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Category: Geography/Geology

The Great Unconformity has baffled geologists for a century

The Great Unconformity has baffled geologists for a century

Motherboard reports: Scientists can reconstruct incredible details about bygone eras in Earth’s history using fossils, rocks, and other clues preserved in its crust. But sometimes, the absence of geological records is just as telling as their presence. The Great Unconformity, a missing chunk of time that appears in rocks across the world, is the ultimate example of this phenomenon. This giant lapse in Earth’s memory exceeds one billion years in some places, resulting in 550 million-year-old rocks sitting atop ancient…

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Earth’s first continents may have appeared three-quarters of a billion years earlier than previously thought

Earth’s first continents may have appeared three-quarters of a billion years earlier than previously thought

Inside Science reports: Earth’s first continents may have emerged from the oceans roughly 750 million years earlier than previously thought, rising from the seas in a manner completely unlike modern continents. These early masses of solid rock may have floated buoyantly atop magma welling up from below, a new study finds. Unlike any other known planet, Earth possesses both continents and oceans on its surface. The emergence of land from sea greatly influenced Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, climate and proliferation of…

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The city is a lie

The city is a lie

Sam Grinsell writes: The city is a lie that we tell ourselves. The crux of this lie is that we can separate human life from the environment, using concrete, glass, steel, maps, planning and infrastructure to forge a space apart. Disease, dirt, wild animals, wilderness, farmland and countryside are all imagined to be essentially outside, forbidden and excluded. This idea is maintained through the hiding of infrastructure, the zoning of space, the burying of rivers, the visualisation of new urban…

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Nile river formed millions of years earlier than thought, study suggests

Nile river formed millions of years earlier than thought, study suggests

Live Science reports: For thousands of years, the Nile River has fertilized valleys along its winding path through northeastern Africa, anchoring ancient civilizations and still serving as an important route of transport and irrigation today. But the age of its venerable waters, which stretch over 4,225 miles (6,800 kilometers), has been debated, with one group of experts claiming the river was born around 6 million years ago when a drainage system changed course, while another claims the river is five…

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Did dairying climates pave the way for the evolution of modern democracy?

Did dairying climates pave the way for the evolution of modern democracy?

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PsyPost reports: An analysis of 108 Old World countries found that cold/wet climates suitable for dairy farming were associated with lactose tolerance in the year 1500, which was in turn associated with higher child survival rates, greater per capita income, and fewer children per family in the year 1800. This enhanced production power was in turn associated with political freedom and civil liberties in the year 2000. The researchers believe that lactose tolerance led to longer life expectancy and postponed…

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