Big Breakup Theory: Scientists just found out Earth didn’t shift at quite the crawling, gradual pace we once thought. Instead, the move happened in fits and starts, with continents creeping apart at that single-millimeter-per-year rate for 40 million years, and then suddenly speeding up to 20 times that speed — the rate at which your fingernails grow…
I’m sure that some anti-oil nutter will claim it confirms what they’ve been saying all along. (“See? The oil sands even break up continents!”)
Geophysicists have known this for decades as part of the theory of continental drift. However since most people have difficulty wrapping their mind around the idea of the continents drifting at all, the details have been slow to catch on with the generally informed public.
The ice age cycle the earth now maintains only started about 3 million years ago when the continents drifted into their present positions relative to each other and the isthmus of Panama was formed, thus changing global ocean currents.
Plate tectonics explains how the continents move. Canadian scientist Dr. J. Tuzo Wilson made major contributions to our understanding of it.
Yup, he was my hero back in the days when I was in undergrad, and plate tectonics was a radical new theory, still being debated. Fifty years later continental drift is pretty much accepted, but they’re still debating about the weather, and now the pundits think taxing it will make it stop changing. In half a century it seems like stupidity is now far more prevalent.
I remember reading a “Scientific American” article about plate tectonics when I was in Grade 12 in the early 1970s. It was indeed a new idea at the time, but it provided an explanation that fit the known facts.
Wilson is one of those Canadians whose name every schoolchild in this country should know but, unfortunately, few people have any idea who he was or what he did.
While on the subject of unjustly forgotten Canadians, look up who Reginald Fessenden was. Unless one is involved with radio, the mention of his name would likely result in “huh?” as the reaction.
WITH RESPECT….
Only
I AM, Knows
The rest OF US just have OPINIIONS, made on SDA
…………………….. I AM
Jean,
The continents have been in their present position for the past 66 million years in what is known as the Cenozoic Era.
britannica.com/science/Cenozoic-Era
During this time there have been 3 major periods of glaciation. While plate tectonics is thought to play a role in glaciers, it is a very complex process of repeated ice advance and retreat with effects from the sun, earth orbit and tilt angle, erosion, elevation and so on.
The Panama Isthmus may have played a role in our most recent glacial period which began about 3 million years ago. But the isthmus is thought to have formed a number of times dating back 20 million years as animal fossils from that period are found on both continents.
Most people don’t realize we are still in a glacial period and the earth is relatively cool (but warming) relative to past temperatures. Same for CO2 concentration, which has been much higher in the past. The current inter-glacial should last a few more thousand years and then the glaciers will again advance wiping out Russia, Canada, the UK and much of Europe.
PBS has a nice write-up from one of their excellent NOVA shows. Google ice-age cause.
While plate tectonics works in sticks and starts, the process happens gradually over tens of millions of years. The most recent ice-age would not have been caused by plate tectonics because the plates had little net movement over this very short time period (tens of thousands of years).
actually steve , it is my understanding that we are in a protracted “inter glacial” period, and are over due to go back to a glacial period. The inter glacial periods used to last only about 10K years , and we are now at about 12K years on this one, as I understand.
Wow, thanks everyone. I vaugely remember one line from a science class about a theory by some scientists that the continuents were together at one point. The teacher pointed to a world map and noted how they almost looked like puzzle pieces. Nothing, to the explanations here. Love this site and it’s contributors.
“…Wilson is one of those Canadians whose name every schoolchild in this country should know but, unfortunately, few people have any idea who he was or what he did….”
But the kids are learning about Dr. Suzuki’s discovery of how mutating fruit flies cause climate change. Or something.
The atmosphere is a minor player in global climate. The heat capacity of the top 3 meters of the ocean is the same as that of the entire atmosphere. At the height of the last ice age people walked from Asia to Australia and North America. Sea levels were about 130m lower than they are now.
The Isthmus of Panama closing, land bridges preventing large ocean currents (and heat transfer) between the Pacific and Indian oceans, the Arctic Ocean being almost surrounded by land, and normal orbital mechanics changing the earth’s orbit slightly… there’s a lot going on at the millennial level. But some will try to say that a trace gas necessary for life is the primary driver of the climate so we need to tax the productive.
Yes NME666, although the interglacial periods are not as periodic as scientists like to pretend. If they were periodic we could find out what triggers them. Also, some interglacial periods appear to be ending and then don’t, making ice ages and interglacial periods difficult to understand.
If plates are moving at a rate of 1 mm per year they would move 66 km during the entire Cenozoic Era (the last 66 million years).
The Atlantic Ocean is spreading at a rate of 2.5 cm per year. To open up to 4,000 km would take approximately 200 million years.
Life on land is less than 500 million years old.
350 million years ago all the continents were combined into one great land mass called Pangaea. This land mass began to break apart 175 million years ago.
50 million years ago it was so warm that crocodiles lived in the sub-Arctic (78 deg latitude).
There were camels in Canada as recently as 14,000 years ago.
In the 1600s a Dutch painter, while making a map of the world, recognized that all the continents fit together like a jig-saw puzzle.
In the early 1920s Wegener published his theory of continental drift, the precursor to plate tectonics. His theory was widely panned by experts because he offered no cause for the movement of continents.
In the late 1950s while mapping the seafloor of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists noted a large ridge oriented north to south. This mid-Atlantic ridge was evidence of sea-floor spreading setting the stage for the theory of plate tectonics and a new understanding on the formation of continents including mountain building processes. It also led to the realization that the Atlantic Ocean had opened and closed more than once and explained how you can have no mountains at one coast and yet mountain chains in the middle of continents (like the Appalachians in the northeast US and eastern Canada which was formed 480 million years ago).
That much we know.
Or there aren’t plate tectonics, and there are instead hydroplates which moved at speeds measured in miles per hour. Dr. Walt Brown’s works can be found for free online.
B…” (“See? The oil sands even break up continents!”)” Errrrrrrrr…..NO The TAR sands cause it. Any anti-oil/eco terrorist who called them their real name (oil sands) would lose their status in the cult mach schnell. Besides, Syncrude,Suncor,CNRL, etc. are just cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history! The eco freaks should be happy.
Well, you know how it is when one deals with eco freaks.
I’m sure some of them would go nuts at the prospect of all that dihydrogen oxide in our atmosphere and would try to have that substance banned.
More on that notorious substance:
http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Watto,
The theory of hydroplates is complete wakko. There are so many scientific inaccuracies in the 67 pages of text it is a joke. Let me just give one example from the web-site where it describes magnetic reversals:
“At a few places along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, magnetic patterns on one side of the ridge are almost a mirror image of those on the other side. The plate tectonic theory gained wide acceptance in the 1960s when this surprising discovery was misinterpreted.
Some people proposed that these variations were caused by periodic reversals of the earth’s magnetic field, although there is no theoretical understanding of how that could happen.9 Supposedly, as molten material moves away from the ridge (in seafloor spreading) over millions of years, the magma solidifies, and its magnetic material is locked in the orientation of the earth’s magnetic field at the time. Thus, a record of past “flips” of earth’s magnetic field is preserved in rocks at different distances from the ridge.
That explanation is wrong, as detailed magnetic maps clearly show. No compass, shielded from earth’s magnetic field, would reverse direction whenever it crossed an alleged (and misleading) reversed band. However, as one moves across the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, magnetic intensities fluctuate, as shown in Figure 47. Someone merely drew a line through these fluctuations and labeled everything below this average intensity as a “reversal.” The false but widespread impression exists that these slight deviations below the average represent magnetic fields that reversed millions of years ago. Calling these fluctuations reversals causes one to completely miss a more likely explanation.”
The above 3 paragraphs are completely wrong. Whoever wrote them does not appreciate the difference between magnetic intensity (magnitude) and direction (reversal). The measured total magnetic field intensity is a magnitude and is the sum of the permanent field (the direction of which is determined when the rock cooled and is used to determine reversals) and the induced field (which is caused by the earth’s present day magnetic field and that has it’s own direction and magnitude).
