About a month ago, I was helping a friend collect meteorites. We picked out a grid pattern and started walking six to 9 feet apart with metal detectors looking for the iron-nickel meteorites which are quite common here on the Earth's surface The grid is large and takes many days to even make a dent in it and each time we are able to collect some meteorites. One thing we noticed was that we would scare little rodents in bushes and they would take off running. Yet as we approached railroad tracks we noticed fewer and fewer rodents living there.

We started to discuss this phenomena and offer plausible explanation; when you are in the middle of nowhere looking for meteorites you have hours to discuss various issues. Some of our conversations are quite in depth and perhaps I should buy a digital recorder to save them. In this discussion we determined that little varmints, critters and rodents had innately evolved senses of Earth trembling and had adapted to stay away from such areas. This makes sense because of cataclysmic evolutionary theories. Those groups which lived near rumbling areas and stayed would eventually be wiped out by volcanic activity over millions of years, those which fled lived to continue to breed further generations. So to explains the behavior of animals prior to Earthquakes.

So then Trains on Railroad tracks make rumblings, which might lead to a couple of things? Scare the animals and send them packing, thus less time to breed or keep them away as their innate senses would be telling them that such area was seismically unsafe? Now then an experiment should be done with data and thermal sensors to detect the number of animals, which had moved on due to the railroad tracks. In our ad hoc observations we determined the amount of little rodents living in the areas within 1-3 miles to be about half that of other areas not near railroad tracks.

In our observations we also determined that since there are less rodents to eat other species that perhaps they would thrive near railroad tracks. We did see a slight increase in some insects yet also found fewer of others near railroad tracks. Things like mosquitoes were less, we thought this due to less animals to suck the blood from to breed the next generations and lay their 400 eggs. We found some vegetation to be greater right near the railroad tracks, probably due to the barrier providing a collection pool of water for the plants, right near the railroad tracks were more mosquitoes perhaps coming from livestock on trains and then laying eggs in pools of water nearby.

It appears that railroad tracks change the eco-system slightly and certain species are not interested in living near them, while others seem to flourish having less predators and less competition for food. Oh indeed we did find some meteorites on this day and came to a better understanding of life on Earth and how every thing relates to everything else. Please think on this.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs