http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Toronto Thu, 23 May 2013 01:23:36 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Toronto Wed, 22 May 2013 14:26:46 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=805_1369246551 PORK-CHOP Description: "Durham police officer threatens to beat up a man and plant cocaine on him, in a one-sided, expletive-laced confrontation, caught on a hidden video camera."- Toronto Star http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=805_1369246551 PORK-CHOP Durham Cop Threatens To Beat Citizen And Plant Cocaine On Him! police, drugs, cocaine, inncoent, pigs, cops, 50, crazy, nuts Wed, 22 May 2013 11:11:11 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b58_1369229212 BloodyPeasant Another video about the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes, this time produced jointly by the USGS and the state of Tennessee with more of a focus on Tennessee itself. The 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes were an intense intraplate earthquake series beginning with an initial pair of very large earthquakes on December 16, 1811. These earthquakes remain the most powerful earthquakes to hit the eastern United States in recorded history. These events, as well as the seismic zone of their occurrence, were named for the Mississippi River town of New Madrid, then part of the Louisiana Territory, now within Missouri. There are estimates that the earthquakes were felt strongly over roughly 50,000 sq mi, and moderately across nearly 1 million square miles. The historic 1906 San Francisco earthquake, by comparison, was felt moderately over roughly 6,200 sq mi. The 1811-1812 earthquakes The four earthquakes December 16, 1811, 2:15 a.m. (M ~7.2 - 8.1) epicenter in northeast Arkansas. It caused only slight damage to man-made structures, mainly because of the sparse population in the epicentral area. The future location of Memphis, Tennessee experienced level IX shaking on the Mercalli intensity scale. A seismic seiche propagated upriver, and Little Prairie (a village that was on the site of the former Fort San Fernando, near the site of present-day Caruthersville, Missouri) was heavily damaged by soil liquefaction. December 16, 1811, 8:15 a.m. (M ~7.2-8.1) epicenter in northeast Arkansas. This shock followed the first earthquake by six hours and was similar in intensity. January 23, 1812, 9 a.m. (M ~7.0-7.8) epicenter in the Missouri Bootheel. The meizoseismal area was characterized by general ground warping, ejections, fissuring, severe landslides, and caving of stream banks. Johnson and Schweig attributed this earthquake to a rupture on the New Madrid North Fault. This may have placed strain on the Reelfoot Fault. February 7, 1812, 4:45 a.m. (M ~7.4-8.0) epicenter near New Madrid, Missouri. New Madrid was destroyed. At St. Louis, Missouri, many houses were severely damaged, and their chimneys were toppled. This shock was definitively attributed to the Reelfoot Fault by Johnston and Schweig. Uplift along a segment of this reverse fault created temporary waterfalls on the Mississippi at Kentucky Bend, created waves that propagated upstream, and caused the formation of Reelfoot Lake by obstructing streams in what is now Lake County, Tennessee. Susan Hough, a seismologist of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), has recently estimated the earthquakes' magnitudes as "right around magnitude 7. Possibly a bit below, possibly a bit above, but not as big as 7.5." Eyewitness accounts John Bradbury, a Fellow of the Linnean Society, was on the Mississippi on the night of December 15, 1811, and describes the tremors in great detail in his Travels in the Interior of America in the Years 1809, 1810 and 1811, published in 1817. After supper, we went to sleep as usual: about ten o'clock, and in the night I was awakened by the most tremendous noise, accompanied by an agitation of the boat so violent, that it appeared in danger of upsetting ... I could distinctly see the river as if agitated by a storm; and although the noise was inconceivably loud and terrific, I could distinctly hear the crash of falling trees, and the screaming of the wild fowl on the river, but found that the boat was still safe at her moorings. By the time we could get to our fire, which was on a large flag in the stern of the boat, the shock had ceased; but immediately the perpendicular banks, both above and below us, began to fall into the river in such vast masses, as to nearly sink our boat by the swell they occasioned ... At day-light we had counted twenty-seven shocks. Eliza Bryan in New Madrid, Territory of Missouri, wrote the following eyewitness account in March, 1812. On the 16th of December, 1811, about two o'clock, a.m., we were visited by a violent shock of an earthquake, accompanied by a very awful noise resembling loud but distant thunder, but more hoarse and vibrating, which was followed in a few minutes by the complete saturation of the atmosphere, with sulphurious vapor, causing total darkness. The screams of the affrighted inhabitants running to and fro, not knowing where to go, or what to do-the cries of the fowls and beasts of every species-the cracking