NASA Confirms Thousands of Massive, Ancient Volcanic Eruptions On Mars (nasa.gov) 49
Scientists found evidence that a region of northern Mars called Arabia Terra experienced thousands of "super eruptions," the biggest volcanic eruptions known, over a 500-million-year period. NASA reports the findings in a post: Some volcanoes can produce eruptions so powerful they release oceans of dust and toxic gases into the air, blocking out sunlight and changing a planet's climate for decades. By studying the topography and mineral composition of a portion of the Arabia Terra region in northern Mars, scientists recently found evidence for thousands of such eruptions, or "super eruptions," which are the most violent volcanic explosions known. Spewing water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide into the air, these explosions tore through the Martian surface over a 500-million-year period about 4 billion years ago. Scientists reported this estimate in a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in July 2021. "Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact -- maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the Sun and made the atmosphere colder," said Patrick Whelley, a geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the Arabia Terra analysis. "Modelers of the Martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes."
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One remaining question is how a planet can have only one type of volcano littering a region. On Earth volcanoes capable of super eruptions -- the most recent erupted 76,000 years ago in Sumatra, Indonesia -- are dispersed around the globe and exist in the same areas as other volcano types. Mars, too, has many other types of volcanoes, including the biggest volcano in the solar system called Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons is 100 times larger by volume than Earth's largest volcano of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and is known as a "shield volcano," which drains lava down a gently sloping mountain. Arabia Terra so far has the only evidence of explosive volcanoes on Mars. It's possible that super-eruptive volcanoes were concentrated in regions on Earth but have been eroded physically and chemically or moved around the globe as continents shifted due to plate tectonics. These types of explosive volcanoes also could exist in regions of Jupiter's moon Io or could have been clustered on Venus. Whatever the case may be, Richardson hopes Arabia Terra will teach scientists something new about geological processes that help shape planets and moons.
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One remaining question is how a planet can have only one type of volcano littering a region. On Earth volcanoes capable of super eruptions -- the most recent erupted 76,000 years ago in Sumatra, Indonesia -- are dispersed around the globe and exist in the same areas as other volcano types. Mars, too, has many other types of volcanoes, including the biggest volcano in the solar system called Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons is 100 times larger by volume than Earth's largest volcano of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and is known as a "shield volcano," which drains lava down a gently sloping mountain. Arabia Terra so far has the only evidence of explosive volcanoes on Mars. It's possible that super-eruptive volcanoes were concentrated in regions on Earth but have been eroded physically and chemically or moved around the globe as continents shifted due to plate tectonics. These types of explosive volcanoes also could exist in regions of Jupiter's moon Io or could have been clustered on Venus. Whatever the case may be, Richardson hopes Arabia Terra will teach scientists something new about geological processes that help shape planets and moons.
Now we know why (Score:1)
Oceans of poor scientific reporting (Score:3)
oceans of dust and toxic gases into the air
First of all, aren't oceans of stuff in the air called "clouds"? Or is it officially reserved to refer to shitty 21st century-style mainframe computing now?
Secondly, what air? Air is the name of the particular cocktail of gasses present in Earth's atmosphere if I'm not mistaken.
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Air is the name of the particular cocktail of gasses present in Earth's atmosphere if I'm not mistaken.
You aren't wrong, but there's no particular reason why other atmospheres couldn't be called air, and since atmosphere is a big word I predict that the masses will go ahead and do that if they are thinking about other planets. And they are doing that now due to these billionaires' space programs.
Re: Oceans of poor scientific reporting (Score:2)
Ocean, lake, pond, river, stream, etc all describe volume and motion of water. Clouds and cloudy is more ambiguous. Notice we call it a jet stream. This usage helps avoid ambiguity and as noted in the previous example is already common vernacular.
More so your second point misses that it's a phrase, "into the air" as meaning "into the atmosphere". The general mixture you note as "air" is literally defined by this process. We can say there is methane in the air because cow farts put it into the air. Thus any
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Planetary science concerns itself with those materails of fixed shape and volume ("solids"), those of fixed volume and changeable shape ("liquids"), and those of variable shape and volume ("gases", comprising an "atmosphere"). Individual materials can move from one state to another, typically absorbing or releasing considerable amounts of heat energy in the process - what we call "snow melt" or "cloud format
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> aren't oceans of stuff in the air called "clouds"
It's called a rhetorical device. They're quite common amongst the more educated of them book-readery types.
Absence of horizontal movement (Score:5, Interesting)
So the fundamental question is, why does Earth have plate tectonics, and Mars have something different - to which we probably already have the answer : size. Earth is still radiating about equal amounts of it's "primordial" heat of formation (energy from impacting dust, asteroids, Mars-sized bodies) and "radiogenic" heat production (from nuclear decay of elements in the body of the Earth) ; Mars, OTOH, having about 1/10 of the mass of Earth, has long since radiated most of it's primordial heat (initially, about 1/10th of Earth's inventory) and is now mostly radiating it's radiogenic heat (again, about 1/10th of Earth's production rate). That reduced Martian heat flow is almost certainly why Mars has different tectonics to Earth, though connecting those two dots remains an incomplete task (to which this work is a contribution).
