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A short history of nearly everythingFor the longest time, no one could figure out what could be responsible for this. AlvinБЂ™s discovery of the deep-sea vents provided the answer. Geophysicists realized that the vents were acting much like the filters in a fish tank. As water is taken down into the crust, salts are stripped from it, and eventually clean water is blown out again through the chimney stacks. The process is not swift-it can take up to ten million years to clean an ocean-but it is marvelously efficient as long as you are not in a hurry. Perhaps nothing speaks more clearly of our psychological remoteness from the ocean depths than that the main expressed goal for oceanographers during International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 was to study БЂњthe use of ocean depths for the dumping of radioactive wastes.БЂ«This wasnБЂ™t a secret assignment, you understand, but a proud public boast. In fact, though it wasnБЂ™t much publicized, by 1957-58 the dumping of radioactive wastes had already been going on, with a certain appalling vigor, for over a decade ...» |
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