Posted on 01/15/2009 8:15:48 PM PST by Gordon Greene
Well, duh. Proving this is difficult, but I would have thought this would have been the first guess of most selenologists, back in 1969.
That's only an old theory. More recently, deep hole drilling has shown so far that unlike previously believed, temperature begins to decline after certain depths as does preasure, and highly concentrated salt water appears.
"Also, the earth's field is rapidly declining (about 8% since 1835 AD), which would be inconsistent with a permanent magnet. \"
No, it is not inconsistent with a permanent magnet model. They too loose strength over time. Because the material which makes our magnetic field is most likely within the outer layers of the earth, heat wouldn't be much of a factor except closer to the inner extremes of the magnetic layer.
How much faith can be put in the theories concerning the composition and density of rocks at different depths? The only place where the accuracy of scientific models can be tested directly is in the uppermost few kilometers of the crust. Although oil companies have drilled as deep as 8 km on land, they drill in sedimentary basins. The igneous and metamorphic basement, which averages 40 km thick and makes up most of the continental crust, has rarely been sampled deeper than 2 or 3 km.
The deepest borehole drilled for scientific purposes is located on the Kola Peninsula near Murmansk, Russia, in the northwestern part of the Baltic Shield. A final depth of 12,262 meters was reached in 1994. The drilling of this and other deep and super deep wells has produced one surprise after another, and the findings have been extremely embarrassing for earth scientists.
At the Kola hole, scientists expected to find 4.7 km of metamorphosed sedimentary and volcanic rock, then a granitic layer to a depth of 7 km (the 'Conrad discontinuity'), with a basaltic layer below it. The granite, however, appeared at 6.8 km and extends to more than 12 km; no basaltic layer was ever found! Seismic-reflection surveys, in which sound waves sent into the crust bounce back off contrasting rock types, have detected the Conrad discontinuity beneath all the continents, but the standard interpretation that it represents a change from granitic to basaltic rocks is clearly wrong. Metamorphic changes brought about by heat and pressure are now thought to be the most likely explanation.
The super deep borehole at Oberpfälz, Germany, was expected to pass through a 3-to-5-km-thick nappe complex into a suture zone formed by a supposed continental collision. The borehole reached a final depth of 9101 m in 1994, but no evidence supporting the nappe concept was found. What the scientists did find was a series of nearly vertical folds that had failed to show up on seismic-reflection profiles.
Rock density is generally expected to increase with depth, as pressures rise. Results from the Kola hole indicated that densities did increase with depth initially, but at 4.5 km the drill encountered a sudden decrease in density. The results also showed that increases in seismic velocity do not have to be caused by an increase in rock basicity. The Soviet Minister of Geology reported that 'with increasing depth in the Kola hole, the expected increase in rock densities was therefore not recorded. Neither was any increase in the speed of seismic waves nor any other changes in the physical properties of the rocks detected. Thus the traditional idea that geological data obtained from the surface can be directly correlated with geological materials in the deep crust must be reexamined.
he results of superdeep drilling show that seismic surveys of continental crust are being systematically misinterpreted. Much of the modelling of the earth's interior depends on the interpretation of seismic records. If these interpretations are wrong at depths of only a few kilometres, how much reliance can be placed on interpretations of the earth's structure at depths of hundreds or thousands of kilometres beneath the surface?
Contrary to expectations, signs of rock alteration and mineralization were found as deep as 7 km in the Kola well. The hole intercepted a copper-nickel ore body almost 2 km below the level at which ore bodies were thought to disappear. In addition, hydrogen, helium, methane, and other gases, together with strongly mineralized waters were found circulating throughout the Kola hole. The presence of fractures open to fluid circulation at pressures of more than 3000 bars was entirely unexpected. The drillers at Oberpfälz discovered hot fluids in open fractures at 3.4 km. The brine was rich in potassium and twice as salty as ocean water, and its origin is a mystery.
