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Repair Pangaea
Because entropy has done a number on our fair old continent | |
I am sure that given enough explosive power, a few tugboats and a little bit of human ingenuity and will, we can put the supercontinent back together that 250 million years of planetary mayhem and continental drift has wrecked.
Some may ask why. This is a legitimate question, given the magnitude of
the task. The answer is simple - because it broke. We need to fix it.
(?) Another terraforming project for those with too much time and/or earth moving equipment on their hands...
http://www.impaward...ters/waterworld.jpg
[DrCurry, Jan 23 2008]
A neater alternative.
Rubik_27s_20Earth
[MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 23 2008]
250 Million Years
http://www.scotese.com/futanima.htm
[Klaatu, Jan 23 2008]
Pangaea Reunification
Pangaea_20Reunification
by -alx. Pretty similar, to be honest. [calum, Jan 24 2008]
[MaxwellBuchanon], I forsaw your vision as a World War
Something_20Worse_2..._20Global_20Warming
See my stupidly long anno in this idea. [theleopard, Jan 24 2008]
Discover what reassembly resembles:
http://www.sio.ucsd...h_puzzle/index.html
[Amos Kito, Jan 25 2008]
[link]
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I thought I read somewhere that, given another 250 million years or so, the thing will get back together again of its own accord? |
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But wasn't it also associated with some things we would not especially want to reproduce, like massive hurricanes and Snowball Earth? |
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A small price to pay for the sheer glory of doing the project. And think of the employment opportunities. |
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+...only if we can name it Atlantis. |
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Has this idea anything to do with your chosen moniker? |
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If we wait, there'll be another one along in one hundred and thirty one billion, four hundred and ninety thousand million minutes, and then probably six Pangaeae'll come along at once. You know how it is. |
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// Pangaeae'll // very impressive construction there. Almost a continental collision of morphemes! |
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nice sentiment, but so silly I had to laugh. |
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Will a simple reapposition of the continents make them Pangaeay enough? I worry it will achieve some increase in gaea, but not Pangaea. |
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Simple reapposition? Hah! We're talking forced mountain-range-inducing collisions, here. I mean, Pangaeaing the thing to the max! |
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Pangaeaea was a very untidy shape in the
first place. If you're going to start
rearranging things, can I recommend a
more geometric approach (link)? |
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Hmm. If we could get enough lubricants under each continent, the things would slide if pushed. If we chopped up the mountains just so, and got more lubricant in only the right places, the force of the collapsing mountains could be used to push the continents. |
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First you need to focus on the political aspects, as they will consume far more time and energy than simply pushing a few continents around. I mean, somebody's gonna have to decide who gets landlocked, who gets mountains, what latitude different places end up in (yes, we have to consider the possibility of tropical fjords), and wait for our Laurasian and Gondwanan delegations to decide what hemisphere to put it all in. I mean, think of the Coriolis basin drain reversals! How much are you willing to ask of a guy? |
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Shameful, [Maxwell]. You can't repair Pangaea with recut rectangular tectonic plates. |
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That's like suggesting to Titanickophiles that we could rebuild the Titanic from the old blueprints or something. |
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//I thought I read somewhere that, given another 250 million years or so, the thing will get back together again of its own accord?// |
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A couple of questions: 1. If you push on the side of a continent, will it move or fold? i.e. if you push on California, will it move or just make the Rockies and Apalachians taller? 2. If you pull it will the mountains disappear? 3.Assuming a reasonably short project completion time, what size of Tsunami will this create and will the surfing be televised? |
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//Shameful, [Maxwell]....// Well,
technically it's just a matter of choosing an
appropriate pixel size. However, my point
was that, if you're going to have just one
continent, it would be so much neater if it
were in, say, a single equatorial band, or
maybe a circumpolar band. |
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The new continent could be called Rearrangaea. |
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OK, the "shameful" charge is rescinded, but you must acknowledge that the resulting so-called "continent" would not be our beloved and much-missed Pangaea. |
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//beloved and much-missed Pangaea// yeah, we also need to make sure that it is not covering the site of future meteor impacts. |
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Perhaps if it were surrounded by a large
body of water, we could call it an
"incontinent". |
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bye bye K again! been there, bought the shirt, still have the birthday present gathering dust... |
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Dubai has a system of artificial islands off its coast as a tourist attraction, (which can be seen on Google Earth) in the shape of the Earth's continents as they are today. Someone could always build a Pangaeaoid island. |
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I would rather it was the size of the last Pangaea though. |
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Vaporize the oceans and you would have it, wouldn't you? |
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//and then probably six Pangaeae'll come along at once. You know how it is.// |
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Good stuff. I don't think we need the tugs, though: let's all just grab a big oar and head to the beach. |
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OK, [calum] (link) redundant. Sorry. However, I like my category much better (which was perhaps foolishly the limit of my redundancy search). |
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//because it broke. We need to fix it.// |
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Whoa, that's a heavy obligation! So, if we fix it, then can we make it bigger and better than it was before it broke? |
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[+] only if we get to make it better than the first time around! |
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