[quote]Imagine you suddenly discovered part of your umbilical cord was still attached. Scientists just did that for the planet Earth. What's been found is a clear sign that beneath the crust in northern Canada there is a chunk of pristine, undisturbed rock from the time when Earth was nothing but molten rock.
The evidence comes in the form of lava rocks that, themselves, are a mere 60 million years old. But these rocks contain an early Earth mixture of helium, lead and neodymium isotopes which suggest the mantle rock beneath the crust that yielded them is a virgin pocket of Earth's original material.
That pocket had survived for 4.5 billion years under Baffin Island without being mixed by plate tectonics or erupted onto the surface.
"I was surprised that any of the (original) mantle survived," said geoscientist Matthew Jackson of Boston University. He is the lead author on a paper announcing the discovery in this week's issue of the journal Nature. "Finding a piece of the original mantle has been a holy grail. The original Earth was a big ball of magma. That's our (planet's) original composition."
The discovery has surprised other researchers as well.
"Even if a vestige of such material remained, it seems unlikely that it would be found in any samples from Earth's surface or the shallow subsurface that are available to geologists," observed David Graham of Oregon State University in Corvallis, who wrote a commentary in the same issue of Nature. "Yet that is what (this) new evidence suggests."
One of the obstacles in finding rocks from such ancient mantle, up to now, has been that researchers had assumed an early Earth was composed of rocks with helium and lead isotope matching those of a type of ancient meteorite called a chondrite.
That may be true up to a point, said Jackson. Some recent research by scientists at the Carnegie Institution of Washington has suggested that the Earth's early mantle would also have tell-tale neodymium isotopes that are unlike chondrites.
"That turns out to be the same as we find in these lavas (from Baffin Island)," said Jackson.
The other signs of untouched ancient mantle material -- which has not before lost any of its material to Earth's surface or been otherwise tainted -- is large amount of the isotopes helium-3 relative to helium-4. There is also an very old lead-isotope signature. It was these three criteria -- the helium, lead and neodymium -- that led Jackson and his team to the conclusion Baffin Islands massive volcanic cliffs are made of the oldest material on the planet.
As for how much of this original mantle might be around, the only way to tell is to look at lava rocks and see if they came from such stuff, said Jackson.
"We have no idea how common it might be," Jackson told Discovery News. Models suggest that up to 10 percent of the early mantle might still be around. But the new discovery could change those models and their predictions. "It turns everything on its head."[/quote]
[url=http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38661354/ns/technology_and_science-science/]via MSNBC[/url]
Impressive, but I can't see how this changes anything aside from some theories.
How does that even happen.
Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.
Virgin pocket of Earth's material eh? :smug:
[QUOTE]
beneath the crust that yielded them is a virgin pocket of Earth's original material.
[/QUOTE]
Go ahead science, you can tap dat :clint:
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;24116411]Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.[/QUOTE]
Science is (mostly) built up by facts
[B]History[/B] is mostly build up by theories
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;24116411]Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.[/QUOTE]
That's the whole fucking point of science, be wrong, find new evidence, assimilate it into the current theory or new theory, be less wrong.
Rinse and repeat.
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;24116411]Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.[/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgR3N8y4boQ[/media]
:canada:
Religion: Never change your mind, no matter how much evidence proves you're wrong.
[QUOTE=Haxxer;24116551]Science is (mostly) built up by facts
[B]History[/B] is mostly build up by theories[/QUOTE]
The highest form of anything an idea in science can become is a theory...not even a fact
[QUOTE=bravehat;24116554]That's the whole fucking point of science, be wrong, find new evidence, assimilate it into the current theory or new theory, be less wrong.
