New Releases by Robert Baer

Story Comics'' series Mysterious Adventures is an excellent example of the horror-suspense genre popular during the Golden Age of comics (1930s, ''40s and ''50s). Story Comics pushed the envelope of what was acceptable in terms of violence and gore and their comics certainly contributed to the eventual founding of the Comics Code Authority in 1954. Full of mysterious tales of the undead and monsters beyond the imagination, the stories are richly illustrated and offer vivid color and detail. Of the original 24 issues, 22 are included in this Anthology.

Two young women, Marena and Andie, are on the run for murder. They become killers for hire and later realize they are in love. The pair leave a trail of bodies from South Florida to New Orleans where they kill a corrupt politician. As they seek to live a normal life. Conflicts arise after someone who they saved from certain death betrays them. They go on a mission to destroy the people responsible. After a long day of serving the locals at Smitty’s bar and grill, Marena comes home to witness the abuse of her young sister and screams from her mother’s bedroom. She grabs her bat and marches into the bedroom where are abusive step-father. Paul is beating her mother again. Enough is enough. She hits him until she can’t raise the bat again. Panicked, she grabs a few of her things and heads out. She enlists the help of her best friend, Andrea (Andie) Postivich. They travel to Atlanta where they save the life of a millionaire, Regina Walker. Regina hires them to kill her abusive step-father and the men he hired. As time goes on, the pair realize they are in love. With much consideration, they agree to take on the job. Vigilante justice intrigues them and accepts the offer. With a taste for blood and ridding the world of scum, they travel from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas. Then, to New Orleans, where they murder a corrupt politician for a friend of Regina’s, Mr. Carswell. They are now on the run for their lives. Will they get away? What will happen to them? After a double-cross by Regina and Carswell, Carswell’s assistant shoots Andie and fights for her life. Marena goes on one last mission of murder to settle the score.

Direct evidence for a plume-plate interaction as the mechanism responsible for the Yellowstone-Snake River Plain (YSRP), 16 Ma volcanic system is observation of a linear age-progression of silicic volcanic centers along the Snake River Plain 800 km to the Yellowstone caldera-- the track of the Yellowston hotspot. Caldera-forming rhyolitic volcanism, active crustal deformation, extremely high heat flow (30 times the continental average), and intensive earthquake activity in Yellowstone National Park mark the surface manifestations of the hotspot. Anomalously low, P-wave velocities in the upper-crust of the Yellowstone caldera are interpreted as solidified but still hot granitic rocks, partial melts, hydrothermal fluids and sediments. Unprecedented deformation of the Yellowstone caldera of up to 1 m of uplift from 1923 to 1984, followed by subsidence of as much as ~12 cm from 1985 to 1991, clearly reflects a giant caldera unrest. The regional signature of the Yellowstone hotspot is highlighted by an anomalous, 600 m high, topographic bulge centered on the caldera and that extends across a ~600 km-wide region. We suggest that this feature reflecs long-wavelength tumescence of the hotspot. Yellowstone is also the center of a +20 m geoid anomaly, the largest in North America, and extends ~500 km laterally from the caldera, similar in width to the geoid anomalies of many oceanic hotspots and swells. The 16 Ma trace of the Yellowstone hotspot, the seismically quiescent Snake River Plain, is surrounded by "bow-wave" or parabolic shaped regions of earthquakes and high topography. Whereas systematic topographic decay along the Snake River Plain, totaling 1,300 m, fits a model of lithospheric cooling and subsidence which is consistent with passage of the North American plate across a mantle heat source. We note that the rate of 4.5 cm/yr silicic, volcanic age progression of the YSRP includes a component of southwest motion of the North American plate, modeled at ~2.5 cm/yr, and a component of concomitant crustal extension estimated to be 1 to 2 cm/yr. The USRP also exhibits anomalous crustal structure which we believe is inherited from magmatic and thermal processes associated which the Yellowstone hotspot. This includes a thin, 2-5 km-thick surface layer compses of basalts and rhyolites and an unusually high-velocity, 6.5 km/s, mid-crustal mafic layer that we suggest reflects extinct "Yellowstone" magma systems that have replaced much of the normal granite upper-crust. Direct evidence for a mantle connection for the YSRP system is from anomalously low, P-wave velocities which extend from the crust to depths of ~200km. These properties and the kinematics of teh YSRP are consistent with an analytic model for plume-plate interaction that produces a "bow-wave" or parabolic patter of upper-mantle flow southwesterly from the hotspot, similar to the systematic patterns of regional topography and seismicity. Our unified model for the origin of the YSRP is consistent with the geologic evidence where basaltic magmas ascend from a mantle plume to interact with a silicic-rich continental crust producing partial melts of rhyolite composition and the characteristic caldera-forming volcanism of Yellowstone. Cooling and contraction of the lithosphere follows the passage of the plate over the hotspot with continuing episodic eruptions of mantle-derived basalts along the SRP.