Another surprise at the Kola hole was that lifeforms and fossils were discovered several kilometres down. Microscopic fossils were found at depths of 6.7 km. 24 species were identified among these microfossils, representing the envelopes or coverings of single-cell marine plants known as plankton. Unlike conventional shells of limestone or silica, these coverings were found to consist of carbon and nitrogen and had remained remarkably unaltered despite the high pressures and temperatures to which they had been subjected.
It is generally assumed that temperature increases with depth, reaching 1000°C at a depth of about 80 km, 4800°C at the core-mantle boundary, and 6900°C at the earth's centre. It is certainly true that mine shafts and oil drilling operations have indicated significant increases of temperature with depth.
Indeed, superdeep drilling has shown that temperature increases with depth far more rapidly than predicted. In the Kola borehole, the temperature at 10-km depth was 180°C rather than the expected 100°C. Measurements revealed significant vertical variations in temperature gradient and heat-flux density along the borehole. Overall, the rate of temperature increase rose from 11° to 24°/km down to a depth of nearly 7 km, and then started to decline.
Clearly we know much less about the inner earth than we thought we did. When it comes to inner earth exploration, we've barely scratched the surface of the earth.
The said that the iron is too hot to have the permanent magnetism scenario. But who knows?
Nobody, for sure. But there is more and more evidence that suggests that nothing is spinning inside the earth. it all rotates in one big mass, with slippage occasionally occurring on looser material deeper in the earth where pressure tapers off.
There is enough heat deep within the outer layer to destroy any magnetism. so it has to be created within the cooler part of the crust somehow.
For all we know the outer crust could have became magnetized long ago by a giant cosmic electrical storm passing through the solar system, and now that magfnitizm is slowly wearing off.
I Guess we are due for another cosmic electrical storm soon.
Maybe that will happen at the end of the world God was talking about. :o)
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/inner1.htm
That website is dedicated to theosophy, not science.
"That website is dedicated to theosophy, not science"
Only in your mind.
Hm, let’s see, the Moon has been slowly receeding from Earth, Earth has an active magnetic field, the Moon would have spent lots of orbit time moving through the magnetic field of the Earth ... well, they are paid to guess I suppose.
"That website is dedicated to theosophy, not science"
Only in your mind, because it rattles everything you've been brainwashed to believe.
References:
1. The standard earth model
[1] T. Lay and T.C. Wallace, Modern global seismology, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1995.
[2] D. McGeary and C.C. Plummer, Physical geology: Earth revealed, 3rd ed., Boston, MA: WCB, McGraw-Hill, 1998, p. 28.
[3] P. Barton, 'Deep reflections on the Moho', Nature, vol. 323, pp. 392-3, 1986; S. Weisburg, 'The moho is immutable no more', Science News, vol. 130, pp. 326-7, 1986.
[4] V. Sánchez Cela, Formation of mafic-ultramafic rocks in the crust: Need for a new upper mantle, Zaragoza: University of Zaragoza, 1999; V. Sánchez Cela, Densialite: A new upper mantle, Zaragoza: University of Zaragoza, 2000. [5] Physical geology, p. 32. [6] William R. Corliss (comp.), Inner earth: A search for anomalies, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 1991, pp. 41-3. [7] Sue Bowler, 'Journey to the centre of the earth', Inside Science no. 134, New Scientist, 14 October 2000. [8] See Sunken continents versus continental drift, and Plate tectonics: a paradigm under threat, Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 307-52, 2000 (davidpratt.info).
2. Deep drilling springs surprises
[1] Richard A. Kerr, 'Continental drilling heading deeper', Science, vol. 224, pp. 1418-20,1984; Richard A. Kerr, 'Deep holes yielding geoscience surprises', Science, vol. 245, pp. 468-70, 1989; Richard Monastersky, 'Inner space', Science News, vol. 136, pp. 266-8, 1989; Taryn Toro, 'German geology hits new depths', New Scientist, 29 September 1990, pp. 24-5; William R. Corliss (comp.), Inner earth: A search for anomalies, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 1991, pp. 11-14; N.I. Pavlenkova, 'The Kola superdeep drillhole and the nature of seismic boundaries', Terra Nova, vol. 4, pp. 117-23, 1993; R. Emmermann and J. Lauterjung, 'The German Continental Deep Drilling Program KTB: overview and major results', Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 102, pp. 18179-18201, 1997; Y.A. Popov, S.L. Pevzner, V.P. Pimenov, and R.A. Romushkevich, 'New geothermal data from the Kola superdeep well SG-3', Tectonophysics, vol. 306, pp. 345-66, 1999; International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP), http://icdp.gfz-potsdam.de.
