Tectonic signature on Avg. global temp; listening to the biosphere's story

This topic submitted by James Essex ( Essexjj@muohio.edu ) on 2/24/00 .

The average global temperature of the livable portion of Earth is a result of the dynamic realtionship between the Earth system (orbital characteristics) and the Sun's decay. A major, less understood source of energy is internal; the Earth's hot magma insides. The Earth releases internal heat at spreading centers, volcanic vents, during collisional events that rub rock together, or events that uplift warm rock to the surface. Both marine and terrestrial geologic features record evidence (both timing and magnitude of these events) throughout the geologic past. Rocks however, do not record temperatures very well (except of course carbonates, right Dr. B) so vegetation: presence /absence, distribution, concentration, type --whatever is extractable from pollen data will be used to estimate the "geologic" signature on temperature around selected geographic locations. The geographic locations will be chosen on several criteria: 1) "highest" short term heat release 2) longest continuous impact, 3) cyclicity,
4) ??suggestions??.

The isolation of heat transfer from the Earth interior to the areas of Earth that affect the biosphere is not straight forward.

Stay tuned, I'll develop a plan.

james

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