The Ice Limit
Page 44
Tidal waves, scientists say, are often a byproduct of undersea earthquakes. It is believed that the quakes can trigger underwater landslides, which in turn can pull down part of the surface of the overlying ocean, triggering unnaturally large waves that spread out in all directions. Seismic stations around the world have continued to record increasingly strong earthquake activity in the area, with some registering up to 7.9 Mw on the Richter scale—almost as severe as the 8.25 earthquake that leveled San Francisco in 1906. These recent earthquakes have been strong enough to be felt in Punta Arenas, Chile, some 2,000 miles away.
[New York Times - page A5, International: 4-column story, top half of page]
Furor Erupts over Sinking of Rolvaag in South Atlantic
By ERIK HUTCHINS
NEW YORK, August 23—A scientific furor erupted today when Dr. Samuel McFarlane, a planetary geologist with no academic affiliation, asserted on the Today Show that the earthquake activity in the South Atlantic is being caused by a meteorite of interstellar origin.
Dr. McFarlane claimed that he had been scientific director of a secret expedition to the Cape Horn islands to recover the world’s largest meteorite for the collection of industrialist Palmer Lloyd. He maintained that the Rolvaag, which sank on July 25, was chartered by a dummy company set up by Lloyd Holdings, Inc., and that the ship carried not iron ore but a 25,000 ton meteorite that had been misappropriated from Chilean national territory. The Rolvaag, of Liberian registry, sank in a severe storm in the South Atlantic with the loss of 108 lives. The meteorite, he said, went to the bottom with the ship.
Dr. McFarlane advanced the theory that the meteorite was actually a large seed that had been drifting across interstellar space for millions, even billions of years. “This is the Panspermia Theory with a venegeance,” he said in his surprise appearance on the Today Show. The Panspermia Theory refers to an idea promoted by the late Carl Sagan, in which life may have first reached earth through vast clouds of microscopic spores drifting through space. “This is a spore, a seed, only it isn’t microscopic. It had been waiting for salt water to germinate. And now it’s growing into God only knows what.” He added that planetary geologists believe the galaxy is populated with planets and that many may have saltwater oceans. “We’ve already found another planet in our own Solar System with a vast saltwater ocean—Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the seed was looking for salt water in which to germinate.”
Dr. McFarlane offered as evidence for his theory a CD-ROM computer disk, which he claimed contained data collected on the meteorite before it was lost. He offered copies of the disk to any properly credentialed scientist who asked for it.
His assertions, however, were quickly disputed by scientists across the spectrum, who pointed to Dr. McFarlane’s checkered career, which included a controversial stint at the New York Museum of Natural History and a period as a freelance meteorite hunter. “This theory is absurd,” said Dr. Saul Blumenthal, director of the SETI project and an expert on extraterrestrial biology. “It’s ridiculous. I have a copy of the so-called disk and I can assure you it is a fake, a crude fabrication. Why the press has given this asinine claim the slightest attention at all is the only mystery here that needs investigation. This is just one more chapter in Dr. McFarlane’s effort to promote his crackpot theory of interstellar meteorites. There is no such thing.”
The planetary geologist Hugo Breitling, a meteorite expert and adjunct professor with the California Institute of Technology, said he was “shocked” by Dr. McFarlane’s “haggard” demeanor during his Today Show appearance and said he “was clearly in need of psychiatric treatment.” He added: “I’ve known Sam McFarlane for a long time, and all I can say is, this is the culmination of a long and very sad decline.”
Attempts to reach Palmer Lloyd, whom Dr. McFarlane claimed financed the expedition, were unavailing. A Lloyd Museum spokesperson, Cindi Jenkins, dismissed McFarlane’s report as “an utter fabrication” and “libelous.” She said that McFarlane had applied for, and been refused, a position at the new museum several months ago.
In a related story, repeated attempts to contact the research vessel H.M.S. Marylebone, which disappeared in the South Atlantic two days ago, continue to be unsuccessful. Aerial reconnaissance and satellite photography also failed to turn up any evidence of the ship, or even debris on the surface. Some maritime experts said that it would be unthinkable for a large research vessel such as the Marylebone to have remained incommunicado for such a period unless some disaster had occurred that either sank the ship or left it crippled beyond repair. Worsening weather cut short further air search and also prevented ships from entering the area, notorious for its high seas and violent storms.
