Grand Canyon Is "Frankenstein" of Geologic Formations 132
sciencehabit writes "It's a debate that has vexed scientists for decades: Is the Grand Canyon young or old, geologically speaking? Both, a new study declares. A group of scientists reports that the famed formation is a hybrid of five different gorges of various ages--two of three middle segments formed between 70 million and 50 million years ago and between 25 million and 15 million years ago, but the two end segments were carved in the past 5 million to 6 million years--and the Colorado River only tied them into a single continuous canyon 5 million or 6 million years ago."
That's not what Frankenstein means (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no idea what Frankenstein means, do you? Try reading it sometime. Here's a hint: start by reading the subtitle.
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You get that "Jackass pedant of the day" award. "Frankenstein" has a well known cultural meaning as well, and the article's usage of the term is consistent with that.
Seriously, why are practically all the highly rated comments to this article nothing but pedantic nitpicks?
Re: That's not what Frankenstein means (Score:5, Informative)
Well I *have* read the book and actually Viktor Frankenstein was *not* a doctor. He's an undergraduate *student* of natural philosophy who gets sidetracked into occult studies. He only became a doctor in the movies, which give the whole affair an anti-science spin, probably to cash in on peoples discomfort with anatomical research. The book is much less clear on exactly how Frankenstein constructs his monster, but it implies alchemy or other discredited pseudoscience is involved.
Re: That's not what Frankenstein means (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't really imply that. It does say that Frankenstein spent many years of his life devoted to occult studies in his desire to gain control over life and death - but also that he rejected that field after coming to the conclusion that it was all a load of worthless nonsense, and that he greatly regretted the time spent persuing what was not only a dead end but one that, in hindsight, should have been obvious as such. As soon as he realises that he turns towards medicine, recognising that even though this field makes far less grand promises it is able to make good on them. The book doesn't say exactly how he did it, but suggests that it was through entirely physical means - in particular it states that Frankenstein deliberately picked out the most oversized corpses and organs to work with, because the delicate surgical techniques would have posed much more difficulty had he been working with smaller components. That's why the monster created was so large and powerful.
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You don't really understand the English language. The OP inferred it, ergo it was implied (intentionally, or not)
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Do you realize that answering a perfectly logical explanation of why you're wrong with an ad hominem doesn't exactly make you look like a genius?
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But can you stop being a moron?
I never started being one. As I noted, inference doesn't indicate implication. The inference could be pulled out of one's ass, for example.
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You don't really understand the English language. The OP inferred it, ergo it was implied (intentionally, or not)
I think I have a pretty solid handle on the English language.
"hey!" wrote "The book is much less clear on exactly how Frankenstein constructs his monster, but it implies alchemy or other discredited pseudoscience is involved", emphasis mine.
"SuricouRaven" wrote "It doesn't really imply that", and then went on to explain that Frankenstein abandoned the pseudoscience and employed medical science to create his monster.
Please try to read the posts you're responding to before calling people stupid.
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True! The Frankestain monster is, actually (:-)), a zombie.
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Not really, a zombie is an undead human (well, a real zombie never actually died, just sustained extreme brain damage from being poisoned, paralyzed and from oxygen deprivation while buried alive), Frankenstein's monster was created from a collection of dead body parts. I think there's some more nits over here to pick . . .
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It's pronounced "Fronkensteen".
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Old joke: the monster and the doctor were relatives?
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Wrong. YOU are the one name calling. Have you actually READ the book? 'Frankenstein' is the doctor... not the monster.
Or perhaps the monster is the mad scientist who put together a patchwork revenant rather than the patchwork revenant itself.
Or maybe the article is using the patchwork part as the link.
Gotta love the pedantics who blindly pursue their pedantry in the face of fact.
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No, Slashdot is Frankenstein's monster.
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So is this .... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So is this .... (Score:5, Funny)
No, just another Waterfall variant.
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Well played [jozefnagy.com].
The Grand Canyon is not a "formation" (Score:5, Informative)
A formation is a layer of sediment that has been compacted into rock. There's more to the formal definition, but that will suffice for now.
The Grand Canyon cuts through dozens of formations, but cannot, itself, be a formation.
So much for "news for nerds."
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There is much wrong with this article.
Geeks today aren't what they used to be.
Re:The Grand Canyon is not a "formation" (Score:5, Funny)
Geeks today aren't what they used to be.
The user quality has certainly eroded, as has everything else around here.
Even the grits have deteriorated.
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Geeks today aren't what they used to be.
The user quality has certainly eroded, as has everything else around here.
Even the grits have deteriorated.
Once petrified, erosion was inevitable.
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So has Natalie Portman. I'd still hit that though.
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There is much wrong with this article.
Yeah. Starting with the fact that it's written at about a sixth-grade reading level.
