Geologic History of North America Gets Overturned: New Data Disproves the Old

A very interesting (IMO) new theory of the geologic history of the prehistoric Earth has been inveiled by two geologists, who say that the far better modern technology has givne them a far clearer view of the geologic remnants of the great tectonic "shift" that formed the continents:
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Geologic History of North America Gets Overturned

It's time to redraw the map of the world during the reign of the dinosaurs, two scientists say.

Picture the U.S. West Coast as a tortured tectonic boundary, similar to Australia and Southeast Asia today. Erase the giant subduction zone researchers have long nestled against western North America. Drop a vast archipelago into the ancient Panthalassa Ocean, usually drawn as an empty void, the kind on which medieval mapmakers would have depicted fantastical beasts.

"Now it fits together," said Karin Sigloch, a seismologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, and lead study author. "We've come up with a pretty different solution that I think will hold up."

With a spectacularly clear look at the remnants of ancient subduction zones under North America, Sigloch and her colleague Mitch Mihalynuk have revised 200 million years of geologic history. The results of their study are published today (April 3) in the journal Nature. [Have There Always Been Continents?]

http://news.yahoo.com/geologic-history-north-america-gets-overturned-181804063.html

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This is VERY MAJOR NEWS amongst the "Rock Heads".

One of my closest buds, (PhD in Geology, Phd in Earth Sciences (I think that's what it's called), from UMR, (now called the Missouri Institute of Science and Technology), is ALL ATWITTER about it, citing that is basically undoes EVERYONE's previous map of the still-forming world.

He anticipates a LOT of skepticism,and push back, from the geological scientific orthodoxy....

Here's more about it:

http://www.livescience.com/28401-north-america-geology.html

and:


http://www.nature.com/news/how-the-west-was-built-1.12724


It seems that everyone before Sigloch and Mihalynuk MISSED TWO ENTIRE CONTINENTAL TECTONIC PLATES, due to limitations in the then-tech, I would assume.

I'm looking for the details of how they got a "spectacularly clear look at remnants of subduction zones under North America..."

AH..."seismic imaging"...that's how,and no question that's more accurate now than before.

Anyway, this wil not be the LAST long-held SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM that wil fall in our lifetimes, no doubt....

 

<<< MODERATOR EDIT: OFF TOPIC/ TROLLING >>>

"Anyway, this wil not be the LAST long-held SCIENTIFIC PARADIGM that wil fall in our lifetimes, no doubt..."

That is the wonderful thing about science- it is always progressing.

However, don't hold your breath and expect the universe to suddenly only be 6,000 years old.

 

Science is about understanding the natural world using the scientific method. Science learns more when something is tested to be untrue versus true. I am not sure what the paradigm is that the OP is referencing.

 

The previously long-held tectonic "map" of the formation of the precursors to the present-day continents...OBVIOUSLY.

From the "LiveScience" link above:
"Mihalynuk said the new model will make waves, as it overturns 40 years of accepted wisdom about the evolution of western North America. "It will take a while to turn people around. That intellectual ship has a lot of inertia," he said. But for Mihalynuk, "this is one of those eureka moments."

 

What the mantle evidence shows is that as Pangaea broke up, out in the Panthalassa Ocean, a vast archipelago sat far offshore of North America. It was shaped like an arrowhead, 6,200 miles (10,000 km) long, with its tip pointing to the proto-Pacific Northwest.

Would like to get in a time machine and explore that ancient archipelago.

 

Good luck with that. Meanwhile, I'd like to take a deep sea , BATHYSCAPHE DEEP, tour of one of the world's larger reef walls , myself...

That said, pretty remarkable revelation, I'd say...

 

Science constantly changes...

Such is the nature of the beast...

 

Geology is not one of the more "rapidly developing" disciplines, which is why MIlhalynuk said this:

Mihalynuk said the new model will make waves, as it overturns 40 years of accepted wisdom about the evolution of western North America. "It will take a while to turn people around. That intellectual ship has a lot of inertia," he said. But for Mihalynuk, "this is one of those eureka moments."