of trees falling, and the roaring of the Mississippi- the current of which was retrograde for a few minutes, owing as is supposed, to an irruption in its bed- formed a scene truly horrible. John Reynolds (February 26, 1788 - May 8, 1865) who was the 4th governor of Illinois, among other political posts, mentions the earthquake in his biography My Own Times: Embracing Also the History of My Life (1855): On the night of 16th November, 1811, an earthquake occurred, that produced great consternation amongst the people. The centre of the violence was in New Madrid, Missouri, but the whole valley of the Mississippi was violently agitated. Our family all were sleeping in a log cabin, and my father leaped out of bed crying aloud "the Indians are on the house" ... We laughed at the mistake of my father, but soon found out it was worse than the Indians. Not one in the family knew at the time that it was an earthquake. The next morning another shock made us acquainted with it, so we decided it was an earthquake. The cattle came running home bellowing with fear, and all animals were terribly alarmed on the occasion. Our house cracked and quivered, so we were fearful it would fall to the ground. In the American Bottom many chimneys were thrown down, and the church bell in Cahokia sounded by the agitation of the building. It is said the shock of an earthquake was felt in Kaskaskia in 1804, but I did not perceive it. The shocks continued for years in Illinois, and some have experienced it this year, 1855. The Shaker diarist Samuel Swan McClelland described the effects of the earthquake on the Shaker settlement at West Union (Busro), Indiana, where the earthquakes contributed to the temporary abandonment of the westernmost Shaker community. Consequence of the 1811-12 earthquakes Sand blows were common throughout the area, and can still be seen from the air in cultivated fields. The shockwaves propagated efficiently through the firm midwestern bedrock, with residents as far away as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk, Virginia, awakened by intense shaking. Church bells were reported to ring as far as Boston, Massachusetts and York, Ontario (now Toronto), and sidewalks were reported to have been cracked and broken in Washington, D.C. There were also reports of toppled chimneys in Maine. Disaster relief A request, dated January 13, 1812, by William Clark (famous for his exploration of the American West with Meriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery from 1803 to 1805), then the governor of the Louisiana Territory (the territory was renamed the Missouri Territory soon after the quake to eliminate confusion with the new state of Louisiana), asked for federal relief for the "inhabitants of New Madrid County." Whereas the Catalogue of miseries and afflictions, with which it has pleased the Supreme Being of the Universe to visit the inhabitants of the earth there are none more truly awful and destructive than Earthquakes ... The inhabitants of the late District now County of New Madrid, in this Territory, have lately been visited with several calamities of this kind, which have deluged large portions of their country and involved in the greatest distress many families, whilst others have been entirely ruined ... In the opinion of the said General Assembly provisions ought to be made by law for or cashiered to the said inhabitants relief, either out of the public fund or in some other way as may can meet to the cost demand availability of the General Government. This is possibly the very first request that the U.S. Federal Government had received for aid from one of its territories. Slave George murder The earthquakes helped bring to justice the murderers of George Lewis (commonly known as "Slave George"). George was slain on the night of December 15-16, 1811 by two nephews of Thomas Jefferson, Lilburn Lewis and Isham Lewis, who were also relatives of Meriwether Lewis. After killing him with an axe in front of other slaves, George's owners intended to burn his remains, but the first New Madrid earthquake interrupted their effort, and so the corpse was interred in a brick chimney. The murder might well have escaped discovery by authorities, except that the January 23 and February 7 quakes caused the chimney to partially collapse, exposing George's remains. Lilburn and Isham Lewis were quickly investigated, arrested and charged. Lilburn killed himself; Isham escaped from jail and probably died during the War of 1812. Geologic setting The underlying cause of New Madrid earthquakes is not well understood, but modern faulting seems to be related to an ancient geologic feature buried under the Mississippi River alluvial plain, known as the Reelfoot Rift. Reelfoot rift The New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ) is made up of reactivated faults that formed when what is now North America began to split or rift apart during the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia in the Neoproterozoic Era (about 750 million years ago). Faults were created along the rift and igneous rocks formed from magma that was being pushed towards the surface. The resulting rift system failed but has