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If you can't come up with anything better (and dodges aren't better), "geologic formations" is good enough for laymen.
When I see the phrase "good enough for laymen" on slashdot, I know that /. has gone a LONG way downhill.
I think the word that Timothy was looking for is "feature."
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When I see the phrase "good enough for laymen" on slashdot, I know that /. has gone a LONG way downhill.
We're all laymen, except for the geologists here. You have a PhD in high energy physics? Still a layman, you don't know any more about geology than I do.
That said, the educational attainments of slashdotters seems to have slid greatly considering the number of grocer's apostrophes and homophone idiocy I see here lately so I do agree with your point. I attribute it to the fact that when slashdot was new, a
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Re:The Grand Canyon is not a "formation" (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for precision in language, but in day-to-day speech a 'formation' is just something that is formed, and the grand canyon is indeed a formation even if it is not a 'geologic formation' proper. It's a bit like if mechanics decided to formally call washers 'round things' and then got particularly upset when a ball bearing was casually referrered to as a 'round thing' as well.
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Formations are rocks. The Grand Canyon is a hole.
I am more fascinated by the claim that the Colorado River 'joined up' the earlier bits.
What cut those earlier bits? Links by email, please.
--
I look up and all I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. a few hundred, meh.
Frankenstein was the doctor (Score:4, Informative)
Not the cobbled together monster!
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Not the cobbled together monster!
I thought Frankenstein was an Edgar Winters Group song.
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I thought Frankenstein was an Edgar Winters Group song.
Which was specifically so-named because they spliced so many bits of different takes that it reminded them of the original monster. So they got it wrong (monster vs. creator) too.
Meanwhile: if the Grand Canyon is a result of merged gouge events, clearly it's evidence of Intelligent Eroding!
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Having moved on, is the doctor named something else, and the monster now named Frankenstein?
Nothing has changed, except that we can tell who read the book, who is old enough to have watched talkies instead, and who is young enough to talk about things they heard about but have no first hand knowledge of.
Let's all move on and let the idiots self identify. Meanwhile, the Grand Canyon is either a self aware amalgamation with difficulty speaking, a cutting edge doctor, or Peter Boyle.
Case else, I would expect S
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We know how, there are just not very many who bother. On the "knowing how" metric we're one of the top in the world. Only a few bored backwaters with nothing to do beat us, like Armenia or Iceland.
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Was that before William Hartnell
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Frankenstein's Monster is, in a way, his child. Victor Frankenstein begat Monster Frankenstein. Now you can dial the pedantry either up or down a notch.
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Frankenstein's Monster is, in a way, his child. Victor Frankenstein begat Monster Frankenstein.
No -- the monster is NOT, in any sense, "his child."
The monster was created by combining previously living components from various sources. I can say the same thing if I build a desk from dead trees. I "begat" the desk -- it thus must be "Desk AthanasiusKircher." Or, I could weave a shirt out of cotton. I thus "begat" the shirt -- it is thus "Shirt AthanasiusKircher." QED.
Wait... what? No. The world doesn't work like that.
"Ah," you say, "but these aren't human."
Okay, sure. Let's try that.
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The monster was created by combining previously living components from various sources. I can say the same thing if I build a desk from dead trees. I "begat" the desk -- it thus must be "Desk AthanasiusKircher. [...] (By the way, I know you're tempted to talk about inventions that sometimes get named after their inventor.
Yes, and in fact we refer to an invention as the child of a person all of the time.
Google River View (Score:5, Interesting)
For those who don't know, you can cruise through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River via Street (River) view... but who the hell is the guy in the sunglasses?
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=grand+canyon&hl=en&ll=36.180562,-113.116608&spn=0.215596,0.885086&sll=-34.880632,138.660651&sspn=0.030277,0.055318&t=h&hnear=Grand+Canyon&z=11&layer=c&cbll=36.180623,-113.116661&panoid=3hhY7tdbII1RSBq3fRGQ6A&cbp=12,41.4,,0,-2.93 [google.com]
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Or if you've got the gumption you can row a raft down the river itself like I did 2 years ago. Pictures are nice but they can't really give you the true scope of it all. There's absolutely nothing like being there.
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Sigh. Of course you're right, but life is too short to do all the really cool things we want to do. Worst of all, there are now too fucking many people to do a lot of it the way we want to. Did you know that the only way to hike the Inca Trail now is to go with one of two groups (one of 40 and the other of 70 people) allowed per day? When I did it there were 4 of us that got off the train, and we didn't see anyone else for the next three days until we got to the ruin. Well, hopefully I'll be hiking the
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Sounds like a good adventure. I of course glossed over some of the difficulties in rafting the Grand Canyon. Getting an actual permit is difficult and the whitewater and logistics of a 2-3 week trip in the Grand Canyon are not for beginners and the cost isn't trivial either.
