Gondwana Supercontinent Underwent Massive Shift During Cambrian Explosion

Yale University ^ | August 10, 2010 | Unknown

[dockkiller]

Junk science.

[stormer]

Thanks for your input, professor. Perhaps you’d like to detail the shortcomings of the research in question. I’m looking forward to hearing you explain why this is “junk science”, and why the positions you advocate go further in explaining the data.

[dockkiller]

Here's another theory..
http://www.nealadams.com/nmu.html

The earth is about 8000 miles thick. The deepest we have drilled is about 8 miles. We don't really even know what's in the earth's core.

Plate tectonics theory was developed about 100 years ago (probably while Wegener was sitting in an outhouse.)

There may be a lot of good science used to develop the theory but the overall theory doesn't make sense.

Remember, last year you were a flat-earther if you denied AGW. In 1998, you were a fool if you thought the ever expanding universe was speeding up.

[stormer]

Seriously? A comic book artist? I tried to read the gibberish you provided, and while the author seems to have grasped some very basic principles of plate tectonics, other geomorphological concepts like, um, erosion, are ignored - forget about isostatic rebound, accreted terranes, or hot spots. I did watch one of the videos, and I’ve got to admit, it was pretty slick - too bad he pulled the “facts” out of his ass.

You are correct, we have not directly observed the Earth’s core. Our concept is admittedly speculation, but it is based on observation and the application of scientific principles and how they relate to the data, i.e. the characteristics of wave as they pass through different media and the nature of electromagnetic fields.

Wegener did not develop tectonic theory - he hypothesized about continental drift (his observations were later used in in the development of tectonic theory), and he did so in 1915 while recovering from injuries as a patient in a German military hospital.

As far as tectonic theory not “making sense”, what are the weaknesses? (and please don’t quote cartoonist Neal Adams) How does modern tectonic theory fail to describe the data in the most parsimonious manner?

[dockkiller]

Da Vinci was a good cartoonist too. Debate is what allows science to progress.

Don't forget,
In 1970 we were going into an ice age. Now it's warming up.

In 1998 scientists believed the universe was expanding and slowing down. Now it's speeding up.

Barry Marshall cured stomach cancer because he didn't accept settled science.

I won't pretend to be a world class scientist, but I can read and think.

[downtownconservative]

Interesting. I lived in the PNW at the time of that quake, but was on a layover in SFO. I was downtown Burlingame when the quake hit. Reminded me of when I lived in Alaska.

The PNW is certainly not immune to big earth quakes. And with the saturated ground, I’d want to be standing on rock when one hits.

[downtownconservative]

Interesting. I lived in the PNW at the time of that quake, but was on a layover in SFO. I was downtown Burlingame when the quake hit. Reminded me of when I lived in Alaska.

The PNW is certainly not immune to big earth quakes. And with the saturated ground, I’d want to be standing on rock when one hits.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks decimon! A two-list ping.

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[SunkenCiv]

[reprising an edited saved bit] V.A. Firsoff (Valdemar Axel Firsoff, as it turns out) wrote a lot of books, including Strange World of the Moon published back in 1959, ten years before the manned landings started, and even before the first robotic landers.

Due to his volcanism bias -- and remember, he was writing right on the cusp of the "plate tectonics revolution", which has blindered geology worse than the knee-jerk uniformitarian gradualism that preceded it -- he wasn't able to accept that the Moon's impact craters were in fact from impact, and attributes them instead to volcanism caused by the Moon's capture by the Earth (as well as contraction of the lunar sphere). He appears to envisage three encounters between the formed Moon and the Earth, resulting in temporary capture twice leading to the eventual outright capture.

...the Moon clearly could not have been the satellite of the Earth then, for a total period of about 2,000 million years... Spurr points out that the face of the Moon shows two systems of great surface fractures, or faults, lying about 30 degrees from the two poles and trending from west-south-west to east-north-east. This is explained by him as a result of the halting of the Moon's rotation... Curiously, the face of the Earth, too, shows a similar structure, with the same general trend -- the Highland Boundary Fault... The poles of the Earth would also seem to have shifted place on at least three occasions, in the Cambrian, Permian, and (lastly) Quaternary Periods, brining ice and cold to previously warm lands... some mighty force made the crust of the Earth slip (the rotational stability of the axis of a mass as large as the Earth is enormous) and the position of the poles wobbled... there exists on the Moon a triple grid of surface fractures... perpendicular to each other within each grid, the grids being of different ages... Cambrian, Perm-Carboniferous, and Tertiary.

