Photo de stock - 1969 - Listening to the movements of the Earth: The Gulf of Eilat, Israel, is getting wider at the rate of half a centimetre each year. This is one of the facts which has been proved by the Weizmann Institute Geophysical Observatory near Eilat. The Observatory, dedicated recently in the name of Brazilian publisher Adolpho Bloch, who put up a million dollars to build and equip it is fascinating to scientist and layman alike. Situated in the Lost Valley, a narrow canyon between sandstone and granite peaks some 15 kilometres north of Eilat, is a series of tunnels cut into the heart of a solid granite rock whose peak reaches 150 metres into the sky, and whose base is estimated to be as much as 30 kilometres deep into the earth. Dr. Ari Ben-Menahem who has held the Sam and Ayala Zacks Chair of Geophysics at the Weizmann Institute since 1966 and studied under one of the founding fathers of seiemology, Prof. Benno Gutenberg, at the California Institute of Technology, made no false claim to modesty when he said this observatory is among the foremost of such stations in the world. A heavy steel door cut into the side of the mountain keeps the world out and guards the secrets of this space age Aladdin's cave. Withing the tunnel, whose walls and roof are lined with rough-sprayed concrete to prevent rockfalls, dehumidifiers air conditioners hum. (Credit Image: © Keystone Pictures USA/ZUMAPRESS.com)