On the Permian-Triassic mass-extinction
2024-08-12 12:53 At the end of the Permian Pangaea was born.  Africa, Antarctica, Australia, South America and South Asia had long held together.  It is probably rather obvious how Africa and South America were stuck together.
Plate tectonics and the origin of the continents
2024-06-28 12:53 Most know about continental drift.  What not as many know about, is the greater plate tectonics.  The Earth’s crust is divided in 8 – 10 pieces at least the size of continents.  (Two of the pieces are on the way to split in two each.)
The basics of geology
2024-06-23 17:03 Uniformitarianism is based on the idea of geology being explainable in terms of directly observable processes.  Certainly, processes can take place at different paces.  But this is still the same processes at different orders of magnitude.
The primeval myth
2024-06-13 13:53 I state points in prehistoric times for a good reason.  There is a myth of a vague “primeval time” when everything one knows about lived at the same time.  Then I mean different animals, larger than current ones and more or less strange.
Has the world ever frozen over?
2024-06-05 13:16 There is a hypothesis that the Earth at one or several points would have been entirely covered by ice.  This is called Snowball Earth and is a controversial idea.  All the suggested points have their own problems.
Icehouse Earth and ice ages
2024-05-31 13:02 The climate during the last 550 million years is rather well-documented.  There have been several periods of tens of millions of years without any ice sheets.  The greenhouse effect was then considerably stronger than it is today.
Climate and seasons
2024-05-17 12:46 Climate is the average weather pattern for a place or an area.  Usually, it is the average for a period of 30 years.  Far too many mistake this for how the weather is for the moment.
Myths on snow
2024-05-10 12:15 In areas were snow is rare there are of lot of misconceptions about it.  They are probably even worse in areas where it has not snowed for generations.  Of cause everyone reading this knows what snow is.
On the movements of the Sun
2024-05-02 12:57 There are people taking it for granted they already know how the Sun moves.  The trouble with this is what they think they know is false.
On the movements of the Moon
2024-04-26 12:33 A great deal of people seem to believe the Moon is only up at night.  I think it is because the crescent is used as a symbol for night-time.  Neither do they spend much attention at what one can see in the sky.