Two Disappearing Lakes
Published: Nov 30, 2007
Photo: Prasad
Abstract: I shut my eyes, there it was, it’s clear waters rippling around my ankles, as I idled away on the fisherman’s oblong boat. But alas, my twitching nose, detecting the veritable stink of decayed vegetation, broke my reverie and landed me on a muddy bank. Where was the water, I gasped, as I stared at the remnant limbs of one of the most beautiful lakes, Damdamma, upon the shores of whom, many years ago, I had found true love. Alarmed, upset and indignant I began my search – to prove this drastic decline with data, and shake everybody up to stop this unwarranted disappearing act.
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The use of orbiting spacecraft (in addition to traditional aircraft of balloons) for the purpose of data collection. A wide variety of different kinds of mapping can be accomplished by such means. Use of long wavelengths allows a surface (such as that of a planet) to be inspected even through layers of clouds.
An upfold in deformed rock strata, with the oldest beds at the centre of the structure. Anticlines are usually separated from each other by down folds or synclines.
The layer inside the Earth that lies immediately below the lithosphere. The asthenosphere is characterised by low seismic wave velocities (that is, a high degree of seismic attenuation) and low rigidity. It is thought to be a zone in which partial melting of rock in the Earth’s mantle occurs.
The period in the history of the Earth from about 360 million to 286 million years ago, towards the end of the Paleozoic era. At the beginning brachiopods and corals flourished in shallow seas, their fossils are common in limestones from that time. Later in the Carboniferous period, sandstone and shale were deposited in river mouths with submerged swamp forests of tree ferns forming the coal that we mine today.
The southern part of super continent of Pangea, comprising the ancestral continents of Antarctica, Australia, India, Africa and South America. Gondwanaland finally broke up during the Mesozoic era and continental drift carried them apart ever since.
A seismic discontinuity located at the interface between the Earth’s crust and the mantle. Beneath the continents it is encountered at depths of about 35 kms and below the ocean floor at 10 kms; however, beneath some mountain belts it may plunge to 70 kms. Seismic velocities increase sharply across it.
A layer of loose rock and mineral grains that is found at the surface of planetary crusts. A regolith become a soil with the addition of organic material.
The study of sound. It includes measuring the speed of sound in various media, and how sound waves can be reflected and refracted.
A polluting mixture of smoke, fog and chemical fumes. Photochemical smog is produced under certain climatic conditions by complex photochemical reaction of sunlight with unburned hydrocarbons.
A temporarily cooler region on the photosphere of the Sun, between 1000 and 2000 degrees below that of the photosphere, which is about 6000 K, caused by a magnetic field bursting through the photosphere.
The sedentary phase in the life cycle of certain cnidarians (coelenterates), the other life form being the free swimming medusa. A polyp is cup shaped individual with a single body opening, the mouth, surrounded by stinging tentacles.
The study of the origin of species through gradual changes in ancestral groups. The most widely accepted theory today is Darwin’s theory of evolution, in which the process of natural selection acts on randomly occurring variations.