Questions tagged [earth-history]
Questions relating to Historical Geology.
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Why did the Tigris and Euphrates but not the Nile river basins experience desertification?
The sites of ancient Mesopotamian civilizations tend to be very dry, unlike those of ancient Egypt. Looking at the areas via online maps also shows, that while the Nile river basin remains very green, ...
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4answers
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What significant factors influencing geological change are still occurring?
I am teaching a secondary school course on my state's local history. The textbook begins with the history of the first humans, yet I think it is unfair not to start back much earlier, introducing the ...
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Is there any source that shows all of Earth's terrain changes from Pangea to present?
I teach a class on my state's history to middle school students. Our textbooks do not cover much historical geology, but its a subject students are fascinated in, and feel needs to be added.
I want to ...
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1answer
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Why are the south, the west and the north of the Caspian sea lush but its east completely dry?
About the Caspian sea area today:
The south is very lush with the subtropical forests of the Iranian provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran and Golestan (although less "tropical" in Golestan)
The ...
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puzzling statement on earth history!
A Geology proffessor recently told me that around 200,000 years ago, when homo sapiens emerged, that "...all of civilisation can now fit on the width of a single strand of human hair."
I am ...
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1answer
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What was the oxygen concentration in the air during the late miocene period?
As the title says, I'd like to know what the O2 concentration was during the late Miocene period. I've tried to look this up but I'm having a hard time finding any conclusive data on it, or even any ...
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1answer
48 views
Would it be possible, from the earth’s creation or during its various geomorphological changes, for all the following hypotheses to be probable?
I’m designing a fictional world setting for a game, and I would like to know whether it has a relative coherence based on science. (Don’t mind if it is an almost improbable scenario).
Would it be ...
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48 views
Solution for the coexistence of overpopulated human species with nature [closed]
Is there any solution to deal with the overpopulation of our species at the same time protect the natural environment of ours? (other than finding a inhabitable planet?)
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1answer
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Has Earth's geological activity calmed down in the past 250 million years?
In the past, the Earth's ecosystem has experienced catastrophic mass extinctions as a result of large-scale volcanic eruptions. One example is the event known as the "Great Dying", 252 ...
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1answer
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Book on the history of Earth and life on Earth
I am interested in getting a better overview of the full history of the Earth and the evolution of life. Therefore I am looking for a book that goes through the different geological time scales of the ...
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1answer
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How far would average sea level rise from a 25% increase in total ocean volume?
What amount of average sea level rise (in meters above 2020 levels) would be associated with a 25% increase in total ocean volume?
The reason I ask is because of this study that indicates Earth has ...
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2answers
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Are we entering a new Ice Age according to Milankovitch cycles?
Milankovitch cycles consist of three orbital parameters: eccentricity, obliquity, and precession of equinoxes.
According to Milutin Milankovitch, the most recent glacial period ended nearly 11,000 ...
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1answer
146 views
How much of the petroleum ever formed has made it into reservoir rocks?
I am aware that it's a bit general a question, and petroleum geology (or petrology ;-)) has never been a field of interest to me. A superficial search using related keywords brings up only economic ...
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What do scientists mean when they say the Earth formed 4.56 billion years ago? [duplicate]
Does that mean that the Earth gained the classification of a planet that long ago rather than some other celestial body? How did they determine that this happened that long ago? How discrete is the ...
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Geo-Spherical shape of Earth
I know that the best possible approximation of the shape of earth is an oblate sphere. But people also call it as geo-spherical shape of the Earth. What is the meaning of geospherical shape? Does this ...
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What were the Two Largest Forests of Western and Central Europe (circa 600 BC)
I am trying to find out what forests were the largest in Western and Central Europe, around 600 BC. I understand that accounts dating that far back may be difficult to find, but I hope other sciences ...
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1answer
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Has a scientific consensus been reached concerning the formation of the Grand Canyon?
new student of Oceanography here!
I'm studying Earth Science right now, and I found conflicting reporting re: the formation of the Grand Canyon; whether it was formed singularly by the Colorado ...