remained as an aulacogen (a scar or zone of weakness) deep underground. Another unsuccessful attempt at rifting 200 million years ago created additional faults, which made the area weaker. The resulting geological structures make up the Reelfoot Rift, and have since been deeply buried by younger sediments. But the ancient faults appear to have made the rocks deep in the Earth's crust in the New Madrid area mechanically weaker than much of the rest of North America. This weakness, possibly combined with focusing effects from mechanically stronger igneous rocks nearby, allows the relatively small east-west compressive forces that exist in the North American plate to reactivate old faults, making the area prone to earthquakes. Since other rifts are known to occur in North America's stress environment but not all are associated with modern earthquakes, (for example the Midcontinent Rift System that stretches from Minnesota to Kansas), other processes could be at work to locally increase mechanical stress on the New Madrid faults. Stress changes associated with bending of the lithosphere caused by the melting of continental glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, has been considered to play a role, as well as downward pull from sinking igneous rock bodies below the fault. It has also been suggested that some form of heating in the lithosphere below the area may be making deep rocks more plastic, which concentrates compressive stress in the shallower subsurface area where the faulting occurs. There may be local stress from a change in the flow of the mantle beneath the NMSZ, caused by the sinking Farallon Plate, according to one model. Seismic zone When epicenters of modern earthquakes are plotted on a map, three trends become apparent. First is the general northeast-southwest trend paralleling the trend of the Reelfoot Rift, in Arkansas, south of where the epicenters turn northwest. This is a right-lateral strike-slip fault system parallel to the Reelfoot Rift. The second is the southeast to northwest trend that occurs just southwest of New Madrid. This trend is a stepover thrust fault known as the Reelfoot Fault, associated with the Tiptonville dome and the impoundment of Reelfoot Lake. Epicenter locations on this fault are more spread out because the fault surface is inclined and dips into the ground, towards the south, at around forty degrees. Slip is towards the northeast. Motion on this fault in the 1811-1812 series created waterfalls on the Mississippi. The third line, extending northeast from the northwestern end of the Reelfoot Fault is another right-lateral strike-slip fault, termed New Madrid North. The epicenters of over 4,000 earthquakes can be identified from seismic measurements taken since 1974. It can be seen that the earthquakes originate from the seismic activity of the Reelfoot Rift. The zone which is colored in red on the map is called the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Recent earthquakes 4000 earthquake reports since 1974 The zone remains active today. In recent decades minor earthquakes have continued. New forecasts estimate a 7 to 10 percent chance, in the next 50 years, of a repeat of a major earthquake like those that occurred in 1811-1812, which likely had magnitudes of between 7.5 and 8.0. There is a 25 to 40 percent chance, in a 50-year time span, of a magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquake. Recurrence potential In a report filed in November 2008, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a serious earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and particularly Tennessee, where a 7.7 magnitude quake or greater would cause damage to tens of thousands of structures affecting water distribution, transportation systems, and other vital infrastructure. The potential for the recurrence of large earthquakes and their impact today on densely populated cities in and around the seismic zone has prompted research devoted to understanding the New Madrid Seismic Zone. By studying evidence of past quakes and closely monitoring ground motion and current earthquake activity, scientists attempt to understand their causes and recurrence intervals. The lack of apparent land movement along the New Madrid fault system has long puzzled scientists. In 2009 two studies based on eight years of GPS measurements indicated that the faults were moving at no more than 0.2 millimeters (0.0079 in) a year. In contrast, the rate of slippage on the San Andreas Fault averages as much as 37 mm (1.5 in) a year across California. Description from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_quakes For similar videos visit: http://disasters.liveleak.com http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b58_1369229212 BloodyPeasant The 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquakes (720p) new madrid earthquake, mo, quake, 1811, 1812, tennesee, tennessee, tenessee Fri, 17 May 2013 21:27:09 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b32_1368840208 smyle On Thursday, Gawker's John Cook reported the existence of a video that allegedly shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. Since entering public service as