Recent comments in /f/askscience

Vladimir_Putting t1_ja6z7im wrote

Reply to comment by CrustalTrudger in Is there any possible relation between the recent earthquakes in Turkey/Syria, Japan and Papua New Guinea? by Corvid-21

Wow, I had no idea there was an 8+ earthquake every year on average.

That alone really explains how we only take notice when it directly impacts a populated area. I'm sure most people think those are truly once in a lifetime seismic events. But really, they happen quite frequently, especially when you are talking in geological terms.

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globefish23 t1_ja6ymv4 wrote

Reply to If the fuel that goes in car engines is extracted from hydrocarbons, which consist of only Hydrogen and Carbon, and those hydrocarbons react with Oxygen in the air (combustion reaction), to produce CO2 and H2O, why do we get a bad smell from car exhaust fumes if both gases are odorless? by Protoflare

Because none of these fuels are perfect chemical compounds.

There's always a couple percent of impurities containing sulphur or nitrogen compounds or mineral salts containing metals.

Plus there's additives from the refining process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gasoline_additives

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Thundahcaxzd t1_ja6yajf wrote

Reply to How is radioactive dating used to determine historical greenhouse gas levels and temperatures? by pog_irl

The lighter oxygen isotope O16 evaporates more readily than the heavier O18. Thus, when temperatures are higher and there is more evaporation, O18 gets concentrated in liquid water and O16 gets concentrated in the atmosphere. the water in the atmosphere falls as precipitation and some of it falls on ice caps and stays there. In the ocean, organisms such as foraminifera use water to help build their shells. These shells settle into the sediment after they die. Scientists drill cores into the ice caps and ocean sediments. Using a mass spectrometer, they measure the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the ice and foraminifera shells which gives us a proxy of how much evaporation was taking place, and therefore the temperature.

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WulfRanulfson t1_ja6ur42 wrote

Reply to If the fuel that goes in car engines is extracted from hydrocarbons, which consist of only Hydrogen and Carbon, and those hydrocarbons react with Oxygen in the air (combustion reaction), to produce CO2 and H2O, why do we get a bad smell from car exhaust fumes if both gases are odorless? by Protoflare

Petrol fuel is not just hydrogen and carbon, it comes from crude oil which is decomposed organic material. This material contains all sorts of compounds including Sulphur, benzene, hydrogen sulfide, various metals.

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kynthrus t1_ja6qe1s wrote

Reply to Is there any possible relation between the recent earthquakes in Turkey/Syria, Japan and Papua New Guinea? by Corvid-21

The relation is that they are all on Earth. Tectonic plates moving causes pressure to build somewhere else and when that snaps (quake) pressure builds somewhere else. Large quakes have aftershocks as well that last for years.

For Japan quakes above 5 or 6 are very common several times a year, their infrastructure is built for it though.

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