate, Erosion and Tectonics in the Andes and Other Mountain Systems). Dr. Ghassem Asrar (the EOS Program Scientist) presented the following list as the role of the EOS IDS teams (January 11, 1994, at the EOS-IWG meeting).
Ask a Geologist: You can ask a USGS Geologist just about any question you can think of here.

Long, not Hot?

One of the first questions from a caller was “Why is the longest day of the year not also the hottest?”

A: Because the Earth acts as a giant heat sink. Even though the longest day of the year is indeed the day the Earth gets the most solar energy, the heating of the Earth is cumulative, and it takes a while for the increase in absorbed energy that occurs in summer to have a noticeable effect on the average temperature.

U.S. Patent System Under Fire

A caller voiced some opinions about the proposed changes to our patent system.

There are several significant changes being proposed to our current patent system, prompted in part by the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) treaty. In a nutshell, these changes include:

Changing the determining factor by which of several identical inventions receives the patent from the invention first documented (i.e. signed by a notary public, plus some other procedures), to the first patent filed. There are lots of reasons why this isn’t fair to the original inventor, but this is the way most of the rest of the world does it, and they are trying to convince us to follow their lead, at the expense of U.S. inventors.
Changing the term of the patent protection, from the current 17 years, measured from the date the patent is awarded, to 20 years from the date the patent was first applied for. When you realize that most patent applications take longer than 3 years to process, it becomes clear this is actually a reduction in the protection period. Again, not fair.
To add insult to injury, all patent applications will be published, for all the world to see, 18 months after the initial application date. This will happen even if the applicant doesn’t wish this, and even if the patent hasn’t been awarded. This allows anyone in the US or in other countries to literally steal the inventor’s patent, and profit from it, even though the original inventor has no protection, because the patent hasn’t yet been issued. Applications are currently kept secret until they are approved, and this is the only fair way to handle applications.

There are two competing bills that aim to change the patent system. The first, HR3460, is designed to set the rules mandated by GATT in concrete, and should be opposed. The second, HR 359, aims to reverse some of the changes already put in place, and ensure that we maintain the patent system that has worked for this country for the last 200+ years.

Rocket Ships

Someone asked about the reusable rocket that took off and landed on its tail. That rocket was formerly called the DC-XA (now renamed the Clipper Graham in honor of one of its visionaries), and more commonly the “Delta Clipper”. It is merely one proposal for NASA’s first fully-reusable orbital launch vehicle, which includes several other single stage to orbit (SSTO) vehicles.

The homepage for the DC-XA
Main homepage for the Space Launch Initiative (formerly the Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Program).

And someone else asked about NASA’s use of the U-2 spy plane as a high-altitude research vehicle. The plane is now called the ER-2, and is used mainly in atmospheric research, looking for the so-called “ozone hole”.Here are some links related to the ER-2:

ER-2 High Altitude Aircraft
Airborne Science at Ames (the NASA facility where the ER-2 is based, in Mountain View, California)

New-Gas Fraud

According to a caller, Senator Alquist has requested emergency funds to study the new gasoline. The funds are $60,000 for an immediate study and review of CARB’s testing of the new reformulated gasoline to be conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. State Senator Quentin Kopp will be introducing this request in the budget conference committee during the following week. Stay tuned for what happens.

The Automotive Technicians of California has information about the new smog tests that are being mandated beginning this year by the California Air Resources Board. Jim Anderson, President of the ATC, can be reached at 310-602-1018.

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