Word: volcanoes
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...miles from the nearest inhabited place, has long presented scientists with a stony enigma. Somehow, some time in the past, an industrious people carved out hundreds of stone statues of big-nosed, long-eared men and moved the figures, weighing up to 50 tons, from inside an extinct volcano to stone platforms rimming the island. According to archaeological evidence, the job was done without metal, without knowledge of the wheel, without technical aids save poles and fiber ropes. How could this feat be accomplished...
...crack in the earth's crust allowed magma from the earth's hot interior to rise fairly near the surface. Magma is uneasy stuff, an intensely hot solution of steam and other gases in melted rock. When it bursts out in large quantities, it builds a volcano. When it does not quite break loose, it creates a geothermal area like the place near Healdsburg...
Atop their near-volcano, Magma Power and Thermal Power drilled four steam wells, using ordinary oil-well drilling equipment. The wells are 500 to 700 ft. deep, and the temperature -of the rock at bottom is about 600° F. When the wells are capped, steam pressure measures 300 to 400 Ibs. per sq. in., but when the steam flows, pressure drops to 100 Ibs. and temperature...
From within Washington's secrecy-walled atomic energy councils, a rumble of dispute occasionally bursts into notice like a volcano's reminder of subterranean turmoil. Such a rumble was audible in Washington last week in the debate over whether the U.S. should build another reactor to produce plutonium, a radioactive element now much needed for compact, low-fallout nuclear weapons. Yes, said Congress. No, said the President. Underlying the conflict was the chronic tension between the Administration's desire to avoid needless expenditure and military leaders' nagging fears that the U.S. is skimping on national defense...
Outwardly the most stable of all Arab countries, prosperous and democratic little Lebanon (pop. 1,500,000) has been rocking for months on the rim of the Arab nationalist volcano. Last week all the pent-up flames of its religious feuds and political frustrations burst into the wildest and bloodiest rioting of Lebanon's twelve years of independence...