Penetrating the Deposits of 20,000 Years Ago An ocean-bed gun, fired a mile-and-a-half or more beneath the surface of the sea, may recapture secrets of marine life which have been lost for 20,000 years writes the science correspondent of the "Morning Post."
The gun has been invented by an American geologist, Dr. C. S. Piggot, with the support of the Geological Society of America and of the United States lighthouse service. Its object is the taking of sample borings substantially deeper into the ocean bed than has before been possible.
Since the ocean floor is continuously growing, through slow sedimentation, the effect is that of boring downward into time.
An inch of deposit, it is estimated, represents from 150 to 300 years, according to "the conditions. Dr. Piggot's gun will enable samples ranging from foür feet to eight feet of deposit to be obtained—the equivalent of 6000 to 25,000 years df sea history.
Although this is a relatively short period on the evolutionary time scale, itis long enough to make the recovery of extinct forms of life possible. Even the surface layers of the ocean bed have yielded sharks teeth of extinct species.
Another mystery which Dr. Piggot's gun may help to clear up is the curious fact that the sediment of the Ocean bed is more than three times as rich in radium as are the rocks of dry land.
Geologists are divided as to the explanation. One theory is that minute sea-living organisms -mày have the power of concentrating radio-active materials from the sea within them.
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