snowmman

"The river bed photos you posted at Catapillar Island are remarkably clean of debris, to me. Your friend at Catapillar Island would definately have an opinion about all of this - " I don't think he labelled each pic exactly on location. He lived there, so you would think it would be "close" He did remark on his web page that the Columbia was pretty much the same everywhere in his travels. So while that's all a little fuzzy, I think it does suggest the photos are representative, at least of the main Columbia area. We don't have any better info, in any case. The Caterpillar Slough might be slightly different, since there is hardly any water velocity there?

The satellite view in Google maps (browser based) seems to have the same vintage data as Google Earth. (edit) This is cool, GE used to have better, but maybe no more. So you can look and zoom/pan around without installing GE. Here's the link, centered on the Fazio house I'm talking about: http://maps.google.com/maps?&oe=utf-8&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=us&ei=PomLSbT8FYHwsAOS1MmjBQ&ll=45.716019,-122.757986&spn=0.000697,0.000841&t=h&z=20 (edit) If you pan a little to the SE, you can see he's got a green John Deere tractor? And a lot of sand? trucks there to the N. (edit) Nice pic of Mt. St. Helens from Vancouver Lake. Didn't realize it looked so big from there! has snow on it in this pic. (even though summer at Vancouver Lake?) http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3058369 (edit) another view of the floating houses in Caterpillar Slough (with location on google maps for reference http://www.panoramio.com/photo/11796597 (edit) a nice panoramic shot showing the scale of vancouver lake with location on google maps for reference http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1894309

If Jo doesnt know I can show that photo to several people and get the answer quickly - Jo isnt isnt the only dog thats ever been to the Fazios, not by a longshot! I know poeple who were in business with them. Sure. We're guessing about which building is actually the home (now that I'm curious I'm going to look for more info). Since there are a lot of farm buildings, it is a good question. But all the farm buildings appear to be metal roofed. So the non-metal roof building does seem like the home. Also notice all the cars parked around it. I can't believe Jo can't accept that you don't have to go someplace anymore, to get real accurate data. In the Google Earth photo of my house, you can see my son outside. It's from summer 2007..very recent. And it's correct because you can see things I changed in 2006. We were saying we should leave a sign on the grass for the google satellites. People are actually doing that, in different places around the world.

"But, the rubber bands as a working molecular entity are long gone. It takes 1-3 years, maybe 5 if protected, and less than 1 year if exposed to UV which converts (breaks down) the carbon and sulfur atomically" Is Oxygen more important? This patent is talking about some specific rubbers, but it argues that Oxygen is a primary requirement. (and by removing it, aids preservation) Look at US Patent 5885524 Method of Preserving Rubber Products http://www.google.com/patents?id=7ZIYAAAAEBAJ&printsec=description&zoom=4

I've attached the overhead shot of what I believe is the Fazio "home" as opposed to farm buildings The roofline appears to be 34'x36' Probably single story. Chimney is on the South side. Looks like the main used door is on the West side (towards the river) I zoomed out and attached overall.jpg so you can see it's location relative to the metal roofed buildings. Tell me what's wrong in these assumptions relative to the pictures, Jo. The money find location is in overall.jpg, based on Ckret's aerial shots and the circles on them. It's approximate, my guess is within 200 feet. (edit) If you follow the gravel/dirt road, I get 760 feet from Fazio's house to the money find. Line of sight/sound, I get 670 feet.

JO HERE"S SOME CAPITALS FOR YOU SO YOU CAN SEE WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE Those pictures are perfect. There is absolutely no way they misrepresent what's there. The only question is where to look. I posted a lot of pictures. I don't really know what you're talking about. Here's a question for you: There are a number of large metal roof buildings, and one normally shingled (composition?) building. Do you agree that the Fazio's "home" was not metal roofed? Also: I can estimate the sq footage of that home. If your memory is so great: give me the dimensions of the Fazio home (estimate). I can verify.

happythoughts said: "Figure the max wind drift of the canopy: From the probable exit point, figure the drift of a round with the max wind estimate. Draw the suspected drift cone and get a trapezoid effect. Figure the max wind drift of the cash bag, as if lost on exit: From the probable exit point, estimate the drift of a bag with the max wind estimate. (Cutaway free bags don't go that far and the cash bag was not aerodynamic) Draw the suspected drift cone." I thought we already went thru all this. 1) we don't agree on wind speeds or wind direction. 2) we don't agree on exit point 3) I went thru a scenario to lead to a 8 mile drift, but it was assuming some pretty high winds..probably fantasy 4) If you pick a more reasonable drift (3-4 miles?) then nothing makes sense. I guess I'm not sure what the suggestion is, in terms of what to do. You can draw a 3-4 mile radius circle around the flight path, the whole way, to account for uncertainty in wind direction and it still doesn't make sense. We have to discount some testimony to allow cooper to jump/nopull into the columbia around PDX. I don't think it's a question of caclulating anything. We've been thru that. Happythoughts: pick ANY behavior that leads to the money at Tena Bar. I think we have to work backwards. Working forwards hasn't gotten us anything people will agree works. Am I missing something? (hey p.s. I didn't even get good feedback when I was calculating the descent rate of a C-9 for cooper. I thought I ended up closer to 1200 ft/min.) HEY: here's a thought. I was calculating drift time, using the descent rate of a canopy in no-wind. But now that I think about it, that doesn't seem right. The canopy will act differently in high wind? (I'm thinking of the extreme case of the horizontally deployed canopy out of the 727) So: the question is: for a C-9 in high wind, does it's descent rate change? Or is it the same as it is in no-wind. Heck if you get some wind blowing up into the chute, I would think you get a lift effect? Has anyone ever felt like they descended slower? (not just talking about horizontal velocity due to wind)

I was looking at this graphic on http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-02-05-plane-splashdown_N.htm that showed flight 1549 (sully) and thought it was a nice graphic for the information. (musing about something similar for Flight 305) they referenced Google Earth and flightaware.com I've mentioned flightaware.com before for their live flight tracking. There's two nice pages there. weather at sea-tac http://flightaware.com/live/airport/KSEA/wx weather at pdx it's interesting to see how surface wind shifts during the day..especially if the wind is light (

"Today synthetic rubber accounts for about 60% of the world's rubber production." I was wondering if the rubber bands could have been synthetic rubber. They started doing synthetic rubber during WWII, with an industry by 1952-53. But not sure about rubber bands. Maybe natural rubber was still cheaper then? http://iisrp.com/WebPolymers/11POLYISOPRENE.pdf apparently synthetic polyisoprene used in rubber bands now at least? Apparently 1962, then 1965 were the initial years? Not sure if synthetic rubber bands would have been used in 1971. Apparently early experiments in the development of synthetic rubber led to the invention of Silly Putty. In 1971, the journal Applied Economics had this article, so maybe it was starting? Natural Rubber Trade: The Implications of Synthetic Rubber Innovations Philip L Swan Applied Economics, 1971, vol. 3, issue 1, pages 57-66 The different rubbers have surprisingly different properties. Examples: http://www.answers.com/topic/rubber Butyl rubbers have excellent resistance to oxygen, ozone, and weathering. One of the first synthetic rubbers used commercially in the rubber industry is neoprene, a polymer of chloroprene, 2-chlorobutadiene-1,3. The neoprenes have exceptional resistance to weather, sun, ozone, and abrasion. I've also read that certain rubbers crystallize upon stretching. This makes sense when I think of old rubber bands. The "crumbling" may have been accelerated by being in a stretched state. SO: Any decomposition experiments really need to have the rubber band stretched. How much? There are standard sizes and widths, but we don't know what was used. Maybe just 1/16" bands? but would those have been visible to ingram? Maybe 1/8" and how long? just barely enough for a single bill? 2-1/2"? (bill is 2.61") Automobile tires were a big consumer of synthetic rubber. But in terms of all synthetic rubber uses, in the US in early 70s: By 1973, of a world output of 6.3 million metric tons [of synthetic rubber], the United States produced about 40 percent, almost three times more than the next greatest producer, Japan. That year, the United States had consumed only 696,000 metric tons of a world output of approximately 3.5 million tons of natural rubber.

