THOTH
                    A Catastrophics Newsletter

                          VOL VII, No 6
                          Sept 30, 2003

EDITOR:  Amy Acheson
PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong
LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart

                             CONTENTS
A MATTER OF DEFINITION . . . . . . . . . . Mel Acheson
GRAND CANYON REVISITED . . . . . . . . . . Amy Acheson
MYSTERIOUS MARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wal Thornhill
       >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

A MATTER OF DEFINITION
Mel Acheson

Is plasma an ionized gas or is gas a neutralized plasma? Can we
understand plasma by adding a few magnetic properties to what we
already know about a gas, or is a gas a degenerate plasma that
provides scarcely a clue toward understanding most plasma
behavior? This is a matter of definition, but the dictionary in
which we might look up the definiens has yet to be written.

We can anticipate a possible answer from a similar matter of
definition that was resolved a couple of centuries ago: Is a
substance defined by its composition or by its development? A
century before John Dalton resurrected the atomic theory first
proposed by ancient Greek philosophers, Isaac Newton wrote an
essay on chemistry: "All Bodies have Particles which do mutually
attract one another...." He went on to describe what we recognize
today as nucleons aggregating into atoms, atoms aggregating into
molecules, and so forth. But he concluded: "And if Gold could be
brought once to ferment and putrefy, it might be turn'd into any
other Body whatsoever...; as common Nourishment is turn'd into the
Bodies of Animals and Vegetables."

We are so imbued today with the atomic theory of matter that the
idea of substance defined by development hardly makes sense. But
in Newton's time, it was taken for granted that physiology
underlay chemistry and that composition depended on past
transformations. The accumulation of data, doubts, and
speculations in the years between Newton and Dalton engendered a
redefinition of substance. The truth of physiology was still true,
but it came to be considered more limited in applicability than
the truth of chemistry. The transformation of matter was redefined
as subsidiary to the more inclusive and fundamental composition of
matter.

In a similar manner, the flood of surprising data in the space age
has surged over the explanatory channels of gas theory. The
attempts to explain filaments, jets, magnetic fields, and
radiations of celestial objects with conventional theories have
been idiosyncratic and reactive. A more inclusive and fundamental
definiendum is needed, to which the physics of gasses will be
subsidiary: Plasma.

Plasma is not hot gas. Just as Newton could never understand gold
by tracing its development and overlooking its composition, modern
physicists can never understand plasma by plugging higher
temperatures into the equations of gas kinetics and overlooking
plasma's electrical foundation.

Leon Rosenfeld, a coworker of Neils Bohr, commented that a theory
is not "sufficiently defined without the knowledge of its domain
of validity." This domain is a matter of discovering limits of
truth and establishing boundaries of meaning. The domain of
validity answers the question, For which data, ideas, uses,
relationships, etc. is this theory true? The answer must be marked
out empirically. It requires speculating, testing, probing for
alternatives.

The concept of domains of validity circumvents the pseudoreligious
wrangling over whether a theory is True or False in some
unspecified absolute sense: It allows for geocentrism being true
for architecture (where the domain is such matters as whether the
sun shines through bedroom windows on winter mornings);
heliocentrism being true for interplanetary space travel (where
the domain is such matters as how long to burn the rocket to
intercept Mars in two years); and galactocentrism being true for
mapping spiral arms. It allows for gas theory being true in
situations where electrical forces can be ignored and for plasma
cosmology being true where electrical forces must be taken into
account. It requires an empirical investigation to determine the
"where".

Insisting a theory is somehow absolutely true "in itself" or that
there can be only one 'true' theory is an extrapolation of
verification to the point of sanctimony. Verification can only
confirm the truth of one datum at a time in relation to one
theory, proving that a theory is true where it's true. It
overlooks or disparages the instances where the theory is not
true, and it provides no basis for judging different theories.
With verification, one can only note that a different theory is
different. People often insist that verifying one theory 'proves'
others wrong, but this insistence can only be maintained with a
domineering dogmatism.

