How Old is the Grand Canyon?

Posted on December 4, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 of similar proportions cut into Mesozoic strata above the current canyon from a river that flowed the opposite direction. Geologists have puzzled about the presence of sediments that isotopically match western rocks on the east coast and postulated a “California River”.

If you visited the Grand Canyon in search of this older canyon you would not look down, but rather up. Ironically this older canyon was cut into younger rocks that have eroded away to form the flat surface that was uplifted and cut by the Colorado River to form the current canyon after the end of the most recent glaciation. Geomorphic features are conserved and it doesn’t surprise me that an older river would follow the same path.

Here are some pictures by Wayne Ranney from his excellent review in http://earthly-musings.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-latest-big-controversy-on-age-of.html.

By Wayne Ranney

By Wayne Ranney

By Wayne Ranney

By Wayne Ranney

Posted in Geography, Geology, Grand Canyon | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A simple calculation on Ocean Acidification

Posted on November 15, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 the baseline. To get some sort of baseline we determine the molar solution if all the purported 1.1 trillion tonnes of human post industrial CO2 were dissolved in an Ocean of distilled water.

Dissolving our CO2 in all 1.3 billion cubic km of ocean would clearly do nothing at all, so to be abundantly fair we limit the dilution to the surface mixed layer which we round to 350 million cubic kilometers. We make this concession even though in reality atmospheric CO2 is actively pumped into the deep ocean by ocean circulation.

Doing some simple math with lots of zeroes we arrive at a 2.35×10-9 molar solution which would lower the pH of our imaginary distilled mixed layer from 7 to 6.95.

This is only half of the acidification claimed in Science and, andWhile it ignores sulfuric and other lesser acid contributions,  it is based on the worst possible situation where there is no buffering, the dilution is limited to the mixed layer, and all our CO2 goes into the ocean. In reality the oceans have impressive titratable alkalinity (TA), the deep oceans are a massive CO2 sink, and only about half of incremental atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by the oceans.

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

Global UV Increase from 1979-2008 Correlated with Global Warming

Posted on November 8, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 late 1990’s and human CO2 emissions. A plausible hypothesis, but evidence from the ice cores tells us that CO2 follows temperature like a poodle on a leash and evidence from the geological record tells us that glaciations have occurred during periods of vastly higher atmospheric CO2. There are also the problems of explaining how human CO2 at 1/2500 of the atmosphere can cause all that warming, and how the oceans which are opaque to the IR radiation emitted by greenhouse gasses could have warmed, and why the atmosphere has not continued to warm since 1997 in spite of accelerating human CO2 emission.

In my backyard the trees grew taller since 1979 and my baldness increased at about the same rate but both of these processes have continued since 1997 and atmospheric warming has not.So what else has happened since the late 1970’s, something well understood to warm the oceans which are the flywheel of global enthalpy, and which have continued to warm since 1997?

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009JD012219.shtml

This is just a hypothesis, but one I would argue is at least as plausible as human CO2.  Wild ideas just come to me while doing menial things. A good way to test  it would be the surface temperature of the Southern Ocean which according to the above paper has experienced a 20% increase in UV radiation. Adjusted for cloud and high latitude incidence reflection, the Southern Ocean should show the greatest surface warming of all the oceans.

Posted in Carbon Theology, Climate, Climate Change, Global Warming, Oceanography | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gravity and Magnetism

Posted on October 30, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 the gravity geoid.

Further research has revealed that this path has been very common in magnetic excursions over at least the last five million years and raises the possibility that at some point we may be able to determine paleogeoid gravity configurations from wander paths. It would be very interesting to know how the geoid responded to large impact events.

Researchers (Clement and Kent 1986) (Laj et al 1991) noticed the tendency for VGP paths to track “down the Americas” and Constable 1992 found a strong statistical signals for VGP paths along longitudes 90 and -90. These are the longitudes of the Laschamp path and the opposing longitudes, not intuitively apparent on a flat map, leaves open the possibility of a dipole swing.

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.

Posted on October 28, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 from being stultifyingly borrrring. The exaggeration on the common “gravity potato” is 7000x. This heroic exaggeration may make great media, but it makes lousy science. The gravity geoid should be thought of as a map of the mass density vectors from the satellite to the earth’s center of gravity.

The gravity map shows NO consistent signal for tectonic features. The map is opaque to ocean spreading centers, to the distinction between ocean and continental crust, to subduction zones, and to major collisional features. Even 30,000 feet of Tethian sediments piled up in the Himalayas brings only gravity equal to North America, which sits in a hole itself.

OK, so is there anything we can say about magnetism and gravity holes? Not really. It seems that mass can either foster or inhibit magnetism depending on the electrical properties of the mass. Perhaps the potato is just the distribution of Iron in the core.

It is really tempting to look at gravity holes as “bullet holes” from impacts (see how media affects us?), but the “bullets” must surely remain imbedded. Would they increase or decrease the mass density?

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

Posted on October 25, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 to plot it on the geoid. From the plot it was immediately clear the thing was hopping between gravity lows. Still pondering what this means but the field is very weak during these excursions and it’s almost like the only place there could even be a field was where there was less mass of crust, mantle, etc. to interfere.

This is an eyecrometer plot. The wander path data are from http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/M40-Bildarchiv/Bildergalerie_Laschamp/121016_Leschamp_Polwanderung_EN?binary=true&status=300&language=en.

The projections are very different. The whole thing needs to be on Google Earth.

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

Carbon Theology

Posted on October 16, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 and seems generally bad for you, a massive government apparatus was set up requiring the labeling of foods for their Sodium content and a generation of nutrition students was inculcated with the importance of a low Sodium diet.

As a practical matter the regulation of Sodium has much the same effect as properly regulating Chloride would have, except when other Chloride salts are substituted for Sodium. The take home lesson for me is that when bad science infects government, it develops a life of its own.

The relationship between science and government changed in the twentieth century. Partly as a result of the Manhattan Project and partly because the new machines, mass spectrometers and computers, were a stretch for private research. What Dwight Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex has an analog in science. Public universities have replaced Bell Labs.

So now we have a vast government apparatus regulating Carbon in spite of the fact that the only evidence that human CO2 warms the atmosphere is a circumstantial correlation in the slope of trends from the late seventies to the late nineties. The preponderance of evidence from ice cores, the geological record, and sixteen years of insignificant warming as human CO2 accelerated argues against this correlation.

Continued belief in the face of contradictory evidence is not science, it is theology. Carbon theology, Sodium theology. I believe in freedom of religion, but I also believe in the separation of church and state.

Posted in Anthropology, Carbon Theology, Climate, Climate Change, Global Warming, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Done with “Anthropogenic”

Posted on October 3, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 badge of worthiness to enter into climate discussion.It is often spoken solemnly, as if by a judge pronouncing sentence.

Words like this get coined to foster objectivity, to separate us so we can do better analysis.In this case we are rather like a doctor diagnosing an unknown condition in himself. The downside is that one can get to thinking that those miserable anthropogenes are to blame.

Good wine is an emergent property of grape juice and clear thinking and good writing are emergent properties of words. It is time to step up and call it human CO2 and human warming. “Human”, now there is a word with good mouthfeel.

Posted in Anthropology, Climate, Climate Change, Global Warming | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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

Posted on September 18, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 to a narrow continental shelf and cascading in underwater landslides into the trench where the ocean floor was sliding under an island arc something like the island arcs in Southeast Asia today.

