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There is now evidence that Saturn’s moon has lakes and a “water” cycle that are very similar to the earth’s. The only difference is that the lakes of titan are not made of water. They could be made of liquid methane which works like water in the very cold climate of titan,according to researchers.

These lakes on titan were discovered when the Cassini spacecraft did a radar mapping. One of the Titan researchers, Stofan was amazed to see so many similarities between Titan and the Earth.

“If you were standing on the shores of these lakes, in some ways they would look familiar,” she added. You could see pebbles on the bottom. And the largest lake is 70 kilometers [43 miles] across, so there’s probably enough [distance] for waves to form.”

She also said that, some of the radar images also show that the lake’s surfaces have choppier ends near the shores, which could be an indicator of wave action. The next thing they want to know according to Stofan is to watch how the lakes change as Titan’s 29-year-long seasonal cycle shift from winter to spring.

Learning more about Titan’s methane cycle will help us understand our own planet better, added Christophe Sotin of the University of Nantes in France.”Titan is the only other place in the solar system where liquid is present at the surface,” Sotin said by email. Liquids are believed to be necessary for life. “On Titan we don’t expect life at the surface, because the temperature is too small—minus 179 degrees Celsius [minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit],” Sotin said.

He added that the study of methane could help us understand the processes that brought into existence any liquid including water. For liquids to continue for billions of years, there has to be a long-term equilibrium between natural forces like evaporation and rainfall. “By studying Titan, we may better understand the evolution of any planet, including Earth,” he said.

A major part of southeast Louisiana is slowing moving into the Gulf of Mexico, according to a recent report from the American Geophysical Union. Researchers have for decades known that the southern part of the state is sinking. according to recent findings, there is a large egg-shape area around 250 miles (400 kilometers) long and 180 miles (290 kilometers) wide which is slowly moving into the Gulf.

“This whole section is moving south-southeast and pulling apart from the rest of the country up in the Lake Pontchartrain region,” said lead study author Roy Dokka, executive director of the Center for Geoinformatics at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

According to a Report in the December 2006 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters this region is moving at a speed that is equal to that of a glacier, around a few millimeters in a year. Timothy Dixon, a study co-author and professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, says there is no need for panic.

“If it continues to move in the same speed as it is moving now, then it could take thousands of years for this process to have serious affects. During that tiem new orleans could have a very high risk of flooding.

Bedrock

many parts of Southern Louisiana that sit on the Mississippi River Delta have been built over many thousands of years with sediments from the river. Unlike the solid bedrock in other parts of the country, this part of the state is situated on an unstable land.

Eventhough the movement of south Louisiana is a slow and natural process, but the movement of the land has increased due to human activities like the building of levees and exploring for oil.

Quakes and Floods

Large earthquakes have been occurring around the south of New Orleans over the past 20 or 30 years that are likely to be tied to the region’s sliding movement.

According to Dokka, there is a slight potential for a seriously damaging earthquake, but nothing that could cause south Louisiana to suddenly break away from the rest of the state.
What’s more, study co-author Dixon added, the region that is sliding sits over a layer of salt that may prevent earthquake-type stresses from building up enough to trigger a large quake.

The researchers say that flooding could be Louisiana’s main concern and that the state can only be saved by protect itself by monitoring coastal subsidence through a global positioning system network that is already being used. When monitored properly, levees can be raised and flood protection can be changed as the land sinks and moves.

“What’s important,” Dokka said, “is that we’ve been able to recognize one of the important processes that makes south Louisiana vulnerable.”