The recognition of domains of validity can also explain the
competition of theories. Kuhn noted the "incommensurability of
paradigms." Fundamentally different theories have no common
ground. Their terms, even where the same, have different meanings
(e.g., 'plasma' as hot gas or as electrical discharge.) Their
practitioners "live in different worlds." There is no metatheory,
no overarching principle, with which the different theories can be
compared and judged. Some postmodernists have concluded from this
that all theories are equal, that there's no justification for
choosing one over another. It's like comparing apples and oranges.

But apples and oranges can be compared: They compete in a
marketplace. The price system allows comparison of the relative
values of apples and oranges to the consumers of apples and
oranges. So theories compete in a kind of cultural marketplace:
Incommensurable theories can sit on the same bookshelf or have
URLs on the internet, and the number of times they are checked out
or hit can be compared. The basis of this number will be some
combination of the browsers' values regarding size of domain (how
much data is or might be explained), coherence, fruitfulness,
promise, interesting questions raised, etc.

Definition and domain are similar. Both are mechanisms of
limitation. Because larger domains are often more useful and more
pleasing than smaller ones, people tend to polish generalities
until they glitter. The domain of validity of geocentrism is
pretty much limited to architecture. Heliocentrism has a much more
extensive domain of explanation and use. And it's reasonable, in a
trial and error sense, to push the explanatory power of a theory
as far as it will go. That's how you come to know the boundaries
of a theory's domain: when you sail over the edge of its
explanatory world.

So how do the two definitions of plasma compare? While we're on
the way to the checkout desk, I can only say why I choose the
electrical one:

Conventional theories must be contrived to explain each space age
datum, resulting in the present potpourri of ad hoc special cases
that is a monument to the failure of generality. Browsing through
the blurbs on the APOD or ESA websites discloses an unlovely view
of theories drowning in data.

Plasma, defined as electrical discharge phenomena, explains most
of the "surprising" features of space age data directly,
unitarily, coherently, and concisely. Furthermore, it explains
ancient descriptions and depictions of high-energy events within
the Solar system. And it promises to shed light on the geological
data assembled by S. Warren Carey that suggests the Earth is or
was expanding. Plus, it can go beyond the astronomical
extrapolation of mathematical formulas that must be taken on faith
(how can you test a black hole?): Plasma phenomena can be
generated and tested in labs--jets, toruses, spiral arms,
petroglyph forms, myth themes (Axis Mundi, Columns of Shu),
formation of planetary systems. The lab investigation in turn
reflects back on petroglyphs and myth themes to enable a
diachronic sequencing and a synchronic locating of events.

I say hoist the sails and let's find the edge of plasma.

Mel Acheson
thoth@whidbey.com
********************************************************

GRAND CANYON REVISISTED
by Amy Acheson

Ralph Juergens and Wal Thornhill introduced the hypothesis that
Valles Marineris on Mars and the Grand Canyon on Earth are
primarily electrical scars. In both canyons, water erosion (if
any) is only coincidental.

See Thornhill's article here:
http://www.holoscience.com/views/view_mars.htm

Since then, I've been reading geology books and websites about the
Grand Canyon to see for myself how the electrical hypothesis
compares with more traditional theories. Let's begin at the end,
with conclusions taken from Appendix 1 of W. Kenneth Hamblin's
_Late Cenozoic Lava Dams in the Western Grand Canyon_ (hence
called LCLD):

CONCLUSIONS:
"1) Erosion does not take place at a constant, imperceptibly slow
rate ...
2)  ... stream gradients and slopes are at a state of dynamic
equilibrium unless disturbed .... If no ... disturbance occurs,
the Colorado River will not cut significantly deeper....
3) The question of the age of the Grand Canyon and how long it
took the Colorado River to cut the canyon is not a question of how
fast the river can cut...."

AMY COMMENTS:
To be fair, these conclusions are taken completely out of context.
I deleted the hypotheses that modern geologists use to account for
the data in order to emphasize the fact that Juergens' and
Thornhill's electrical scarring hypothesis also fits the data: A
celestial thunderbolt would be expected to 1) carve the Grand
Canyon quickly and 2) come to equilibrium quickly because 3) the
age and depth of the Canyon have very little to do with the flow
of the Colorado River.

Now that we know the conclusions, let's scroll back to the
beginning: The problems.  A news story about the Grand Canyon
Symposium of June 2000 stated these problems clearly:

"Although the Grand Canyon is the United States' most famous
geological feature, geologists do not know for certain how it was
formed."  Plus: "... instead of providing an answer, the June
symposium actually may have expanded the controversy over the
Canyon's origins ...."