These offshore sediments gradually accumulated over a period of about a hundred million years into a linear terrane that underlies most of the coast ranges of California. This terrane is suitably called the Franciscan after the good Fathers on donkeys that first brought vineyards and winemaking to the state.
Terrane, terroir, but not terra firma. Certain chemical processes when sediments are compressed and melted into rock form magnetic crystals that align with the North Pole when they form. From these we can tell that Hidden Ridge was once in an entirely different appellation, probably Central Coast near the current position of Paso Robles.
Slippage like that along the San Andreas Fault today has been going on for a long, long time and the combination of ocean floor sliding under and northward slippage caused some unusual intrusions into the Franciscan. These intrusions were much more like the ocean floor, rich in Iron, Manganese, and Magnesium. Hydrothermal activity, pretty much like the Geysers today, leached Iron from the intrusions and injected it into the soil above leaving us the dark red to purple Iron rich soils of Hidden Ridge.
Iron makes blood red and it is part of the coloration of grape skins. Wine color comes from the skins. The unfailing color and phenolics of Hidden Ridge wine derive from this soil.
Valley soils have been washed down from many different rocks in the surrounding mountains. From the Santa Rosa side the Mayacamas Mountains begin with a wide band of relatively recent (we’re still talking millions of years) volcanic rocks called the Sonoma Volcanics. As one climbs out of Rincon Valley on the Calistoga road the Sonoma Volcanics are expressed as light colored tephra or tuffs that can easily be mistaken for limestone. This is volcanic ash, like Mt Saint Helens on steroids. Above these after the first bridge on the St Helena Road one finds buff colored ten million year old sandstones laid down when San Francisco Bay extended way up here. Only near the top of the Mayacamas Mountains where all the younger stuff has washed off does one find the Franciscan and Hidden Ridge.
In the valley bottom soils the red Iron has been diluted to brown and lighter buff colors from less Iron rich rock washed down after the dinosaurs left town.
Does purple dirt make an exceptional mountain cabernet? You bet it does. Here’s to the red blooded dinosaurs!

Posted in Biology, Geography, Geology, Paleogeography | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Where’s the pull?

Posted on July 28, 2012 by gymnosperm

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 the midocean ridges. Their equations provide uplift but not enough spreading.
These people need to get out more. If they had ever split a log with a wedge they would understand. Rather than seek an equation to express what was obviously happening, they developed the concept of slab pull. Apparently there were some equations lying around for this.
There is a great Google Earth plugin that shows the Benioff zones where earthquakes indicate the inclination plane of the descending slab at subduction zones. There is a lot of variation in inclination. Some are actually inclined at the 45 degrees shown in nearly every textbook subduction section. Others, notably under South America, Japan, and the system north of New Zealand are far less inclined.


As ice is the solid form of water, the ocean floor is the solid form of the mantle. The solid forms of both are lighter than the liquid. The ocean floor has boiled up and condensed to a solid at the midocean ridges and the solid form wedged outward by further upwelling. All of this push and nowhere to go so eventually a colder, thicker, and heavier ocean floor far from the ridge is forced under a warmer, thinner, and lighter ocean floor from an opposing and closer ridge.
Down it goes, probably at incredibly small angles when the crust was young, but eventually reaching a depth where it was remelted. Now some magic of chemistry and ocean crust is fractionated (cracked) and the lighter components (think aluminum) rise to the surface as volcanoes and eventually continents are formed in a process analogous to distillation.
Continents are granite rafts. Continents can now deflect ocean floor to down as well.
Both continents and the ocean crust ride around on the asthenosphere, a layer warm enough to be soft and plastic. I like to think of the asthenosphere as mud. Stuff will move on top of it and you can poke stuff down into it. Say you take a piece of carpet and lay it in the mud and step on one side. You find right away that it does not want to go down at 45 degrees. It will go straight down if you stomp it but to even get it to incline at 45 you have to carefully tamp it.
The slab pull folks imagine that the weight of the submerged carpet will keep pulling it down. I don’t think so. Come back in a decade ant it’s still where you left it. Even a mud creature pulling would have to align with the descending plane to maintain the angle, but in reality instead of a mud creature pulling the end of the slab is melting.
And then there is the problem of rifting. Where are the trenches currently pulling Africa and the Red sea apart? The trench systems bounding the Americas and East Asia are the wrong sign to have pulled Pangaea apart and opened the Atlantic. They would have pushed Pangaea together instead.
Rocks have enormous compressive strength and very little tensile strength. You can push them all day long, but pull them and they break, especially around a corner.
Math is wonderful when it works, but you don’t bend reality to fit the math. This habit has led to the popular expression , “having one’s head up one’s maths”.

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