The entire field of paleomagnetism is devoted to measuring the direction of the magnetic field from rocks at the time they were formed (as they cooled below their Curie point, the temperature below which a magnetic field could be permanently formed). This original permanent field is in addition to the present day magnetic field.
You cannot simply look at the present day measured total magnetic intensity and say the lower intervals are reversals. Rock composition changes and the amount of magnetic material will vary. The more magnetic material present the stronger the total magnetic intensity will be. This is why paleomagnetism looks at the direction of the permanent magnetic field in the absence of the present day magnetic field. This result produces directions that periodically reverse and these reversals are symmetric about the mid-Atlantic Ridge.
The hydroplate theory also claims that according to plate tectonics it is not possible to have oil & gas in the Arctic as the theory shows the plates have been in that position for millions of years. Well yes the study of paleomagnetic signatures does show the plates haven’t moved much for millions of years. But the poles were once very warm for several million years and during this time great forests grew and died and decayed into coal and organisms on the ocean floor died and decayed into oil and gas deposits.
The author uses the theory of plate tectonics to prove the continents haven’t moved very much for millions of years and then attempts to prove the theory wrong using an incorrect argument (that the poles were never warm enough to support forests and ocean organisms).
OK that was 2 examples.
B: Thanks for the link to DHMO. Brilliant!
You’re welcome. I’ve been chuckling about that ever since I first heard of that description.
neat to know, but, it really does not matter. much like climate change and climate in general, there is nothing we can do about it.
The petrified forest in Arizona looks like flood trash mounds. The trees petrified are only found in Australia..ODD, but probably explainable by the “RIGHT” simulator.
The magnetic reversal is a strange phenomenon. It may depend on the orientation of the magnetic field relative to the direction of Ocean floor spreading
It appears you only read pieces of the theory in isolation. For your second example, the author never claimed the plates have been in position for millions of years. The entire book is predicated on the plates only being thousands of years old. I’d read the initial assumptions before perusing the effects of this hypothesis.
Watto,
From the book…
“Much oil is also found inside the Arctic Circle. Was it once warm enough for trees to grow in Antarctica or inside the Arctic Circle? If so, how could so much vegetation grow where it is nighttime 6 months of the year? Were these cold lands once at temperate latitudes? Not according to plate tectonics, which places both regions near their present latitudes when their now-fossilized forests were growing.”
First, the Arctic Circle does not experience 6 months of darkness. This is an urban myth. The Arctic experiences about 11 weeks of near darkness and in the summer about 11 weeks of near total daylight. If you want to consider one you must consider the other.
Second, the author is confused in thinking that you need to be close to the equator (or moderate latitudes) to experience warm temperatures, stating “were these lands [the poles] once at temperate latitudes? Not according to plate tectonics”.
Plate tectonics and paleomagnetics confirms the land at the poles has remained in place for 66 million years. During this time, strong warming trends have made the poles almost tropical. For millions of years there was no ice at either poles. Great forests grew and the oceans were full of organisms that, once dead, slowly decayed into oil and gas. Temperate latitudes were not a requirement, another false statement by your author.
Your author does not understand that the poles have not always been covered in ice, that darkness and light are both opposite and the same, that global temperatures have been much higher in the past.
Steve, I am pretty sure that the author does not believe the poles experience 100% darkness for half of the year. His point appears to be that there is little sunlight for a much larger portion of the year of the year than the rest of the earth.
Again, the author never claimed that one had to be close to the equator to experience warm temperatures, though without a greenhouse effect the poles would definitely be far cooler than the equatorial regions. Plate tectonics is a theory that relies upon very tiny movements of plates. It does not confirm the land having remained in place at the poles. Rather it makes the assumption that the land at the poles must not have moved much if the theory of plate tectonics is true.
Again, based on your comments, I believe you have not read his original theory, but are cherry-picking chapter segments in isolation. Please first read his theory – then move on to the conclusions.