a city councilor in 2000, Ford has been known for his odd and improper public behavior and comments , a habit that only got worse after he was elected mayor in 2010. Whether he's accosting out-of-towners at a hockey game, offering to help procure OxyContin for a constituent, or railing against streetcars and anti-poverty activists, Ford has consistently tested the limits of "mayoral behavior." In fact, the public servant Ford most closely resembles is the fictional mayor from The Simpsons, Diamond Joe Quimby. Both men are heavyset. Both are often at odds with constituents, colleagues, and the press. And both are prone to saying outrageous things in public. I've prepared a 20-question quiz of quotes from Ford and Quimby. Which mayor said which wildly inappropriate thing? Answers are at the bottom. 1. "Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?" 2. "It's hard to hide 300 pounds of fun." 3. "People don't want to see their mayor stuck in an office all the time, they want to see him right at their door." 4. "We'll blow up our dams, destroy forests, anything! If there's a species of animal causing problems, nosing around your camera, we'll have it wiped out." 5. "Demand? Who are you to demand anything? I run this town. You're just a bunch of low-income nobodies." 6. "Let's call a spade a spade. The left would have taken it and just wanted to spend it on crazy, stupid things like more social programs ..." 7. "Oh my god, I never want to hurt a bike. That's the last thing I want to do, precious little bikes." 8. "I ordered the re-opening of this prison to send a message to the criminals of . If you commit a violent crime in my town, you are going to end up here. To demonstrate what you're in for, I will now strap myself into this electric chair, which was deactivated over 30 years ago, and, I can only assume, still is." 9. "Water is the healthiest form of liquid." 10. "By the way, this woman is not my wife, but I am sleeping with her. I'm telling you this because I'm comfortable with my womanizing." 11. "I'm sick of you people, you're nothing but a pack of fickle mush heads." 12. "Tuesday, Nov. 27, I'm going to be playing hooky from City Hall." 13. "Those Oriental people work like dogs. ... They're slowly taking over." 14. "Now on to the next item, the proposal for putting term limits on public office. All those in favor say, 'I have sex with animals.' " 15. "I'd love to see us sell the zoo and make money on it if we can. ... Keep the elephants here and take it from there." 16. "You don't scare me, that could be anyone's ass. Now beat it! I'm calling the shots." 17. "I will retract the word 'ass.' " 18. "Very well, if that is the way the winds are blowing, let no one say I don't also blow." 19. "You are tampering with forces you can't understand, we have major corporations sponsoring this event." 20. "I'm as clean as the days are long." ANSWERS: Ford: 2 , 3 , 6 , 7 , 9 , 12 , 13 , 15 , 17 , 20 Quimby: 1 , 4 , 5 , 8 , 10 , 11 , 14 , 16 , 18 , 19 http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/05/17/rob_ford_crack_cocaine_simpsons_mayor_diamond_joe_quimby_or_toronto_mayor.html?wpisrc=most_viral http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b32_1368840208 smyle Who Said It: <span class="highlight">Toronto</span> Mayor Rob Ford or Simpsons Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby? Diamond Joe Quimby, Toronto, Mayor Rob Ford, crack cocaine, lol Fri, 17 May 2013 01:00:53 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=38d_1368766426 TheAnswer A cellphone video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine is being shopped around Toronto by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade. Two Toronto Star reporters have viewed the video three times. It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches. "I'm f---ing right-wing," Ford mutters at one point. "Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I'm ..." and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a "fag." Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), "they are just f---ing minorities." The Star had no way to verify the video, which appears to clearly show Ford in a well-lit room. What follows is an account based on what both reporters viewed on the video screen. Attempts to reach the mayor and members of his staff to get comment on this story were unsuccessful. A lawyer retained by Ford, Dennis Morris, said that Thursday's publication by the Gawker website of some details related to the video was "false and defamatory." Morris told the Star that by viewing a video it is impossible to tell what a person is doing. "How can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?" Morris said. Ford's chief of staff, Mark Towhey, would not listen to questions on Thursday night and abruptly hung up when called. The video was taken on a smartphone by a person who said he has supplied crack cocaine to the mayor. The Crack Cocaine video will be posted her as it is released. Till then here is Rob Ford putting magnets on cars. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=38d_1368766426 TheAnswer <span class="highlight">Toronto</span> Mayor Rob Ford in 'crack cocaine' video scandal Rob Ford, Crack Cocaine, Scandal, Toronto, Drugs, Corruption Fri, 17 May 2013 00:04:07 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d2e_1368763021 Omar-knows My hometown Toronto, the best city in North America. The most multicultural city in the world. There is no other city like it North America. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d2e_1368763021 Omar-knows <span class="highlight">Toronto</span> my hometown in Typography - Kardinal Official Anthem. Toronto, Canada, Kardinall official, anthem, CN Tower, Maple Leafs, Blue Jays, Raptors, Hog city, multicultural, Tdot, T.O, T Dizzle, Drake, Mon, 20 May 2013 11:43:42 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=346_1369064375 Rubicon_Cube - - TORONTO, CANADA: Somali crack dealers in Toronto are trying to sell a video that shows anti-immigrant ultra-conservative mayor Rob Ford partying with them and smoking crack through a pipe. This picture is a frame capture of that video, they want $100,000 for it, originally they were asking for $1 million. - - http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=346_1369064375 Rubicon_Cube Did <span class="highlight">Toronto</span>'s City Mayor Smoked Crack With Somali Hoodlums? rob ford Mon, 20 May 2013 23:42:02 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c99_1369107010 Skrilla_mane Weirdo starts singing on the TTC. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c99_1369107010 Skrilla_mane Crazy Guy Singing on Subway ***VOLUME WARNING*** funny, random, singing, music, subway, toronto, canada, harmonica, crazy, hobo, bike, ttc, hilarious, smile, keep on smiling, good, sing, laugh, busy, solo, insane, unusual, impromptu, WTF Sun, 19 May 2013 05:33:18 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad5_1368955855 nobyte10000 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ad5_1368955855 nobyte10000 A Message of Peace - European Parliament usa, europe, parliament, world peace, los angeles, washington dc, new york, toronto, canada, germany, vancouver, belgium Sat, 18 May 2013 20:42:26 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c59_1368924084 nobyte10000 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c59_1368924084 nobyte10000 Vancouver, Canada: A Message of Gratitude by Jason Kenny vancouver, canada, toronto, jason kenny, politics, peace, world, human rights Sat, 18 May 2013 17:45:18 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dc1_1368913411 nobyte10000 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dc1_1368913411 nobyte10000 Vancouver, Canada: Grand Event with World Muslim Leader canada, toronto, vancouver, world peace, faith, politics Tue, 21 May 2013 04:24:34 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa9_1369123928 BrooklynJAH 1) There's little support for it in Turkey The Syrian civil war has spilled over into Turkey on a number of occasions - in addition to the recent bombings in Reyhanli, there was a car bomb at a Turkish border crossing in February that killed 14; and last June Syria shot down a Turkish reconnaissance jet off the Syrian coast. However, despite these seeming acts of aggression, there has been little appetite among average Turks for an incursion into Syria, says Amir Hassanpour, a retired professor of Mideast affairs at the University of Toronto. The main reason for this, he says, is that Turks are tired of bloodshed. Not only has Turkey recently come through a three-decade civil war of its own with Kurdish rebels, which claimed 40,000 lives, it has also witnessed at close hand the bloody, chaotic outcomes of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Public opinion doesn't really like Turkish involvement in wars in the region," 2) The Turkish leadership has domestic demands The other factor here is that Prime Minister Erdogan is preoccupied with two equally pressing domestic issues -- forging a peace agreement with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and reaching consensus on a new constitution -- observes Reva Bhalla, vice-president of global analysis for the Texas-based consultancy Stratfor. Turkey's 30-year battle with Kurdish rebels, which are located largely in the southeastern party of the country bordering Iraq, came to an end in March when jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan announced a truce. Since then, the Turkish government has been working to solidify the peace, and part of that is enshrining rights for Kurds in a new constitution. "This is a very sensitive political time for the ruling party, as Erdogan is trying to cobble together a whole series of constitutional revisions and at the same time negotiate a comprehensive peace deal with the PKK - and those two issues are intertwined," 3) Military intervention could threaten a PKK peace deal The PKK has links to Kurdish populations not only in Turkey, but in northern Iraq and northern Syria, areas where Turkish forces and Kurdish rebels have clashed repeatedly in the last three decades. While Turkey still classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization, the government is allowing PKK members, under the current peace negotiations, to withdraw from Turkey to return to northern