The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)

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The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« on: July 05, 2006, 06:23:31 AM »
I wanted to see what yall thought abotu this lil theory of mine that I have had since I was like 10.

Now I'm sure a lot of yall have heard theories about how throughout the world there are monuments that appear to be far older than the civilizations they are attributed to. (Sphinx comes to mind)

And the theories I've heard involve some random group of artisans just happening upon an area and deciding to build something. (kinda dumb)

What if all these unique monuments were created by actual civilizations that were then wiped out completely by a natural disaster?

Now take into account that until fairly recently (last 400 years or so) the great majority of civilization has lived on the coast where it is very vulnerable to being wiped out due to flooding. (and I mean massive flooding)

Then also consider that in the past the earths crust (as a whole) has shifted completely upside down. (poles swapping)

And the belief that old old maps show Antartica free of ice (unconfirmed by me).

Now say the poles did this every few thousand years and essentially restarted human civilization each time since after all ice on the planet melted the only humans left would be very far inland and probably so separated that most would die out.

Could this account for the remnents of ancient civilization left over and modified?

or for the oral legends from the bible? (OH NOES WATER BE COMIN)

Now this is just a very rough theory I've had and even I can see some gaping holes in my own knowledge of it that maybe some of you can help me refine.

1. How often do the poles switch, and has it even happened in the last 10 thousand years even.

2. If all ice on earth melted how much would that raise sea levels? Enough to wipe out all coastal civilization?

3. Let's face facts....the Flying Spaghetti monster would never allow such extinctions to occur as it has to much love for us ;)

Re: The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2006, 09:37:52 AM »
There are no reversals, there is just areas of low and high magnetism. NOWHERE on Earth will north-seeking compass point to south.

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Erasmus

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Re: The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2006, 11:06:54 AM »
Quote from: "Koranuso"
Now I'm sure a lot of yall have heard theories about how throughout the world there are monuments that appear to be far older than the civilizations they are attributed to. (Sphinx comes to mind)


The theories (at least for the Sphinx) don't seem to hold much water, but I'll pretend to believe they have some merit for the duration of this thread.

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Then also consider that in the past the earths crust (as a whole) has shifted completely upside down. (poles swapping)


I'm familiar with the notion of the magnetic poles swapping, but not the geographic poles.  Do you have something to back this up?

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And the belief that old old maps show Antartica free of ice (unconfirmed by me).


Maybe Antarctica in the Jurassic period.  More recently -- best be getting to the confirming.

Note that old old maps have no business showing Antarctica at all.

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Now say the poles did this every few thousand years and essentially restarted human civilization each time since after all ice on the planet melted the only humans left would be very far inland and probably so separated that most would die out.


Humans on ocean and maybe sea coasts might suffer this fate, but what about the Nile?  The Amazon?  The Tigris and Euphrates?  Yangtze?  I think that river-dwellers could have escaped such massive flooding more easily.

Also, even assuming the crust does shift in the fashion you describe, there's nothing to suggest that it would happen on the time frame required to flood the coasts of the world so quickly as to kill off all major civilizations.  Even if the coasts could shift that quickly, ice doesn't melt that fast.

So, major holes:

1)  Do the geographic poles really switch, or just the magnetic poles?

2)  Does this shifting cause the ice at the polar caps to melt so fast as to create flash floods that can wipe out all coastal civilizations?

3)  What would happen to civilizations on rivers, whose sources are not connected by water to polar ice?
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

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TheEngineer

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Re: The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2006, 11:13:55 AM »
Quote from: "googleSearch"
There are no reversals, there is just areas of low and high magnetism. NOWHERE on Earth will north-seeking compass point to south.

The magnetic poles have swapped in the distant past.  It seems to happen every few hundred thousand years.


"I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake."
        -- Bob Hudson

Re: The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2006, 11:47:55 AM »
Quote from: "TheEngineer"
Quote from: "googleSearch"
There are no reversals, there is just areas of low and high magnetism. NOWHERE on Earth will north-seeking compass point to south.

The magnetic poles have swapped in the distant past.  It seems to happen every few hundred thousand years.


Well that shoots down that part of the theory....I was thinking this happened more along the timeframe of 10 thousand years....not hundred of thousands.

======================
Erasmus:

And I am sure I have heard about the earths crust moving as one due to an imbalance such as there being so much ice built up on the north or south pole that it caused a rapid shift in the plates. Assuming a rotation like this could occur even over the course of days or months and slide that much ice into say...the tropics....theoretically the ice could thaw rather fast.