The heat flow experiment (HP^3 [wikipedia.org]) on NASA's recent InSight [wikipedia.org] lander was intended to address this question precisely, but the probe's "self-drilling" feature doesn't seem to be working for reasons under investigation and experimentation.
Other planetary scientists are trying to understand Venus' geological history and it's style of tectonics - in which they are hampered considerably by the thick atmosphere. At 81% of the Earth's mass, it's evolution may suggest how finely balanced the conditions necessary for plate tectonics are. Of course, we do not know if a planet with plate tectonics is a necessary condition for the evolution of life.
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"to which we probably already have the answer : size."
I remember reading somewhere that liquid water was also important as it helped lubricate things somewhat. Whether thats the case or not I don't know but it would certainly explain why venus doesn't have any apparent tectonics despite its size.
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There is indeed a debate over how much the subduction of wet sediment leads to metasomatism of the overlying mantle wedge (getting water into the mineral structure, at fractions of a percent by mass) ; and then to how well that material is mixed with the rest of the mantle - diamond inclusion provincialism suggests that the mantle is not "well mixed".
Plenty of deba
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It lubricates plates to some extent, but more important is that it is incorporated into rocks that are pushed under other crust. These hydrated rocks are lighter and have a lower melting point, blobs of low viscosity hydrated melt (I think that's the word) circulate around through the upper mantle on the convection currents and help impart motion to the plates above them.
*Disclaimer* - My last geology class was over 30 years ago, so that may not be the current understanding.
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We don't really know how well mixed the Earth's initial complement of water was in the more solid, less volatile parts of the mixture. Certainly the consensus is that the Earth was born "dry" and had water added (in a "late heavy bombardment", or earlier, or later, if such a thing ever happened) later ; but that is a consensus, and not a strongly held opinion.
It's the old problem of having a sample of 1, and trying to generalise from that. We need a bigger sample, c
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we do not know if a planet with plate tectonics is a necessary condition for the evolution of life.
There's good reasons to believe rotation period or tidal effects have ramifications for the production of life, but not so much plate tectonics since they operate so slowly.
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Yes, continental drifting could have dealt, terminally, with some groups of terrestrial lifeforms. Except if something went back into the seas, in the way that possibly some groups of insects have done, some crustaceans, the turtles, whatever branch of the "reptiles" produced the ichthyosaurs,
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Just out of random curiosity, how does this "expanding Earth" foolishness fit into your Electric Universe foolishness?
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And so, since you've taken up the gantlet, it's for you to show the "expert" evidence that makes us all foolish, and betrays "how things *actually* work".
I'm waiting. I'll start a little popcorn.
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Shit, gauntlet, not gantlet. Was conflating trains with gloves...
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Were you guys always here, lurking in the pond scum?
There's one huge problem with your hypothesis.
An increase in volume of the Earth, has a subsequent reduction in its density. That means the new surface of the Earth has a lower gravitational potential, not a larger one.
Now if we're to change the argument that the Earth gained mass at a rate high enough to result in a higher gravitational potential on its increasingly higher-altitude surface, we're stuck w
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Wow. Who let the dogz out! %^)
Like to hear you, damned oregonian. Thanks!
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not my hypothesis. maybe try reading some literature, papers and history on the subject. There's a lot.
When I used the word "your", I lumped you into a cohort with people like the author of that paper.
I didn't mean to imply that it was personally yours. It was merely the one you were championing, making it yours.
Here's a paper addressing earth/moon dynamics that I found with 1 quick search.
You can find anything on the internet with one quick search.
That paper is wrong. Laughably wrong. I've already given you enough reason to figure out how.
Alfred Lothar Wegener's hypothesis was soundly debunked in his own time, it's shameful that we're having to revisit it by people who aren't even
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The only interesting question is, is this the same expanding earth idiot who was plaguing sci.geo.geology and sci.geo.earthquakes back in the 1990s, or a new one? Minor question - will we get the "weatherlawyer" (whose choice of nickname suggests his comptetence to predict earthquakes).
This being an expanding Earth idiot, one thing is sure - he won't have a solution to the question of where the extra mass is coming from.
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Are stronger than the arguments you and your ilk present.
Do us both a favour - review the correspondence on this subject 20 to 30 years ago and prepare a rebuttal of your own for all the issues your fellow-travellers (the original EE Idiot, and his French sidekick (the one with the obsession about Australian mining law) failed to answer ... then bring us your new input on the idea.
That should leave you locked in your basement for a few years.
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Since you refer to 20 to 30 years of correspondence "on this subject", please refer me to specific "correspondence" (whatever you mean by that) that purport to refute/falsify specific claims made Expanding Earth theorists.
thanks and have a great day!
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If you need more information, you might want to study the ancient history of the Internet, and what USENET is. I honestly don't know (or care) if it still exists.
You did rather suggest that you knew the history of your field. That (USENET) is one of the more prolific places where your fellow "EE" proponents showed how incapable th
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you seem to have a lot of pent up hostility. Do you act this way in person? Would you suggest I should die if we were chatting in the pub?
