4 ms·

650 Million Years in 1.2 Minutes (tectonic drift timelapse)

44 points by timf 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
biohacker42 17y ago
How accurate are the future predictions? The snowball theory of earth claims that volcanoes and land close to the equator (but not close to the poles) leads to oscillation between a tropical earth and an earth covered in ice. Our present state of lots of land close to the poles leads to a more stable long term climate. So if in the future the continents again bunch up around the equator we could see the earth covered in ice once more and another mass extinction. Is this yet another reason why we have not made contact with aliens? Yet another reason in addition to, just off the top of my head: A stable star Being a good distance from that star. Asteroid sweeper like Jupiter and Saturn. A magnetosphere. A large close moon which will keep the core hot so you can have a magnetosphere. No X-ray exploding super novas near by. Life Intelligent life Intelligent life that doesn't destroy itself. Space faring life And all of this has to happen at the same time, at least until space flight takes them far from the home planet. Also space is BIG.
- robryan 17y ago
  No matter how unlikely life is determined to be, we still have a massive universe to help balance the odds.
- wlievens 17y ago
  Space isn't really big at all when you think in geological rather than individual scales. It probably only takes a couple of thousand years post-Apollo to colonize dozens of stars. The real reason we don't see aliens is probably contemporaneity. Although in that context I have another remark. The Drake formula, often brought up in these discussions has a major omission: it doesn't account for multiple intelligent species over the total lifespan of a planet. I don't see why, a couple of million years after humanity's extinction, another intelligent species could arise and go through the whole space-flight thing again. A planet like Earth could have a typical cycle: 0.0 GA: formation 3.0 GA: bacteria 5.0 GA: intelligent species 1 5.1 GA: intelligent species 2 5.2 GA: intelligent species 2 5.3 GA: intelligent species 3 ... 8.0 GA: oceans boil away, parent star going manic 9.0 GA: destruction due to parent star going kabloom
rokhayakebe 17y ago
And in the end we all come together. How beautiful.
- aduric 17y ago
  And we only have to wait 250 million years!
ars 17y ago
This is not accurate because it does not take sea level into account. First, when plates drift they also move up and down. But also, wouldn't the center of gravity of the earth change if all the land was in one place? Wouldn't that shift water to cover a lot of the land?
- tokenadult 17y ago
  It sure looks to me like the animation shows sea level changes.

44 points by timf 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

How accurate are the future predictions? The snowball theory of earth claims that volcanoes and land close to the equator (but not close to the poles) leads to oscillation between a tropical earth and an earth covered in ice. Our present state of lots of land close to the poles leads to a more stable long term climate. So if in the future the continents again bunch up around the equator we could see the earth covered in ice once more and another mass extinction. Is this yet another reason why we have not made contact with aliens? Yet another reason in addition to, just off the top of my head: A stable star Being a good distance from that star. Asteroid sweeper like Jupiter and Saturn. A magnetosphere. A large close moon which will keep the core hot so you can have a magnetosphere. No X-ray exploding super novas near by. Life Intelligent life Intelligent life that doesn't destroy itself. Space faring life And all of this has to happen at the same time, at least until space flight takes them far from the home planet. Also space is BIG.

robryan 17y ago
No matter how unlikely life is determined to be, we still have a massive universe to help balance the odds.
wlievens 17y ago
Space isn't really big at all when you think in geological rather than individual scales. It probably only takes a couple of thousand years post-Apollo to colonize dozens of stars. The real reason we don't see aliens is probably contemporaneity. Although in that context I have another remark. The Drake formula, often brought up in these discussions has a major omission: it doesn't account for multiple intelligent species over the total lifespan of a planet. I don't see why, a couple of million years after humanity's extinction, another intelligent species could arise and go through the whole space-flight thing again. A planet like Earth could have a typical cycle: 0.0 GA: formation 3.0 GA: bacteria 5.0 GA: intelligent species 1 5.1 GA: intelligent species 2 5.2 GA: intelligent species 2 5.3 GA: intelligent species 3 ... 8.0 GA: oceans boil away, parent star going manic 9.0 GA: destruction due to parent star going kabloom

rokhayakebe 17y ago

And in the end we all come together. How beautiful.

aduric 17y ago
And we only have to wait 250 million years!

ars 17y ago

This is not accurate because it does not take sea level into account. First, when plates drift they also move up and down. But also, wouldn't the center of gravity of the earth change if all the land was in one place? Wouldn't that shift water to cover a lot of the land?

tokenadult 17y ago
It sure looks to me like the animation shows sea level changes.