Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer them?

"The original continental drift had the continents plowing through the
seafloor...."

That may have been true of _some_ early versions, but Frank Press' _Earth_ contains a diagram published by Arthur Holmes in 1929 showing continents being pulled apart by mantle convection currents--a hair's breadth away from the mechanism people believe is operating today. The diagram shows what appears to be seafloor subduction on the far sides of the continent fragments. Could that be what you mean by "continents plowing through the seafloor"? The problem still must be dealt with, and we solve it by invoking subduction, as Holmes appears to have anticipated. (I'm assuming his diagram was not significantly modified for publication in Press' book.)

Holmes was one of the early believers earlier cited by Michael Roberts.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: David Campbell<mailto:pleuronaia@gmail.com>
  To: asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 10:43 AM
  Subject: Re: [asa] YEC--What can we offer them?

> It seems that a certain sub-continent were very slooooow

  Probably the accent made it hard for folks over here to get your drift.

  The oroginal continental drift had the continents plowing through the
  seafloor, which doesn't work. Recognizing that the seafloor is made
  of moving plates, too was an important step.

  Also, Wegener got a bit carried away on the amount of stuff that could
  be explained. Although there have been some extremely important
  events for determining global climate and for creating or severing
  particular connections, overall the relative placement of continents
  has been grossly similar since the late Mesozoic. Thus, in general
  the distribution of organisms that have significantly dispersed or
  radiated during the Cenozoic has a decent match with current geography
  (especially if you allow some rise and fall of sea level or land
  connections). As the youngest time interval, it's also better
  preserved and documented. It's not surprising that consideration of
  Cenozoic mammal distribution did not make the 1947 Encyclopaedia
  Britannica authors too keen on continental drift, though they
  considered it worth discussing.

  --
  Dr. David Campbell
  425 Scientific Collections
  University of Alabama
  "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"

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Received on Sat Jul 7 01:38:42 2007