Would you stone me to death or burn me at the stake for stating my beliefs and ideas? Just curious.
"Go read usenet" is hardly a specific reference to falsifying evidence. Let me know if you come up with something specific. Anyway, I may browse through it when I can find some time. I was unaware of the discussion there, so thanks for the tip!
Meantime, i can sugges
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oh hey, btw I agree with your sigs. afaict, birds are dinosaurs, simply in a different gravity environment. Put them in a lower gravity and they would grow larger. Just as with insects, mammals, plants/trees and so on. cheers!
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Yes, there are.
But that's not proof. At best, it's a guide to further investigation. If you're using it as a guide, you've got to remember that it may be a misleading guide.
In the period that life was developing on Earth, the rotation period was probably approaching half that of today while the tidal forces were (order of) 8 times as high as today (the Moon being considerably closer, and receding at a variable, tectonically modified, rate). So ... what rotation rate and tida
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It's a solid hypothesis. It's perfectly plausible, and it's easy to demonstrate ways in which it could have helped.
At the same time, it's equally as easy to imagine that life didn't need it one bit.
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Sorry, I'll rephrase that. When we investigate a second locale in which life developed.
Finding a different, non-overlapping tree of life on Earth - say (and this is just a vaguely plausible word salad, not a serious proposition) one based on 28 amino acids controlled by a triple-stranded PNA genetics system, found in the interstices of rocks 5km below the surface (~0.5GPa) and deeper. Finding such a "second l
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That's not to say that "rotation period or tidal effects have ramifications for the production of life, but not so much plate tectonics since they operate so slowly." might not be true. Just that using the word believe is extreme. It's pure conjecture at this point, and we're attempting to infer something based on really bad information - until science agrees on
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Finding a second instance of life will narrow (or widen) our estimates considerably because (1/(n-1)) is not undefined for n<>1.
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Only in the most abstract sense can we say we have "one datum"
And ultimately, even if we did only have 1 datum, that does not preclude coming to a definitive answer about the needs of life.
Science allowed derivation without needing statistical data.
I'm not saying this has happened- as I said, we've yet to find some kind of "cosmological principle" for life, as our understanding of it is still pretty infantile.
Einstein did not nee
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You seem to think that we know more than we do. Just by chance, I happened to be downloading a bunch of podcasts on science
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I'm not not putting a statistical cart before a horse of data. We still only have one example of life developing from non-life - on Earth, under conditions we (I use the geologist's "we") are stull arguing about and are far from certain of. We do not have, a priori, any significant constraints on what happened.
This goes back to what I said. I think you're mixing statistics and science.
Of course we don't have, a priori, any significant constraints on what happened.
But we do have constraints, and those constraints can be filled by scientific knowledge. They don't need statistical data.
You seem to think that we know more than we do. Just by chance, I happened to be downloading a bunch of podcasts on science themes earlier today ("The Infinite Monkey Cage" - you may know of it), which included a 3/4 hour programme devoted to the question of "What is life". I think that was a few years ago ; perhaps a decade. But to the best of my knowledge, there is still no agreed definition of what "life" is. (If you know of a generally agreed definition, do provide a citation. I'll be astonished to hear of it's existence.) In that condition, being confident about the needs of a phenomenon we still don't have a definition for seems a touch premature. We probably have more understanding of the phenomenon of ball lightning than we do of "life".
Nonsense. I said flat out that we don't know much about life. But life is a science like any other, the rules for it can be derived without rote statistical collection.
Poor example. Einstein didn't (from his published diaries and papers) didn't start seriously thinking about "relativity" until about 1899, while Lorentz proposed his length-contraction concept in about 1890 - to explain the negative outcome of the Michelson-Morley experiment of the previous decade. That Einstein's approach (taking Maxwell seriously) produced the same contraction/ time dilation factor was considered a very suggestive point - the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics", as Einstein later wrote.
Perfect example.
As I said, time dilation.
It was Einstein who p
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Moreover, we have constant eruptions happening in the ocean floors.... so guess where all that water comes from...
Where what water came from?
The water in the volcanic emissions? It came from the oceans (and terrestrial rainfall)
The water in the ocean? Space.
You've got a really, really fucking hot piece of iron. It's covered in dirt.
You then start dumping water on that dirt.
What happens? A great struggle between gravity and the expansion of a gas. Ultimately, gravity loses, because water vapor expands at a factor of 1600, which means it's quite fucking explosive. Hey... maybe that's why it's the predominant compo
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conjecture, hypothesis, theory
Absolutely! If I claimed otherwise, forgive me.
But it is hypothesis supported by the breadth of human knowledge and evidence collection.
Sadly textbooks today often forget to mention that such theories remain unproven, and unthinking individuals internalize them as fact.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that all textbooks will say that, "the scientific consensus is..." ;) so they accept it as fact.
Regular people do internalize that as fact, but that's because... well, it's reasonable for them to do so. The body of knowledge and evidence that led to those conclusions isn't likely to change in their lives (I'd say unlikely to change... ever