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The Earth has had a 2 million-year rainy season, what was the cause?

There are still dark currents inside the planet

By Fei FeiPublished 2 years ago 3 min read
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The Earth's crust not only provides us with solid ground to stand on but also preserves various traces of the Earth in the past. By studying the strata formed in ancient times, we can learn from them what the natural environment of the Earth was like in the distant past.

Since the 1980s, scientists have noticed the existence of a special layer of gray rock in the Triassic strata, why is it special? Because the entire Triassic strata are mainly arid, but in this layer of gray rock, there are a lot of signs of strong rainfall, such as silt deposits, peat, rocks with obvious signs of being washed by water, etc.

In further research, scientists found that this particular rock layer is widespread in the strata of the same period, and during the same period plant and animal fossils and coastal sedimentary rocks also found a large number of signs of heavy rainfall.

Radiocarbon dating results indicate that this period of intense rainfall began about 234 million years ago and ended about 232 million years ago, and this means that the Earth had 2 multimillionaire seasons, during which almost the entire planet was dominated by rainy days, and since this period belongs to a Triassic period - Since this period was part of the Triassic period - the Carnival period (about 237 to 227 million years ago) - it is known as the "Carnival flood event".

The question then becomes, will such a long rainy season occur in the future? To answer this question, we need to look at the causes of the Carnelian flood event.

The Earth's lithosphere is not a whole, but divided into several plates, with the Earth's internal currents, these plates will also continue to move, although the speed of plate movement is exceptionally slow, its average is only a few centimes per year orders of magnitude, but if the period is long enough, plate movement can significantly change the distribution of land and sea on the surface of the Earth.

In the Triassic period, the land on the Earth's surface was almost connected as a whole, which was called "Pangaea". It is because of this that the entire Triassic historiography is mainly arid.

After the Carnelian period, the "Pangaea" had begun to break up, which caused more and more volcanic movements on the earth, so more and more carbon dioxide was released from the earth's interior, and they continued to accumulate in the earth's atmosphere, triggering a stronger and stronger greenhouse effect, and the temperature of the earth's surface also became higher and higher, which in turn The temperature of the earth's surface is also increasing, which leads to the evaporation of a large amount of seawater from the oceans.

A large amount of water vapor with the hot air up, and when they encounter the cold air aloft will condense into water droplets, and then under the action of the Earth's gravity to the ground, forming a rainfall.

As the volcanic movement continues, rainfall becomes more and more frequent, and at the same time, the air currents in the earth's atmosphere become stronger and stronger, thus causing the rainfall area on the earth's surface to become larger and larger, and when it reaches a certain level, even the deepest part of the "Pangaea" is enveloped by the moist air from the ocean, thus forming Rainfall on a global scale.

Although large amounts of rainfall can lower the temperature of the Earth's surface and dilute some of the carbon dioxides in the atmosphere, the constant volcanic movement can cancel out the cooling and carbon dilution effects of the rainfall.

In this way, a delicate balance was created, and widespread rainfall on Earth continued until about 232 million years ago when this violent volcanism subsided and the "Carney phase flood event" ended.

The reason for the 2 million-year-long larger-scale rainy season on Earth is that the larger-scale volcanism continued to release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In other words, if there is a long and large-scale volcanic movement on the Earth again in the future, the long rainy season will appear again. Although we do not know enough about the interior of the Earth, we can be sure that in the foreseeable future, the interior of the Earth is still dark and the plate movement has not stopped, so we cannot exclude this possibility.

It is worth mentioning that scientists speculate that according to the current trend of the Earth's plate movement, in about 250 million years, the Earth's land will be connected again as a whole.

Well, that's all we have for today, welcome to follow us and we'll see you next time.

Science
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About the Creator

Fei Fei

Fantasy is the poet's wings, hypothesis is the ladder of science。

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