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No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998

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Global cooling has begun!

G. Bond of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and his colleagues have been tracking the movements of past ice sheets using the trails of rocky debris they leave behind on the ocean floor. A type of igneous rock called "gabbro" is indicative of the passage of past ice sheets. For example, 100,000 years ago, when the last ice age began, the amount of gabbro in ocean-floor sediments jumped from 2% to 8%. Despite all today's furor over global warming, Bond et al are finding in current ocean sediments the same gabbro precursors. Conclusion: a new ice age is in the making.

(Anonymous; "Big Freeze," New Scientist, p. 21, December 20/27, 1997.)

From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998. � 1998-2000 William R. Corliss