Very Big Rocks

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Let's wait for the evidence. Gregg Wilson
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Maybe I'm missing what "evidence" you're looking for, or what you're trying to accomplish. I thought you were wondering about the origins of the big rocks, and the point I was making was that these areas are well known to the locals, and you could probably stop at any local Ranger Station and ask them: what are the origin of those rocks. There's really no mystery about it.

But, like I said, maybe I'm missing your intent.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that you don't do what you were intending to do (I know I wasn't), rather we were just making educated guesses on what they probably are based on knowledge of the area.

rd

There's a lot of interesting questions here. Oddly there's not a great deal known about glaciation during the last ice age for California. Though I did note that there's a book out now on the subject, that might be worth having a look at. It's reviews looked good at any rate.

Looking at that map, we can say that during the last ice age the sea level dropped and California rose, due to the weight of ice on the top of the continent. Those deserts would have been lakes and now they are below sea level due to the continent sinking. Glaciers can cut lake bottoms very deep but when the ice recedes, the melt water carries tonnes of clay to fill in the lakes and the water spreads to inundate low lying areas.

These big rocks may not be known about by the very people who could begin to make sense of what they are saying. It's not so much a problem of knowing exactly where they are as their context. I would want to contact a geologist and a geomorphologist and ask them what sort of data they would want presented to them.

If they are erratics, and my money is on that being the case, then knowing their mass it should be simple to work out the size of the glacier that deposited them.

Looking at the tilted 3d model, there are obvious signs of glaciers coming from all of the mountain corries. One huge one to the east of Barstow and another to the west. The place would have been a great ski resort, can someone invent a time machine for that?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Let's wait for the evidence. Gregg Wilson
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Maybe I'm missing what "evidence" you're looking for, or what you're trying to accomplish.
rd
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

<i>Well, we have sent missions to Mars to collect evidence - mostly photographic. I am assuming the same algorithm would apply on Earth.</i>
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
I thought you were wondering about the origins of the big rocks, and the point I was making was that these areas are well known to the locals, and you could probably stop at any local Ranger Station and ask them: what are the origin of those rocks. There's really no mystery about it.
rd
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

<i>What locals? I lived in this area and did not observe a high degree of scientific awareness. Ranger personnel are usually concerned with forest fires and wildlife - neither one being particularly intense in this area. I find objective data to be more valuable than anecdotal opinions (Case in point: Roswell, New Mexico).

</i>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
But, like I said, maybe I'm missing your intent.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that you don't do what you were intending to do (I know I wasn't), rather we were just making educated guesses on what they probably are based on knowledge of the area.

rd
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

<i>I think a comparative, photographic analysis between glacial erratics - as posted on the internet - and these rocks might be interesting. Not to mention immense geographic differences.</i>

Gregg Wilson

Playing about with the dem map of mars, I put an ocean on it. Very odd, there's an island at the pole. Has anyone tried firing a shot gun at a model of mars? I think we need to think about how to make our mars, perhaps a ball of sillyputty covered in plastocine. Then load the shotgun cartridge with plastocine "shot". I would like to see if the shot deforms the "planet" so that a dimple is formed on the far side, and a series of radial cracks appear round, and through, the impact zone.

It would need a few models to get the shot spread right.

Mars with an ocean. the shading of the water is the bottom colour showing through. We are looking down at the pole

I think this raises some important questions. Did Mars have oceans at some time? The answer has to be yes, but is this image the ocean? I don't think so. it looks to me as if a great scab of sial (silica aluminium) has torn off the underlying sima (silica magnesium) I think Tom Van Flandern's idea means that the far pole is hit by what amounts to a shaped charge explosive. It simply wasn't fast enough to melt that little island at the pole and eject it. When a HEAT round hits a tank, it's the detached inner wall scab of metal that tears round killing the crew, the molten slug of metal will often embed itself in the far wall.

I think what we need is a full map of Mars showing the supposed "oceanic" ridges. I have seen a magnetic map of a region which does show a north south orientation, I expect a full map to show a slight sigma shape to them. That's because as the planet rotates 45 degrees to its current axis, it has to do a little shimmy to conserve angular momentum.

Another interesting question would be, the planet had continents, sial floating on sima, with deep roots. how would the planet's continents and ocean floors handle a new loading of billions of tonnes of sial abruptly landing on them?

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gregg</i>
<br />What locals? I lived in this area and did not observe a high degree of scientific awareness. Ranger personnel are usually concerned with forest fires and wildlife - neither one being particularly intense in this area. I find objective data to be more valuable than anecdotal opinions (Case in point: Roswell, New Mexico).<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Well yeah if you ask in a local hardware store or gas station, but like I said, "you could probably stop at any local Ranger Station and ask them: what are the origin of those rocks. There's really no mystery about it." Any of the USDA Forrest Service Stations in the area, all up and down the Sierra would certainly have specialists who would know these things, going all the way back millions of years.

We used to go to Yosemite National Park twice a year, and <b>everybody there knew these kinds of things</b>. Their sole purpose in life was telling you these things.

BTW, how's the evidence collecting going?


rd