SEE ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2000/08aug/grandcanyonbeginning.html

According to this article, conventional geologists are divided
into two warring camps.  They both agree that the Grand Canyon is
young, geologically speaking. The evidence has been building since
the 1930's and 1940's that the Colorado River did not flow out of
the Canyon nor across the ridges and valleys of Nevada/California
before 5.5 million years ago.  It didn't dump into Baha California
until after 4.3 million years ago at the very earliest.

The first camp thinks that a proto-canyon completed most of the
excavation of the Canyon first. Later, the Colorado River flowed
into this pre-existing proto-canyon.  The second camp says
evidence for a proto-canyon is inadequate, and the whole canyon
was carved quickly.

One of the comments in the news story has an eyebrow-raising twist
for those familiar with Juergens' and Thornhill's electrical
scarring theory:  A "proto-canyon" advocate expressed his
objections to the "quickly carved" group in these words:  "[I]f
you don't have a pre-existing eastern Canyon, you have to start
the Colorado River way up in the sky."  He obviously felt that
this possibility was so absurd that his side won the debate.  But
if you allow Juergens and Thornhill's hypothesis -- celestial
thunderbolts carving canyons on Earth as well as on waterless
moons, comets, asteroids and planets -- the accusation ceases to
be so absurd.

Which brings us to the middle of my story: the data. Why so much
confusion?  What are these studies finding?  The Western Grand
Canyon intersects the southern tip of a 50-mile long double string
of recent volcanoes (less than 1.8 million years old.) W.K. Hamlin
considers this intersection a lucky coincidence.  He says (LCLD,
page 5) "If the canyon had been located 10 km [6.2 miles] farther
south, there would probably be no volcanic activity within the
canyon at all." From an electrical scarring point of view, this
placement of this string of volcanoes may not be coincidental.
The volcanoes themselves may be one of the many side effects of
thunderbolts uplifting the plateau and carving the lower part of
the Grand Canyon.

Coincidence or not, the volcanoes provide useful information about
the Grand Canyon and the eroding power of the Colorado River. Many
of the volcanoes erupted within the inner canyon. The lava from
other volcanoes erupted onto the wider outer canyon and spilled
into the inner canyon.  These lavas dammed the inner canyon of the
Colorado at least 13 times, beginning no earlier than 1.8 million
years ago (conventional dating.) Because remnants of these lava
dams reach all the way to the present floor of the inner canyon,
we know that the inner canyon was approximately the same size when
the first lava flows filled it as it is today. And before the next
channel-filling volcano erupted, the river quickly eroded each dam
to a channel approximately the same depth and width that the
canyon is today.

Hamlin says (LCLD, page 110): "All available information indicates
that prior to the extrusions of lava into the Grand Canyon, ...
the Colorado River had cut down to its present gradient and
stratigraphic position. The size and shape of the canyon walls
were essentially the same as those we see today." ...

He concludes this paragraph with ... "Thus, it is quite clear that
when the first lava dam formed the canyon was cut essentially to
its present depth, and after each dam was eroded, the Colorado
River returned to its former gradient (i.e., its present
gradient.)"

The above idea is repeated in almost every paragraph of Appendix
One. The language (with author's emphasis)is so strong that I am
quoting it here. Paragraph 1:  "This important fact indicates that
slope retreat occurred from the river channel to the original
canyon profile, BUT NO MORE."  Paragraph 2:  "With the destruction
of each dam, and the reestablishment of the river gradient to its
original profile by downcutting, there was also a rapid,
contemporaneous retreat of the canyon slopes back to their
original profile BUT NO MORE!"  Paragraph 3: "In each case, after
a lava dam eroded, the basalt retreated to within a few meters of
the original canyon wall. Then the process of slope retreat
essentially stopped. In many places, the processes of slope
retreat completely removed the basaltic flows, BUT SLOPE RETREAT
DID NOT SIGNIFICANTLY ENLARGE THE CANYON AND GO BEYOND THE
ORIGINAL CANYON WALLS."

