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Elysium
Environmental Bloodhound
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Land of ice and snow
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2007-04-23, 01:05

Quote:
Originally Posted by drewprops View Post
Some theories about cellular/radio interference have been floated, though I'm more of a mind this might have to do with the notion that the Earth's magnetic field is on the brink of flipping poles. If the planet's magnetic fields are in heavy flux I imagine we should be seeing more misplaced migratory animals as well as the pollinators

I need to go back and read how long geologists believe these pole-shifts last.
The earth's magnetic field tends to reverse itself in intervals with highly variable durations; sometimes tens of millions of years, sometimes several in the course of a couple thousand years. The switch from a normal to reverse field and vice versa is believed to be fairly rapid. The measured field strength of the magnetic field has shown a 10-15% weakening over the last 150 yrs, prompting not entirely unfounded fears that there may be a spontaneous shift in the near future.

While there has not been any physical evidence of a field reversal/failure to have caused any mass extinctions, the impact of modern society telecommunications and electrical grids could be catastrophic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by scratt View Post
Scratch that.. I can't find the page anymore.. There is some stuff in 'Chariots of the Gods' about the 'Orange Peel' effect that is quite interesting. And you are right, we are overdue.
Ah yes, the infamous 'Orange Peel' effect (aka crustal displacement). Here's some background Disclaimer: All of the material just linked to is of a highly speculative and questionable nature based on spurious reasoning.

Problems with the crustal displacement hypothesis:
1) The positioning of the Earth's magnetic pole under a geographic locality can be explained by changes in the magnetic field flux (by as much as 15 km per year) without the need to slide the crust around.

2) The hypothesis was built upon the idea of continental drift in that the continents are not fixed to the crust but were rather floating on top of the mantle. Continental drift was revised in the 1970s into plate tectonics in which the continents are affixed to plates that move relative to each other. Further more these movements are believed to driven by convection currents within the mantle, contrary to the floating mechanism of continental drift required for crustal displacement.

3) Plate tectonics can account for the movement of the continents across the surface of the earth and through multiple climate zones throughout geologic history. Again no need to exert exotic crustal shifts.

4) Rapid climate shifts such as the sudden freeze of Siberia during the last ice age can be explained through reorganizations in the atmosphere permanently displacing arctic air masses to lower latitudes.

5) The last major crustal shift has been argued to have been during the last ice age (100,000 years to the present). However, Antarctica has been at the South Pole and has had continuous ice cover for the last 5 million years. Oops...
There are just so many holes in logic and violations of Occam's Razor with the crustal displacement hypothesis. The scientific basis for it was put forth in the 1950-70s prior to the evolution of the theory of plate tectonics. Continued support is only lent by pseudoscientists such as Erik von Daniken (Chariots of the Gods) and Graham Hancock (Fingerprints of the Gods) and not by mainstream geologists

Formerly known as cynical_rock
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