Iraq. Bhalla says that if Turkey were to jump into the fray in Syria, it would likely galvanize Kurdish fighters living in northern Syria, and could unravel the delicate peace that the two sides have managed to achieve in recent months. Something the Turks do not want to see. 4) Confrontation with Iran "When you talk about Syria, you are also talking automatically about Iran," says Raboudi. Iran and Syria have enjoyed a long-standing friendship, not least because they both aim to counteract the influence of the U.S. and Israel in the region. Throughout the current crisis, the Iranian leadership has supported Syria's embattled Assad politically as well as militarily (often transporting arms through Iraqi airspace). The Sunni-led government of Turkey has had reasonably good relations with the Shia theocracy of Iran. But if Turkey were to intervene in Syria, Raboudi says it's possible that it could spur Iran, one of the region's biggest powers, to become more actively involved - and turn an already messy sectarian battle into an even bloodier conflagration. 5) The Americans are reluctant to fight While Turkey has an estimable army, Bhalla says the country would only act militarily if the U.S. took the lead and provided the majority of weaponry and tactical support. "Turkey is not going to intervene militarily in Syria on a meaningful scale without the United States playing that primary role," says Bhalla. Despite strong criticism of the Assad regime, the Obama administration has been reluctant to commit to any kind of military force in Syria. One reason is that U.S. intervention could ignite a war with Iran, says Hassanpour. Plus, there's the unhappy legacy of recent U.S. wars in the region, which weighs heavily on the American public. "The United States cannot engage in another war - it has already lost the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq," says Hassanpour. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=aa9_1369123928 BrooklynJAH 5 reasons Turkey will not go to war with Syria Syria, Turkey, Israel, Bashar Assad, Syrian, Arab, Army, SAA, Freedom, FSA, Terrorist Thu, 16 May 2013 06:16:07 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1e7_1368698440 ItsTHROUGHnotTHREW No liquid is old as yesterday's beer, but.. well here are the articles: Scientists have discovered water that has been trapped in rock for more than a billion years. The water might contain microbes that evolved independently from the surface world, and it's a finding that gives new hope to the search for life on other planets. The water samples came from holes drilled by gold miners near the small town of Timmins, Ontario, about 350 miles north of Toronto. Deep in the Canadian bedrock, miners drill holes and collect samples. Sometimes they hit pay dirt; sometimes they hit water, which seeps out from tiny crevices in the rock. Recently, a team of scientists (who had been investigating water samples from other mines) approached the miners and asked them for fluid from newly-drilled boreholes. , a geochemist at Lancaster University in England, and his colleagues wanted to know just how long that fluid had been trapped in the rock. So they looked at the decay of radioactive atoms found in the water and calculated that it had been bottled up for a long time - at least 1.5 billion years. "That is the lower limit for the age," Holland says. It could be a billion years older. That means the water was sealed in the rock before humans evolved, before pterosaurs flew, and before multicellular life. As Holland in the journal Nature, this is the oldest cache of water ever found. But how did it end up underneath that gold mine in northeastern Canada? Where did it come from? "The fluids that we see now are actually preservations of ancient oceans," Holland says. About 2.7 billion years ago, the landscape of small-town Timmins looked a bit different. Beneath prehistoric seas, tectonic plates were spreading and magma was welling up to form new rock. As the rock matured under heat and pressure, water was trapped inside tiny cracks. The rock drifted around the globe for eons, helping form continents and mountain ranges, and all the while it kept its cargo of water sealed up tight inside. "It's managed to stay isolated for almost half the lifetime of the Earth," Holland says. It's a time capsule. And it doesn't just hold water. "There's a lot of hydrogen in these samples." That's significant because hydrogen is food for some microorganisms. Hydrogen-eating microbes have been found deep in the ocean and in South African mines where chemical reactions in the rock produce a steady supply of hydrogen. And that hydrogen, says Holland, "could provide the energy for life to survive in isolation for 2 billion years." Holland's colleagues are now testing the water samples for evidence of microbes. They hope to have results within a year. If life is found, it would have evolved distinctly from the surface world and might give a unique insight into the earliest forms of life on Earth. Its discovery would also give hope to people searching for life in places that are even more remote. Carol Stoker, a research scientist with NASA, is focused on searching for