I was surprised by georger's mention of clay in rubber bands then. But he's right about fillers. did some searching. http://www.cec.com.my/faq.htm Q1: What is rubber band made of? Main material is "rubber", usually natural rubber, but some types of synthetic rubber are also used to obtain certain specific quality depending on the application. Besides, fillers such as calcium carbonate, carbon black, clay and additives like sulfur, stearic acid, zinc oxide, wax, oil, accelerators are mixed into rubber as ingredients. Q2 : What is natural rubber? Natural rubber used for making rubber band is in block form made from latex emulsion collected from rubber tree called Hevea Brasiliensis planted in very large scale in tropical countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia. Scientifically, natural rubber is "cis 1, 4-polyisoprene" with the chemical structure of ... Q5 : Why rubber has to be vulcanized? Natural rubber itself is soft, less resilient, broken down easily when over stretched and not able to return to the original shape after being stretched. Moreover, it is easily damaged by heat, sunlight, oil, oxygen and solvent. During a process called vulcanization, the sulphur molecule becomes a bridge between rubber molecules and forms a three dimensional network with help of other ingredients (just like fishing net made of many lines of thread). This network improves the above weaknesses of natural rubber for practical use. Generally, the higher the rubber content, the higher the resilience and elasticity. Q8 : How should rubber band be stored? Products made of natural rubber are, in general, aged faster by exposure to heat, air and sun light. Therefore, rubber bands should be packed, preferably in air tight bag or container, and stored in cool and dark place for securing longer life. Q13: How much protein is contained in original liquid natural rubber (Field Latex)? What about protein content in solid (dry) natural rubber made from the field latex? Original liquid natural rubber latex collected from rubber trees (called "Field Latex" or "Hevea Latex") contains about 1 - 2 % of various proteins, extractable and non-extractable. Some of these water soluble or extractable proteins are known to cause an allergic reaction. Liquid latex after the concentration is adjusted to 60% rubber content (called "Latex Concentrate") as a direct material to produce latex gloves still contains about 1/4 of the total proteins, but the rest, 3/4, is removed during the concentration process. Solid natural (dry) rubber is made from field latex through coagulation, washing and drying processes, and the repeated washing with fresh water in the process makes the extractable protein to the level below 20 micro-gram per gram of the solid (dry) rubber (mg/g). p.s. The B-Man is Barack. He wanted his blackberry for the DBC thread, like I said. The word from a guy who played ball with him is that he likes to go left (really), and you have to make him go right to defend against him. I read this in one place, but confirmed it here: http://www.time.com/time/specials/2008/personoftheyear/article/0,31682,1861543_1865068_1865096,00.html Supposedly a good outside shot.

This got my eye for two reasons. Ckret, and also because I have a friend who actually is doing very well at a company that sells these high resolution megapixel security cameras. You would think it would be obvious everyone should be upgrading to the high res stuff we use like in our digital cameras...but its actually only now happening. He's evidently making good money as a result (casinos for instance. He says they can see the serial numbers on bills at the money changers with the latest gear). Ckret gives thumbs up on high-res pic below. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/fbi_gets_good_look_at_bank_rob.html FBI gets good look at bank robber in Ridgefield, Wash. by Michael Russell, The Oregonian Tuesday February 03, 2009, 7:04 PM Courtesy of the FBIHave you seen this man? The FBI says he robbed a bank in Ridgefield today The FBI is investigating a bank robbery about 12:45 p.m. today in Ridgefield, Wash., and agents have a clear picture of their suspect. Robbie Burroughs, an FBI spokeswoman in Seattle, said the man walked into an IQ Credit Union branch at 2 S. 56th Place, handed a teller a note demanding cash and fled with an undisclosed sum. The man is described as 6 feet to 6-foot-2, 170 pounds, with brown eyes. He is missing the top joint of the middle or ring finger on his left hand. A security camera provided such a clear photo of the suspect's face that Larry Carr, the FBI's bank robbery coordinator in Washington state, sent a thank-you to the security company.

I mentioned this before, but maybe georger didn't catch it. This was just ~500 gallons of oil. Remember Hayden Island is around where I-5 crosses the Columbia. I mention it because while it doesn't say where else oil ended up, it shows that floating oil can go from Hayden Island and deposit on Caterpillar Island (just S of Tena Bar) (edit) replaced link with link to original news source here http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/207137_spill08.html "Shipping company fined for spilling oil into Columbia River ---OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The state Department of Ecology has fined a Greek shipping company $12,000, saying the crew of one of its tankers made mistakes that led to an oil spill in the Columbia River. Ecology estimates that 519 gallons of oil spilled from the Rosa Tomasos on Aug. 30, 2003, when a fuel tank overflowed onto the deck and over the side of the vessel as it was being refueled at Hayden Island Anchorage west of Vancouver, Wash. Ecology investigators said the crew did not slow down the transfer of oil after the tank was 80 percent full, and alleged the chief engineer ignored the an automated monitoring system that signaled the tank was getting full. "The crew members responsible for monitoring the fuel transfer were not keeping an adequate watch," Mike Lynch, an Ecology investigator said in a statement released Thursday. "The watchman was busy loading supplies on the other side of the ship, and the third engineer left his station to deliver an oil sample to the chief engineer in the engine room." Some of the oil washed up on beaches near Frenchman's Bar and Caterpillar Island.There were no reports of any harm to wildlife. "

hey don't we count? it's not easy trying to come up with something new, every day, that's not already been said about DBC. If this thread isn't a book, I don't know what is. hell, we've got words, pictures, videos, animations. We've got plot twists and turns. We've got sicknesses, births, divorces, job issues, alcohol abuse. Weapons being discharged. Barns being painted, and snow blowed. Hot babes and foreign countries. Gold, nukes, airplanes and parachutes. National Geographic: kiss my ass!