 

Sounds pretty interesting. Reconstructing ancient tectonic history is one of those exercises where you have a few data points and a LOOONG extrapolation, and that means that adding or moving a few data points a short recent distance extrapolates out to major differences a billion years ago. If we have genuine relevant new data here, once integrated with other relevant data (known plates, observe mountain building and rifts, biological relationships across distances, etc.) hopefully we'll get an even more accurate picture of the past. Exciting stuff.

 

It's still science, and, science, by its nature, constantly evolves...

 

It is not close to a paradigm, more refining what we know. It always been thought the mid ocean ridges were squeezing the plates and causing subduction zones on the other boundary. A while back they figured out the reverse, the chemical changes to oceanic plates made them progressively heavier and begin to drag the plate down, meaning the mid ocean ridges are ruptures in the crust. A paradigm would be throwing the whole plate tectonic theory out the window and coming up with an entirely new idea.

 

This is not new and not game changing in any way, sorry, but by just finding new evidence in the the formation of the current continental structure is probably going to happen again.

 

Or not:
"PARADIGM":

3. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.


Why they called this new way a "EUREKA MOMENT"...

 

It's DEATH to the OLD, as a rule...

 

The geologists involved disagree with your first assertion , as do I. I'll go ahead and go with what the geologists say, thank you.

 

So if I understand the maps correctly North America was about twice as large at one time?

 

Complete nonsense . There is no case of macro evolution ever observed, by anyone, at anytime.

And "micro-evolution" can NEVER be MACRO-EVOLUTION.

I have ALREADY PROVED that both GRAVITY's EXISTENCE,and PATHOGENS CAUSING ILLNESS, are both SCIENTIFIC FACTS. REREAD the POST,and stop making a fool of yourself here.

NO SUCH PROOF of MACRO -Evolution has EVER BEEN PERFORMED. It remains a THEORY, only.

 

The plates that eventually sqwooshed into each other ( "SQWOOSHED" is a technical geological term, BTW.), and formed the continent, covered a lot more area. I don't know if that counts as North America being that much larger...or not.

 

Bwahahahahahaaaa!!!!!

- - - Updated - - -

Don't see how that changes what I said...

 

Utter bull(*)(*)(*)(*). Speciation has been observed numerous times. Even going by the entirely unscientific and made-up "mirco vs macro" distinction, that counts as marcoevolution.

 

True; I was just pointing out that radically new ideas, NEVER see a "peaceful acceptance" from the purveyors of "what was before" in the world of Science,which is a LOT MORE VINDICTIVE and CATTY, than most people know..which was what he was talking about.

 

Absolutely.

And this is a theory proposed by two scientists, just published in Nature.
Other scientists will review and over time if their arguments are persuasive, their theory will prevail.

Meanwhile this just improves our understanding of how plate techtonics work- what it doesn't do is change the fundamental theory of plate techtonics.

 

Bullcrap. Two different breeds of cats breeding DOES NOT COUNT AS "macroevolution", despite their offspring being "speciation".

Their offspring having WINGS would be MACRO-EVOLUTION. Where are the skeletal record of all the animals with PARTIALLY DEVELOPED WINGS, BTW?

You complete failure to grasp the difference is TYPICAL..

We have been trying to cause MACRO EVOLUTION, via myriad stimuli, with fruit flies for about 70 years; after nearly 60, 000, 000 generations..they are STILL FRUIT FLIES...

 

These aren't breeds of cats are they?

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VC1fEvidenceSpeciation.shtml
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

Wow, so you go all the way to the croco-duck argument. You are arguing against a strawman because you are using a bull(*)(*)(*)(*) definition of evolution made up by creationists.

What natural selection pressures were there in the fruit fly experiments again?