[2] Kola superdeep borehole, http://icdp.gfz-potsdam.de/html/kola/wellsite.html.
[3] D. McGeary and C.C. Plummer, Physical geology: Earth revealed, 3rd ed., Boston, MA: WCB, McGraw-Hill, 1998, p. 63.
[4] J.M. Dickins, D.R. Choi, and A.N. Yeates, 'Past distribution of oceans and continents', in: S. Chatterjee and N. Hotton, III (eds.), New concepts in global tectonics (pp. 193-9), Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 1992.
3. Mass, density, and seismic velocity
[1] David R. Lide (ed.), CRC handbook of chemistry and physics, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1996, pp. 14-34.
[2] A. McLeish, Geological science, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1992, p. 122.
[3] N.I. Pavlenkova, 'The Kola superdeep drillhole and the nature of seismic boundaries', Terra Nova, vol. 4, pp. 117-23, 1993.
[4] E. Huenges, J. Lauterjung, C. Bücker, E. Lippmann, and H. Kern, 'Seismic velocity, density, thermal conductivity and heat production of cores from the KTB pilot hole', Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 24, pp. 345-8, 1997.
[5] Pari Spolter, Gravitational force of the sun, Granada Hills, CA: Orb Publishing, 1993, pp. 117-9.
[6] See Gravity and antigravity, davidpratt.info.
4. Deep earthquakes
[1] Plate tectonics: a paradigm under threat, Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 307-52, 2000 (davidpratt.info).
[2] T. Lay and T.C. Wallace, Modern global seismology, San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1995, pp. 17-23; H. Houston, 'Deep quakes shake up debate', Nature, vol. 372, pp. 724-5, 1994; R.A. Kerr, 'Bolivian quake deepens a mystery', ,br>Science, vol. 264, p. 1659, 1994; R.A. Kerr, 'Biggest deep quakes may need help', Science, vol. 267, pp. 329-30, 1995; R. Monastersky, 'Great quake in Bolivia rings earth's bell', Science News, vol. 145, p. 391, 1994; C. Frohlich, 'Deep earthquakes', Scientific American, vol. 260, pp. 32-9, 1989.
[3] E.A. Skobelin, in: C.W. Hunt (ed.), Expanding geospheres, Calgary, Alberta: Polar Publishing, 1992, pp. 41-2.
[4] M.I. Bhat, email, 2000.
[5] Expanding geospheres, pp. 35-6.
[6] Charles Officer and Jake Page, Tales of the earth: Paroxysms and perturbations of the blue planet, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 52.
[7] Thomas Gold, The deep hot biosphere, New York: Copernicus, 1999, pp. 141-63; Thomas Gold and Steven Soter, 'The deep-earth-gas hypothesis', Scientific American, vol. 242, pp. 130-7, 1980.
5. Geomagnetism
[1] E. Dormy, J.-P. Valet, and V. Courtillot, 'Numerical models of the geodynamo and observational constraints', Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, vol. 1, paper number 2000GC000062, 2000 (http://146.201.254.53/publicationsfinal/articles/2000GC000062/a2000GC000062.html).
[2] S. Bowler, 'A simple model for planets' magnetic fields?', New Scientist, 16 June 1990, p. 32.
[3] Joseph H. Cater, The ultimate reality, Pomeroy, WA: Health Research, 1998, p. 163.
[4] Vladimir N. Larin, Hydridic earth, Calgary, Alberta: Polar Publishing, 1993, pp. 199-200.