I am trying to find some source to back this up. I can't remember where I heard about this.

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I found this also. It is a picture of what the earth woudl look like if ALL ice on planet were to melt.



From the looks of it this shoot down my Sphinx theory as the Egypt area does not appear to be affected very much.

Link to site for above picture:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html

Re: The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2006, 01:33:35 PM »
Quote from: "TheEngineer"

The magnetic poles have swapped in the distant past.  It seems to happen every few hundred thousand years.


How do you know?

Re: The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2006, 03:15:40 PM »
Quote from: "Koranuso"
Quote from: "TheEngineer"
Quote from: "googleSearch"
There are no reversals, there is just areas of low and high magnetism. NOWHERE on Earth will north-seeking compass point to south.

The magnetic poles have swapped in the distant past.  It seems to happen every few hundred thousand years.


Well that shoots down that part of the theory....I was thinking this happened more along the timeframe of 10 thousand years....not hundred of thousands.

======================
Erasmus:

And I am sure I have heard about the earths crust moving as one due to an imbalance such as there being so much ice built up on the north or south pole that it caused a rapid shift in the plates. Assuming a rotation like this could occur even over the course of days or months and slide that much ice into say...the tropics....theoretically the ice could thaw rather fast.

I am trying to find some source to back this up. I can't remember where I heard about this.

=======================

I found this also. It is a picture of what the earth woudl look like if ALL ice on planet were to melt.



From the looks of it this shoot down my Sphinx theory as the Egypt area does not appear to be affected very much.

Link to site for above picture:
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html



I don't like florida much anyway.

The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2006, 07:08:48 PM »
they can theorize (and that is all it realy is, a theory) that the poles have switched every 100 thousand years or so, but examining the formation of ice in ice cores drilled from Antarctica. it indicates that around every hundered thousand years (it can happen faster or slower than that) the Magenetic field of the earth completely dissappear for a centuary or two, and then it reappears, sometimes in the original direction, sometimes in the opposite direction.


Why it happens, we don't really know (we don't even really know for sure why we have a magenetic field), but what is relatively inteeresting is that the last one happened about a hundred thousand years ago...


But it is only the magnetic pole, not the physical poles. And contrary to what google said, if it happened your compass would point the "wrong way"


also you can also get a compass to point south. there are two stable alignments for a compass, one it pointing North, the other it pointing south (if perfectly aligned the magnet will feel no torque is any direction) however the compass pointing south is a rather unstable formation, so if it fell to either side of perfect parallel arrangement it would swing round to point north.

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TheEngineer

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The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2006, 09:38:17 PM »
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How do you know?

They have studied lava flows in Hawaii.  In these flows, the iron is shown to have magnetic domains that are alligned in two opposing directions.  It can be concluded that the poles must have reversed at some point between the layers of the flow.
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but what is relatively inteeresting is that the last one happened about a hundred thousand years ago...

From wiki:
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it has been deduced that the Earth's magnetic field reverses at intervals, ranging from tens of thousands to many millions of years, with an average interval of approximately 250,000 years. The last such event, called the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, occurred some 780,000 years ago.


"I haven't been wrong since 1961, when I thought I made a mistake."
        -- Bob Hudson

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The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2006, 12:05:19 PM »
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2. If all ice on earth melted how much would that raise sea levels? Enough to wipe out all coastal civilization?


This has gotten a lot of attention with Global Warming bigger than ever. I recall that Manhattan (New York City) and Tokyo would be among the many places to be flooded.

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1. How often do the poles switch, and has it even happened in the last 10 thousand years even.


The geographical poles do not switch, but the continents do move very slowly. The magnetic pole switching would only harm a modern civilization because of our technology.

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...we don't even really know for sure why we have a magenetic field...


The Earth's innards; its core.

The Ages of Man (caused by reversal of poles)
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2006, 04:57:10 PM »
hmm ok several hundred thousands of years then ;-) i knew it was in that order of magnitutde.

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The Earth's innards; its core.


this too is a theory, it is hard to tell when the core of our planet actually looks like, but yes the current popular theory is that the core of the earth is a big ole ball of iron rotating around, causing our magnetic field... therefore when the magnetic field switches direction it is the flow turning the other way.


And Manhattan would be fine, they would simply build a dyke to protect it, most of holland is below water level ffs. it is the poor countries that can't afford to build a dyke that will be damaged by it.