life on Mars. "If you go back to the very early history of Earth and Mars, sort of the first billion years after the surfaces cooled, Earth and Mars looked very similar," Stoker says. Both planets had vast surface oceans and thick atmospheres - they were good places for life to begin. On Earth, it did. "The logic is if that If that happened on Earth, why shouldn't it have happened on Mars?" she says. As Mars got colder and drier, surface life would have died off. But Martian microbes might still survive deep in the planet's crust - preserved in isolated pockets of water, just like the ones found in Canadian bedrock. source 1: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/16/183950854/water-trapped-for-1-5-billion-years-could-hold-ancient-life Oldest Water on Earth Found Deep Underground A pocket of water some 2.6 billion years old - the most ancient pocket of water known by far, older even than the dawn of multicellular life - has now been discovered in a mine 2 miles below the Earth's surface. The finding, announced in the May 16 issue of the journal Nature, raises the tantalizing possibility that ancient life might be found deep underground not only within Earth, but in similar oases that may exist on Mars, the scientists who studied the water said. Geoscientist Barbara Sherwood Lollar at the University of Toronto and her colleagues have investigated deep mines across the world since the 1980s. Water can flow into fractures in rocks and become isolated deep in the crust for many years, serving as a time capsule of what their environments were like at the time they were sealed off. In gold mines in South Africa 1.7 miles (2.8 kilometers) deep, the scientists previously discovered microbes could survive in pockets of water isolated for tens of millions of years. These reservoirs were many times saltier than seawater, "and had chemistry in many ways similar to hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean, full of dissolved hydrogen and other chemicals capable of supporting life," Sherwood Lollar said. To see what other ancient pockets of water might exist, Sherwood Lollar and her colleagues investigated copper and zinc mines near the city of Timmins in Ontario, Canada. "As the prices of copper, zinc and gold have gone up, mines now go deeper, which has helped our search for long-isolated reservoirs of water hidden underground," Sherwood Lollar said. 'Mind-blowing' find "Sometimes we went down in cages - they're not called elevators underground - that dropped us to the levels we wanted to go," Sherwood Lollar told OurAmazingPlanet. "Other times, we went down ramp mines, which have curling spiral roadways, so we could actually drive all the way down." The scientists analyzed water they found 2 miles (2.4 km) deep. They focused on noble gases such as helium, neon, argon and xenon. Past studies analyzing bubbles of air trapped within ancient rocks found that these rare gases could occur in distinct ratios linked with certain eras of Earth's history. As such, by analyzing the ratios of noble gases seen in this water, the researchers could deduce the age of the water. The scientists discovered the fluids were trapped in the rocks between 1.5 billion and 2.64 billion years ago. "It was absolutely mind-blowing," Sherwood Lollar said. "These weren't tens of millions of years old like we might have expected, or even hundreds of millions of years old. They were billions of years old." The site was formed by geological activity similar to that seen in hydrothermal vents. "We walked along what used to be ocean floor 2.7 billion years ago," Sherwood Lollar said. "You could still see some of the same pillow lava structures now seen on the bottom of the ocean." Signs of life? This ancient water poured out of the boreholes the team drilled in the mine at the rate of nearly a half-gallon (2 liters) per minute. It remains uncertain precisely how large this reservoir of water is. "This is an extremely important question and one that we want to pursue in our future work," Sherwood Lollar said. "We also want to see if there are habitable reservoirs of similar age around the world." Sherwood Lollar emphasized they have not yet found any signs of life in the water from Timmins. "We're working on that right now," she said. "It'd be fascinating to us if we did, since it'd push back the frontiers of how long life could survive in isolation." And the implications of such a finding would extend beyond the extremes of life on Earth. "Finding life in this energy-rich water is especially exciting if one thinks of Mars, where there might be water of similar age and mineralogy under the surface," Sherwood Lollar said. If any life once arose on Mars billions of years ago as it did on Earth, "then it is likely in the subsurface," Sherwood Lollar said. "If we find the water in Timmins can support life, maybe the same might hold true for Mars as well." source 2: http://www.livescience.com/32028-oldest-water-found-underground.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1e7_1368698440 ItsTHROUGHnotTHREW Water Trapped For 1.5 Billion Years Could Hold Ancient Life (2 articles) 1.5 billion year,old water,geology,Timminis,Ontario