Area54

Excellent work. Distinctive and evocative.

@popcornfrenzyThe question you have been set is difficult to answer properly since it contains no timescale. In the long term, I would rate plateau eruptions as the most potentially dangerous. The Deccan Traps have been mentioned by @studiot . The current preferred view is that the end Cretaceous extinction that killed the non-avian dinosaurs was a consequence of the Chixulub impact and the Deccan eruptions. The Siberian Traps are the prime suspect in the end Permian extinction, the largest of the five major extinctions. Smaller scale such flood basalt eruptions, like the Columbia River Basalts or the Tertiary eruptions in the West of Scotland would have serious global effects and devasting continental ones. In that regard they would compare with the eruption of so-called super volcanoes. Those I rank as the second most dangerous. A full scale eruption of Yellowstone would effectively end civilisation in North America. On a much smaller scale the 1816 eruption of Tambora, Indonesia caused "the year without a summer" in the northern hemisphere and killed tens of thousands in the resultant famines. I agree with studiot that submarine eruptions are, with the exceptions noted by @Sensei, the least dangerous. Most volcanic eruptions occur sub-sea, at diverging plate margins. They are deep. They are of low viscosity basalts. They are not large in local scale. They do not show significant variation in scale over time. All these factors combine to make them low risk.

I agree it is a very bad start, but the bad start is yours. Here are principle problems with your opening post: You have taken no time to familiarise yourself with the forum style. Had you done so you would have recognised the suspicion with which videos are provisionally regarded. Science is best presented in refereed papers, not videos. I think there is even a forum rule about posting videos without a clear summary of contents. You failed to post such a summary. You failed to indicate what exactly you wished to discuss. You have failed to make it clear what your position on Flat Earth thinking is. You OP is ambiguous in this regard. With that in mind, why don't you give it another go, since you may very well have something well worth discussing. I'd be interested to learn what that is, without first having to invest time in watching a video sans summary.

You don't consider any of the orbital laboratories or surface rovers to have been meaningful payloads? That would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

Details please. Assume I am a complete idiot and need the details. Based on your earlier posts I don't think you will struggle with that assumption. Again, based on your earlier posts, I am not optimistic you will meet the first part of my request.

I am familiar with the deltaV requirements for many orbital changes within the solar system. However, I shall not forget about the money. You made a specific claim that it would cost trillions of dollars for manned exploration of Mars. I ask you again, present your evidence. If you are unable to support one of your claims, then there is no reason for us to take seriously any of your claims. In other words, put up, or shut up.

As I noted previously, your posts are singularily devoid of support. If you wish to continue this dialogue please provide the data to support your claim that it will cost trillions of dollars to "dig an igloo on Mars". You have time. I shall be offline for twelve hours or more.

Probably a lot easier than getting a helicopter there, so no problem really. I suppose if all the thousands of sedimentologists who have studied rocks and rock waste and weathering processes on the Earth, backed up by the fundamental research of thousands of chemists, and applied by hundreds of analysts to photographic evidence, from orbit and landers, is wrong. If they represent ineptness and incompetence of an unparalled degree, then you might be right and there may not be 3 foot deep regolith on Mars. Perhaps much of it is really 1 metre deep.

Do you know how easy it is to move a 3' pile of Martian regolith?

When you can ask a question that is not deliberately obtuse I shall be happy to provide a comprehensive reply.

Quite correct. Nothing out there. Other than the rest of the universe. And aboslutely no reason to be there. Other than scientific exploration, personal challenge, technology development, civilisation insurance, etc. And you have the scientific data to back this up, do you? I look forward to you posting the details of the relevant papers from reputable, peer reviewed journals. Radiation via continuous surface exposure is too high. In the short term (fifty years or so) appropriate shielding provides a solution, in the longer term we may reasonably expect medical techniques to deal efficiently and routinely with any resultant cancers. See my first repsonse. I can, if you wish, recommend a good optometrist. You appear to have a severe case of myopia. Perhaps if you offered solid supporting data for your various claims and toned down the passionate, agenda-driven rhetoric, you might obtain a more sympathetic hearing. But maybe you need the rebuttals in order to feel good. Whatever floats your boat.

