Posted on 03/25/2015 7:05:19 PM PDT by JimSEA
University of Colorado Boulder researchers propose a novel mechanism to explain the region’s high elevation No one really knows how the High Plains got so high. About 70 million years ago, eastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming, western Kansas, and western Nebraska were near sea level. Since then, the region rose about 2 kilometers, leading to some head scratching at geology conferences.
Now researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder have proposed a new way to explain the uplift: water trapped deep below Earth’s crust may have flooded the lower crust, creating buoyancy and lift. The research appears online this week in the journal Geology and could represent a new mechanism for elevating broad regions of continental crust.
“The High Plains are perplexing because there is no deformation—such as major faults or volcanic activity—in the area to explain how this big, vast area got elevated,” said lead author Craig Jones, a CIRES Fellow and associate professor of geology at CU-Boulder. “What we suggest is that by hydrating the lower crust, it became more buoyant, and the whole thing came up.”
“It’s like flooding Colorado from below,” Jones said.
Jones and his colleagues propose the water came from the subducting Farallon oceanic plate under the Pacific Ocean 75 to 45 million years ago. This slab slid underneath the North American continental plate, bringing with it a tremendous amount of water bound in minerals. Trapped and under great pressure and heat, the water was released from the oceanic plate and moved up through the mantle and toward the lower crust. There, it hydrated lower crust minerals, converting dense ones, like garnet, into lighter ones, such as mica and amphibole.
(Excerpt) Read more at geosociety.org ...
LOLOL!!!
Amen!
Maybe they could take a moment and explain why so many idiots think that Denver is the highest point in Colorado.
I’ve been asked that on more than one occasion, and it scrambles my brain every time. Something about the slogan “Mile High City” makes people think it is more notable than it is.
Our house is at almost 8,000 feet, and we live in the foothills. Alma, Colorado has people living at nearly 12,000 feet, and Leadville has them at around 10,000.
Ugh. Dumb people.
There haven’t been any marine rocks laid down since the end of the Cretaceous. The Cenozoic deposits are all non-marine. Fort Union, etc.
Yes that is the place.
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>> “You think people will be condemned to hell for not believing the earth is 4,500 years old?” <<
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Did I say that?
Or were you just itching to build a strawman?
First, the Earth is 6015 years old, but that isn’t the point anyway. It is unbelief in general that will condemn people.
Those that are unable to see one well presented truth, are usually unable to see others too. Its about the worship of the material creation, which is what drives these self appointed “scientists” to try to use their pseudo science as a springboard to demolish the foundation.
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>> “What is a deep soil landslide?” <<
The kind that turn 40 to 60 foot thick banks of soil loose to bury homes, and even entire trailer parks.
Clay soils more than a few feet thick are impossible under tectonic theory, as it is currently worshiped. They would have washed down in the first 10,000 to 15,000 years.
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And the top of Everest was once at the bottom of the ocean.
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No cigar.
Sediments are rarely involved in destructive deep slides. The clayey material has to sit at the bottom of a body of still water to create the deep soil banks.
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Yep, Walt has it all pretty well figured out.
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And the top of Everest was once at the bottom of the ocean.
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Yep.
Take a look at the catastrophic landslides in the Himalayas.
They are not “soils.”
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Are you deliberately trying to change the subject?
Under current theory as it is articulated, the deep SOIL landslides that we frequently have are impossible if the Earth is older than 10-15K years old.
Of course it is doubletalk, but that is what gets called “scientific.”
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No competent geologist would ever make such an assertion. That’s an ultimate straw man or outright lie. Soil is constantly renewed and the landslides are hardly limited to soil. The landslides in the Himalayas are in rock 30 million years old. Soil is a “temporary” thing consisting of the products of wasting, erosion and biological leftovers. The article I sent shows there are many different kinds of landslides. All soils are the product of the wasting of rock. Your creationists deliberately misstate and simplify in order to ridicule. Read some valid science.
Soil is renewed at the bottom of still waters.
That is what the theory says.
Competent geologists don’t even address the theory WRT real world work. They can’t square it with reality.
Ever seen the Mt. St. Helens recovery? Apparently it’s in the geological twilight zone.
“Old Earth” is politics, not science.
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I’m sure a libtard will say it’s global warming.
Soil will either erode away forming either soil at a different location or a river delta, etc. or new soil overlays older soil and, over time, the older soil becomes rock. Go out and take a look at mud stone, fine conglomerate shale, etc. You can go out in your back yard and dig a hole, you’ll find larger rock and harder digging the further down you go. Hillsides will waste away, sometimes by landslide. Erosion takes everything downhill. Mount St. Helens is a slightly different tale. Ash erodes quickly at the surface and forms tuff at depth. Trees and bushes recover quickly as volcanic ash is rich in nutrients. You can drive up the North Umpqua River to Crater Lake and see what Mt. St. Helens will look in four thousand years.
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Do you always completely miss the point?
What you posted in this reply makes everything else that you believe a lie.
And soil doesn’t always compact sufficiently to stand. Only high ‘R’ value soils do that. Highly plastic soils flow rather than compacting to such an extent. If the Earth was old, those plastic soils would all be at the bottom of the ocean, instead of standing on tall, steep slopes as they do in so many places.
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