This mechanism of restoring equilibrium by rapid erosion of
obstructions is driven by the large supply of water that builds up
behind the obstruction. For this mechanism to carve the canyon in
the first place, there must have been a large lake to the east of
it -- or, as quoted above, "[Y]ou have to start the Colorado River
way up in the sky."

But the data from the lava dams only addresses the inner gorge.
The Grand Canyon is really a two-part canyon -- a broad, flat-
bottomed outer canyon incised by a more-curved steep-walled inner
canyon in which the Colorado River flows today.  What the volcanic
dams tell us is that today's Colorado River is only capable of
eroding the inner canyon.  What carved the outer canyon?  Was it
there before the Colorado flowed into it?  These are the questions
that geologists are currently debating.

The electrical scarring hypothesis has an easy answer for these
question.  When lightning carves a channel on Earth, it creates a
broad outer channel with a narrow more sinuous inner channel.
Celestial lightning does the same thing on a much grander scale.
After celestial lightning uplifted the plateau and carved the
basic skeleton of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River spilled into
the inner channel.  This reversed the previously northern drainage
of the Southwestern States, allowing them to drain, for the first
time, across Nevada and California to the Gulf of Mexico. The
Colorado River quickly altered the inner channel from its
lightning scar profile to a water-carved canyon in equilibrium.
And every time that profile was blocked by a lava dam, the river
demonstrated how quickly it can return the Canyon to equilibrium.

Earth's rivers make it easy to confuse a canyon eroded by water
with a canyon carved by electricity.  But what about similar
canyons on Mars? Did Mars once have liquid water flowing on its
surface to carve its canyons? Astronomers answer that question
with a strong "maybe." Four spacecraft, including landers, are
currently en route to Mars with the goal of learning if Mars once
had water. But, like the Grand Canyon on Earth, even a "yes" to
the question of whether there was once liquid water on Mars won't
solve the problem of what carved the canyons of Mars.  It leaves
astronomers with more unanswered questions:  What carved similar
canyons on our own airless moon? On tiny asteroids? Or on the
scorched surface of Venus?

~Amy Acheson
editor of THOTH
thoth@whidbey.com
********************************************************



MYSTERIOUS MARS
By Wal Thornhill
www.holoscience.com
Copyright 2003

27 August 2003, at 9.51 am GMT, Mars was a mere 56 million
kilometres from Earth, the closest it has been since 57,617 BC.

[ed note: full article with photos can be found on Wal Thornhill's
website:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=3D0414prqf ]

The claim that Neanderthals 60 millennia ago witnessed a Mars
approach similar to what we are seeing today should be re-
evaluated on two counts, one astronomical and one historical.

First: the equations used by astronomers produce the numbers which
tell us where the planets have been (or will be) for millions of
years, provided nothing has changed. Mathematically, these
equations can be trusted for only a few centuries into the past,
and not at all into the future. It is only the astronomers faith
in the unchanged orbits of the planets that allows them to assume
that the equations will yield accurate records of where the
planets were tens of thousands of years ago.

Second: to solve the mysteries of Mars astronomers must first
answer the following historical questions posed by Ev Cochrane in
_Martian Metamorphoses: The Planet Mars in Ancient Myth and
Religion_:
   "Earthlings have long been fascinated by the planet Mars. Well
before modern science fiction speculated about advanced
civilizations upon Mars and the dire threat of invasion by little
green men, the red planet was regarded as a malevolent agent of
war, pestilence, and apocalyptic disaster. In an attempt to
appease the capricious planet-god, various ancient cultures
offered it human sacrifices. What is there about this distant
speck of light that could inspire such bizarre conceptions
culminating in ritual murder? And how do we account for the fact
that virtually identical beliefs are to be found around the globe,
in the New World as well as the Old?"

COCHRANE CONTINUES:
"For untold millennia prior to the advent of scientific astronomy
and well before there were any records which could properly be
called historical, human beings recounted myths surrounding their
favorite heroes and gods. Prominent themes in these sacred
traditions include the Creation, the Deluge, the wars of the gods,
and the dragon-combat. Despite the passage of eons and the
destruction of countless cultures, such myths were committed to
memory and told again and again primarily because they represented
sacred knowledge regarding the history of the world. Until
recently, however, such traditions have been given short shrift by
scholars in general and all but ignored by mainstream science.
This is most apparent, perhaps, in the modern astronomer's faith
that more can be learned about the recent history of our solar
system from running computer simulations than from considering
what our ancestors had to say on the matter."