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How was the onset of the Cambrian period dated?
What dating method was used to determine the beginning of the Cambrian, and what was its margin of error? Was only one fossil dated, or were a number of similar fossils used?
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Earth-like conditions on Titan: is it feasible that Titan once had seas and lakes of liquid water?
Given that: 1) Four billion years ago Saturn was hotter and radiated strongly in the infra-red.
. . . . . . . . . 2) Like Earth's moon, Titan was then closer to its planet.
. . . . . . . . . 3) Like ...
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2answers
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How many days has it been since the Cambrian explosion?
I want to know how to calculate the number of days since an event in Earth's past, and am using the Cambrian explosion as an example.
I define a day to be one rotation of Earth with respect to the ...
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2answers
123 views
What has been the influence of the moon on Earth's temperature?
What proportion of Earth's internal heat is generated by tidal flexion as a result of the orbiting moon, and would it have been significantly greater four billion years ago when the moon was closer? ...
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1answer
207 views
How quickly is the Earth shrinking?
Except for ice, acetic acid, bismuth and gallium and a few other things materials generally shrink when they cool and solidify, so I'm pretty sure Earth has as well.
It probably wouldn't be ...
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2answers
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How long ago was the first limestone formed?
It is readily apparent from the fossil record that the first limestone was laid down hundreds of millions of years ago, but how long ago was the very first limestone formed? It could be approximately ...
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148 views
Is Earth inhospitable?
It's thought that, shortly after Earth was done being refurbished resurfaced during the Late Heavy Bombardment, life abio-generated almost as soon as it was able to. The short delay led to speculation ...
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1answer
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Where did the continents come from?
In animations that show the location / drift of the continents over the aeons, it seems that the continents (or cratons?) are just floating / drifting around, sometimes fusing or splitting, but having ...
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Why are $\small\sf{CH_4}$ and $\small\sf{CO_2}$ levels coupled during the Pleistocene?
CH4 and CO2 levels show correlation throughout the Pleistocene:
Source: trustyetverify.wordpress.com
What are the reasons of this coupling?
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257 views
What Caused The Sea Levels to Drop During the Maastrichtian Epoch?
Anyone who has studied ice ages would know that during the last two-and-a-half million years of Earth's history, there have been periods where there was enough ice to suck up a lot of water. As a ...
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1answer
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What were the geometric coordinates of the Chicxulub impactor 66 million years ago?
At the moment around mexico we can find the leftovers of the Chicxulub impactor which could have extincted most dinosaurs. But 66 million years ago was after the breakdown of Gondwana. So back to ...
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1answer
148 views
Has Earth's atmosphere lost mass throughout the geological ages due to biological $\small\sf{CO_2}$ fixation?
Stromatolites and other organisms have been storing $\small\sf{CO_2}$ in the form of $\small\sf{CaCO_3}$ throughout the geological ages, forming extensive limestone deposits scattered across Earth's ...
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1answer
511 views
Where did the atmosphere's nitrogen come from? [duplicate]
According to Wikipedia's article Atmosphere of Earth:
Outgassing from volcanism, supplemented by gases produced during the late heavy bombardment of Earth by huge asteroids, produced [Earth's ...
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2answers
220 views
Original Diameter of Ancient Impact Craters [closed]
The 2.25 billion-year-old Yarrabubba crater in Western Australia has recently been identified as the world's oldest impact crater. It is said to be 43 miles (69 km) in diameter, yet the photo which ...
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Cratonization - how did the Archean cratons form?
Before the onset of modern style plate tectonics and the Wilson cycles in the late Archean, it is thought that smaller units of continental crust, called cratons, roamed the oceanic crust over a more ...
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1answer
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Earth History Book
I'm a PhD student studying the (current) climate of the Earth. I'm also quite interested in the history of planet Earth, although I have little academic background in that area. Is there a good ...
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With so many positive feedbacks accelerating global warming, how did the earth ever re-enter ice ages after it came out of one?
