Today’s discussion wasn’t about the ocean, but rather what lies beneath it. Down the the very core of our earth, the makeup of the earth is key to the formation of our oceans. Our inner core is about as hot as the surface of the sun, but remains a solid because of the extreme pressure that it’s under. It’s made up of iron and provides us with the magnetosphere. What is the magnetosphere exactly? It Earth’s magnetic field which shields us from harmful radiation and orients our compasses northward. But ever few million years, Earth’s magnetic field reverses itself, which would make our compasses point southward. We know this because the iron in the newly formed rock at mid-ocean ridges orients itself to the poles when it is formed. If you look at rock that is around 7 million years old, you’ll see that the iron is oriented the opposite way.
I also learned how life could have formed at some of Earth’s most extreme places:
Undersea vents superheat the water around them and give off harmful chemicals, making them harmful to many animals, but at this very place, in Earth’s more treacherous conditions, some of Earth’s earliest life forms could have developed.
Another interesting thing that I learned today is that nearly 50% of US citizens still believe that the Earth is only as old as the Bible dictates it is, refuting the scientific evidence that says otherwise such as carbon dating and several different theories including the theory of continental drift.