I'll check my email from Bullard. I was asking him at the time, when various things were constructed at Caterpillar Slough. (edit) there are various public access boat ramps that arrived at various times...and I'm not sure when all the various floating houses were put in there....I think he didn't have much info. I had sort of posted about his stuff before. I thought his video/stills of the Columbia river bottom (in our area, since he lived there) were very interesting. Hey, as an example that there are academics with knowledge that might be applicable: from http://nwetc.org/hyd-501_09-08_peninsula.htm these guys in WA are touting coursework about log jams that includes the following info: Patterns of Natural Wood Debris Accumulation in Drainage Networks Processes of Wood Recruitment, Transport, and Deposition Hydraulic and Geomorphic Effects of Wood Debris Accumulation Historic Changes in Wood Debris Loading Sediment Transport Channel Morphology (e.g., Blockage Coefficients) Channel Response (e.g., Scour, Sedimentation) Debris Passage and Retention So there are guys who talk about this stuff in the Northwest all the time. It's a mixture of hydrology and geology stuff. Lead Instructor Bio: Dr. Abbe is an internationally recognized geomorphologist and licensed engineering and hydrogeologist with 22 years of applied science and research experience in geology, geomorphology, environmental restoration, risk assessment, self-mitigating flood and erosion protection, sustainable land management, and water resources. Dr. Abbe has developed and implemented cutting edge solutions for a wide range of clients and his work is being used all over the world to better understand and restore rivers. Dr. Abbe has directed major water resource and geomorphic investigations throughout the Western United States, including: the effects of flow diversions and land use on aquatic habitat; channel migration and erosion, flooding; water, sediment and wood budgets, geomorphic hazards; slope stability; ship traffic; scour assessment; mining; and water quality.

If you noticed todays news (Google News) US and UK are calling for new substantial nuke reductions. We speak. The world listens. http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=1300769981&topic=h uk Miliband here (today): http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090204_1382.php The funny thing is that Iran and North Korea are probably the biggest impetus to this. The big guys are realizing their nukes are worthless for anything strategic, even militarily. They're just all negative. The problem is that nukes are not hard to build...i.e. it's more about nature than brains and technology. That's the main reason they were able to do it in 1940's. It wasn't that hard, for all the whining! By definition, if 1940's humans were able to do it, it ain't hard. The B-man says we're on our own with this Cooper thing though. (hey happythoughts..that tree is probably over 3000 lbs dry. We don't know how far it travelled though. Do big things travel differently than small..dunno? I suppose what happens is they drift to shore, then get a little surface friction with the sand which overcomes the force of the water...then the water recedes. It's probably a cycle..i.e. the logs refloat when the water gets higher, quickly. Then it beaches again. It might take a while to get a long way. Or it might stay in channel and zoom a long way at once. Need some PhD's and gps beacons to do a 5 year study for us. "On the Behavior of Log Debris in the Columbia River and the DB Cooper Event"

There's some academic stuff analyzing the behavior of wood debris in rivers, in terms of log jam creation etc. I was wondering if the wood could be tracked..i.e by species. Where does it come from? Way up the columbia? From the feeder rivers? How far does it travel? I suppose some of it goes all the way to the ocean. It's not coming from the Columbia river shores, since there aren't many trees there??? How long does the wood take to travel? Does it keep moving for 50 years? or less? (depending on the wood and size, it can take 50-100 years to decompose?)

Dan Bullard used to live in one of the floating houses that are in the slough behind Caterpillar Island. He has a web page, and I've exchanged email with him in the past. He has some nice pics and he has video of the Columbia River bottom where he trolled a video camera underneath. i.e. http://www.danbullard.com/dan/underwater.html I went back to his site to see if anything new was there. He's moved to a new location on the river (unsure where). Apparently chucked it all for a new houseboat in 2006. There are some good shots there of the columbia river shore sand...smooth like at Tena Bar. But he had an interesting pic of a huge tree that washed up on the columbia shore. he said: "This is a good shot of the big tree that washed up on our beach during the last high water. Damn big tree, I'm not sure my chainsaw will be able to do much to this thing." pic attached. (edit) The pic is also a good profile shot for the typical elevation rise of columbia beach shore? I'm guessing from looking at overhead shots, and the amount of sand shown (which relates to the angle of the beach..it looks similar here compared to Tena Bar) this was from http://www.danbullard.com/dan/ga.html (edit) his days in Caterpillar Slough are at http://www.danbullard.com/dan/riverplace.html

georger said "If the Main Channel is the route, then from where and when? The money almost had to be hung up somewhere between 71 and 77, at least ? " I think maybe the idea that the money bag is sufficient protection from '71 to '77 is not correct. The money bag is no protection at all. So the money had to be buried. I think sand plus water was the necessary protection to preserve the money. So: buried, then unburied.