Rinse and repeat.[/QUOTE]
Gather facts -> New theory -> Attempt to prove theory wrong -> Gather more facts -> Prove theory fully/partially wrong -> New theory based off new facts -> Rinse repeat
[QUOTE=Tetracycline;24116696]The highest form of anything an idea in science can become is a theory...not even a fact[/QUOTE]
I understand
I was more pointing out the obvious. We [I]know[/I] water at 20 degrees Celsius will be flowing, but we don't know exactly how the Egyptians build the pyramids.
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;24116411]Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.[/QUOTE]
Hope you're not serious pal
Or mean that in a bad way
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;24116411]Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://knowyourmeme.com/i/000/046/123/original/magnets.jpg?1270937748[/img]
[QUOTE=Haxxer;24116551][b]History[/b] is (mostly) built up by facts
[B]Science[/B] is mostly build up by theories[/QUOTE]
Fix'd
History is not built by fact.
Not by a fucking long shot.
[QUOTE=IliekBoxes;24116411]Science: A bunch of always changing theories. It's like someone makes a TV show that constantly retcons itself every 2 minutes.[/QUOTE]
creationism: it is true only if it is written on an old book of some sort
[QUOTE=Haxxer;24116734]I understand
I was more pointing out the obvious. We [I]know[/I] water at 20 degrees Celsius will be flowing, but we don't know exactly how the Egyptians build the pyramids.[/QUOTE]
Untrue. Now I am just nitpicking here but we have yet to discover many things about our universe. For all we know, and I am not saying this is true, there could be an undiscovered elementary force acting in the background, only producing visible effects under very precise circumstances. This could cause everything we think we "know" to be false. Hence it isn't a solid fact water will flow at 20c.
I do understand what you are saying, however. In that you are totally right.
What about standing water?
Water doesn't neccesarily have to flow.
[QUOTE=Dolton;24116986]Untrue. Now I am just nitpicking here but we have yet to discover many things about our universe. For all we know, and I am not saying this is true, [b]there could be an undiscovered elementary force acting in the background[/b], only producing visible effects under very precise circumstances. This could cause everything we think we "know" to be false. Hence it isn't a solid fact water will flow at 20c.
I do understand what you are saying, however. In that you are totally right.[/QUOTE]
there could also be unicorns. and god. and leprechauns who steal money out of my pocket. but they are only noticeable under very precise circumstances. this could cause everything we think we "know" to be false.
water could be solid at 20C with enough pressure. however, at STP, water will always be liquid.
[editline]05:52PM[/editline]
we really dont have any fundamental forces left to discover, what causes gravity aside anyway. youre basically doubting everything we know about quantum physics, physics, etc etc based on the fact that nothing can be proven 100%. its just silly.
A piece of original Earth? This could change a lot theory in the field of science, at least I think/hope so.
[QUOTE=MrAfroShark70;24117351]A piece of original Earth? This could change a lot theory in the field of science, at least I think/hope so.[/QUOTE]
It was poorly phrased, not original earth, just the proto earth.
It's just pure early rock before it was bombarded with asteroids and shit, and its the rock from when the earth started to cool.
Not that there was a special earth before and it was paved over.
And science isn't a single field, there are thousands of fields within science.
[QUOTE=Fahrenheit;24116783]Fix'd[/QUOTE]
Large amounts of history were rewritten or repressed by the Catholic Church. Hence why we know hardly anything about the Dark Ages.
[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;24116652]Religion: Never change your mind, no matter how much evidence proves you're wrong.[/QUOTE]
Oh boy, here we go...Conservative Christians vs. Angsty Atheists: The Final Showdown.
[QUOTE=Funky Pickle;24117731]Oh boy, here we go...FacePunch Christians vs. FacePunch Atheists: The Final Showdown.[/QUOTE]
Fixed it for you.
[QUOTE=MrAfroShark70;24117351]A piece of original Earth? This could change a lot theory in the field of science, at least I think/hope so.[/QUOTE]
Gotta say, I laughed at "the field of science"
[quote]Imagine you suddenly discovered part of your umbilical cord was still attached.[/quote]
It's called an outie.
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