Re: AAT:A method to falsify

H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
15 Oct 1995 01:32:37 -0400

herwin@osf1.gmu.edu (HARRY R. ERWIN) writes:

>Perhaps up to +5-10 degrees Celsius during the warmer periods (Cretaceous
>and Eocene).

>Almost certainly never was. The warmest oceans were apparently in the
>tropics in the Cretaceous, and I've seen an estimate of around 30-35
>degrees Celsius. They had an unusual fauna (rudistid clams).

It would have to be a shallow area which is got some shelter
from the general currents and in which the daytime temperature
can hit say 35 degrees.

I don't see how this is impossible. Someone said that it was about
87 degrees a little while ago around the Florida keys. If we add
5-10 degrees celsius which is 9-18 degrees Fahrenheit we can
easily get some sheltered area which could have been 98.6.

>It isn't. There's a good deal of variation between species. In addition,
>many species regulate their temperature so that it varies markedly. The

The table I remembered seeing showed temperatures of about
36 plus/minus a degree or two. Maybe it didn't show all the
animals whose temperatures varied greatly from this number.
(Maybe the avg temp. wasn't 36 but it was in that range).

>Wrong. Read up on mammalian evolution during the Mesozoic. This comment
>is over the top.

I could read it. And I've already been told that they were
terrestrials. But I still keep thinking how we'd know all this
when nobody was around. This is all indirect. In any case, I
still accept your rebuke until I read and think some more.
It was just an idea.

>Oxygen gets tied up in carbonate rocks. To maintain the current
>atmosphere, carbon has to be sequestered in elemental form.

I was asking Mr. X :-).. I seem to remember reading that it's
found in corals (carbonate rocks) as you say.

>You're speculating far beyond your scientific background. That's an
>excellent way to make a fool of yourself. Some of these comments are way
>over the top.

The correlation of the oxygen isotope ratio with temperatures would
have to be done pretty recently if we want direct evidence. Indirect
evidence would have to be based on something else. It would seem
that if several independent approaches point in the same general
direction, we can start to believe one when the other is missing.

PS. My PhD Thesis had to do with EM models of remote sensing of
glacier ice and yes, I do remember (some time ago) reading about
the gases trapped in ice, ice core samples, ocean subbottom samples
being correlated against remotely sensed data (acoustic in
this case) etc etc. 

-- 





				Regards, Mark

				http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey