...and still sticking with the uranium "theory", which AFAIK is a complete crock, yet now President Fox is mouthing it. EDIT See
http://tinyurl.com/2e8sa and read it carefully a couple of times. (Martin, I love that BBC link - keep 'em coming!) END EDIT
My rant continues:
I suspect that at worst case, the cavers were required to monitor for radon. Britain apparently has some strict guidelines about that for underground work and I bet the military cavers association sticks to any and all governmental rules and regulations.
I imagine that this whole thing is at most "Adventure Training" as far as the MoD is concerned but that the current Mexican administration deliberately mis-construes that as spec ops military training/recon for pure political gain. The whole nonsense is fascinating on several levels in a disgusting sort of way.
I still haven't heard a geologist speak up one way or another, but setting science aside for a moment, the political realities of Britain looking for uranium in Mexico seem so absurd as to be completely unbelievable to me. Is the anglophobia expressed by the local media and the administration any clue? Why would the Brits prospect in that sort of geo-political climate?
BTW, I previously assumed it was a dolomite formation; a moments research turned up the info that it is apparently limestone; actually two separate limestones - a hair-splitting difference as far as uranium ore is concerned. Somebody is probably full of bat guano...
As I said previously, I'm not a geologist, but the uranium prospecting allegation - in a solution cave complex - raised all kinds of red flags in my tiny and cluttered store of knowledge. Yes, there could be some; uranium in detectable quantities is virtually everywhere on the planet; you cannot get away from it. Maybe there is some in the igneous/metemorphic conglomerate underneath the limestone formation or in some sandstone formations, but... I think that it will be scientifically and economically insignificant for a number of reasons.
I await the facts; I could be completely wrong; but I'm not holding my breath. I bet this flap is mostly an anti-Iraqi war slap to the British Government's face and nothing more. British cavers have been mapping those caves for 30 years - all of a sudden it's an international incident? Bah!
The Twilight Zone has suddenly moved to a location south of the US border, centered on Mexico City... and the "survival lesson" that I'm learning from this is that we are living in really wacky times right now.
(Chris K - this thread should be moved to the Campfire forum; it stopped having any survival merits as soon as the political lunacy began. Not withstanding that, I'm grateful for Martin for starting the thead - the political antics are fascinating to me.)
Skeptically,
Tom