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Scientists from the United States say they have found fish and other creatures living under key waters in Antarctica. They made the announcement after completing three months of research at the Ross Ice Shelf, the world’s largest floating ice sheet.
The researchers hoped to find clues to explain the force of the melting ice and its effect on sea level rise. Reed Scherer and Ross Powell are with Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. They just finished up their research on our southernmost continent. Money for the project came from America’s National Science Foundation.
“We chose a study site where, in the first year ,We went into the subglacial (冰川下的)lake and tried to understand the environment in there, both ecologically and in terms of the ice dynamics about how the lake operates, and how the sediment(沉淀物) underneath the ice sheet operates, as well, because it’s the water and the sediment underneath the ice that controls how fast the ice is flowing into the ocean” says Ross Powell, who led the investigation. The team included scientists ,engineers, machinery and other supplies across the ice from the main U.S. scientific base at Mc Murdo Station to the researcher’s camp .The camp was near a subglacial lake ,where an earlier study took place,
Ross Powell says the latest study may provide evidence that can help predict the effect of climate change on rising sea levels.
“What we have found is that these are very sensitive areas to the stability of how dynamic the ice is and how fast the ice may react to increases of melting both from the ocean and the atmosphere.”
Among the new instruments built for the project was a powerful hot water drill. The researchers used the drill to dig down some 740 meters. They collected water ,sediment and other material from the grounding zone.
Working around the clock before the deep hole refroze, they sent a video camera down to the 400-square-meter undersea area.
Reed Scherer says the video images they saw in the Command Center were a total surprise.
“It’s a very mobile environment. The bottom is changing constantly. And so the things that we saw were all very mobile organisms, things that swim and some things that crawl. And obviously they are getting enough nutrition that they can thrive, Some of the little crustacean-like creatures called amphipods that we saw swam quite quickly and were quite active.”
This is the farthest south that fish have ever been seen. How did the creatures get here? What do they feed on? And what effect will the retreating ice have on them?
Ross Powell says the ice and sediment cores taken from the grounding zone can offer clues.
“We know that the ice is melting there at the moment and so by opening up the cores once they get back, we hope to be able to understand what the ice was doing in the past ,relative to what it is doing now. And because it is melting so fast or seems to be melting fast at the moment, we anticipate that there will he some differences that we’ll see in the history of the ice sheet from the sediment cores, once we open them up .”But Ross Powell says the work raises more questions than it answers.
62.Scientists conducted the three-month research at the Ross Ice Shelf with the intention of .
A. predicting how climate change influences rising sea levels.
B. finding out whether there are life forms existing deep under Antarctic ice.
C. proving the speed of ice flowing into the ocean is controlled by water.
D. discovering an explanation of the effect the melting ice has on sea level rise.
63.What made the researchers surprised when they saw the video images?
A. Researchers saw fish in the farthest south for the first time.
B.A video camera was able to work well under deep icy waters.
C. Sediment cores present differences in the history of the ice sheet.
D. The drill should dig down 740 meters to collect things.
64.From sediment cores taken from the grounding zone, scientists will probably know .
A. what the ice will do in the near future
B. the ice in the grounding zone is melting at the moment
C. some differences rarely exist in the history of the ice sheet
D. something about the creatures under icy water in Antarctic.
65.What can be inferred from the passage?
A. Scientists will conduct a follow-up study on the frozen continent.
B. No creatures once appeared or lived in icy water in Antarctica.
C. America’s National Science Foundation is in complete charge of the research.
D. Researchers have found how the sediment underneath the ice sheet operates.
D
Sometimes just when we need the power of miracles to change our beliefs, they materialize in the places we’d least expect. They can come to us as a drastic alteration in our physical reality or as a simple synchronicity in our lives. Sometimes they’re big and can’t be missed Other times they’re so subtle that if we aren’t aware, we may miss them altogether. They can come from the lips of a stranger we suddenly and mysteriously encounter at just the right instant. If we listen carefully, we’ll always hear the right words, at the right time, to dazzle us into a realization of something that we may have failed to notice only moments before.