And eventually a safe non-return, aka colonisation.

Citation or retraction please. Your choice.

This is a science site. A majority of the active members have scientific educations, or an extensive interest in science. As such I should be greatly surprised if many of them, perhaps not any of them, failed to accept evolutionary theory, as developed from the original Darwin-Wallace concept, as being the best explanation of the diversity of life on the planet. So evolution is a given, on this forum and in this thread. What this thread is actually about is substantive evidence for an important stage in the evolution of more complex organisms. Empty prattles about personal incredulity have no relevance. Edit: Cross posted with @swansont's mod comment.

I feared my qualifier might be ambiguous. The Creationist argument (such as it is) was dismantled long ago, with a small fraction of the evidence we have today. In that sense no further nails are needed and this one is unnecessary. However, as you suggest, nothing will convince diehard Creationists, as their beliefs are based not on fact, but on fancy. Yes, it's a valuable step in countering their "Goo to You" meme. I'm not sure we will ever determine the exact process by which life arose, but I think we shall, within this century, have identified a number of viable candidates. What I think will be possible, and this research is such an example, is to confidently establish in detail the emergence of eularyotes, the appearance of multicellular organisms and thence to complex metazoans. Why should it? In what possible way could that have any relevance, unless one had an unhealthy, anthropocentric obsession that saw the emergence of humans as central to evolutionary theory?

Well spotted. (+1) I note that Martin Brasier is credited as a co-author. Brasier played a significant role in the identification and analysis of Pre-Cambrian micro-fossils and their evolution. He died in a car accident six or seven years ago. The organism's Linnaein name, Bicellum brasieri, presumably commemorates him and his role in this work. His popular book Darwin's Lost World, is an excellent read. I love such work that puts another (unnecessary) nail in the coffin of those Creationists who fail to understand what occurred in the previous billion years to enable the Camrbian Explosion.

Absolutely. The behaviour can be shifted around, but I know of nothing that can eliminate the behaviour that produces a less dense solid phase. Even if there is some chemical that produces such an effect then, firstly I would be interested to know the details and secondly I would like evidence that it is a common pollutant.

Please specify which pollutants you refer and outline the mechanism by which they alter the behaviour of water as it approaches freezing point. Relevant citations to research papers would be helpful; vague arm waving wouldn't.

Order and recommend have quite distinct meanings. Thank you admin for the Ignore function.

That was unintelligible, so re-affirm what I posted, it is your OP I consider to be irrelevant, provocative pedantry. I recommend you ask for this thread to be closed before more life force is wasted on it.

It is so far from reality that, to echo Pauli, it is not even wrong.

You are correct that the original author did not say so, but in discussions concerning light it is generally understood by the scientifically lieterate that referring to the speed of light as a constant, is a reference to its speed in a vacuum. There is precision of speech and then there is irrelevant, provocative pedantry. Edit: cross posted with @swansont

My observations wereprompted in part with the post that said: "I wouldn't expect you too [understand]... The neg rep; is a badge of honour; thanks..." First line, does it mean "given you are new to the forum and my own point wasn't well verbalised I wouldn't expect you to", or does it mean "given that you've made lots of inane remarks so far I wouldn't expect you to grasp a straighforward idea." I couldn't tell. However, I was also prompted by the fact that I often feel unsure about your posts, which I find rich in ambiguity. I presumed it was deliberate (motive unknown), but given your request here I see I was probably mistaken. I also suspected that I was just being thick and falling down on my reading comprehension. iNow seems perplexed in like manner, so it might not be me. I don't wish to take this of topic any further. If you wish to discuss by pm I'm happy to do so, if it might help.

I'm an older person. I've never used the word mass to mean volume. A lot of my friends and former work colleagues are older people. I've never once heard any of them use the word mass to mean volume. Most of the people I learned from were really "older people", so old that most of them are now dead. None of them ever used the word mass to mean volume. I wonder if this is just an artifact of the fact that most of them were educated.

@Social-SpacetimeI shall take more time to review your thinking, but my initial impression is Maslow's hierarchy on LSD. And, ego, super-ego and id?!? I thought that pseudo science had been dropped along with Freud's other delusions. (If it hasn't been, it should be.)