[5] J.M. Herndon, 'Substructure of the inner core of the earth', Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, vol. 93, pp. 646-8, January 1996.
[6] Andrew Dominic Fortes, 'Magnetic fields of the planets', 1997, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/geolsci/edu/students/planet/student/work/magrev/magtoc.htm; W.R. Corliss (comp.), The moon and the planets, Glen Arm, MD: Sourcebook Project, 1985, pp. 185-8.
How did those MIT "scientists" get rocks from Mars? Did they phone the Martian's and have them toss a few to earth?
They're spotted on the arctic tundra, among other places. And you're forgetting about the science-instrument laden vehicles we've landed on Mars over the past 3 decades.
Your ignorance is really quite outstanding.
Gotta publish SOMETHING to be seen. If you’re not pushing something you’re nobody.
How long would that take to wear off from the moon?
As I understand it, the reason the magnetism ‘wore off’ is because the Earth’s magnetic field ‘drains it’ (realigns it).
The claim issued by the press office at the Massachusetts Insitutute for Technology that "Astronomers" had solved "a long-standing lunar mystery" are short-sided, or, at the very least represent poor journalism.
In the first place, these were Planetary Scientists, not Astronomers.
David Chandler of MIT's press office issued the press release Thursday Afternoon. Like Charles A. Wood's comments on LPOD, yesterday evening, regarding the long-recognized first lunar observations of England's Thomas Harriott recorded months before those of Galileo Galilei, it may be this story too will get wide circulation while without really being "News."
It has long been known the Moon no longer has a global magnetic field, its interior dynamism, unlike that of Earth, is considered dead.
Nevertheless, it has also long been known magnetic fields recorded at or near the surface of the Moon exist and are associated with well-documented surface "swirl" patterns.
The elegant swirl field on the Far Side of the Moon, at Mare Ingenii, unseen until 1959, like all lunar swirl patterns is accompanied by local magnetic fields. The Ingenii patterns and associated magnetism are directly on the opposite side of the Moon from the Mare Imbrium Impact Basin. Image - JAXA Kaguya HDTV - 2007
For more than a decade it has been known also that three, perhaps more, of these local "lunar magnetic anomalies" are sufficiently strong to "stand-off" the steady stream of protons that make up the Solar Wind. Some appear to have developed "mini-magnetospheres," field cavitation such as Earth.
It has been suggested the lunar regolith is kept more reflective through some interaction of these magnetic fields with particle bombardment preventing "space weathering," the dark "reddening" aging caused mostly by Solar Wind and perhaps building up into distinctive "shadows" that look very much like the patterns seen when iron filings are sprinkled around a bar magnet, though such a similarity is superficial.
Many, not all, of these apparenly fossilized magnetic anomalies exist on the Far Side of the Moon and were first photographed by the Luna 2 in 1959, and which predominate at points directly opposite the well-known lunar basins visible to the naked eye from Earth and suggesting a common origin.
Mystery still abounds concerning the age and origin of lunar swirls, some of which are not immediately associated with basin-forming impacts, like the long pattern north of the equator in the Sea of Storms (Oceanus Procellarum) labled "Reiner Gamma," the bar formation near Airy Crater and the Descartes Formation, all of which are on the Moon's Near Side.
John Young and Charles Duke, who landed near the Descartes Formation during Apollo 16 in 1972 recorded the strongest magnetic field at their landing site than any of the Apollo missions. At the time, the distinctive Descartes "albedo" was thought to be volcanic in origin, but Apollo 16 samples showed the rocks on the "Stone Mountain" portion of that plateau, visited by the astronauts, were of a higher-than-average magnetism but were composed of anorthosite believed common throughout the Highlands of the Moon's Near Side and nearly throughout the Far Side.
In 2003 magnetometer data analysed by Lon H. Hood of the University of Arizona and others, collected during the Lunar Prospector mission of 1998-99, showed an intense magnetic field centered on the north rim of Descartes Crater, 60 kilometers from Apollo 16's southern most science station, on the bluffs of Stone Mountain overlooking South Ray Crater
The Descartes Formation, a brighter coloration of the surface directly under an intense local magnetic field, was afterward classified as an amorphous, but distinct, albedo swirl.
