Xtra News Community 2
March 29, 2024, 03:58:11 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Welcome to Xtra News Community 2 — please also join our XNC2-BACKUP-GROUP.
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links BITEBACK! XNC2-BACKUP-GROUP Staff List Login Register  

Continental Drift - What Earth Will Look Like In 120 Million Years

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Continental Drift - What Earth Will Look Like In 120 Million Years  (Read 374 times)
0 Members and 3 Guests are viewing this topic.
DazzaMc
Don't give me Karma!
Admin Staff
Absolutely Fabulously Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 5557


« on: January 27, 2009, 02:39:28 pm »

It wasn't always the case that people believed in continental drift, German geologist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener's(1)  theory that parts of the Earth's crust slowly drift atop a liquid core.   He believed  200 million years ago there was once a gigantic supercontinent which he called Pangaea ("All-earth") which slowly moved apart.

Wegener’s theory of continental drift became commonly accepted when the driving forces for continental drift were discovered during the 50s and 60s: The enormous heat in the Earth’s core and Earth’s mantle generates the flow of rocks within the Earth’s mantle, a process similar to the movement of warm water in a cooking pot. This heat-driven mass transport by convection leads not only to plate movement on the Earth’s surface but also to drifting of the continents floating on the plates.



A new hypothesis says drifting of the large tectonic plates and the superimposed continents is not only powered by the heat-driven convection processes in the Earth’s mantle, but rather retroacts on this internal driving processes. In doing so, the continents function as a 'thermal blanket', which leads to an accumulation of heat underneath, and which in turn can cause the break-up of the super-continents.

To date  there had been no realistic mathematical–physical theory describing the interaction between the convective movement in the Earths mantle and the continental drift but V. Trubitsin, M. Kaban und M. Rothacher from the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have now developed a numerical model(2), based on the current position of the continents, the structures of the Earth’s mantle obtained through geophysical measurements, and the current displacement rates on the surface.

Hence they were able to calculate the future position of the continents in hundreds of millions of years.



Distribution of the continents in 120 million years

They say that the enormous heat in the Earth’s interior does not generally lead to a chaotic mass transport within the Earth’s mantle. On the contrary, the continents influence the heat distribution within the Earth’s mantle and the associated convective mass flow. In other words the continents act as a thermal blanket causing heat to accumulate beneath. A self-regulating system develops, beginning and ending with a super-continent. This super-continent breaks apart due to heat accumulation which in turn leads to a reorganoization of mantle convection with the pieces ultimately joining again to form a large super-continent.

Obviously more heat in the thermal blanket could impact that, though it is unlikely something like  projected global warming would actually move mountains.  The graphic above is their projection of what the Earth will look like in 120 million years  - the good news is there won't be any more 3 day waits to get through the Panama Canal and Europe will have even easier access to cheap labor.  The bad news is Casablanca will be in Portsmouth.

http://www.scientificblogging.com/print/45918
Report Spam   Logged

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Lovelee
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 19338



« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2009, 02:53:10 pm »

Hell!!  I read something the other day that said the world will get smaller and the continents will join up again, though not as they were before.  Shocked
Report Spam   Logged

Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
DazzaMc
Don't give me Karma!
Admin Staff
Absolutely Fabulously Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 5557


« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2009, 04:11:46 pm »

Hell!!  I read something the other day that said the world will get smaller and the continents will join up again, though not as they were before.  Shocked


Lol..
Well... it probably will be a little smaller... given that all the materials needed to build space craft must come from here first... but unless we go shoveling dirt into space or gravity increases which makes the planet contract... then....??

Actually - using more than one brain-cell now - the planet probably will be slightly smaller due to the Moon having a lesser tidal  effect (when we talk these kind of time spans - it's drifting away) and perhaps earth may have cooled noticably more by then which could cause 'shrinkage'.... so perhaps what you saw wasn't miles off the mark!?!

The continents just drift around... they dont really join up per-say....

I wonder if the cooling of the planet (therefore slower continental dift) was taken into account?

 Smiley
Report Spam   Logged

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Lovelee
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 19338



« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2009, 04:26:17 pm »


The continents just drift around... they dont really join up per-say....


Umm are you sure about that??
Report Spam   Logged

Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
DazzaMc
Don't give me Karma!
Admin Staff
Absolutely Fabulously Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 5557


« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2009, 04:29:04 pm »


The continents just drift around... they dont really join up per-say....


Umm are you sure about that??

Yer...
They more.. like... crash into each other.
 Smiley
Report Spam   Logged

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Lovelee
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 19338



« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2009, 04:32:24 pm »

Nahhhhh .. arnt they attached just like NZ is to the bottom of the ocean floor??
Report Spam   Logged

Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
DazzaMc
Don't give me Karma!
Admin Staff
Absolutely Fabulously Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 5557


« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2009, 04:36:32 pm »

Nar - they float around on big bags full of air (or something).

See the book titled "The Island of Doctor Moreau" for a more indepth explanation.

 
Report Spam   Logged

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Lovelee
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 19338



« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2009, 04:45:15 pm »

Is the Doctors descriptiion true or fiction?
Report Spam   Logged

Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
DazzaMc
Don't give me Karma!
Admin Staff
Absolutely Fabulously Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 5557


« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2009, 04:48:08 pm »

True - of course!
He's a doc after all!


Gods.... woman......

 Tongue
Report Spam   Logged

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Brownie55
Global Moderator
Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 2717


OK, so what’s the speed of dark?


« Reply #9 on: January 27, 2009, 07:09:55 pm »

You are both wrong earth is a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle. Shocked
Report Spam   Logged

I almost had a psychic boyfriend, but he left me before we met.
Lovelee
XNC2 GOD
*
Posts: 19338



« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2009, 07:31:55 pm »

Nar - they float around on big bags full of air (or something).

See the book titled "The Island of Doctor Moreau" for a more indepth explanation.

 

I thought that book was a fiction one about some Hyde and Jeckle type character 
Report Spam   Logged

Laughter is the best medicine, unless you've got a really nasty case of syphilis, in which case penicillin is your best bet.
Im2Sexy4MyPants
Absolutely Fabulously Incredibly Shit-Hot Member
*
Posts: 8271



WWW
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2009, 08:48:40 am »

Have a look at the undersea pic around NZ on google earth it looks scary.
i tried to post the pic of it fucked if i can figer out how Roll Eyes
« Last Edit: January 31, 2009, 08:52:53 am by Im2Sexy4MyPants » Report Spam   Logged

Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP

Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Open XNC2 Smileys
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy
Page created in 0.079 seconds with 17 queries.