Deception Point Page 87

Anything? Rachel asked.The pilot let the arm make several complete rotations. He ad justed some controls and watched. It was all clear. Couple of small airs way come forward on the periphery, but theyre heading away from us. Were clear. Miles and miles of open sea in all directions.Rachel Sexton sighed, although she did not feel particularly relieved. Do me a favor, if you see anything approaching- boats, aircraft, anything-will you let me know immediately?Sure thing. Is everything okay?Yeah. Id just worry to know if were having company.The pilot shrugged. Ill watch the radar, maam. If anything blips, youll be the first to know.Rachels senses were shiver as she headed for the hydrolab. When she entered, bad and Tolland were standing alone in front of a computer monitor and chewing sandwiches. corky called place to her with his m byh full. Whatll it be? Fishy chicken, fishy bologna, or fishy egg salad?Rachel barely hear the question. Mike, how fast can we get this information an d get off this get off?104Tolland paced the hydrolab, waiting with Rachel and Corky for Xavias return. The new-fangleds about the chondrules was almost as discomforting as Rachels news about her attempted contact with Pickering.The director didnt answer.And someone try to pulse-snitch the Goyas location.Relax, Tolland told everyone. Were safe. The edge Guard pilot is watching the radar. He can translate us plenty of warning if anyone is headed our way.Rachel nodded in agreement, although she still looked on edge.Mike, what the booby hatch is this? Corky asked, pointing at a Sparc computer monitor, which displayed an ominous psychedelic stick out that was pulsating and churning as though alive.Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, Tolland said. Its a swing out section of the currents and temperature gradients of the oceanic underneath the displace.Rachel stared. Thats what were anchored on top of?Tolland had to admit, the image looked frigh exing. At the surface, the water app eared as a swirling bluish green, but tracing downward, the alter slowly shifted to a menacing red-orange as the temperatures heated up. Near the bottom, oer a mile down, hovering above the ocean floor, a blood-red, cyclone vortex raged.Thats the megaplume, Tolland said.Corky grunted. Looks like an underwater tornado.Same principle. Oceans are usually colder and more obscure near the bottom, but here the dynamics are reversed. The deepwater is heated and lighter, so it rises toward the surface. Meanwhile, the surface water is heavier, so it races downward in a Brobdingnagian spiral to fill the void. You get these drainlike currents in the ocean. Enormous whirlpools.Whats that big shock on the seafloor? Corky pointed at the flat expanse of ocean floor, where a large dome-shaped great deal rose up like a bubble. presently above it swirled the vortex.That mound is a magma dome, Tolland said. Its where lava is pushing up beneath the ocean floor.Corky nodded. Like a huge zit.In a agency of speaking.And if it pops?Tolland frowned, recalling the famous 1986 megaplume event off the Juan de Fuca Ridge, where thousands of tons of twelve hundred degrees Celsius magma spewed up into the ocean all at once, magnifying the plumes intensity almost instantly. Surface currents amplified as the vortex expanded rapidly upward. What happened next was something Tolland had no intention of manduction with Corky and Rachel this evening.Atlantic magma domes dont pop, Tolland said. The cold water circulating over the mound continually cools and hardens the earths crust, keeping the magma safely under a thick stratum of rock. Eventually the lava underneath cools, and the spiral disappears. Megaplumes are generally not dangerous.Corky pointed toward a tattered magazine sitting near the computer. So youre utter Scientific American publishes fiction?Tolland saw the cover, and winced. Someone had obviously pulled it from the Goyas register of old science magazines Scientific Am erican, February 1999. The cover showed an artists rendering of a supertanker swirling out of control in an enormous funnel of ocean. The heading read MEGAPLUMES-GIANT KILLERS FROM THE recondite?Tolland laughed it off. Totally irrelevant. That article is talking about megaplumes in earthquake zones. It was a popular Bermuda Triangle hypothesis a few years back, exempting ship disappearances. Technically speaking, if theres some sort of cataclysmic geologic event on the ocean floor, which is unheard of around here, the dome could rupture, and the vortex could get big enough to well, you know No, we dont know, Corky said.Tolland shrugged. Rise to the surface.Terrific. So glad you had us aboard.Xavia entered carrying some papers. Admiring the megaplume?Oh, yes, Corky said sarcastically. Mike was just telling us how if that minuscular mound ruptures, we all go spiraling around in a big drain.Drain? Xavia gave a cold laugh. More like getting flushed down the worlds largest toilet.Outs ide on the deck of the Goya, the Coast Guard helicopter pilot vigilantly watched the EMS radar screen. As a rescue pilot he had seen his share of fear in peoples look Rachel Sexton had definitely been afraid when she asked him to keep an eye out for out of the blue(predicate) visitors to the Goya.What kind of visitors is she expecting? he wondered.From all the pilot could see, the sea and air for ten miles in all directions contained nothing that looked out of the ordinary. A fishing boat eight miles off. An occasional aircraft slicing across an edge of their radar subject and then disappearing again toward some unknown destination.The pilot sighed, gazing out now at the ocean rushing all around the ship. The sentiency was a ghostly one-that of sailing full speed despite existence anchored.He returned his eyes to the radar screen and watched. Vigilant.105Onboard the Goya, Tolland had now introduced Xavia and Rachel. The ships geologist was looking at increasingly baffled by th e distinguished entourage standing to begin with her in the hydrolab. In addition, Rachels eagerness to run the tests and get off the ship as fast as possible was clearly making Xavia uneasy. homecoming your time, Xavia, Tolland willed her. We need to know everything.Xavia was talking now, her voice stiff. In your documentary, Mike, you said those little metallic inclusions in the rock could form only in space.Tolland already felt a tremor of apprehension. Chondrules form only in space. Thats what NASA told me. just now according to these notes, Xavia said, holding up the pages, thats not entirely true.Corky glared. Of persist its trueXavia scowled at Corky and waved the notes. Last year a infantile geologist named Lee pollack out of Drew University was using a new breed of marine robot to do Pacific deepwater crust sampling in the Mariana Trench and pulled up a loose rock that contained a geologic feature he had never seen before. The feature was quite convertible in appearanc e to chondrules. He called them plagioclase stress inclusions-tiny bubbles of metal that apparently had been rehomogenized during deep ocean pressurization events. Dr. Pollock was amazed to find metallic bubbles in an ocean rock, and he formulated a unique theory to explain their presence.Corky grumbled. I suppose he would have to.Xavia ignored him. Dr. Pollock asserted that the rock formed in an ultradeep oceanic environment where natural pressure metamorphosed a pre-existing rock, permitting some of the disparate metals to fuse.