Questions tagged [earth-history]
Questions relating to Historical Geology.
121
questions
7
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1answer
73 views
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; ...
0
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1answer
26 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?
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? ...
2
votes
1answer
46 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 ...
2
votes
1answer
102 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 ...
5
votes
2answers
103 views
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 ...
2
votes
1answer
77 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 ...
3
votes
2answers
108 views
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 ...
4
votes
0answers
31 views
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 ...
1
vote
0answers
32 views
Has biology's influence in CO2/Phanerozoic variations been decisive?
I must say I always as geologist have explained myself CO2 changes at Earth's History in terms of Wilson Cycle. And I always thought biosphere is adapted to geology.
But from two questions I link at ...
3
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0answers
31 views
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 ...
3
votes
0answers
31 views
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 ...
5
votes
2answers
150 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 ...
1
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2answers
212 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 ...
2
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3answers
304 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.
...
6
votes
1answer
92 views
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
92 views
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 ...
14
votes
5answers
3k views
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 ...
9
votes
1answer
2k views
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
134 views
Ocean water coming from Mantle vs coming from meteorites
Posibly duplicate from
Water on Mars and Earth
I remember well a hydrology course where our teacher made some calculations of the total flux of water from Mantle ejections in Earth's history. He ...
4
votes
1answer
627 views
Causes of fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen in past 300 Mya
I have two questions based on the history of atmospheric oxygen levels depicted below.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sauerstoffgehalt-1000mj2.png.
The notes below the chart explain ...
1
vote
0answers
19 views
Mass contribution during the LHB
How much mass (either absolute or relative to the Earth) was [estimate to have been] added to the Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment?
2
votes
1answer
108 views
How many times in total has Earth formed a super continent?
I know there was a Pangaea at one point in history that broke into the continents of today, but I could have sworn there was another instance in Earth's history that there was a super continent, maybe ...
2
votes
1answer
110 views
Where did the carbon, neon and nitrogen go?
It is interesting to compare estimated Earth abundances with estimated Milky way abundances.
Obviously the hydrogen and helium were gaseous and too light for Earth's gravitational field (other than ...
8
votes
4answers
445 views
Before the Great Oxygenation Event, where was the oxygen?
Today, the oxygen in the atmosphere is about 1018 kg.
The estimated carbon biomass of the earth is about 4×1015. Less than 0.5%.
Estimated fossil fuels are around 5 times as much as existing carbon ...
8
votes
0answers
225 views
How much heat flow is needed to maintain plate tectonics?
The Earth is emitting about 47 terawatts of heat energy, producing a heat flow of 0.0921 W/m$^2$ due to radiogenic and primordial heat energy. The heat flow drives mantle convection which in turn ...
-1
votes
1answer
238 views
If Earth had rings would gravity exerted by Earth decrease?
If Earth had enough mass in its own rings, more than the weight of Earth:
What could it decrease the gravity to?
Would the atmosphere have more depth or be thinner?
What would the weather be like?
...
11
votes
1answer
1k views
What is the fastest the Earth has ever spun?
How fast can the Earth rotate and support life?
In prehistoric times, dinosaurs were so massive that archeologists wonder how they were not crushed under their own weight. Could a faster spinning ...
11
votes
2answers
160 views
Water on Mars and Earth
If water on Earth came from meteorites, why doesn't Mars have substantial water? What made it more highly probable on Earth than on Mars?
3
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0answers
297 views
Puzzle using relative dating principles
This isn't directly looking at a real life ecological example kind of thing, but it requires knowledge of relative dating, so I thought I would come here.
Here is what was told:
-"Worms" (curved ...
8
votes
1answer
1k views
What would it be like to live in an ice age?
If you were born in the most recent ice age, how different would your life be compared to how you live it today? Furthermore, if humans currently lived in an ice age, how would it affect life today?
4
votes
1answer
96 views
What is a “tar shower?”
I'm reading about Sodom and Gomorrah on Wikipedia when I come across this:
"One such idea is that the Dead Sea was devastated by an earthquake between 2100 and 1900 BCE. This might have unleashed ...
8
votes
1answer
145 views
Earth and moon have different mantle compositions. Is this a fatal flaw in the 'Giant Impact hypothesis'?
Deep impact ejecta on the moon seem to indicate that the moon's mantle is predominantly 'low-calcium pyroxene' (recent letter to Nature), whereas the Earth's mantle (or at least the upper mantle) is ...