[The New York Times - front page: 1-column story, rightmost column]
Palmer Lloyd Asserts Ship Carried Meteorite
Says It Was a Seed From Interstellar Space
By QUENTIN SCOTT
NEW YORK, August 24—Palmer Lloyd, the controversial billionaire and director of the Lloyd Museum, emerged from seclusion to make an unexpected appearance on the Larry King Live show. He said he had been on the Rolvaag when it sank, and he confirmed that the ship was indeed carrying a meteorite recovered from Chilean territory. He also confirmed that Dr. Samuel McFarlane was the scientific director of the expedition. He stated that the controversial CD-ROM was genuine, and that he and Dr. McFarlane were sending copies to leading geology and biology departments across the country in hopes that the data could be studied as soon as possible.
In an interview with the Post following his appearance on Larry King Live, Lloyd told a harrowing story of the loss of the Rolvaag. Last year, he said, a scout for the Lloyd Museum had discovered the presence of the meteorite on Cape Horn Island, the southernmost Island in the Cape Horn group. The meteorite was to be the centerpiece of the new natural history museum he was building in Putnam County, along the upper Hudson River Valley. The expedition went down to Chile under the cover of a mining operation. Lloyd says he satisfied the letter of international law by acquiring mineral leases to the island in question and that the expedition broke no laws.
The meteorite was loaded on board the Rolvaag without undue difficulties, according to Lloyd, when their activities were discovered by the captain of a Chilean destroyer, the Almirante Ramirez. The destroyer chased the Rolvaag into international waters, fired on the tanker, and crippled it near the Ice Limit, the line demarcating where the Antarctic ice pack begins. The Almirante Ramirez subsequently sank in a strong storm that was battering the region. The Rolvaag, according to Lloyd, had been so badly damaged by the Chilean warship that the order was given to abandon ship. Many hands were lost launching the lifeboats in the violent seas, and the Rolvaag sank less than fifteen minutes after being abandoned, carrying its 25,000 ton cargo to the bottom. The captain of the Rolvaag, Master Sally Britton, went down with the ship. Lloyd stated that the sinking of the Rolvaag took place in precisely the place identified by seismologists as the epicenter of the recent earthquakes.
Maritime records back up Lloyd’s assertions of where the Rolvaag sank, but the rest of his story could not be independently confirmed. The Chilean consulate in New York issued a strong denial that any of its naval ships had been involved in a confrontation with the Rolvaag or any other vessel. A naval expert with Jane’s Defense Weekly did, however, confirm the existence of a destroyer in the Chilean fleet named the Almirante Ramirez, captained by a Comandante Emiliano Vallenar.
Lloyd also backed up Dr. McFarlane’s theory that the meteorite was a giant seed that they had inadvertently planted at the bottom of the ocean. He ended his interview with a strong plea to the international community to unite and do whatever possible, as he put it, to “kill whatever it is that’s growing down there, before it rips the planet apart.” He said he was shutting down the Lloyd Museum and placing his entire fortune, estimated at $33 billion, at the disposal of “anyone with a good idea of how to exterminate” what he call
ed a “very dangerous life form.”
Mr. Lloyd’s appearance was immediately greeted with a chorus of derision from the scientific community, which continued to assert the CD-ROM was a fake, and that Lloyd was, as one put it, “pulling a stunt that would shame even P.T. Barnum.”
[The New York Times - front page, 3-column banner story.]
Freakish Tidal Waves Rake South Atlantic Coasts
By SARAH TWOMBLEY
BUENOS AIRES, August 26—Immense tidal waves reaching up to 200 feet high struck the coastlines of Antarctica, Tierra del Fuego, and the southern coastline of Chile at around 11:00 GMT. The waves even reached as far as the southwestern coastline of Africa. Tidal waves also raked the islands of South Georgia, South Shetland, South Orkney, and the Falkland island groups. Preliminary reports indicate heavy damage in Punta Arenas and the Falklands, with loss of life mounting into the hundreds, as well as devastating damage to the British Scientific Station on South Georgia Island. A general evacuation of low-lying coastal areas in the southern regions of South America has been ordered by Chile, Argentina, and Great Britain. The government of South Africa has issued a coastal advisory covering its west coast ports and cargo carriers using the international shipping route that rounds the Cape of Good Hope.
Scientists believe the tidal waves are connected with the intense seismic activity which gripped the Scotia Ridge area of the South Atlantic last month, but severe storms have prevented observation of the area since the research vessel, H.M.S. Marylebone, disappeared there on August 21. Seismic stations around the globe continue to record powerful earthquakes in the area, some registering as high as 9.3 Mw on the Richter scale, making them some of the highest-magnitude earthquakes recorded since the scale was invented in 1935. The earthquakes have already leveled the towns of Ushuaia and Puerto Williams and caused extensive landslides in the southern Cordillera of Chile. They have also caused severe damage in Punta Arenas, Stanley, and Rio Gallegos, and have been felt as far as Durban, South Africa.
