posted on Sep, 23 2004 @ 02:04 PM
You're partially correct. I saw an awesome show on the Nat'l Geographic Channel about a year ago and they displayed some amazing the theories. The
one that stuck with me was the one regarding volcanic activities on the ocean floor supported by experiments... First of all, they did an experiment
that showed that when volcanic gasses erupt beneath the ocean it changes the density of the water (Remember... boats foat by displacing a
proportionate amount of water weight). These gasses form massive amounts of bubbles beneath the ship which then makes the ship heavier than the water
that it is in and sinks, literally, like a rock. The showed several experiments of this on scale models and the ships sunk every time.
Additionally, this same gas, once it breaks the ocean's surface, changes the air density above it. Remember, airplanes fly by the amount of lift
that they are able to generate beneath and above their wings. This principle works as applied to standard environemental gasses, not volcanic gasses.
The resulting loss of lift and thrust causes the plane to crash. Again, this was supported by the experimentaion of scale model airplanes in a wind
tunnel... when the gas was changed from atmospheric oxygen to a simulated volcanic gas the models lost all lift and fell to the bottom of the wind
tunnel.
I was pretty satisfied with the explainations... enough so to cause me to close the book on this one.
[edit on 23-9-2004 by kozmo]