We hear a lot about positive feedbacks when it comes to global warming. For example: ice reflects solar radiation, so as the ice melts more solar radiation is absorbed which accelerates warming; ...
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1answer
205 views
How can radiometric dating of meteorites determine the age of the earth? Wouldn't this only determine the age of the decaying nuclide in each rock? [duplicate]
How can the radiometric dating of different meteorites determine the age of the earth? Wouldn't radioactive decay have already been occurring in all of those meteorites long before they hit earth? ...
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1answer
191 views
Do earthquakes produce folds on rocks?
Earth rocks are frequently folded at surface.
Folds in alternating layers of limestone and chert in Crete, Greece.
Source: commons.wikimedia
Are earthquakes the main mechanism ...
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1answer
173 views
How Good is The Evidence For Snowball Earth?
Some geologists say there were times between 770 million years BP and 630 million years BP when ice ages were so profound that the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps met at the equator. This is called the ...
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Molten salt seas on the future Earth
As the sun gets brighter, the oceans are expected to evaporate by the next billion years or so (the vapor slowly gets stripped off into space). The salt, which is less dense than most rocks, will be ...
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1answer
172 views
Which ocean is going to be swallowed by the Supercontinent Cycle, Atlantic or Pacific?
The register shows several supercontinents have been formed on Earth's History:
"The most recent supercontinent, Pangaea, formed about 300 million
years ago (0.3 Ga). There are two different ...
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2answers
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Why is the bedrock buried so deeply in much of northern Minnesota?
Although parts of northern Minnesota have bedrock exposed at the surface (especially in the Boundary Waters area and along the short of Lake Superior), the more usual situation here is for the bedrock ...
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Age of the Earth without radiometric dating?
It is common knowledge that age of the Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years. Radiometric dating of meteorites (which were formed during the formation of Earth) and earliest rocks on Earth have both ...
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Biomes that existed during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Max (PETM)
I understand that you could fill multiple books with descriptions of the PETM and the mechanisms that incited the event. I have always wondered what regions of the world were covered in what types of ...
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Where did the heiltsuk's find obsidian?
The discovery of hearths and other carbon dated items on an island off the north east coast of Canada puts modern humans there 2,000 years before the Alaskan land bridge existed. The glaciers of ...
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2answers
237 views
How much climate history can be reconstructed using marine sediment cores?
Today I learnt in college that marine sediments can be used to reconstruct the climate up to 500 million years back. I find that number very strange because in another class we learnt that the ocean ...
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2answers
391 views
Why is a future increase in solar luminosity by 10% supposed to have disastrous consequences for life on earth when the last 30% did not?
One remarkable thing about the climate history of earth is that despite the fact that solar luminosity was fully 30% lower in the beginning, temperatures were actually quite close to today. Since then ...
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3answers
466 views
Why Do Supercontinents Form? [duplicate]
It would seem, on the face of it, improbable that the continental land-masses would accumulate into a single composite, yet it has happened numerous times, and is expected to again in the future.
...
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1answer
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Historically, how did the total amount of salt / NaCl on Earth develop?
After reading this question about the origin of NaCl on Earth, I'm wondering: How did the amount of NaCl develop historically? Is it a more or less linear growth until today? Was it such a linear ...
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1answer
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What was the percentage of land mass in prehistoric times when temperatures were high enough that we had no ice caps?
I grew curious after watching a presentation about the large creatures of prehistoric times. One of the theories cited about why creatures were so big was the increased oxygen in the atmosphere due to ...
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Could the earth be much older than the currently accepted number?
According to wikipedia, the Earth is about 4.543 billion years old. If I understand correctly, this number is based on radiometric age-dating of meteorites. So basically, the logic is this:
We've got ...
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When did wildfires start to occur on earth?
An oxidizer, fuel, and heat are needed for a fire. When considering oxygen as the oxidizer, an oxygen concentration of approximately 16% is required for combustion. Plant material is the fuel ...
