What a load of tripe. They blame bad weather erosion on rising sea levels. They then call the weather event which is a strong ENSO that happens about once a decade to a once in a century event when it is actually a rather cyclical once ever decade event.
Don`t be too concerned, we are a fairly easy going & tolerant people. I`m sure some kind hearted Aussie would teach you how to eat with a knife & fork. - wink
This is actually one of my favorite things to think about, geology. Because it occurs on such vast time frames that most people can't even think of it. As far as what sea level changes will mean, you have to consider the evolution of our planet itself. At one time, the surface was completely covered by water. But the water did not go anywhere, it was pretty shallow. When the planet was new, the crust was not thick enough to form the mountain ranges that we are familiar with today, that took many hundreds of millions of years to develop. Then we had several differing eras. Global Ice Ages ("Snowball Earth"), super continents, then the thickening of the crust and the eventual continental conveyor belt that is modern Plate Tectonics. What we have now bears little resembelence with the planet of 3 billion years ago. Our original continents were pretty flat, which led to appearance, dissapearance, and re-emergence of inland seas many times over the eons. And as time progressed, features like the great mountain ranges became both more common and larger. What is believed to be one of the first "Mountain Ranges" on the planet is the Central Pangean Mountains. These rose in a rather odd place, the center of the continent of Pangea. It is believed that crust buckling as the continents of Laurussia and Gondwana slamed together to form Pangea, and it was at the time the largest mountain range on the planet. And these mountains were impressive, at the time. Towering maybe 4,000 feet, these were giants, where as today they would barely be worth mentioning. And they still exist, in the US they form the backbone of the Appalachians, they are also the Little Atlas Mountains in Morocco, and also the Scottish Highlands. But they are nothing compared to the Alps, or the Rocky Mountains to come later. Part of the problem we get in this is that people seem to think that sea levels are fixed. They most certainly are not however. Sea levels have been rising for the last 30,000 years, and show no sign of changing that any time soon. Venice was once on dry land, and most of Denmark was dry land also when it was founded. Now thousands of years later it is taking increasingly heroic measures to keep these areas from sinking below the seas. However, many areas that were once underwater will not be so again. The Great Plains of the US is now at a higher elevation, thanks to the buckling of the North American Plate. In fact, many areas of the ancient seas are now at an elevation of a mile or higher over sea level (like the coral reef near Carlsbad Caverns).
There are local variations. The weight of a mile thick coating of ice being removed from northern Britain has resulted in a rebound, where the landmass in the North is rising like a slow-motion cork bobbing on the water, and the South is dipping down a little. Despite that, we can see from Roman quayside and jetty remains that sea levels in Poole Harbour, Dorset at the time of Christ, were six feet or more lower than they are today.
Plate tectonics happened fairly early in the Archean era Hmmm - love to see a link to back this up Yerrrsssss but Denmark??? Don't you mean Holland??? The problem in Venice is not that the water is rising so much as the land is sinking And conversely many areas that WERE dry land have sunk and are now in danger of being deluged
Yes it did. But with a thinner crust, the plates more easily slid against each other, less buckling, less uplift. Here is a map of what Pangea looked like 255 million years ago. Notice where Western Europe-North America and Africa are all run together, and you will quite clearly see the Central Pangean Mountains. Now over the millions of years afterwards, but pieces of crust that hold these mountains have drifted far away from where they sit todat, and much of what is known about this range is sujgect to a lot of conjecture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yVfJGNjok0 As for the height of these mountains, it is open to a lot of conjecture. Some believe that these mountains were lower then the Rocky Mountains are today, while others believe that they were significantly higher then the Himilayas. But the fact that they existed and the remnants are visible across 3 different continents can't be denied. Rocks in the differing areas have been compared and they are indeed the same rocks (just as those in Africa and South America have been compared). If you want a more detailed description of what happened, I can suggest here, it is rather scientific however (very dry and technical). http://www.searchanddiscovery.comwww.searchanddiscovery.com/documents/97020/memoir43.htm Both of these are at play here. I understand all about land sinking, I currently live on the California Delta, and every house (including my own) shows signs visible everywhere that the land here is sinking. Cracked foundations, sunken chunks of sidewalk next to pieces that appear to have risen (they actually have not sunken as much). The actual main point I was trying to make is that the planet is in a constant state of flux. People tend to make the mistake of looking at things over the course of their lifetime, and think that is how things have always and will always be. That is a giant mistake, because the planet is always changing, just to small to normally be measured in a single lifespan (or even over a few centuries). 16,000 years ago Manhattan was not even an island, just a peninsula that stuck out from New York. England was not seperated from Europe, the isles were still connected and man was able to walk there.
Hmm - yeah the "Pizza effect" lols!!! Thanks for the research - I might dispute some bits but I always appreciate when people go to the trouble of doing further research THAT was the bit that was puzzling me - the height of the mountains. See at present I am squatting on what is referred to as the "Mt Isa Inlier" and anyone outside of Australia would wet their pants at the thought of calling THIS a mountain - but it was once and bits date back to the archaean period on earth - we have NO idea how high some of this geology originally was but to say we are in the middle of some pretty well worn old rock is putting it mildly[/QUOTE] Very difficult to find something "too scientific " for my tastes
No problem, I actually already had the research readily available, since I research 95% of my posts before I make them. I just rarely actually cite them, since I tend to bounce all over the place, and pull my research a bit here and a bit there. For the height I cited, I actually picked a "middle ground", since so much of the Central Pangean Mountains is so open for conjecture. One theory states that they were only a few thousand feet higher then the remnants are now. Yet another claims that they were much-much higher, and that the remnants are only the remaining foothills (the rest being lost due to weathering and plate subduction). And yet another that the spreading in what is known as the mid-Atlantic Rift caused the mountains to stretch and flow outward over time, so the mountains are nothing but a layer of crust in the Atlantic. All fascinating theories, and maybe someday we will know. And without any clear concensus, I just picked a height somewhere in the middle. Somewhat arbitrary, but meeting the general needs of the post. And Continental Drift has long fascinated me. This was augmented when my wife and I started dating. I remember she was excited that her Uncle was coming to visit, as part of a speaking tour sponsored by the National Geographic. I got to meet him during that visit, and while most have never heard of Jose Bonaparte, he is famous among palentologists. In addition to probably naming and discovering more dinosaurs then anybody since the Bone Wars, he also provided the fossil proof that South America and Africa were once conjoined.
Fascinating! Then you would love to visit my region at the moment - they are finally (!!!) unearthing some Australian dinosaurs - I live within driving distance (well here it is anyway) of "Lark Quarry" where they have the world only known dinosaur stampede http://www.environment.gov.au/herit...inosaur-stampede/lark-quarry/lark-quarry.html Haven't got there yet as the day I was to go it started pelting down and most of the roads out here are dirt/mud/chewed chewing gum with added corrugations but I have been to the "Australian Age of Dinosaurs" and seen the digging that they are doing there http://australianageofdinosaurs.com/dino-hub.php