Scientists initially believed the seaquakes were caused by an underwater volcanic eruption, but the increasing size of the quakes have made that theory less likely. “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen as a geologist,” said Elwyn Pandolfi of Harvard University. “Some utterly new and previously unobserved geological process is taking place. I would guess it’s related to plate tectonics in some way. It’s certainly not a seed, as some absurd reports have suggested.”
[Washington Post - page A14, World News, 4-column boxed story, above the fold]
Lloyd Announces Expedition to Destroy “Alien Plant”
Claims Future of Planet at Risk
By TANISHA HUNDT
Washington Post Staff Writer
NEW YORK, August 27—Palmer Lloyd, who stunned the world last week with the announcement that the earthquakes and tidal waves in the South Atlantic were being caused by a germinating seed from outer space, said today that he was forming an emergency expedition to the South Atlantic to “exterminate the life form” that he says he is responsible for “planting.” The expedition will be led by Dr. Samuel McFarlane, the former meteorite hunter and planetary geologist who, Lloyd claims, led the original expedition to Chile to recover the meteorite.
The announcement was, as usual, greeted with ridicule from the scientific community. “This is cynicism at a breathtaking level,” said Elwyn Pandolfi of Harvard University. “It may be true that the Rolvaag sank with a great meteorite on board, but to turn that tragedy into this kind of promotional circus is unforgivable.” Other scientists echoed Dr. Pandolfi’s views and severely criticized the news media, particularly the Today Show, for giving the assertions any credence.
On the Today Show earlier in the week, Lloyd sent out a plea for scientists from around the world to band together in an effort to destroy “whatever it is that’s growing down there.” According to Lloyd spokesperson Cindi Jenkins, the response has been spectacular. “We will have our choice of the very best,” she said. “The pay is excellent and while the danger is high, the stakes are higher. Our very survival as a species is threatened.”
Later, cameramen photographed a slim man in a wheelchair, wearing a brown suit and dark glasses, his face, hands, and feet heavily bandaged, leaving the Lloyd Holdings headquarters on Park Avenue. The man was said to be an engineer who had survived the wreck of the Rolvaag, and who had been attempting to volunteer his services to design a weapon that would kill the “alien plant” Lloyd claims is growing in the South Atlantic. Later, in response to a press conference question, Lloyd stated he had rejected the man’s offer of help. He refused to make the man’s name available to the press, but stated that he had been the chief engineer on the original expedition to Chile, and had been on board the Rolvaag when it went down. Later, the Post was able to confirm the man’s identity as Eli Glinn, president of an obscure New York City firm known as Effective Engineering Solutions. The Post was unable to obtain a telephone number or an address for the firm.
According to Lloyd, if all goes as planned, the heavily armed expedition will leave New York Harbor on September 15, bound for the Ice Limit.
Authors’ Note
THE ICE Limit is, in part, inspired by a real scientific expedition. In 1906, Admiral Robert E. Peary discovered the world’s largest meteorite, which he named the Ahnighito, in northern Greenland. He located it because Eskimos in the area were using cold-hammered iron spearpoints, which Peary analyzed and found to be meteoritic in origin. He ultimately recovered the Ahnighito, wrestling it to his ship only with tremendous difficulty. The mass of iron, when it was finally aboard, destroyed all the ship’s compasses. He managed to bring it back to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where it is still on display in the Hall of Meteorites. He recounted the story in his book Northward over the Great Ice. “Never,” Peary wrote, “have I had the terrific majesty of the force of gravity so powerfully brought home to me as in handling this mountain of iron.” The Ahnighito is so heavy that it rests on six massive steel pillars that penetrate the floor of the museum’s meteorite hall, pass through the basement, and are bolted into the very bedrock under the building.
Needless to say, while many of the locales mentioned in The Ice Limit actually exist, Lloyd Industries, Effective Engineering Solutions, and all of the characters and ships described in the novel, both American and Chilean, are entirely fictitious. In places, we have taken liberties with the design, construction, and characteristics of tankers to best suit the narrative. In addition, while an atlas will reveal a large island named Isla Desolación some three hundred fifty miles northwest of where much of The Ice Limit is set, our Desolation Island—its makeup, size, and location—is entirely our own invention.
About the Authors
DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD are coauthors of the bestselling novels Riptide, Thunderhead, The Relic, Mount Dragon, and Reliquary. Douglas Preston is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and National Geographic, and has ridden on horseback for thousands of miles across the American Southwest, retracing the routes of early explorers and conquistadors. Lincoln Child is a former book editor who has published numerous short-story anthologies. The authors welcome reader e-mail at prestonchild@prestonchild.com. Their next novel will appear in hardcover from Warner Books in early 2002.