The same also was confirmed recently at nearby Airy Crater, where the more common bright double striping pattern, with a darker band between, was also associated with a local magnetic anomaly.
While the MIT announcement may confirmed already well-documented magnetic properties within samples collected at the Taurus-Littrow by Dr. Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17, and may be an analysis strongly hinting at what was, at one time, a truly global magnetic field, the existance of global paleo-magnetism does not, as the press release says, rule out shock-fossilization or several other possible origins for local magnetism and, later, the distinctive swirl patterns found in hundred of locations all over the Moon, usually at places antipodal to basin forming impacts.
The strongest magnetic field yet confirmed at any location on the Moon is associated with the most well-known of the swirl formations, on the Moon's Near Side, at Reiner Gamma, a lengthy bright swirl that appears to have originated under the Marius Hills no earlier than around 3 billion years ago. The Reiner Gamma formation, like other Near Side swirls, does not appear to be opposite the Moon from any basin forming impact.
This has contributed to still others theories of the origin of swirl albedo and strong lunar magnetic anomalies. Some scientists make strong claims that the Moon's relatively higher albedo swirl patterns simply could not have lasted as long as the length of time associated with either an underground flow of molten iron baring material, as appears near the surface at Reiner Gamma, or at other points, including those which are clearly antipodal to the Basin Forming Impacts, which took place between 3 and 4 billion years ago.
Studies of space weathering on the Moon and on similarly composed "airless bodies," like the asteroid Vesta and its family in the inner solar system, seems to point to a longevity of regolith against space weathering (at least from micro-meterorites and Galactic Cosmic Rays) at no more than 900 million years at the outside.
As a result, some have proposed a much more recent origin for lunar albedo swirls and their attendant local magnetic fields. Some have proposed their origin from a recent interaction, at or near the surface, by swarms of highly magnetic mini-comets, torn asunder by tidal forces, within the mere 20 million years needed for micro-meteorites, etc. and other impacts to rework the entire near surface of the Moon, as recently as 2 million years ago, in some studies.
Last October this writer proposed a possible on-going process might be at work, between existing shock-fossilized magnetism or volcanism and the dusty migrating lunar exosphere, or a dynamic surface interaction of an apparent "daily" migration of solar charged sub-micron- sized dust as the exosphere cycles around the Moon with the sunrise terminator.
This hypothesis, which is undergoing unpublished study, may account for an net "out-migration" of newly-created dust, keeping the surface below local magnetic field line "fresh" by afteward preventing a corresponding fallout of material after the polarity of charge-levitated lunar dust is reversed during the long lunar night.
Nevertheless, MIT's apparent reconfirmation that there once existed a global lunar magnetic field is a strong hint that the early Moon may once have been a "Magma Ocean," not long after its formation estimated at 4.575 billion years ago.
Since that time, however, the Moon's surface has undergone many changes, including billions of primary and secondary impacts and not a little volcanism, both large and small, as witnessed by the filling and refilling of the mare material in the familiar and not so familiar lunar basins.
The MIT work does, if reports are correct, confirm (once again) that a paleo-magnetic field, fueled by a global magnetic dynamism, must have once existed. It does not, however, "rule out" other processes, some of which, like the charging of sub-micron lunar dust particles and the still poorly understood complexity of the levitation-motivated migration of dusty materials all over the Moon, might still be underway.
Posted to Lunar Pioneer/Lunar Networks Blog,
Jan. 15, 2009
Only in your mind.
The home page of that website reads:
Exploring Theosophy
The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy
David Pratt's Homepage
Wrong again, eh?
Pong
somewhere in my peabrained memory, I recall an article that speculated the magnetic fields of some planets must be younger than thought, because physics and natural law dictated that fields just couldn’t last 4 or 5 billion years plus because of a gradually cooling core. of course, I could be remembering incorrectly; if so, please feel free to slap a dunce cap on me.
best regards, blu
best regards, blu
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