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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks; Smokin' Joe; All

If you are talking about my statement about the center of North America, I was not talking about the interior of California, or the Yellowstone Caldera. Having spent time in Iowa, my concept of center of North America is from around there and northward. Yellowstone Caldera is in the Rocky Mountains which is entirely different from the center of our country and Canada which in eons past was a great shallow inland sea, not home to volcanic activity. Also, I am very aware of Yellowstone as my father wrote a fiction book about a major eruption of Yellowstone in our own times.


42 posted on 12/26/2012 1:32:37 PM PST by gleeaikin
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To: gleeaikin
There is the possibility of a diamond pipe in south central Arkansas, as diamonds are found there. There is also a lot of quartz and hot springs in the area.

About 100 miles north of there is another strange area with possible volcanic origins and this area has been in the news as the location of recent minor earthquake swarms.

47 posted on 12/26/2012 9:41:52 PM PST by Errant
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To: gleeaikin; winoneforthegipper; machogirl; The Cajun; Tolerance Sucks Rocks; Smokin' Joe; ...
IMHO, it’s a stretch to contribute current and minor ice melt to an increase in volcanic activity. Perhaps there is a better case immediately after the last ice age melt, as the chart below seems to indicate. Something occurred soon after the climate warmed about 14,500 years ago, only to be driven right back into another short term cool period.

My pet theory for a very long time has been that tidal forces from the sun/moon/earth orbits act on the Earth’s core, which is believed to be mostly solid iron the size of the moon, causing frictional heating that builds up over a period of time. Another effect from this, which I won’t go into much now, is a kind of pumping action occurs (I don’t buy the conventional convection plume theory).

So after a period of time, say every 12K years, this excess heat eventually causes a weakening of the lithosphere and pressure waves from the core’s pumping action opens fissures through which extra molten material finds its way through to the surface in the form of what we call plumes and divergent tectonic plate boundary zones. IMO, this is the simplest explanation and makes the most sense.

Scientists believe frictional heating from tidal force occurs with other bodies in our solar system, such as the moon IO orbiting the planet Jupiter, and a number of icy moons in the solar system with cryovolcanoes.

Active Volcanoes of Our Solar System - Activity Occurs on Earth and on the Moons of a Few Planets

In my Errant opinion, this is strong evidence that a similar process (except the Earth's solid central core is one of the main elements here), is what's occurring within the Earth’s interior and may explain what drives the Earth back into ice ages, even during warm periods (from the increased ash/SO2/moisture released into the atmosphere from increased volcanic activity).

Keeping in mind this is a complex world, there are other contributing factors in climatic change such as asteroid/comet impacts, solar output variations, changes in the Earth's orbit and inclination through precession, and etc.

48 posted on 12/26/2012 11:20:26 PM PST by Errant
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