georger said: "If there is slow current via a meander how did the dredge deposits get swept away so quickly? " Sand moves differently, then say, logs. (or money bundles in bag or attached to body or ???) Yes the sand moved away. But some logs/brush debris did land on Tena Bar. Why did the logs stay there? because they float a bit, I suspect. (edit) But you're right. I was focused on the main current shifting side to side, not where the slow current would deposit stuff. Would the money end up in the fast current hitting the beach, or the slow current. Dunno. I think there's a key difference in the flotation issue. (which is why garbage ends up on beaches most everywhere?)

no it's further north. I just went until I found the most wood that washed up the most on shore. There are areas of less wood closer to Tena Bar. It all depends how shallow the elevation rise is, right off the beach. Since Tena Bar has a relatively deep channel, immediately off the sand, it doesn't get as much as the places with shallower water immediately off the sand, I think. But it gets some. There's just less sand for stuff to end up on. I zoomed in and showed a couple logs on the beach there at Tena Bar by the money find location (you can recognize the road from the other pics) The logs are haphazard, so I don't think they were put there by Fazio. (edit) 2nd pic is the shore by the channel behind the N tip of Caterpillar island. You can see a little of the South sand operation at the Fazio's.

A little farther north, on the nav chart, the marked-in channel shows the perfect shifting from shore to shore around a curve, as the meander stuff would predict. I didn't get the best resolution, but you can see the lines in the river that show the channel, and how they shift from side to side around this curve.

the depth chart by caterpillar island is consistent with meander behavior. shallow on inside, deeper cut on outside (first pic) what's interesting then is the second pic, by tena bar. It becomes deep by tena bar. This should be because of the current/channel bouncing off the outside curve and coming back to this shore and deepening the channel (per the prior posts) I think the depth charts are related to the velocity of the current. It all matches up with the textbook meander river processes? (edit) these two are both sourced from the same url as above: http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18525.shtml

going to look again at depth charts/channel here's 9/1/2006 nav chart online at http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18526.shtml I zoomed into the columbia/williamette confluence. The main channel is on the outside of the curve as expected, although this may have been enhanced by dredging. See how it's not as deep on the inside of the curve. Will look for more map further N. (edit) further N. not as fine scale, but good. Online at http://www.charts.noaa.gov/OnLineViewer/18525.shtml This is the same one I had a big PDF of before, but it's online now so you can zoom in to a particular area rather than download the whole thing. I'll post some snaps

Georger said: "The inside meander pressure may be exactly as you think it is - I just dont know that is is for a fact." The pressure as you call it, causes another effect. It changes the depth of the channel on the inside vs outside. (also changes some transverse flow behavior) If we had detailed depth charts of the channel thru the big curve and past Tina Bar, we could infer the pressure behavior. right?

good thoughts, georger. Here's one I have. If we don't see significant sand shifting in the various photos, away from Tena Bar, then the "plumes" visible in the '74 Tena Bar photo become more significant. Because they did appear and disappear (i.e. they weren't in the earlier, or the later, photo from Ckret).. And what's interesting is one is very near the money find. Because of their shape, and the presence of the pipeline dredges further N on the columbia in that picture (I went thru all this before) and the known dates of the dredging, I think strengthens the idea that the more significant sand movement was related to dredging, not erosion or natural forces. Of course you could also say that little apparent shoreline sand movement strengthens a human plant story, especially when it seems the money was found near where people park right near the water (my recent posts..although it's in the more recent era, the roads appear to have been there since the '70s. (the gravel/dirt roads around the Fazios. The people/car traffic doesn't seem to have changed much around the Fazios. The big changes were first the South sand operation, and then later the North Sand operation. It appears to me that the South Sand operation started around the '74 dredging. Now: if we ignore all this sand talk, and focus on river debris, then we're back where we started. River debris (wood) seems to be most everywhere. Don't know if much gets buried in sand. Maybe some does?