Posted on 06/30/2010 9:00:24 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Hot blobs of magma - the searing liquid rock beneath the Earth's crust - can spread slow-moving ripples that soar hundreds of meters high across the Earth's surface, a new study suggests.
This phenomenon, which works on geologic time scales, may explain relatively rapid pre-historical changes in sea level that occurred without the typical waxing and waning of the polar ice sheets, which hold and release water on scales of thousands and millions of years. This unexplained sea level rise is one of geology's oldest mysteries.
During the Paleogene era (65 million to 23 million years ago), the land under Scotland moved up and down like a geological yo-yo. The surface rippled up to 1,640 feet (500 meters) over the course of only a million years - a relatively short time span, geologically-speaking.
"It appears to be caused by something deep within the Earth, moving sideways - almost like rats running underneath a carpet," said study author Bryan Lovell of the University of Cambridge.
...
A magma hot spot beneath Iceland, known as the Iceland plume, which is responsible for the European island's volcanic activity, could be behind this movement.
Data from oil exploration near the Iceland magma plume has revealed that a blob in the Earth's flowing mantle caused a pulse beneath the North Atlantic about 55 million years ago. This pulse raised and lowered the land surface and the sea floor in a rippling effect
Although scientists were confident that hot blobs exist in the mantle, evidence for the ripples at the Earth's surface have been hard to spot. While the Scotland uplift is the only example of the hot blob effect, Lovell said the movement is a natural effect of mantle convection, so there's no reason to think it isn't happening all the time, even now.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
/mark
We once thought we'd fall off the edge.
The next wake-up realization is ;
"Holy cheese & crackers, we're floatin' on little rafts of dirt on highly pressurized seas of oil and magma, ma!"
It's a good idea to leave the Deep Hot Biosphere(Thomas Gold) wells be to fill up and refill the shallow wells.
It’s about time this real phenomenon be ventilated in the press as well as academia.
I wonder how long it will take for liberal Democrats and the white liberal guilt crowd to propose higher taxes to combat this new sinister force as well as to blame Western Civilization in general and America in particular for it’s underlying cause and continuing sustenance.
Paging Michael Mann (as in Mann made global warming).
you meant the earth climate changes by itself? A self-regenerating earth? eeevil SVUs are just a speck of dust in the climate continuum?
Ladies and germs, MC-TD here spinning the platters that matter:
here’s the Hot Blobs of Magma with their big hit: `Lava Stinks (Yeah Yeah)!’
Horta?
Someone needs to photo shop it w/a for sale sign on it!
Not only that, the magnetic pole has moved around a number of times.
dang... it even survived Asteroid and Meteorite impacts!
Huh. Wonder if the AGW scientists factored in for this when consider sea-level changes... P:
Cr@p!! ANOTHER crisis for Obama to exploit!!!!
Excellent!
:’)
...may explain relatively rapid pre-historical changes in sea level that occurred without the typical waxing and waning of the polar ice sheets, which hold and release water on scales of thousands and millions of years. This unexplained sea level rise is one of geology's oldest mysteries.There are also subterranean seas, basically big caverns filled with huge amounts of water.
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