評論
打印
Suddenly we were at the center of things, Anderson told me, gleaming at the memory of it, when I met him and Witzke in their offices on a dismal, rainy morning in June. "It was a wonderful time."
“突然之間，我們來到一大堆東西中間。”安德森想起當年的情景，眼睛一亮，對我說。7月一個陰暗的上午，天下著雨，我在他們的辦公室里遇上了他和威策克。“這是個美妙的時刻。”
I asked them about Gene Shoemaker, a man who seems to have been universally revered. "He was just a great guy," Witzke replied without hesitation. "If it hadn't been for him, the whole thing would never have gotten off the ground. Even with his support, it took two years to get it up and running. Drilling's an expensive business—about thirty-five dollars a foot back then, more now, and we needed to go down three thousand feet."
我向他打聽尤金·蘇梅克。蘇梅克好像是一位深受大家敬重的人物。“他真是個了不起的家伙，”威策克毫不猶豫地答道，“要不是他，整個事情壓根兒不會有進展。即使有了他的支持，也花了兩年時間才開始運作起來。鉆孔是一件很花錢的事──當時每鉆進1米大約要花115美元，現在花得更多，而我們需要鉆到近1000米深。”
Sometimes more than that, Anderson added.
“有時候還要深。”安德森補充說。
Sometimes more than that, Witzke agreed. "And at several locations. So you're talking a lot of money. Certainly more than our budget would allow."
“有時候還要深，”威策克表示同意，“在有幾個地方。因此，你就需要大量的錢。肯定會超過我們的預算。”
So a collaboration was formed between the Iowa Geological Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey.
于是，艾奧瓦地質勘測局和美國地質勘測局決定聯(lián)手合作。
At least we thought it was a collaboration, said Anderson, producing a small pained smile.
“至少我們以為是一次合作，”安德森露出一絲苦笑說，“
It was a real learning curve for us, Witzke went on. "There was actually quite a lot of bad science going on throughout the period—people rushing in with results that didn't always stand up to scrutiny." One of those moments came at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 1985, when Glenn Izett and C. L. Pillmore of the U.S. Geological Survey announced that the Manson crater was of the right age to have been involved with the dinosaurs' extinction. The declaration attracted a good deal of press attention but was unfortunately premature. A more careful examination of the data revealed that Manson was not only too small, but also nine million years too early.
實際上，這對我們來說是交了一次學費，”威策克接著說，“在整個合作期里出現了大量偽科學──有的人匆忙得出結論，那些結論并不總是經得起檢驗的。”有一次發(fā)生在1985年的美國地球物理學聯(lián)合會年會上，美國地質勘測局的格倫·艾澤特和C·L·皮爾莫爾宣布，曼森大坑的年代恰好與恐龍滅絕有關。這個說法引起了新聞界的高度重視，但不幸的是尚不成熟。你只要仔細檢查一下那個數據就會發(fā)現，曼森大坑不僅很小，還早了900萬年。
