Section A·Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, November 18, 1999
Researchers find volcanic-like rock
By Todd Halstead
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Three volcanic features discovered in northeastern Kansas may contain precious stones and insight to underground geological conditions.
Researchers at the Kansas Geological Survey, based at the University of Kansas, are researching the volcanic features after locating them this summer in Riley and Marshall counties in northeastern and north Kansas respectively. Known as kimberlites, they erupted to the surface about 90 million years ago — but not in a fury of lava.
Kevin Dobbs, research assistant,
said kimberlites formed when carbon dioxide built up deep underground and erupted in a small violent explosion with little magma. The explosion of the three new kimberlites resulted in 300 to 1,500-foot craters.
Dobbs said kimberlite rock contains a lot of calcium carbonate and garnet and is bluish-gray in color. "You might find pieces of rock from 40 miles deep," he said. "It's a good source of where we can learn about the very deep rock in the Earth."
The three kimberlites are among nine others previously discovered in Riley County. They are about 20 feet below the surface on private property.
Pieter Berendsen, Survey researcher, said he asked permission to study the formations from a scientific perspective, not an economic one.
Cominco American, a mining company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, mined several kimberlites in Kansas for diamonds in the 1980s but to no avail. Berendsen said kimberlite sites were exploited throughout the world for diamonds, but that tons of kimberlite were sifted through to produce one carat of diamond.
Berendsen and Dobbs said core samples of rock were taken from the sites this month and would be analyzed for clues on how the kimberlites occurred and on deep surface geology in the region.
"Land owners have been very cooperative in letting us drill at their property," he said.
Berendsen said researchers discovered the kimberlite by using a device that reads the Earth's magnetic surface. He said kimberlites produced unusual readings or signatures because they were composed of volcanic rock and surrounded by sedimentary rocks.
Dobbs said they set up a grid around possible areas and did readings until they found round formations that would signify possible kimberlites.
"It's very interesting," he said.
"It's like detective work — there's something out there, and you're trying to find out where and what it is."
—Edited by Clare McLellan
NEWPORT, R.I.—A crewmember, apparently alone in the cockpit of an EgyptAir jetliner, said "I made my decision now" just before the autopilot was turned off and the plane began its fatal plunge, a federal law enforcement official said yesterday.
EgyptAir recorder sheds light on crash
The Associated Press
Moments later, when the plane was diving, the pilot re-entered the cockpit and apparently struggled to regain control of the jetliner, a source close to the investigation said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The focus of the investigation has shifted to the backup co-pilot amid indications that he was at the controls just before the plane crashed into the Atlantic.
"Pull with me. Help me. Pull with me," the pilot said, according to the source.
Although there was no sign of any technical malfunction, it is too early to say whether the crew played any role in the Oct. 31 crash that killed 217 people, investigators said.
The federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Arabic words uttered by the crewmember in the co-pilot seat have been translated to: "I made my decision now. I put my faith in God's hands."
The official said the crewmember, whom he would not name, was believed to be alone in the cockpit at the time and spoke just before the Flight 990's autopilot was turned off.
Earlier, another source close to the investigation said Egyptian
"As long as there are differences in the interpretation and there are significant differences in the cultural interpretations of some expressions on the recorder I think it is unfair ... for us to characterize it."
James Hall
National Transportation Safety Board chairman
The source said the identification came after the airline officials listened to the cockpit voice recorder, one of two "black boxes" recovered from the crash site 60 miles off Nantucket Island.
airline tentatively identified Capt. Gameel el-Batouty as occupying the co-pilot's seat and uttering a prayer just before the autopilot was disengaged. El Batouty, a 59-year-old relief copilot, faced retirement from the state-owned airline early next year.
In Egypt, relatives angrily denied that el-Batouty had sent money home because he planned to commit suicide, describing him as a loving father of five.
Egypt also sent its senior aviation official to Washington to take part in the crash investigation after questioning the need to turn in the probe to the FBI. Such a move is seen as a step toward saying the disaster was the result of a criminal act.
El-Batouty was scheduled to take control much later in the 11-hour New York-to-Cairo flight from co-pilot Adel Anwar. A source said Tuesday the tape showed el-Batouty came to the
cockpit, said he wanted to fly and his request was accepted.
According to the investigators' scenario:
El-Batouty, left alone in the cockpit, said the Arabic phrase that can mean "I put my faith in God's hands," and turned off the autopilot. The plane began a steep plunge from 33,000 feet just after that, regaining some altitude before dropping into the sea. The pilot, Capt. Ahmed Mahmoud el-Habashy, returned to the cockpit and tried to regain control. "Pull with me. Help me. Pull with me," he said, according to the source.
The jet's two engines were effectively shut down during the dive, according to the cockpit data recorder. Sources also said the unusual split in the plane's elevators — flaps on the tail that bend up or down to raise or lift the plane's nose — may have been caused as one pilot tried to lift the plane out of a dive and another forced the controls down.
Investigators are trying to determine whether the two other cockpit crewmembers had re-entered the cockpit from the cabin when the plane was in its dive.
At a news conference Tuesday
in Washington, National Transportation Safety Board Chairman James Hall said no sign of mechanical malfunction has been identified in the crash of the Boeing 767.
But at Egypt's request he stopped short of giving the investigation to the FBI to allow additional Egyptian experts more time to analyze the last recorded words of the pilots so they might contribute more understanding to what was said.
"As long as there are differences in the interpretation — and there are significant differences in the cultural interpretations of some expressions on the recorder — I think it is unfair ... for us to characterize it," he said.
Although the phrase heard on the voice recorder has been described as a prayer, that doesn't mean it was related to the cause of the disaster. Arabic speakers make references to God in everyday statements.
Over the weekend, EgyptAir insisted that el-Habashy and Anwar were in good physical and mental condition, passing checkups in the past five months.
"They were among our best pilots," said Hassan Misharfa, EgyptAir's head of operations. "They had long experience and, in addition to that, they had passed all professional, safety and psychological tests successfully."
The airline did not address the condition of el-Batouty and Capt. Raouf Noureddin, another pilot. U.S. investigators now are studying the background of all crew members.
Open lines could lower Internet cost
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—More residential consumers could obtain high-speed Internet access — and at lower cost — under action anticipated by federal regulators.
Today the Federal Communications Commission is expected to require local telephone companies to share their lines with businesses that want to offer high-speed Internet connections to customers.
Right now, local telephone companies, like the regional Bells and GTE, can offer high-speed Internet services to subscribers on the same lines as they provide their regular voice service. But for outside businesses to come in and sell Internet connections to a consumer, they must buy a sec-
That could make it substantially cheaper for upstart businesses to compete with telephone companies in providing connections dozens of times faster than today's dial-up modems. And consumers might benefit with more choices for services, like certain digital subscriber lines, at competitive prices.
on line from the telephone company into the consumer's home
That means businesses competing with the local phone companies must spend about $20 to $23 for each second line. Upstart Internet companies say this puts them at a significant price disadvantage and limits their ability to lure residential consumers.
They say the playing field could be leveled if the FCC takes the action anticipated.
"This is a start of all of that good stuff, and the start of our campaign for the consumer in a more meaningful way," said Dhruv Khanna, general counsel of Covad Communications Inc., which sells Internet connections mostly to business customers. The company hopes to be able to offer high-speed connections at less than $40 a month and expand its reach to residential customers.
Jeff Blumenfeld, general counsel for Rhythms Connections Inc., another data services company said sharing lines will enable consumers to start receiving service in a matter of days rather than waiting weeks for a
second line installation.
But the regional Bells say they have serious concerns about the impact on consumer service of carrying data and voice traffic — from different providers — on the same copper wire.
"We are concerned about the impact on the consumer who is currently purchasing voice service from us that could have two providers over the same line," said Susanne Guyer, assistant vice president of federal regulatory affairs for Bell Atlantic.
Robert Blau, BellSouth's vice president for executive and regulatory affairs, stressed that making sure basic voice service stays reliable will be an important consideration for the FCC and companies, as they add these applications to the phone line.
Industry officials expect the FCC to implement this requirement within six months. Pricing arrangements are yet to be determined. The commission is expected to set some interim pricing guidelines, with states hammering out later how much Internet businesses must pay the local telephone companies to split the line.
Bradley refutes Gore's charges
Democratic hopeful stands by his plans to remove Medicaid
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—Up against a daily assault by Al Gore, Bill Bradley stood by his plan to eliminate Medical aid and accused the vice president yesterday of playing politics with a broken system that stigmatizes the poor and minorities.
"He's wrong," Bradley said.
In sober tones, the former basket ball star described his presidential race as the ultimate game and issued his sharpest and most detailed defense of his $65 billion health care plan.
Bradley, in an interview with The Associated Press, also eyed corporate tax loopholes as ripe for closing and said politicians must start evaluating them each year like any other spending program.
He also said he opposed sports betting, but Bradley, who represented New Jersey and its Atlantic City casinos during 18 years in the Senate, declined to condemn all gambling.
"I buy a lottery ticket every now and then," he chuckled.
Bradley spoke to AP reporters and editors from his aides' typed page of talking points, on which he jammed the margins with his own tight scrawl.
His reading glasses propped low
on his nose,
B r ad l e y
responded to
Gore's escalating charges that Latinos, blacks and AIDS patients would be devastated by the loss of Medicaid.
"He's wrong."
Bradley said.
"He's defending something
Bradley: is defending his $65 billion health care plan
that needs to be improved."
Bradley said he would give low-income Americans subsidies to buy health insurance in the private market or from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
This week alone, Gore gave an interview on Spanish-language radio, conducted an Internet chat with women and placed ads on black radio stations to spread the word
that minorities and other groups who disproportionately rely on Medicaid might not be able to buy insurance with the capped amount of subsidy in Bradley's plan.
"What you're seeing is constituency politics on the other side," Bradley said. "I mean you know, just go down this group, that group, that group, that group — try to get that group against this group and this group against that — not looking at the whole. And the whole is that people would be better off if those who were uninsured had a chance to be a part of the federal system."
Bradley suggested that his rival's critique hurt most because it denigrated Bradley's deep and longstanding commitment to helping minorities and the poor.
“It’s sad that (Gore) would not respect that.” Bradley said.
In reply, a representative for Gore, Chris Lehane ticked down a list: minorities, the poor, the disabled, senior citizens and those who are HIV-positive.
"Each one of those groups would disproportionately impacted and left out in the cold if Senator Bradley's health care plan was ever enacted," Lehane said.
Power Mac G4 Apple
Up to 450MHz PowerPC processor with Velocity Engine advanced vector processing technology
1MB backside L2 cache
Built-in 10/100BASE-T Ethernet
ATI RAGE 128 graphics card with 16MB of graphics memory
4 DIMM slots for up to 1.5GB PC100 SDRAM
Four expansion slots
Support for more than 100GB of internal hard disk space
Up to three 400 megabit per second Firewire ports for connecting up to 63 devices
2 Universal Serail Bus (USB) ports for connecting up to 127 peripherals
“Instant access” side door for easy upgrading
union technology center
See it today!
starting at $1,503.00
Level 3,Burge Union 864-5690 Mon-Thurs 8:30-7:00 Fri 8:30-5:00 Sat 10:00-4:00