Oasis Near Death Valley Fed by Ancient Aquifer Under Nevada Test Site

Oasis Near Death Valley Fed by Ancient Aquifer Under Nevada Test Site

www.sciencedaily.com

Every minute, 10,000 gallons of water mysteriously gush out of the desert floor at a place called Ash Meadows, an oasis that is home to 24 plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. A new Brigham Young University study indicates that the water arriving at Ash Meadows is completing a 15,000-year journey, flowing slowly underground from what is now the Nevada Test Site.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Because of the nuclear tests of the US government, conducted for a period of 40 years, a crack named "Gravity Fault" connects the place with Ash Meadows (a National Wildlife Refuge)!

Now, a BYU geology professor - Stephen Nelson- says that it will be another 15,000 years before radioactive water reaches the refuge but the wildlife managers at Ash Meadows are concerned about the animals, especially for the declining population of Devil's Hole Pupfish and three other endangered fish species!

www.sciencedaily.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

good find, never heard of this before and its an attention getter. surprised this hasnt been anywhere else on the news at all

reply to post by sandri_90


Hi sandri_90,

An interesting find. I always thought the water came from the west - the Sierra Nevada side (even though it is in a rain shadow) rather than all that way from the east.

Not good to hear that in 15,000 years it will be radioactive - but then again, a lot can happen in that time....

Peace!

wont the radiation have gone by 15000 years time ?

it has a half life (the radiation) after all ... once thats run its course it wont be radioactive.

No radioactivity will ever make it.
Between decay and filtering by the intervening geology there will be so little left it will be indistinguishable from natural radioactivity. (60 plus miles)

What little radioactivity that will effect the area has happened already.
it was from airborne fallout.
.

Too little to late i'm afraid....

....it would have been good to know this 60 years ago.

Originally posted by ANNED
No radioactivity will ever make it.
Between decay and filtering by the intervening geology there will be so little left it will be indistinguishable from natural radioactivity. (60 plus miles)

What little radioactivity that will effect the area has happened already.
it was from airborne fallout.
.

This is probably true but the radioactivity is gonna change what's seeping into the oasis to some degree. For example it will have an effect on the rocks around it.

Overall I think that this goes to show that vast and complex interconnectedness of nature that we won't ever be able to truly fathom. Who would've ever thought these two spots would be connected like this?

Originally posted by boaby_phet
wont the radiation have gone by 15000 years time ?

it has a half life (the radiation) after all ... once thats run its course it wont be radioactive.

Well that's too simplistic a way of looking at it, as you probably know for each radioactive element there is a half life of x amount of time, that can be weeks or months or it could be 10's of thousands of years.

That radioactivity will never be truly gone, it will just be 50% as radioactive after that time, and it will continue to half and half and half... For example if a half life is 1 year, 2 years from today material x will only be 25% as radioactive as it is today, 3 years from today just 12.5% and so on... But it will always be radioactive to some extent.

But take Uranium 235 for example, it's half life is 704 million years!!! So really in the time scales we are talking about it's kind of a moot point.

We are not the clever little monkeys we give our selves credit for really, messing up the planet like this, we don't even know if in the future we will be able to live anywhere else in any serious way... For all we know it's Earth or nada, so we pollute and spoil.

I started a thread here a couple years back that got railroaded by the Masons on this board about the Obelisk erected at White Sands. What a sad day for humanity really, erecting a masonic obelisk there IMO only added insult to injury...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

It takes 15,000 years for water to flow from Nevada to California?

In Death Valley wagon ruts from horse drawn vehicles are still visible. Up until the past century, humans left relatively benign reminders of their interaction with the world around them (although deforestation should be recognized as a problem on most continents).

With the greater toxic interactions with our environment, we humans are befouling our home as never before. Some of us are railing against saddling future generations with monetary debt, but we ignore/allow a much graver environmental debt to our children and grandchildren and future generations.

Humans need to rethink what it means to live with a future, not just a present. Or else future generations will label us foolish primitive simpletons, contrary to how we view ourselves today.

We must stop using our children and grandchildren as props in political melodramas, and start to live as if we truly are concerned about their well being.

Just another example human destroying the world we claim to love. To bad we love money more...

reply to post by sandri_90


Hi sandri_90,

According to Wiki there were 928 atomic tests undertaken - 828 of which were below ground.

There's an interesting section in the article that mentions how badly contaminated well water is in the test site area and that such contamination is likely to last 'thousands of year.'

Have provided a link - incredible that this was allowed to such an extent and the effect it had on the rest of the US.

en.wikipedia.org...

Peace!

As it isn't going to happen for another 15000 years, I don't think it's anything worth getting your knickers in a twist over!
Who knows what the world will be like in 15000 years anyway? For all we know, it could be shattered by a comet in a hundred years!

reply to post by Emphursis


15000 years from now humans will be long gone from this planet. I am not going to worry about what may happen so far into the future.

Are you people for real?
The US military is out there polluting the world with ammunitions that have a half life in the billions of years!
Contrary to popular opinion the small doses of radiation can be lethal for many different reasons...
The depleted uranium anti armour shells we use in most of our aircraft and medium artillery are spreading low level contamination around every battle front and peace action in which these weapons are used!
The statistics are building to indicate serious problems for those places,in terms of birth deformities and cancers, specially of the kidney and small intestines.(the radiation is passed this way...)
The proliferation of any nuclear technology or munitions is a matter of serious and unimaginably long term health concerns for the whole world!
This technology is NOT the answer in terms of munitions nor civilian applications...
(MRI/CATT technology outstrips xrays 1000 %)
Large tracts of America have been denied use permanently to anyone due to nuclear weapons production and technology.
The many millions and even billions of years the contamination will last and SPREAD are inconcievable even right now.......
The more we head down the road in this direction the sooner we will have befouled the earth on a permanent basis, and in turn befouled the genetics of our and every other species on the planet....!
DUH!
Yucca Mtn nuclear waste dump is a case in point.......
the world is riddled with potential chernobyls.....but the real danger is in the waste!

[edit on 4-6-2010 by stirling]

reply to post by The Wave


Wow!
Thank you for the link!

[edit on 4/6/10 by sandri_90]

Originally posted by Erasurehead
reply to post by Emphursis

 

15000 years from now humans will be long gone from this planet. I am not going to worry about what may happen so far into the future.

You've said it best.

I guess I'm not too concerned about it. For one, in 15,000 years, I'll be dead anyway. Second, the most dangerous isotopes from those explosions will have gone through so many half-life cycles in 15,000 years that the residual radiation will present little threat to anything that may be living nearby at that point.

So how much grant money are they looking for to study the effects of the nuclear testing. Four, five million per year?