Sheepy Dalek and 2 riddles.

/ January 18, 2013

I already spoke about the coming high resolution Video show, featuring different volcanoes taking place in my workplace, in the previous post. An other one of the volcanoes which is going to be shown is Mount Nyiragongo. I have heard about this volcano and even remember when it was in the news 2002. But until I began to check for some new info very recently, I had had no idea what terrible beast this volcano obviously is. That people still live in that area is unbelievable. Yes, I had seen videos. Also the clip Chyphria included in the last thread displaying a special Darwin moment, was not new to me either.

But I had only seen images of the crater and its lake. Then I came across this article: http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Nyiragongo/Nyiragongo.html and read about the events which took place with the 1977 and the 2002 eruption.
I knew the lava of this volcano was too fast to outrun it. But somehow it slipped me by that the distance to Goma airport and residential areas can be reached within just an hour even though they are 10 km away. Fissures open in the ground. Gas is emmited and last time explosions were reported in areas where people lived, because methane was leaking out of the ground days after the eruption. During the main event, which occured over 8 vents, terraces inside the crater collapsed into it and this triggered violent phreatomagmatic activity. The ash column was 10 km high in 1977 ( this is higher than Eyja´s column was 2010 ) and 2002, and an area in 8km distance was covered with ash and scoria up to a height of 10 cm. Lava formed a delta in the nearby Lake Kivu.

The article states that the volcano cannot be closely monitored because most technical gear is either looted or vandalized. In 2002 more people died when a gas station exploded. Some local newspapers did not blame the explosion on lava intrusion rather that it was caused looters trying to steal the petrol. Public disorder was rife in the town of Goma during the eruption and the following days.

Both in 1977 and 2002 neighbouring Nyamuragira showed effusive eruptions some time before Nyiragongo went into action.
I had never really planned to pay Nyiragongo a visit one fine day or even going to the Democratic Republic of Congo. After reading all this, I sure wont be found within a few hundred kilometers when Nyamuragira goes into action again.

I suggest this article as weekend reading material again. Besides very nice pictures it gives an impressive description of the last 2 eruptions, as well as a geological map and several scientific papers.
http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Nyiragongo/Nyiragongo.html

I plan to keep the community here informed about special astronomical events. This week the occulation of Jupiter is not visible from Europe. Sky and Telescope Magazine has an article called Jupiter dances with the moon.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/Jupiter-Dances-with-the-Moon-187160571.html

Spica assited by Kilgharrah

…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Riddle: Name those Volcanoes!

7 volcanoes 7 dings 7 points

No 1 – Visitors to this mountain, a special biodiversity hotspot, find several differing ecosystems. Look for an anagram ……. special bio! SOLVED
No 2 – Ski region Canada ‘02. Golfing center Scotland ‘05. Seaside town Germany ‘07. ? ‘08. SOLVED
No 3 – Archimedes, Pythagoras, Newton, Gauss …. & they have in common? Apart from being mathematicians they have all been honoured in the same way – the link has been found and you dont have to look any further than that really. SOLVED
No 4 – Did the 14th century poet’s journey into hell come to a premature end here? GL identified Dante as the poet, but this one is tethered and has 8 legs. SOLVED
No 5 – Fiction tells of a dying man, his life of decadence & recognition of his failure as a writer. Classic book written by EH. SOLVED
No 6 – Evidence infers that until the late 1800s a global human record was held by its summit. The record was one of hieght. SOLVED
No 7 – First it was cut off & then, by way of the capital’s bridge, it was open to the public. The bridge is London Bridge. Think executions! SOLVED

Current ranking: Updated January 13th.

8 Sherine France
6 Alison
5 Sissel
5 Kelda
4 DebbieZ
3 Chryphia		 3 Spica
3 KarenZ
3 dfm
2 Bruce Stout
1 Inge B
1 Irpsit		 1 Stoneyard
1 Grimmster
1 cbus20122
1 jeannie
1 UKviggen
1 fred

Alan´s Evil Riddle:

Barnes-Wallis may have got an idea from my little helpers to put a shine on my 3 faces!

What am I?
By what is the process known?
Current ranking: Updated 29th December

15 Sissel
11 Kelda
11 Talla
9 KarenZ
4 Ursula
3 Chyphria		 3 Henri le Revenant
2 Diana
2 jeannie
1 GeoLurking
1 lughduniese
1 Sa´ke		 1 Sherine
1 purohueso745
1 UKViggen
1 IngeB
1 Carl
1 Spica

Happy Hunting!