0
votes
1answer
107 views
Can someone provide a map of Nazca lines with this image in it?
I found this image of a bird with another image below its right wing on google earth in nazca peru. Is there any maps or infomation available that can help me identify this one?
Kind regards
Jeff B.
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vote
2answers
278 views
Was the Earth's sea-level significantly lower in ancient times?
A lot of times, ancient artifacts or even whole ancient civilizations are found buried very deep into the ground surface of the earth.
Entire civilizations that had high buildings have been found ...
1
vote
1answer
47 views
Approximation of ancient landmasses using current ocean floor data
I am wondering how accurate such an approximation would be. I wish to take a current height map of the earth (including the ocean floor) and approximate the form of ancient landmasses by changing the ...
1
vote
2answers
284 views
Earth's orbit and historical sun-earth distance
Purpose of my question:
I create program to calculate solar radiation and I need to calculate radius between sun and earth.
The based on book "Guide to HTML, JavaScript and PHP"
For Scientists and ...
2
votes
1answer
41 views
Sediment boundarys produced by largest meteors? Vredefort, Sudbury and Chicxulub
Chicxulub crater is the third largest crater on earth, which is said to have produced the KT boundary. What is the sediment layer produced by the 1st and 2nd largest craters?
Also, there many ...
15
votes
1answer
4k views
How old is the Earth?
According to most articles I've read online, the estimated age of Earth is 4.5 billion years.
Question: How old is the Earth?
So I actually want to confirm that this is the case. Maybe there are ...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
gamma ray burst, extinction-level event
From this subsection in Wikipedia's aricle on extinction event:
A nearby gamma-ray burst (less than 6000 light years away) would be powerful enough to destroy the Earth's ozone layer, leaving ...
4
votes
0answers
143 views
Did Theia collide directly with proto-Earth?
I was learning about the formation of Earth on Kahn Academy where it was mentioned that a protoplanet named Theia had a glancing impact with the earth and formed the moon. It seems like there is also ...
3
votes
1answer
553 views
How much energy released by the Theia-Gaia impact?
I read somewhere that the Chicxulub impact released the energy equivalent of anywhere from 100-300 teratons of TNT. That's an impressive amount of energy.
Assuming a head on collision (according to ...
2
votes
1answer
144 views
Is there any place on Earth that is permanently a desert?
I am interested to know if there is any place on Earth that is permanently a desert (except Antarctica). By permanent I do not mean to be the physical meaning of forever. It means the place has to be ...
7
votes
2answers
377 views
What fraction of Earth's crustal material survives the supercontinent cycle?
I know that things are not as simple, but for the sake of argument I'll assume a supercontinent cycle of $\sim$400 Myr periodicity is active on Earth.
If that is the case, then my naive ...
7
votes
1answer
317 views
A circle shape in Madagascar
I was seeing Madagascar on Google Maps and accidentally i saw a circle shape near Bebao. Coordinates are 17.4317443°E and 44.644248°S.
Please, to satisfy my curiosity, can you tell me why is this ...
8
votes
1answer
2k views
For how long has the Earth been habitable for humans?
Let's imagine that a human (male or female) could be sent to the
past, anytime after the birth of our planet. What would be their survival
probability over time?
If this question is too hard to ...
4
votes
1answer
228 views
Surface temperature in early hadean period
I am considering earth's internal heat budget for a project in university. For this I need an estimate on the temperature of the earth shortly after it had formed.
In Kelvin's On the Secular cooling ...
6
votes
0answers
196 views
1950's - 60's Earth Science
I'm writing some lore for a fictional world, which is set in the 50's early 60's roughly.
One thing I'd like to bring is a fairly grounded explanation for the creation of the planet and the universe, ...
3
votes
0answers
226 views
Pangaea, supercontinent formation and fragmentation [duplicate]
Is there a widely accepted model for the supercontinent cycles ?
From the novice point of view, it is not obvious why the continents would be fragmented all over the earth as now, but 300 millions ...
1
vote
2answers
645 views
Speed of tectonic plate movement
I'm doing some research about tectonic plates and at which speeds they move and in which directions, because I'm writing a program to simulate the movement of the tectonic plates and also calculate ...
6
votes
1answer
565 views
The age of tectonic plates
There is information which says that East European Platform sticks out at the Baltic Sea and, therefore, we can see the ordovican layer in Estonia whereas ...
