The world's biggest meeting of geophysicists happened in San Francisco on 8-13 December 1997, and the week before it began I predicted 10 major news stories to come out of it. I've collected links to the stories that resulted. Seven of the 10 got coverage on the Web—nine if you count me (and why shouldn't you?). Here's the full list:
1. Geologists are finding new evidence that earthquakes and other natural disasters destroyed ancient civilizations.
This story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle December 9.
2. Beautiful new images of sprites (ionospheric lightning) have been collected, and theories of their behavior and their role in the global electrical circuit are improving.
Nobody picked up on this one. But I put up an article shortly afterward, the first of four. I also created a category for sprites.
3. Mars Pathfinder data point to ancient rains, floods, and seas on the Red Planet billions of years ago.
CNN did a feature that week, with help from Reuters, and the San Francisco Chronicle published this article the weekend before the meeting. Yahoo had a page with related stories. And the subject has been widely covered ever since, including here on About.com.
4. The Earth has been tilting on its axis in "true polar wander" much more than any scientist thought before.
This seems to have been ignored, although it's a hot scientific topic since the developments I covered on in this article.
5. Evidence shows that disruptions in ocean currents have caused wild climate swings in the last 10,000 years, a period once considered fairly calm and equable.
A press release about a strong 1,500-year climate cycle in north Africa came out related to this general story. But other places, most notably The Atlantic Monthly's January 1998 article on "The Great Climate Flip-Flop," began to give this story the attention it deserves.
6. The Galileo spacecraft continues to return data on the four major moons of Jupiter that has scientists happily scratching their heads.
This story in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 17 was based in large part on findings presented at the AGU meeting, and the Associated Press had an item during the week of the meeting. Galileo news continued for years, of course.
7. Satellites now can be, and should be used to monitor volcanic eruptions anywhere on Earth in near-real time.
The press left this one on the table, and it looks like I did too. Maybe it seems like such a natural thing to do that it wasn't news.
8. Climatologists are closing in on tests to determine what's causing global warming—us or something else.
There was a whole slew of published discussion that week about global warming, most of it tied to the Kyoto conference. But this account of Jim Hansen's research, finding less of a greenhouse-gas buildup than previously thought, got some play.
9. The current El Niño will trigger outbreaks of disease and other health problems around the world.
The Associated Press picked up on this, as did the San Francisco Chronicle, whose story is archived longer than the AP's version.
10. Networks and intelligent sensors are making real-time earthquake warnings (up to a minute before the shaking arrives) more reliable, widespread, and routine.
I thought this story was a natural, and I created this article about it in short order.
UPDATE: I've updated this in 2007, and most of the links I used 10 years ago are still working. (A few I had to update or drop.) The Web has not only brought the world to our desktops, it has brought all of us an archive that grows deeper every day.
