Algae bloom threatens Lake Erie
BUFFALO, N.Y., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Environmentalists say the worst algae bloom ever in Lake Erie is evidence efforts to clean up the lake could be undone by agricultural runoff.
The bloom in the western waters of the lake could eventually reduce populations of walleye, a favorite of fishermen, and increase the number of invasive zebra and quagga mussels, they said.
While the eastern end of Lake Erie may look clean and clear, "it's an optical illusion," Tom Marks, New York director of the Great Lakes Sport Fishing Council, told the Buffalo (N.Y.) News Tuesday.
From the lake's Michigan shore the bloom extends eastward to the area north of Cleveland, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last month.
Two feet thick in places, the bloom resulted in beach advisories throughout the lake's western basin, and toxins in the algae tested at 1,000 times the World Health Organization's standards for drinking water, the newspaper said.
Environmentalists say the algae bloom is larger than any the lake experienced in the 1960s, when algae was so widespread experts declared the lake "dead."
Dinosaur tracks studied in Arkansas
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Researchers say they are using both cutting-edge and traditional techniques at a newly discovered field of dinosaur tracks in Arkansas.
Scientists at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, said the field in southwest Arkansas covers an area of about two football fields and contains the fossilized tracks of several species.
Some tracks are from species never previously documented in Arkansas, a university release said Wednesday.
"The quality of the tracks and the length of the trackways make this an important site," researcher Stephen K. Boss said, noting that the rock types where the footprints were found provide clues to what the climate would have been like 120 million years ago.
"Picture an environment much like that of the shores of the Persian Gulf today. The air temperature was hot. The water was shallow and very salty," Boss said. "It was a harsh environment. We're not sure what the animals were doing here, but clearly they were here in some abundance."
The most dramatic tracks, about 2 feet long by a foot wide, may have been those of a three-toed Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, one of the largest predators ever to walk the earth, the researchers said.
Tradition tools such as hand-held brooms and plaster to make casts are being used alongside cutting-edge instruments such as laser scanners to study the tracks, the scientists said.
Water like Earth's seen in asteroid
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- U.S. astronomers say new evidence bolsters a theory that a significant portion of Earth's early oceans was delivered to the planet by asteroids.
University of Michigan researchers have detected ocean-like water on an asteroid for the first time using instruments on the Herschel Space Observatory, a UM release said Wednesday.
"Life would not exist on Earth without liquid water, and so the questions of how and when the oceans got here is a fundamental one," astronomy Professor Ted Bergin said. "It's a big puzzle and these new findings are an important piece."
The researchers observed that ice on a comet called Hartley 2 has the same chemical composition as our oceans.
"We were all surprised," Bergin said.
The source of Earth's oceans has been debated for decades with asteroids a leading candidate, and now the Herschel discovery has shown at least one comet does have ocean-like water, the researchers said.
Ancient Maya road unearthed in El Salvador
BOULDER, Colo., Oct. 5 (UPI) -- Archaeologists excavating a Mayan village in El Salvador buried by a volcano 1,400 years ago say they've found an ancient white road leading from the town.
University of Colorado at Boulder researchers say the road, known as a "sacbe," is about 6 feet across and made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living in the village known as Ceren in about 600 A.D.
CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Payson Sheets said in Yucatan Maya the word "sacbe" literally means "white way" and described elevated ancient roads typically paved with white lime plaster that sometimes connected temples, plazas and towns.
"Until our discovery, these roads were only known from the Yucatan area in Mexico and all were built with stone linings, which generally preserved well," Sheets said. "It took the unusual preservation at Ceren to tell us the Maya also made them without stone.
Sheets said evidence suggests the village was conducting a crop-harvesting ceremony when the volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago hit and buried the town.
"We know there was a celebration going on when the eruption hit," said Sheets, noting evidence of large quantities of food and drink being prepared.
"And we've found no evidence of anyone going back to their houses, gathering up valuables, and fleeing, because all the household doors were tied shut. We think people may have left the plaza and run south, possibly on the sacbe, because the danger was to the north."