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244 thoughts on “Sheepy Dalek and 2 riddles.”

  2. I published this post before too many comments land in the old thread. Please keep going on with the informations about Iceland!!!

    And about the event i am talking about. We have a special presentation room in my museum where images and movies on Etna, Stromboli, Erta Ale, Nyiragongo, Ol Donjo Lengai and Yellowstone are going to be shown. AT a wall which is 16 x 9 meters. With normal shows we have 16 x 9 meter floor images and videos and programms too. People stand and sit inside the floor projection. I got informed yesterday that the show on vlcanoes will also be held tommorow and sunday at 2 pm.

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  4. Suzie’s riddle Number 1: Mount Teide, Tenerife has: High Alpine, Coniferous Forest, Temperate Rainforest, Coastal Plains, and a couple more I think…

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    • Ding No 2 Mount Usu That was quick – we know our G8s then! Don’t mention the events at St Marys today – I am disgusted and very, very sad ….. COYR

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      • Good question! It was the German seaside town that rang the bell.

        Yeah, sad about Adkins, I suppose. Seemed like a solid guy and good manager, but then Scunny probably thought the same about him a couple of years ago!

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        • Meant to say SEEMS like a solid guy etc. He’s only been sacked, not assassinated! (It’s the cabin fever setting in – too much snow so had to spend a Friday night at home with the family 🙂 )

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    • I’ve just been reading up on him – I only know him from the Dam Busters but he seems to have invented geodesic structures originally for use in airships, as well as the heavy bombers of World War 2, the bombs he is famous for and then designed the swept back torpedo shaped planes that would later be powered by jets, and finally desgned the alt-azimuth guidance for large telescopes – what a guy!

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      • Wallis’s ‘bouncing bomb’ idea came from skimming stones, which is also known as ‘ducks and drakes’. Dunno if that might help someone with the riddle?

        The Upkeep dam-breaching bomb was a fascinating case of applying very basic physics to solve a complex problem, and has passed into jingoistic UK folklore. The harsh reality is that the meagre result of the raid was out of all proportion to the enormous amount of effort and resource that went into it, at a time when the UK could least afford it. Wallis’s later supersonic penetration bombs Tallboy and Grand Slam were far more important in the wider scheme of things, and were snapped up by the US.

        However, ‘Operation Chastise’ did give rise to two of the best commercials ever:


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        • Very funny commercials. thing is There are enough people that know a bit of
          history that would connect in England about it. I fear we in the US wouldn’t even
          think of using a WW2 theme in a beer commercial like that…
          No one would connect .. “Dambusters” is one of my favorite movies. Knew an
          Ex-RAF Bomber Command pilot who was an Engineer(Nuclear) for Westinghouse,
          He loved both the Wellington(Wimpy) and the Landcaster. once, he did a barrel roll around an unsuspecting B-17 with the Lanc,. But the B-17 had lots more armor and guns so it was heavier. He thought the ‘ol Wimpy was nearly indestructible
          On the subject of blowing things up my late father-in-law had along with the rest of the
          people that took the Ludendorf (Remagen) bridge, Hitler threw everything at it Jabos,
          Jets V2’s and Artillery, all missed. If they had a simple sigh lights and a measuring
          tool. like the ‘”Dambuster” guys it might have been a different story .The jets were the spookiest, Carl said he’d never heard anything like that jet noise up to that time..

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          • Years ago, the trainees over at NAS used to delight in sitting it on it’s tail and going strait up directly over top of the Corry station Galley. It was generally quite effective in making the spoons and forks dance across the table.

            Side note: according to the news, Top Gun is in town to use the training airspace south of here. One rule that they were happy to mention is that no one is allowed to use a catch phrase from the movie. Generally the fine can range from something monetary (probably like a cuss jar), to a beer.

            And something that I never considered possible. C-130 carrier landings.

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          • Okay… I just spent the better part of a half hour watching youtube clips of high speed flyby’s of fighter aircraft…. of the clips, the one that most memorable (as in, I remembered someghing) were the tornadoes. That got me to looking around for the vacuum cleaner sounding S-3.

            It was a bit disappointing… since you couldn’t make out the distinctive sound of the engines, but here is an S-3 flyby.

            With their long on-station time… if you are in need of SUCAP, you want these guys out buzzing round somewhere nearby.

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          • Remagen – bad weather played a big part in the lack of accuracy as the Germans could not make many visual attacks. The Arado jet bombers were using radio bombing techniques (An722 Zyklop and Freya EGON) that gave a CEP of about 1000 metres. Not too bad for March 1945 but not good enough, especially as only the lead aircraft had the kit.

