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Drop of ancient seawater rewrites Earth's history
EurekAlert! ^ | August 1, 2019 | University of the Witwatersrand

Posted on 08/05/2019 8:20:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

Research reveals that plate tectonics started on Earth 600 million years before what was believed earlier...

Where it was previously thought that plate tectonics started about 2.7 billion years ago, a team of international scientists used the microscopic leftovers of a drop of water that was transported into the Earth's deep mantle - through plate tectonics - to show that this process started 600 million years before that. An article on their research that proves plate tectonics started on Earth 3.3 billion years ago was published in the high impact academic journal, Nature, on 16 July...

For their research, the team analysed a piece of rock melt, called komatiite - named after the type occurrence in the Komati river near Barberton in Mpumalanga - that are the leftovers from the hottest magma ever produced in the first quarter of Earth's existence (the Archaean). While most of the komatiites were obscured by later alteration and exposure to the atmosphere, small droplets of the molten rock were preserved in a mineral called olivine. This allowed the team to study a perfectly preserved piece of ancient lava.

"We examined a piece of melt that was 10 microns (0.01mm) in diameter, and analysed its chemical indicators such as H2O content, chlorine and deuterium/hydrogen ratio, and found that Earth's recycling process started about 600 million years earlier than originally thought," says Wilson. "We found that seawater was transported deep into the mantle and then re-emerged through volcanic plumes from the core-mantle boundary."

(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: archaean; astronomy; barberton; catastrophism; chlorine; continentaldrift; deuterium; geology; h2o; hydrogen; komatiite; komatiites; komatiriver; louisafrank; louisfrank; magma; mantle; mpumalanga; olivine; platetectonics; science; water
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To: Red Badger
Komati river near Barberton in Mpumalanga ............. Is that near Wakanda?😄..........

Funny! You can probably see Wakanda from there. :)

Mpumalanga is what the Eastern Transvaal was renamed after apartheid ended. Very beautiful area on the border of Swaziland; Kruger National Park is close to this town. I traveled there some years ago.

21 posted on 08/05/2019 9:05:27 AM PDT by Constitution Day (Stay frosty)
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To: SunkenCiv

Gosh, you got me.


22 posted on 08/05/2019 9:16:18 AM PDT by momincombatboots (Do you know anyone who isnÂ’t a socialist after 65? Freedom exchanged cash, a medicare card control.)
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To: SunkenCiv

And if we believe THAT, they’ll tell us another one.


23 posted on 08/05/2019 10:15:47 AM PDT by Tucker39 ("It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible." George Washington)
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To: SunkenCiv

When can we reunite Pangaea? Then we’ll really be able to take the train everywhere!


24 posted on 08/05/2019 10:22:06 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: SunkenCiv

I have a feeling that these people have no idea what actual proof of something is.

If you add up all the uncertainties underlying claims of events said to happen hundreds of millions of years ago or more, they add up to north of 99%.

You can’t hand-wave accumulated uncertainty and declare the outcome to be a proof, not if you want to be taken seriously by serious people.


25 posted on 08/05/2019 10:34:54 AM PDT by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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To: thoughtomator
have no idea what actual proof of something is
Right back at ya. And no, the word "proof" doesn't even occur in the article, which was written by a journalist.

26 posted on 08/05/2019 10:46:37 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

But the word “proves” does occur, in the third sentence, and is the object of my criticism.

Failures in the acknowledgement of uncertainty turn science into cultism.


27 posted on 08/05/2019 10:50:01 AM PDT by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Komati river near Barberton in Mpumalanga

What planet is this?

28 posted on 08/05/2019 10:50:49 AM PDT by dead (Liberals ruin everything.)
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To: thoughtomator
Regardless, it's an article by a science journalist, not by the authors of the paper.

29 posted on 08/05/2019 10:53:56 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: dead; Red Badger

I didn’t want to look it up, luckily someone came through for us:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3769334/posts?page=21#21


30 posted on 08/05/2019 10:58:54 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Given how frequent this practice is among science journalists, it’s amazing scientists don’t object and correct more often, don’t you think?


31 posted on 08/05/2019 11:02:28 AM PDT by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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To: thoughtomator
No one buys your fake concern about the state of science, don't you get it?

32 posted on 08/05/2019 11:06:29 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Seems there is more agreement here for my point of view on the matter than yours.

Count ‘em... if you can.


33 posted on 08/05/2019 11:12:20 AM PDT by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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To: SunkenCiv

34 posted on 08/05/2019 11:16:14 AM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: thoughtomator
Trolls in science topics? I don't count 'em, because they don't count.

35 posted on 08/05/2019 11:25:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

put the cultish nonsense in Religion where it belongs and you can have your troll-free environment


36 posted on 08/06/2019 5:43:57 AM PDT by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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To: thoughtomator
Ridiculous, since this is a science topic, and you are a troll.

37 posted on 08/06/2019 8:19:16 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Ah yes, mysticism about things allegedly happening hundreds of years ago, with no possibility of experimental proof whatsoever, is “science”.

Take your religion and file it properly in the future and you won’t get pushback from people who know what science is.


38 posted on 08/06/2019 10:24:47 AM PDT by thoughtomator (... this has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.)
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