Posted on 06/27/2007 6:52:00 AM PDT by george76
If it weren't for the hot rocks down below Earth's crust, most of North America would be below sea level, report researchers who say the significance of Earth's internal heat has been overlooked.
Without it, mile-high Denver would be 727 feet below sea level, the scientists calculate, and New York City, more than a quarter-mile below. Los Angeles would be almost three-quarters of a mile beneath the Pacific.
In fact most of the United States would disappear, except for some major Western mountain ranges...
In what they said was the first calculation of its kind, the researchers said heat inside the planet accounts for half the reason land rises above sea level or higher to form mountains.
Scientists previously gave other factors greater weight in explaining elevation differences, such as the density and makeup of rocks and tectonic forces.
The Utah team calculated how much of North America would sink if the engine of heat was taken away, leaving regions as relatively cold as the bottom of the vast Canadian shield — bedrock that hasn't changed for billions of years.
Hasterok said heat from Earth's deep interior and from radioactive decay of uranium, thorium and potassium in Earth's crust will stay around for a long time to come.
Even if the planet's interior cooled, it would take billions of years for continents to sink...
(Excerpt) Read more at thedenverchannel.com ...
.
the Canadian shield — “a special, stable and cool area of rock” — as their statistical baseline for the effect of removing heat from under the continent. The slab under Seattle, however, is colder than the Canadian shield...
Somebody better tell the geo-thermal heat advocates.
You know, that New York City thing sounds like a major positive to this redneck...
Al Gore was right! There is global warming, but it the inside of the globe that is warm, not the outside.
The continents are sinking!!!
Just goes to show that the Global Warming fanatics are making a mountain out of a molehill.
The continents are sinking!!
I’m beginning to feel like a fly on a cracker in a bowl of soup.
Waterworld!
I’m beginning to feel like a pimple on a fly on a cracker in a bowl of soup
Indeed, we must keep the heat in the earth or the coastlines will radically change over the next 10,000,000,000 years. Geothermal energy is now out!
By the way, thorium is radioactive. Shouldn't we be funding massive efforts to clean up all the radioactive thorium in the earth to prevent radioactive pollution? And the uranium, too? What happens if a terrorist get ahold of some radioactive potassium from the center of the earth and makes a dirty bomb with it? Serious questions need answers now! We can't take a chance on being wrong on this!
Its too late. They already have Cobalt Thorium G.
but what about Hillery’s cold heart ... if she’s elected President we’re doomed I tell you. DOOMED!!!
L
We are safe !
It will only be a problem in a few Billion years.
Global warming...from the inside.
8-)
Geophysicist Discovers Why Earth ‘Wobbles’ [ 2004 ]
Science Daily | May 20, 2004 | University Of Nevada, Reno
Posted on 06/27/2007 12:25:09 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
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Even if we prevent that, they could just go get it from the Sun......
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