On a cold January afternoon in 1989, I was hiking up the trail that leads to the top of Egypt’s Mt. Horeb. I’d spent the day at St. Catherine’s Monastery and wanted to get to the peak by sunset to see the valley below. As I was winding up the narrow path, I’d occasionally see other hikers who were coming down from a day on the mountain. While they would generally pass with simply a nod or a greeting in another language, there was one man that day who did neither.
I saw him coming from the last switchback on the trail that led to the backside of the mountain. As he got closer, I could see that he was dressed differently from the other hikers I’d seen. Rather than the high-tech fabrics and styles that had been the norm, this man was wearing traditional Egyptian clothing. He wore a tattered, rust-colored galabia and obviously old and thick-soled sandals that were covered in dust. What made his appearance so odd, though, was that the man didn’t even appear to be Egyptian! He was a small-framed Asian man, had very little hair, and was wearing round, wire-rimmed glasses.
As we neared one another, I was the first to speak.“Hello, ”I said, stopping on the trail for a moment to catch my breath. Not a sound came from the man as he walked closer. I thought that maybe he hadn’t heard me or the wind had carried my voice away from him in another direction. Suddenly he stopped directly in front of me on the high side of the trail, looked up from the ground, and spoke a single sentence to me in English, “Sometimes you don’t know what you have lost until you’ve lost it.”As I took in what I had just heard, he simply stepped around me and continued his descent down the trail.
That moment in my life was a small miracle. The reason is less about what the man said and more about the timing and the context. The year was 1989, and the Cold War was drawing to a close. What the man on the trail couldn’t have known is that it was during my Egyptian pilgrimage, and specifically during my hike to the top of Moses’s mountain, that I’d set the time aside to make decisions that would affect my career in the defense industry, my friends, my family, and, ultimately, my life.
I had to ask myself what the chances were of an Asian man dressed in an Egyptian galabia coming down from the top of this historic mountain just when I was walking up, stopping before me, and offering his wisdom, seemingly from out of nowhere. My answer to my own question was easy： the odds were slim to none! In an encounter that lasted less than two minutes on a mountain halfway around the world from my home, a total stranger had brought clarity, and the hint of a warning, regarding the huge changes that I would make within a matter of days. In my way of thinking, that’s a miracle.
I suspect that we all experience small miracles in our lives every day. Sometimes we have the wisdom and the courage to recognize them for what they are. In the moments when we don’t, that’s okay as well. It seems that our miracles have a way of coming back to us again and again. And each time they do, they become a little less subtle, until we can’t possibly miss the message that they bring to our lives!
The key is that they’re everywhere and occur every day for different reasons, in response to the different needs that we may have in the moment. Our job may be less about questioning the extraordinary things that happen in our daily lives and more about accepting the gifts they bring.
66. Why did the author make a pilgrimage to Mt. Horeb in Egypt?
A. He was in search of a miracle in his life.
B. It was a holy place for a religious person to head for.
C. He intended to make arrangements for his life in the future.
D. He waited patiently in expectation of meeting a wise person.
67. What does the underlined part “my own question” refer to in Paragraph 6?
A. For what reason did the man stop before me?
B. Why did the Asian man go to the mountain?
C. What change would I make within a matter of days?
D. What was the probability that others told us the right words?
68.Which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined word “subtle” in Paragraph 7?
A. Apparent. B. Delicate. C. Precise. D. Sufficient.
69.The author viewed the encounter with the Asian man as a miracle in his life in that .
A. the Asian man’s appearance had a deciding effect on his future life
B. his words were in perfect response to the need he had at that moment
C. what the Asian man said was abundant in the philosophy of life
D. the Asian man impressed on him the worth of what he had possessed
70. What might be the best title for the passage?
A. Can you recognize a miracle? B. Is a miracle significant to us?
C. When might a miracle occur? D. Why do we need a miracle?