THORNHILL COMMENTS:
Precisely. The date given with computer generated accuracy for
Mars' last closest approach to Earth is worthless. The computer
has not been programmed with the real history of this world or
that of Mars. Astronomers simply assume that the solar system is a
Newtonian timepiece with no real history for billions of years. If
that is wrong ? and our ancestors obsessively repeat a different
story ? then the first law of computing applies to the computed
date: Garbage in =3D garbage out.

COCHRANE AGAIN:
"..many of the greatest mythical themes reflect ancient man's
obsession with the red planet. Indeed, we will attempt to show
that Mars' prominence in ancient consciousness is directly
attributable to the peculiar behavior of the red planet, which
only recently participated in a series of spectacular cataclysms
involving the Earth and various neighboring planetary bodies. If
our thesis has any validity, it follows that the orthodox version
of the recent history of the solar system is itself little more
than a modern 'myth' and stands in dire need of revision. With
implications this far-reaching, the ancient traditions surrounding
the planet Mars suddenly take on new significance."

THORNHILL:
Science is supposed to consider all relevant data in attempting to
find the truth. It is unscientific to ignore the references to
Mars passed down by our ancestors worldwide, and which they
considered of paramount significance. "We instinctively dismiss
the idea that five or ten thousand years ago there may very well
have been thinkers of the order of Kepler, Gauss or Einstein,
working with the means at hand," wrote De Santillana & Von Dechend
in Hamlet1s Mill.

In addition, it is na=EFve to think that our infinitesimally small
time window of modern scientific investigation can be extrapolated
back over 60,000 years, let alone over millions or billions of
years. Mars is a mystery simply because of our unscientific and
na=EFve approach.

In New Scientist of 23 August 2003, in an article by David L.
Chandler titled "All eyes on Mars," some of the mysteries faced by
experts were outlined.
   "..Mars is proving more enigmatic than ever at the moment. The
latest images of the Martian surface taken by NASA's orbiting Mars
Global Surveyor (MGS) have revealed profoundly mysterious
landforms that have left geologists scratching their heads. The
features include a combination of surprisingly stable dunes,
canyons without craters and rapidly eroding ice caps. All point to
amazingly fast processes taking place on the surface. Mars has
changed considerably in the past few thousand years - in some
places, even the past two years. Yet nobody knows why. Unraveling
the mystery will require a radical leap in theoretical thinking,
says Michael Malin, the geologist in charge of the MGS camera."

No amount of theorizing based on slow evolutionary geological
principles will explain how the giant canyons on Mars are so young
that they have no craters in their walls. The very formation
mechanism of Valles Marineris is a mystery to geologists. However,
if we make use of the forensic evidence from the past, the
formation of Valles Marineris was witnessed by modern humans in
late prehistory. We don't need to theorize. Mars, the god of war,
was memorialized as the heroic figure in a celestial battle fought
with thunderbolts. Mars was struck and a visible scar remained.
For the scar of Valles Marineris to be seen by the naked eye
requires that Mars was about one hundred times closer to the Earth
than it is on this closest approach!

Unfortunately, such a radical overhaul of astronomy and geology
are implied by such information that it's just not going to happen
any day soon. Arthur Koestler wrote, in The Ghost in the Machine:
"The revolutions in the history of science are successful escapes
from blind alleys. The evolution of knowledge is continuous only
during those periods of consolidation and elaboration which follow
a major breakthrough. Sooner or later, however, consolidation
leads to increasing rigidity, orthodoxy, and so into the dead end
of overspecialization -- to the koala bear." So it is left to a
few adventurous seekers after the truth to scout far ahead and to
find the way out of the blind alley into which science has led us.

Based on an interdisciplinary approach to the mysteries of Mars,
some suggested solutions to the problems follow the excerpts from
the New Scientist article.

