Evolution of the Earth

Seventh Edition

Prothero • Dott

Chapter 1

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Fig. 1.3

Krakatoa volcano and areas of audible noise and significant ash fall from 1883 eruption. 35,000 people died, most from the tsunamis generated. Thera was MUCH larger.

Fig. 1.4

Thera eruption impact radius as measured by existing ash deposits. This may have wiped out Minoan culture ~1500 B.C. Curves are ISOPACHS, curves of equal thickness of ash.

Fig. 1.5

Basalt from Atlantic spreading ridge encroaching on houses in Heimaey, Iceland, during a 1973 eruption. Villagers eventually used fire hoses to stem some of the advance.

Fig. 1.6

Louis Agassiz, famous American geologist, toppled from his perch at Stanford University during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The fires that following this quake leveled San Francisco.

A CATASTROPHIC event for sure.

Fig. 1.7

Aerial photo of the Nile River Valley looking SE toward the Red Sea. The Nile is basically the lifeblood of Egypt, all that is left of a formerly lush landscape 10,000 years ago at the height of the last glacial advance. Climate change is a SUBTLE geologic event, certainly NOT catastrophic.

Fig. 1.8

Eastern Mediterranean-Mesopotamia region showing fertile crescent (white), the center of early agrarian civilization. Gray shows the extent of late flood deposits which may have given rise to the Noah’s Flood mythology, although the flooding of the Black Sea to the NW is a more likely source of the flood myths.

Fig. 1.9

Relative coastal subsidence (negative shaded) and uplift (unshaded) in Europe over the past 10,000 years due to glacial unloading. Numbers refer to rate of present movement in mm/yr.

Another example of a SUBTLE geologic processes.

Fig. 1.11

MOUNTAIN BUILDING

Graph of present known (measured) rates of uplift in two lowland areas in California extrapolated into the future assuming constant rates. Substantial mountains could form in several hundred thousand (100,000) years.

Fig. 1.12

Growth curve for human population since 600 A.D. An example of non-linear (exponential) growth. Something’s got to give.