            Of course, this was the craziest thing the Luftwaffe threw at the bridge!
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistel
            Although the idea of trying to hit a bridge with a V2 was pretty crazy, with about as much chance of success as winning the lottery.

            Until laser guidance came along bridges were very difficult targets to hit – cf. Thanh Hoa in Vietnam. That’s why the Barnes Wallis Grand Slam was so clever – creating a minor earthquake is a good way of toppling any large structure without having to make a direct hit, and if you had good weather you could get sufficient accuracy with the drop.

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          • When I was at Butler Aircraft one of the Mechanics was around the S-3 in the Navy
            The Nickname was “Hoover” I’ve heard them when a flight of two came n to Klamath Falls one day-Fits talk of making them an Airtanker they fly slow enough and have good engines. The 130 is an amazing Arcraft the USFS screwed up in axing them from the Airtanker program but the guilty included the innocent too..Thanks, Lurk..
            UK Viggen:The Mistel was crazy. they tried every combo with that program.
            I don’t think the British had anything quite as crazy but US did with war-weary
            B-17’s and B-24 project Aphrodite:
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aphrodite#Mission_theory
            None worked…Of Course there was the use of a war weary destroyer in
            the St. Nazaire raid. that was impressive..
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nazaire_Raid

            Reply

      • Absolutely none as I am not a volcanologist or a geologist but the first series was along the NNW -SSE rift and the other seems to trend a bit along the W-E rift.

        I would guess (and it is a guess) that there is rifting that is providing routes for magma to build dykes and sills; and / or, upward rising magma from the mantle plume in the Canaries is putting some pressure on the system that is facilitating this.

        Reply

  17. Poets and hell…. Dante maybe?

    Dante had a more than a few problems with the various factions tying to control Florence.

    Prince Guido Novello da Polenta invited him to Ravenna in 1318, and he accepted. He finished Paradiso, and died in 1321 (aged 56) while returning to Ravenna from a diplomatic mission to Venice, possibly of malaria contracted there. He was buried in Ravenna at the Church of San Pier Maggiore (later called San Francesco).

    Immanuel the Roman evidently knew (and borrowed?) from Dante’s work,

    n 1325 he lost his entire fortune and was obliged to leave his home. All his friends deserted him and, “bowed by poverty and the double burden of age,” he wandered through Italy until he found refuge in 1328 in Fermo in the march of Ancona at the home of a patron named Daniel, who provided for his old age and enabled him to devote himself to poetry.

    It turns out that a “March” is the borderlands. In this case “march of Ancona” is along the Adriatic sea. This “borderlands” idea may even play a role in “Denmark”… ‘borderland with the danes?’ comes to mind.

    Back to the Italian political turmoil… about a hundred years later, it gave us Niccolò Machiavelli and “The Prince.” Or.. how to wage a political war for fun and profit.

    Reply

      • Some of us feel very connected to it…

        He was condemned to perpetual exile, and if he returned to Florence without paying the fine, he could be burned at the stake. (The city council of Florence finally passed a motion rescinding Dante’s sentence in June 2008.

        …

        Florence was forced by Uguccione della Faggiuola (the military officer controlling the town) to grant an amnesty to those in exile, including Dante. But for this, Florence required public penance in addition to a heavy fine. Dante refused, preferring to remain in exile. When Uguccione defeated Florence, Dante’s death sentence was commuted to house arrest on condition that he go to Florence to swear he would never enter the town again. He refused to go, and his death sentence was confirmed and extended to his sons.

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        • Heh…..

          Guelph {the canadian town} was selected as the headquarters of British development firm “the Canada Company” by its first superintendent John Galt, a popular Scottish novelist who designed the town to attract settlers to it and the surrounding countryside

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    • Mark can also mean an area of land held in common, so Denmark means the land held by the Danes. Tolkein used it – the Rohan call their land Riddermark which means the land held by the riders. The Marcher Lords in mediaeval England were the landowners who held the land in England on the borders of Wales and Scotland. They were very powerful and inclined to rebel – the Mortimer and Percy families for instance. One of my ancestros was ‘out for Percy’.

      Reply

  18. Evil riddle:
    Barnes Wallis also invented a telescope design…connection to prisms?
    No conclusive idea yet, but something about applying a metallic, submetallic, adamantine luster… galena, pyrite?