FROM NEW SCIENTIST:
"On Mars today, it looks as if glaciers are receding after an ice
age. At the planet's south pole, alternate layers of ice and dust
are vanishing before our eyes. These long, sweeping, arm-like
peninsulas were deposited as a result of past climate
oscillations. According to MGS images from 1999 and 2001, they are
eroding at a rate of 3 metres per year or more. The images show
peninsulas of ice narrowing, and occasionally being pinched off
into islands, with some islands disappearing altogether. By
measuring the amount of erosion seen over two years, Malin
calculates one entire layer will disappear within 20 years.

"We were absolutely shocked by that," said Malin when he presented
his results at a meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science in Denver, Colorado, in February. The
magnitude of the changes implies an enormous amount of energy is
being pumped into the ice to melt and vaporise it. And the speed
of the vaporisation has helped to resolve a long-standing
controversy over whether the ice is frozen water or carbon
dioxide. "Calculations showed the only material that could have
changed that rapidly is carbon dioxide," says Malin. It is hard to
tell from above how thick each layer of ice is, but best estimates
are that with every layer eroded, the thickness of the Martian
atmosphere increases by 1 per cent.

More questions remain. How many layers were there in the first
place, before the erosion started? How many remain below? Nobody
knows. But the implications for one of Mars's best-known surface
features are astounding. "All the visible ice, all the carbon
dioxide that we see in this 'permanent' ice cap could be eroded in
less than a century," Malin says.2

COMMENT: The fact that thunderbolts were remembered by the
ancients as a cause of surface scarring on Mars opens a whole new
realm of rapid electrical deposition and erosion to explain
surface features. It happened yesterday in geological terms so
that we may expect faster adjustments today than otherwise
expected. Electric discharges tend to remove matter from the
cathode and transfer it to the anode. Electrical deposition from
another body would explain the global layering seen on Mars.
Electric discharge machining would tend to remove surface material
by an etching process. That has resulted in many weird surface
features.

See photos on-line at:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=3D0414prqf

PHOTO CAPTION:  This enigmatic landform on Mars shows the
extensive layering followed by powerful electric discharge etching
of the surface. On the right is an electric discharge machined
surface viewed under an electron microscope. The scalability law
of plasma phenomena allows a direct comparison.

THORNHILL:
The Earth today suffers minor electrical interaction with the
solar plasma, which results in lightning at mid to lower latitudes
and a diffuse auroral discharge at the poles. Another form of
diffuse atmospheric electric discharge is the more energetic
tornado. Mars was also depicted by the ancients as sitting within
a glowing tornadic column for a period. That would explain the
huge swirling erosion patterns at both of the Martian poles. It
also means that the polar caps are only about 10,000 years old and
probably still accommodating to Mars' "new" environment. The
puzzling difference between the northern and southern hemispheres
of Mars is explained simply if the north pole was the cathode in
the tornadic electrical exchange. Material would then have been
removed from the northern hemisphere to give the low, flat and
relatively uncratered terrain found there.


PHOTO CAPTION:  On the left is the raised swirling terrain at the
Martian north pole. At right, we see that the layers of the
Martian north polar cap are divided into upper, light-toned layers
and lower, darker layers. It shows the deposition process to have
been discontinuous. Streamers of dark sand join a nearby "dune
field" a few kilometers away. Erosion of the lower layered unit
liberates sand that was long ago deposited in these layers. The
upper unit, by contrast, contains almost no sand. Wind may have
created the dunes or they may have been shaped by earlier spark
"pitting" of the surface. Mars Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space
Science Systems


PHOTO CAPTION:  For comparison, this surface has been pitted by
the process of electric spark machining.

NEW SCIENTIST ARTICLE:
   "Other features indicate a [recently] changing world, too. For
example, huge fields of granular dunes preserve detailed features
that show that they once marched across the landscape like sand
dunes on Earth, blown by the wind. Yet these dunes are frozen in
place, without a trace of motion over a two-year interval.

The only plausible explanation is, again, climate change. If the
atmosphere was much thicker in the recent past, its winds may have
been able to push along dunes that today's winds can no longer
even ruffle. Mars may have lost much of that thicker atmosphere in
the past and perhaps it is now regaining it from the evaporation
of its polar caps."

