Is the land mass that is above seal level increasing or decreasing over time? Is the size of our continents an impermanent feature of the collision that formed the moon?
A full answer to that question would earn you a PhD in geomorphology. There’s a whole lot of things happening at once: some land masses are sinking under their own weight (eg the older Galapagos Islands); some land masses rise through isistasy as erosion occurs; some plates are tilting with one edge being forced down and the other edge up (like Australia being driven unde New Guinea); some are just rotating on the spot (eg the “bird’s head” of New Guinea); wherever there’s a volcano spewing out material there’s another place where stuff is being forced back into the mantle. Very dynamic place, the old earth.
Geoff D said:
A full answer to that question would earn you a PhD in geomorphology. There’s a whole lot of things happening at once: some land masses are sinking under their own weight (eg the older Galapagos Islands); some land masses rise through isistasy as erosion occurs; some plates are tilting with one edge being forced down and the other edge up (like Australia being driven unde New Guinea); some are just rotating on the spot (eg the “bird’s head” of New Guinea); wherever there’s a volcano spewing out material there’s another place where stuff is being forced back into the mantle. Very dynamic place, the old earth.
umm, isostasy
Kinda assumed that because they have such a good idea of what has already eroded it would have been fairly straight forward to have some sort of estimation?
Riff-in-Thyme said:
Kinda assumed that because they have such a good idea of what has already eroded …
Incorrect asumption
Well it has to be a race between the cooling of the Earth and the inevitable loss of the water mass of the planet to decide doesn’t it?
Riff-in-Thyme said:
Well it has to be a race between the cooling of the Earth and the inevitable loss of the water mass of the planet to decide doesn’t it?
Huh?
Geoff D said:
Riff-in-Thyme said:
Well it has to be a race between the cooling of the Earth and the inevitable loss of the water mass of the planet to decide doesn’t it?
Huh?
Will the cooling of the planet reach a point that puts the rate of production of ground above sea-level and would that be before the Earth lost all it’s water, say when the sun runs out of hydrogen?
Riff-in-Thyme said:
Geoff D said:
Riff-in-Thyme said:Huh?
Will the cooling of the planet reach a point that puts the rate of production of ground that rises above sea-level below that of the loss of water from the planet?
oops