March 9 1999

See the new Catastrophism section in the Bookshop.

See the new Miscellaneous section in the Bookshop for additional titles.

Geologist Joe Kirschvink has combined both continental drift and slipping crust ideas to arrive at the theory that what we know as the continents of the Earth slid around en masse over a period of 15 million years. This took place after the supposed breakup of the alleged Pangea supercontinent, when there were two continental groups. North America was near the south pole, and rest of the landmasses were joined in Gondwanaland and stretched from pole to pole. Kirschvink used remanent magnetism in rock strata to determine that the whole crust turned counterclockwise (in the drawing) and left North America near its current latitude while Antarctica and Australia were jammed together near the equator. [ Earth magazine, June 1998, pp. 34-37 ] 90 million years ago an island in what we call the arctic enjoyed weather similar to Georgia or Florida, despite not having budged much from its current relationship to the Earth's rotational axis.

Darren M. Williams, James F. Kasting, and Lawrence A. Frakes, writing in Nature (1998, Nature 396, 453 - 455), suggest that the low latitude glaciation during the Palaeoproterozoic (about 2.4-2.2 Gyr ago) and Neoproterozoic (about 820-550 Myr ago) eras may mean that the Earth's obliquity may have been greater than 54° during most of its history, making the Equator the coldest part of the planet. They suggest that this condition changed to modern values in less than 100 million years. This hypothetical earlier condition could explain the present inclination of the lunar orbit with respect to the ecliptic (5°). See Van Flandern for an alternate hypothesis for the inclination.

William Corliss' Science Frontiers reports that findings in South America indicate that the continents may have moved apart due to convection in the mantle.

Did a neolithic painter at Catalhoyuk, Turkey leave a record of a volcanic eruption? Here's the only image of the 9000 yr old wall painting of destruction of Asikli Huyuk by the Hasan Dag volcano that I could find on the web.

Asteroids - Deadly Impact is a National Geographic video from 1997. I purchased a copy at Sam's Club for $12.99, but it should be available anywhere in North America where videos are sold. I don't know whether National Geographic videos are sold in PAL format, my guess would be that they are. I've always been a sucker for the theme music of NG specials, and grew up on them. This one is particularly well done.

The star, if you will, is the late Eugene Shoemaker. It was largely due to his efforts that continual impacts have become an acceptable topic. If it were not for Shoemaker, it is likely that the K-T boundary extinctions would remain poorly understood and essentially unexplained. If it were not for the Shoemakers and David Levy using a small, obsolete telescope to hunt for comets, it is likely that the large cometary impact on the planet Jupiter would never have been observed. That observation captured the public imagination all over the world and strengthened scientists' interests in catastrophism, particularly celestial catastrophism.

It is weird to think about the fact that, as recently as 1963, what we now recognize as Meteor Crater in Arizona was believed to have been caused by unknown volcanic processes. It is also weird to think that until 1969 with the trips to the Moon, even lunar craters were regarded as volcanic in origin by most scientists. It is even weirder that a few scientists maintain that the only recognized catastrophic event that has occurred since the Earth was molten is the flood that created the channelled scablands in the northwestern US. As Shoemaker says in the video, "I had to teach myself that if one really pursues the observations, the world is telling us that things do fall out of the sky."

This video would be an excellent addition to the video library of all schools in order to educate and interest coming generations of scientists. In the context of his death not long after this video was completed, it becomes a fitting tribute and requiem. highly recommended

A catastrophic flooding of what is now the Black Sea basin around 5600 BC, according to Walter Pitman and William Ryan, leading to a migration of people who spread agriculture to northern and western Europe. The researchers also speculate that this event led to the story of the Great Flood. Their book on the subject, Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History is reviewed here. [ Earth magazine, August 1998, pp. 46-54 ] - Lixus' note: the universal deluge exists throughout the literature of nearly all known early human cultures, many of which didn't have any knowledge of the Black Sea.

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