COMMENT: It was the most catastrophic climate change imaginable
involving a drastic shift of orbit as a result of the close
electrical and gravitational encounters with other planets.
Electrical forces in an essentially chaotic gravitational system
can quickly change and stabilize planetary orbits. It renders
computer orbital retro-calculations invalid. No such computation
will place Mars near the Earth only 10,000 years ago! The tornadic
circumpolar winds mentioned above were capable of moving heavy
sand grains and forming vast fields of sand dunes around the polar
caps. However, the electrical interactions were capable of
stripping much of Mars1 atmosphere too. The final result was a
tenuous atmosphere no longer capable of moving sand dunes.

NEW SCIENTIST ARTICLE:
"Perhaps the most mysterious new-found feature on Mars lies inside
its version of the Grand Canyon, the huge Valles Marineris, a
2000-kilometre-long canyon near the equator. In a side canyon
called Candor Chasma, the floor lies 3.5 kilometres below the
surrounding plateau and the walls are spectacularly layered. But
there are few impact craters on Candor Chasma's floor, implying
that it is less than a million years old, as it has not had time
to be bombarded by many meteorites. But if it is that young, Malin
asks, "how did it get exposed from under three and a half
kilometres of material?" So far, there is no answer."

COMMENT: I have explained how a powerful cosmic thunderbolt tore
out the canyons of Valles Marineris and the event was witnessed by
humans. As for dating surfaces by crater counting, almost all of
the craters on Mars are electrical. Impacts do not form such neat
circular craters. Because they are electrical craters they tend to
form on high points. That is why they are often seen perched on
the raised rims of earlier craters (earlier possibly only by
minutes) and the edges of canyons and not on the walls of existing
craters and canyons.

NEW SCIENTIST ARTICLE:
" 'Altogether,' says Malin, 'we have maybe eight to ten landforms
that indicate that what you see on Mars today, in terms of the
environment, is not what formed the features we see.' That points
to climate change, agrees planetary scientist Chris McKay of
NASA's Ames Research Center in California, who viewed Malin's
images at a Mars conference in Pasadena, California, last month.
But until scientists develop a detailed hypothesis that describes
the type of climate change and links it to the features observed,
the images don't make sense, says McKay. 'We've reached a point of
diminishing returns from orbital imaging,' he says.

Malin and McKay aren't the only ones feeling puzzled. 'The
problems are becoming more difficult, instead of becoming easier,'
said Bruce Jakosky, a planetary scientist at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, who was at the meeting in Pasadena. 'People
are seeing things they just don't understand, and coming up with
wild ideas to try to explain them,' he says. Many suggestions
invoke glaciation, but none can explain all the enigmatic
features."

COMMENT: Malin is correct. The present environment of Mars did not
form the features on Mars. Unfortunately, as specialists,
geologists have little else to work with other than climate change
to explain recent surface changes. For Koestler1s "koala bears,"
more orbital imaging just adds to the confusion. However,
continued orbital imaging remains valuable for interdisciplinary
advance scouts. They have the entire remembered experience of the
human race to assist their understanding of the images. They are
not limited by the myths created by modern science. They can see
beyond to an interdisciplinary science created by the study of
myths.

We must use myths to create a new science, not science to create
new myths.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

"The most 'ancient treasure' -in Aristotle's words -- that was
left to us by our predecessors of the High and Far-off Times was
the idea that the gods are really stars, and that there are no
others. The forces reside in the starry heavens, and all the
stories, characters and adventures narrated by mythology
concentrate on the active powers among the stars, who are
planets."
-- Giorgio Di Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

=A9 Wal Thornhill 2003
author of The Electric Universe:
A Holistic Science for the New Millennium
See www.electric-universe.org
********************************************************

PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA GROUP WEBSITE:

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Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, now
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universe, may be ordered from this page:

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Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about
Catastrophics:

http://www.aeonjournal.com/index.html
http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/
http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/
http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/
http://www.bearfabrique.org
http://www.grazian-archive.com/
http://www.holoscience.com
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/
http://www.electric-universe.org
http://www.science-frontiers.com <http://www.science-frontiers.com/>
http://www.catastrophism.com/cdrom/index.htm
http://www.dragonscience.com <http://www.dragonscience.com/>
-----------------------------------------------

The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of
scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging
field of astral catastrophics.  Our focus is on a
reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in
relation to a new theory of planetary history.  Serious
readers must allow some time for these radically
different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant
background to be developed.  The general tenor of the
ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by
the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty
of room for differences of interpretation.