Author Archives: gymnosperm

How Old is the Grand Canyon?

Controversies over wonders of the world capture the public imagination from time to time. Now some Caltech scientists have dared suggest from a new technique that measures the depth of overburden on apatite crystals that there was an older canyon … Continue reading →

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A simple calculation on Ocean Acidification

A recent article in Science, “Rising Acidity Brings an Ocean of Trouble” claims that post industrial human CO2 has lowered ocean pH from 8.2 to 8.1. This is an extraordinary claim since there were no preindustrial ARGO floats to establish … Continue reading →

Posted in Carbon Theology, Ocean Acidification, Oceanography | Tagged | 5 Comments

Global UV Increase from 1979-2008 Correlated with Global Warming

As we delve into the fractal complexities of nature it is easy to overlook very simple things. The hypothesis of human global warming is based on the correlation of the slopes of global atmospheric temperature increase from the late 1970’s to the … Continue reading →

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Gravity and Magnetism

This post follows the last two which were inspired by discovering that the virtual geomagnetic pole (VGP) wander path during the Laschamp reversal as revealed in Black Sea sediments by the work of Norbert R. Nowaczyk consistently follows lows in … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, Geoid, Geology, Gravity Anomalies, Gravity Potato, Magnetic Reversals, True Polar Wander, Virtual Geomagnetic Pole (VGP) | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Further Musing on the Affinity of Magnetic North for Gravity Holes During the Laschamp Reversal.

We know so little about what this means that it may be helpful to focus on what the gravity geoid is not. The earth is NOT shaped like a potato. Vertical exaggeration is used on nearly all maps to keep them … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, Geoid, Geology, Gravity Anomalies, Gravity Potato, Magnetic Reversals, True Polar Wander | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Simplified Path of Magnetic North During 41kya Reversal on Current Geoid

There was this really cool Hemholtz plot of the path of magnetic north during the last geomagnetic reversal from wander paths of sediments in the Black Sea. Had a sense that it was avoiding the geoid gravity high knob in Indonesia and decided … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, Geoid, Geology, Gravity Anomalies, Gravity Potato, Magnetic Reversals, True Polar Wander | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Carbon Theology

A while back I wrote a post “On Carbon and Sodium” where I pointed out that in spite of the fact that researchers have known for forty years that it is the Chlorine (Chloride) in table salt that causes hypertension … Continue reading →

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Done with “Anthropogenic”

Wine folks rightfully speak of mouthfeel as a quality of wine. Words have mouthfeel too. When I say “Anthropogenic” I get a bad puckery finish that makes me want to smack my lips. This word is bandied about as a … Continue reading →

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Terrane Terroir and What’s Up with this Purple Dirt Anyway?

As far as we can tell dinosaurs did not drink wine. Yet while the dinosaurs were leaving their bones in the mud farther east in Utah, the dirt that would become Hidden Ridge was being washed into the sea on … Continue reading →

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Where’s the pull?

I have this slab pull problem. It started when my brother (a geoscientist) alerted me to the latest tectonic trend. It seems those inclined to mathematically model the lithosphere are unable to find an equation to express the spreading at … Continue reading →

Posted in Geography, Geology, Having one's head up one's maths, Oceanography, Paleogeography | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment