A map depicts the features of the Pacific Ocean floor. A new study suggests that the collapse of an underwater mountain range in the Pacific Ocean changed the face of the planet from the Hawaiian Islands to Antarctica.
Posted on 10/24/2007 2:48:01 PM PDT by blam
Ancient Cataclysm Rearranged Pacific Map, Study Says
Julian Ryall
for National Geographic News
October 24, 2007
A cataclysm 50 million years ago changed the face of the planet from the Hawaiian Islands to Antarctica, according to new research.
The collapse of an underwater mountain range in the Pacific Ocean turned Australia into a warm and sunny continent instead of a snowbound wasteland and created some of the islands that dot the South Pacific today.
"We have found that the destruction of an entire mid-ocean ridge, known as the Izanagi Ridge, initiated a chain reaction of geological events," said Joanne Whittaker, a doctoral student at the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences who led the research.
Using geophysical data gathered by scientists from Australia and Russia, the team confirmed that the ridge plunged underneath a plate of Earth's crust that stretches between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The Japanese landmass then acted as a vast plug in the crack between the plates, changing their movement and rearranging the geography of the Pacific, the team found.
This eventually led to the emergence of dozens of small volcanic islands that dot the southwest Pacific, including Tonga and the island chains that run north and east from Papua New Guinea (see map).
"The cause of [this] major change in the motion of the Pacific plate has long puzzled scientists," Whittaker said.
The team also deduced that the event changed the movement of the Australian continent, causing it to move due north at 2.75 inches (7 centimeters) a year.
"Australia would have been located much further south and would have had a climate more similar to Scandinavia or Alaska" were it not for this event, Whittaker said.
"Only the very northern parts of the continent would have been warm."
"Controversial" Theory
At the time of the event, Antarctica and Australia were part of the same southern landmass.
Using data collected by Australia's national geoscience agency and Russia's Okeangeologia Institute, however, the team found that Australia fit against Antarctica more than 310 miles (500 kilometers) further east than was previously believed.
Enlarge Photo
This discovery led the scientists to identify the change in Australia's course of direction and the chain reaction that caused it.
Gaku Kimura, a professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, said the work of the Sydney team was "interesting because it is really controversial."
The new theory suggests that the ancient event is what caused a previously unexplained bend in an underwater mountain range known as the Hawaii-Emperor range, he explained.
Scientists had been perplexed at the geological processes that had caused the unusual formation.
Secondly, he pointed out, the "classical" interpretation of the timeline for these events put them at around 43 million years ago, a date that has been revised to around 50 million years ago in the new research.
Whittaker believes the new model has far-reaching implications for understanding the creation of natural resources in waters around present-day Australia, as well as the chain of volcanoes known as the "Ring of Fire" that circles the Pacific.
"Natural resources form under specific conditions where the timing and amounts of heat and stress … are crucial," Whittaker said.
"This will help locate natural resources, especially on the southern margin of Australia.
"Understanding how the plates moved will also provide a better base for climate models, which in turn help our understanding of present-day climate," she added.
A map depicts the features of the Pacific Ocean floor. A new study suggests that the collapse of an underwater mountain range in the Pacific Ocean changed the face of the planet from the Hawaiian Islands to Antarctica.
I’ll be the first. Bushs fault.
First recorded event of global warming?
Man this is a horribly written article on what is very interesting work.
It gives the wrong impression this was some sort of sudden event rather than something that took millions of years.
Sub-prime loams. The collapse was inevitable.
Mu?
Lemuria?
How do you destroy mountains.
Particularly mountains that are mostly submerged already.
Maybe the author was just going for the dramatic.
One tectonic plate slipped out from under another, and in doing so, displaced a considerable amount of the overlying mantle, allowing a great deal of heat from the earth’s interior to escape, warming the ocean in a way that mankind, with all its concentrated technology and single-minded determination, could not possibly achieve.
It probably also thrust up the Sierra Moutain range, creating the Great Salt Lake Basin, which was once an arm of the sea.
The Great Salt Lake is simply the remaining puddle of that once huge sea that arced out across what is now northern California, Washington State and Oregon.
***MU, Lemuria..***
Curses! You beat em to it!
“The Japanese landmass then acted as a vast plug in the crack between the plates, changing their movement and rearranging the geography of the Pacific, the team found.”
Michael Moore could serve the same purpose today, if needed.
**How do you destroy mountains.**
An old book written or published around 1968 showed the “lost” continent of MU, or Lemuria. A mountain range over a series of caverns. when one end of the mountain range erupted, pressure in the other caverns was releaved and the other mountains collapsed into the caverns.
No one takes the MU books seriously.
Noah's Flood
And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan.
Amazing what you'll find in the Bible.
Or NAsbU 1 Chronicles 1:19 Two sons were born to Eber, the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother's name was Joktan.
If that was an earthquake it would be about a 12. There was one a little smaller that raised the Andes a mile within the memory of the human species.
This is all nonsense - everybody knows that the Earth was created 6000 years ago.
You’re preaching to the choir. It’s in my other history Book.
BUMP!
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