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  19. These words were of my Leader; whence I prayed him
    That he would give me largess of the food,
    For which he had given me largess of desire.

    “In the mid-sea there sits a wasted land,”
    Said he thereafterward, “whose name is Crete,
    Under whose king the world of old was chaste.

    There is a mountain there, that once was glad
    With waters and with leaves, which was called Ida;
    Now ’tis deserted, as a thing worn out.

    Rhea once chose it for the faithful cradle
    Of her own son; and to conceal him better,
    Whene’er he cried, she there had clamours made.

    Dante’s Devine Comedy Inferno: Canto XIV

    From Wackipedia:

    Ida Ridge is an eroded cinder cone in east-central British Columbia, Canada, located in the southeastern corner of Wells Gray Provincial Park.

    From GVP: Cone of Wells Gray-Clearwater

    http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=1200-15-

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    • No 1 – When a clue can be applied to many volcanoes look for something within the clue that will narrow the answer down to just one! In this case an anagram.

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  23. NTV Riddle update
    I am adding some hints in bold to each unsolved clue above! Lateral thinking is required! They are Riddles after all!!

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  24. No 6 – Evidence infers that until the late 1800s a global human record was held by its summit. The record was one of hieght.

    This is an unconfirmed, but heavily suggested by ancient artifacts recovered, human achievement at the summit of a volcano, the record held till the late 1800s …….

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  25. while researching Pythagorus, came across the island of Samos, where he is believed to have been born. “Samos” is from Phoenician meaning “rise by the shore”. Volcanic perhaps 😕

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    • And virtually no radar around that could see it slipping up the valley. (I know of a few that technically could, from the way they operate). Terrain masking, ya got to love it. 😀

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  31. A first try on Alan’s evil riddle (without feeling sure about anything).
    Hmmmm… Barnes Wallis constructed geodesic airframes, here is an example: http://blog.ponoko.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/airframe.jpg
    “It makes use of a space frame formed from a spirally crossing basket-weave of load-bearing members. The principle is that two geodesic arcs can be drawn to intersect on a curving surface (see the fuselage) in a manner that the torsional load on each cancels out that on the other”.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodetic_airframe
    The structure of the airframes resemble molecular structures. Do not know if this is a clue.

    Another object that in some way pulls my attention is Buckminsterfullerene – which is not a process, but a molecule with the formula C60.

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  32. Is the answer to Alan’s riddle something to do with Geodesy and Triangulation? Don’t know what it has to do with Barwick Green (unless that was a red herring) but it may have given Barnes Wallis the idea for the structure of the R100.

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    • from wikipedia

      Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was thought that Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth (measured from sea level), and such reputation led to many attempts on its summit during the 17th and 18th centuries.

      In 1802, during his expedition to South America, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montúfar attempted to reach the summit. From his description of the mountain, it seems that before he and his companions had to return suffering from altitude sickness they reached a point at 5,875 m, higher than previously attained by any European in recorded history.[note 5] In 1831 Jean Baptiste Boussingault and Colonel Hall reached a new “highest point”, computed to be 6,006 m.[17][18] In 1880 Chimborazo’s summit was first climbed by Edward Whymper and the brothers Louis and Jean-Antoine Carrel. As there were many critics who doubted that Whymper had reached the summit, later in the same year he climbed to the summit again choosing a different route (Pogyos) with the Ecuadorians David Beltrán and Francisco Campaña.[19]

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  40. I’ve been searching for an anagram for no. 1 but the best I’ve done so far is Mariveles because you can find ‘several’ in that.

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  43. Hi all, my wireless mouse went on strike a couple of hours ago and I cant get a new one till monday morning so no more dings etc till tomorrow morning when I will borrow a computer again. Extra clues are up top! And I have dinged No 4 and No 6! Have A GREAT EVENING

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  46. Waaaa! I’ve just had an unwanted adventure. I went to get a bit of shopping and some petrol. Scraped the snow off the car and set off. The car was a bit slow but started – then after I filled up with petrol it stopped dead. The battery couldn’t cope with the cold and had to be replaced. The repairmen are really busy here this weekend so I had to wait in the cold, and then got even colder while it was repaired. I was brought up on the Equator – I don’t cope with the cold at all well so it’s taken me an hour to warm up! Brain still frozen so I’ll be not good at the riddling tonight. 🙂

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  49. No 7: Smithfield, Tyburn abd Tower Hill – only the last appears to be a volcano.

    There is also St Barts, (also a volcanic island) but GVP does not list a volcano there.

    Reply

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