Firsoff's basically given us a snapshot of the problems inherent with a fission origin (having settled on an overspin origin for the Moon, very early in the history of the Earth), not least of which is that the fission origin also requires in orbit formation of the lunar sphere and capture by the Earth, while showing that capture is possible. Capture of the Moon, irrespective of its place and era of formation, is the simplest model.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

reprise, a sort of omnibus from a file last modified in January, but originally from 2002.

Rocks show life began 1bn years earlier than first thought
The Guardian
Saturday August 14, 1999
[orig: www.newsunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,73745,00.html]

Scientists studying Australian rocks have found evidence that primitive forms of life existed 2.7bn years ago - a billion years earlier than had been previously shown... The finding pushes back evidence of life to the Archean era, the period from the beginning of earth to about 2.5bn years ago... Most rocks as old as the ones studied have undergone a process called metamorphism, an intense geological heating that changes them and which scientists believed would destroy any organic compounds they contained. But the shales studied by this team were well-preserved and still contained the biological chemicals. The researchers found evidence of organic compounds called lipids in the sedimentary rocks located more than 2,100ft deep in north-western Australia's Roy Hill Shale and Marra Mamba Formations. The rocks formed a seabed 2.6 bn to 2.7 bn years ago... Because of their complexity, eukaryotes were thought to have developed relatively late in earth's history. This discovery pushes the date for their appearance back to the earliest part of geological time.

Paleoproterozoic snowball Earth (pdf)
Joseph L. Kirschvink et al

This snowball model predicts that postglacial, greenhouse-induced warming would lead to the deposition of banded iron formations and cap carbonates. Although global glaciation would have drastically curtailed biological productivity, melting of the oceanic ice would also have induced a cyanobacterial bloom, leading to an oxygen spike in the euphotic zone and to the oxidative precipitation of iron and manganese... Kirschvink noted that the extreme geochemical environments predicted by a snowball Earth model explain the Neo-proterozoic banded iron formations (BIFs).

...to some scientists...

Early life theory takes a biff
May 24, 2002

Moreover, the carbon isotopic basis used for interpreting its organic origin is questionable, the authors say. The authors demonstrate that much of the fine layering in the banded rocks, interpreted as a typical BIF (Banded Iron Formation) sedimentary structure, was in fact formed as a result of metamorphic processes.

A chemical study of the rocks also points away from a BIF origin for the banded rock. Analyses of green bands show that their composition is very similar to komatiite, a type of basalt. If this is correct there is little chance that the preserved graphite represents past life.

Recent studies of hydrothermal vents on mid-ocean ridges have also shown that basalt-like rocks can interact with water to form carbon compounds by non-biological processes, leaving an isotopic signature similar to that of metabolic function. While it is possible life existed on Earth when the rocks on Akilia formed, direct evidence for life older than approximately 3.8 billion years ago is still lacking.

[Mad Dawgg]

Save the Earth! Reunite the continents let us sacrifice Al Gore to the Earth Goddess to bring back the glory of Gondwana!

[colorado tanker]

The Moon is indeed a strange place . . . .

"It's like no cheese I've ever tasted."

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

I believe that the fission theory still seems dominant. Myself, I have problems with the capture theory, maybe because I was lousy at catching baseballs or footballs.

[ElkGroveDan]

Just ignore the troll.

[DariusBane]

Yes! I was just going to say that.

You saved me a whole bunch of typing!!!!!!

[SaraJohnson]

The only way to solve this problem is through peace and unity. Give heaps of money to Golden Sacks, Algore and his UN pals and they will be able to halt the drift and unite the globe!

[TheOldLady]

Nice topic, SC. But this thread has descended into just plain silliness. I’m L-ingOL!

Reunite Gondwanaland indeed. *Snort*

[SunkenCiv]

I’m sure that it will be scientifically confirmed lunar or later.

[SunkenCiv]

It's true, the impact fission model is dominant. :') There are three basic possibilities:

1. Earth and Moon formed basically simultaneously with the Moon forming of less material and in orbit around the Earth. No living adherents among scientists afaik.
2. Earth and Moon formed separately, with the Moon being captured later by some means. I'm pretty smug because I'm the only one here.
3. The Moon formed from the proto-Earth by fission, due to an overspin condition (the late Thomas Van Flandern was the most prominent recent advocate of this, it's too bad he was associated with that Face on Mars nonsense); or formed from the proto-Earth when another large body walloped into it.