From: ceb@dbrus.Unify.Com (Caroline E. Bryan)
Newsgroups: sci.geo.geology
Subject: Re: Magnetic Shifts, Climate, and Evolution
Date: 9 Oct 92 18:23:27 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: /usr/lib/news/organization

In article <1992Oct6.231553.2278@merrimack.edu> nin15b63@merrimack.edu (THE WOLF) writes:
>I'm new to the group and the thread.  Is the reason for the current discussion
>on magnetic shifts and ice ages because there is any evidence that these things
>are about to occur?

Not the ice age, at any rate.  We've been in the ice ages for the past
600,000 years or so.  Our current, present ice age (only about 10,000 years
old) has had mini-expansions and withdrawals easily traced through regional
history:  for instance, in the 1800's (AD) the Thames River in London used to
freeze over regularly and so thickly that the populace was able to have par-
ties, with bonfires, right on the ice.  There are lithographs showing these
fun times.  More recently, village ruins have been found in Switzerland as lo-
cal glaciers have retreated; the ruins have been dated to have been occupied
within the past 500 years.  More distantly, Eric the Red (Leif Ericsson's
father) established a viable colony on the Greenland coast, with sheep farms;
but now nothing grows on that territory because it's too cold -- that is, the
ice age now is more advanced than it was in the 10th century A.D.

Is the ice age we're in about to change direction?  Based on our past his-
tory, probably not -- grass isn't growing in Greenland yet, so we can logic-
ally expect the world to warm up some more before the critical temperature
is reached and we start cooling off again.  (This cycling is possibly why
more scientists aren't terribly worried about global warming:  if we reach
that critical temperature 200 years ahead of schedule we'll just start to
cool off 200 years ahead of schedule -- the cycle may just speed up and not
go out of whack altogether.)

Will the ice ages ever cease?  Yes, when something changes the entire world
environment as profoundly as the final great mountain uplifting at the end of
the Pliocene Epoch did.  God is fully capable of doing that, of course, but
there aren't any indications of this yet.  All our modern earthquakes, volca-
nic eruptions, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornados are absolutely nor-
mal, ordinary geophysical events.  What is extraordinary is that the news
that one or another of them has occurred is zapped to every corner of the
world so quickly, which was not the case 200 or 2000 years ago.  Two hundred
years ago people could easily assume that if things were tranquil at home,
they were likewise tranquil abroad.  Now we can inform ourselves of every
disaster that occurs anywhere in the world, within hours of its occurance.
This does not mean that the world has gotten less stable or more dangerous,
just that we are no longer ignorant of things that do not affect us directly
and immediately.

The most horrendous earthquake in human recorded history occurred in 1755 in
Lisbon, Portugal.  It is the standard by which subsequent earthquakes have
been measured, and none of our modern rattlers have come close to it.  But
the geological record shows cataclysms that make the Lisbon earthquake look
like an empty semi rolling by.  If God intends to announce Christ's imminent
return by tearing the earth apart, either He's done it already (long before
humanity evolved) or -- you ain't seen *nothin'* yet!

As far as magnetic shifts go, that's something to ask a geophysicist about,
not an ex-geology major who concentrated on glaciers.  ;o)


Carrie		ceb@rechenau.unify.com		x 6244  ----------------+
|  I don't belong to any organized political party:  I'm a Democrat.	|
|						-- Will Rogers		|
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