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What's with the exclamation point if you turn to the right?
Cosmetic procedures. (Score:1)
These gorges are not fooling anyone. They can add parts that are only 5 million years old, but they still look old as dirt.
Prediction: (Score:5, Funny)
Within a couple of weeks creationists are going to start pointing to this finding as evidence that scientists are never to be trusted. If they keep changing their mind on things, how do we know they are right now? If scientists can't give a clear answer, the creationists will argue, we must turn to the one eyewitness account we have of all history - the bible. Which is infallable, of course.
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Modded as funny, but sadly this is very insightful of how creationists think. They value consistency over everything. Therefore in their minds the constant message of "God Did It" is much firmer ground over the ever-changing explanations of science. The fact that these ever-changing explanations come as the result of new data or that the changes are often minor don't matter. The mere fact that science changes makes it unreliable and the fact that religion stays the same* makes it the one to count on.
* O
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The problem is too many geologists resemble Baptist preachers in their adherence to what they believe is the truth, and lose the skepticism that should mark any good scientist. For example, there is much to be said for the theory that the Colorado River is simply following the path of least resistance through an area where an ancient sea had drained. The canyons were cut by eroding water as the sea disappeared.
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"They value consistency over everything."
I am not a creationist, but consistency is the number one assumption of science. Scientist insists that nothing has ever changed in 70 million years. The air pressure is the same. Humidity is the same. Temperature never fluctuates beyond a couple of degrees (or it is Manmade CLIMITE CHANGE RUN!). Recorded history is only 6,000 years old, but apparently over the other 69,994,000 years no changes to the earth happened. If things did change then most of science is
may have drained north in the past (Score:2)
A lot of religious people... (Score:2)
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Last Tuesday? No, you old-Earth Creationist, His Noodliness created it along with the rest of the Universe five minutes ago.
What, you remember events in your life that happened longer ago than five minutes? Well, He created you with those memories already in your brain!
Go ahead, prove it ain't true meanwhile, I'll have another plate of spaghetti, please.
BUNK! (Score:2, Interesting)
I live by the Grand Canyon. These scientists are idiots. Most of us that live here know that the Grand Canyon was formed in a very short period of time. It did not take millions of years to form. Scientist get one thing stuck in their head and then can't think of anything else. Answer me one question... if you can answer it then it will prove to me that the Grand Canyon developed over millions of years. Where is all the dirt?
With any river system where erosion occurs there is a delta. With the Grand
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Erosion is a myth (Score:5, Funny)
I refuse to believe in "erosion" as they teach in schools. Sure you can see water moves small clumps of dirt and rocks, but to jump from observing anthills being washed away to huge canyons and moving continents is absurd.
WHERE IS THE MISSING LINK? Surely there would be mountains with small streams caving in on themselves this very minute. It should be happening all the time. Not even on the daily news, because it should be normal, the erosionists claim. Like, whoops, another mountain just caved in and became a canyon.
There should be rivers moving cities out of the way and leaving canyons to hell in their path. The truth is, all we ever see are small floods, AND THE WATER ALWAYS RECEDES, AND DOES NOT LEAVE A HUGE CANYON.
Erosion is not science. You cannot observe it. All you can do is assume. Even William Phipps Blake, the guy who came up with this "theory" recanted on his death bed. Said he made it all up for money.
TEACH THE CONTROVERSY.
Re:Erosion is a myth (Score:4, Funny)
In essence the Grand Canyon is a Beowulf cluster of canyons.
Oborgitory (Score:2)
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You got period pain, little man?
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If Canons eroded from solid ground -- Then WHY IS THERE STILL SOLID GROUND?
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Obviously. Jesus dug the canyon with help from His dinosaur friends. In a weekend. Without a shovel. Obviously. Praise.
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This happens in Switzerland when mountain lakes held back by ice give way. A whole massive amount of water occasionally washes entire towns away.
Allegedly, this is how the Dakota Badlands were formed.
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Hmmm, that's certainly not impossible, but I can't think of a SWISS example that you're thinking of. There was an Italian town severely trashed in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Of the order of a thousand dead. But that was in consequence of a (earthquake assisted) slope failure above an artificial dam, leading to the dam being over-topped. Hardly the same thing. N
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Well, as a man with both Italian and Swiss ancestors, I can tell you there are places in the Alps where both of the countries meet. The San Gotthard Pass is one of them.
But even though you bring up a case in the 1960s/1970s where this happened, the case I am referring to in Switzerland was reported in New Scientist a few years ago.
Lakes form behind ice dams and they can exist for a year, for decades, for a while. When the water finds a way through, the ice dams will break and whole towns can and have disa