The earth will end – in 10 million years! I think!

[Tsunamie]

Hi everyone,

I have a hypothesis that is loosely based on some facts. Was wondering what people thought of this idea? As everyone knows we are excavating huge amount of fossil fuel. As a result, different experts give varying lengths of time for its depletion.

We are aware that the majority of fossil fuels are result of the compression of organic matter over millions of years. My question there for is what happens when this fossil fuel eventually reaches the low end of the earth's crust and into the mantel of the planet. Is fossil fuel apart of planetary system that fuels bio diversity as well as a mechanism to keep the planetary Furness?

This of course is a very loose Hypothesis. Secondly is it plausible that we have actually already spelled the doom of the planet by removing basic material for the core of the planet to produce heat with. Or is there another mechanism that is actually used heat rock, (ie gravity or magnetism)

 

[Durakken]

No. Go take a class on geophysics and the like.

 

[scalyblue]

No, you see, take a peach. This peach will be the earth. See the proportion of the skin, the meat, and the pit? Now cut it in half and swallow the pit. While you are recovering in the hospital, ask the nurse to bring you some books on geology, physics, and planetary composition.

 

[Aught3]

No, you see, take a peach. This peach will be the earth. See the proportion of the skin, the meat, and the pit? Now cut it in half and swallow the pit. While you are recovering in the hospital, ask the nurse to bring you some books on geology, physics, and planetary composition.

Brilliant, post of the week :lol:

 

[Womble]

You know it's idiocy when you shout 'What the god damned f***' out loud when reading something like this.

 

[Squawk]

No, you see, take a peach. This peach will be the earth. See the proportion of the skin, the meat, and the pit? Now cut it in half and swallow the pit. While you are recovering in the hospital, ask the nurse to bring you some books on geology, physics, and planetary composition.

Genius.

Lets call it hypothesis falsified. Maybe we should be more serious, to the OP, fossil fuels sit well atop of the earths crust, don't worry about them

 

[Giliell]

It still means you'll have to do the laundry and take out the garbage NOW, it's no excuse.

 

[Durakken]

It might be fun to point out how many things are wrong with this...

#1. Oil is not going to last 10,000,000 years... if it were there wouldn't be an oil crisis and you'd not even know about this.
#2. It doesn't even remotely get near the mantle.
#3. If it did get near the mantle you'd have quite a bit more to be worried about... considering how the energy, pressure, and amount we're talking about.
#4. It has nothing to do with bio diversity. Just a natural process
#5. No, the earth is not heated by fossil fuels. It's has a number of processes that heat/cool it... like solar energy, Pure pressure, atmosphere.

 

[scalyblue]

..radioactivity

 

[nasher168]

Apart from anything else, the Earth's core is not kept hot by burning anything. Burning is merely a chemical reaction between the fuel and oxygen. Since there is no oxygen down there, it is impossible for any fuel to burn. Also, the core is made up primarily of molten Iron, not carbon like fossil fuels.

 

[borrofburi]

My question there for is what happens when this fossil fuel eventually reaches the low end of the earth's crust and into the mantel of the planet. Is fossil fuel apart of planetary system that fuels bio diversity as well as a mechanism to keep the planetary Furness?

... Secondly is it plausible that we have actually already spelled the doom of the planet by removing basic material for the core of the planet to produce heat with.

I like to call this the Final Fantasy VII "mako" hypothesis of how the planet works.

 

[JacobEvans]

No, you see, take a peach. This peach will be the earth. See the proportion of the skin, the meat, and the pit? Now cut it in half and swallow the pit. While you are recovering in the hospital, ask the nurse to bring you some books on geology, physics, and planetary composition.

:lol:

 

[scalyblue]

I like to call this the Final Fantasy VII "mako" hypothesis of how the planet works.

Hypothesis refuted, we all know that the Earth burns white haired leather clad prettyboys for fuel

 

[jrparri]

No, you see, take a peach. This peach will be the earth. See the proportion of the skin, the meat, and the pit? Now cut it in half and swallow the pit. While you are recovering in the hospital, ask the nurse to bring you some books on geology, physics, and planetary composition.

Wow.... win. :lol:


Earth != Vergon 6, the Sunny Doomed planet.

 

[Tsunamie]

:'(

Like I said, it was a hypothesis. Not a theory. :'(

1> The fist statement point out that it takes several million years to create oil.
2> The second statement is that we have removed large quantities of oil and coal from the earth's crust.
To address some other points.

1> I am confused on why the oil never reaches the mantel layer? Does that not go against our understanding of our tectonic movement?

2> I am unaware of material that explains why the mantel is in a liquid state and how that energy is produced and retained.

3> I am aware that the core is thought to be made of a solid block of iron.

4> We already know that several volcanic vents provide an environment for extreamofil type organisms. We also know large quantities of heat are required for the chemicals to be bonded together to produce complex proteins that form the blocks of DNA. Given that oil contains a lot of energy and it seems to go deep into the crust over time. Would it be unreasonable to ask if this could be a source of heat when it reaches a temperature to burn/ignite the material?
Questions

1> If large quantities of oil/coal were to reach the mantel? What would happen?
2> Did you assume that I had a child's image of a damn Furness at the heart of the earth? (Give me a break)

 

[australopithecus]

:'(
Like I said, it was a hypothesis. Not a theory. :'(

It's barely that.

:'(
2> I am unaware of material that explains why the mantel is in a liquid state and how that energy is produced and retained.

Radioactive decay and the accumulated heat from the bombardment phase of the formation of the earth, so far as I'm aware.

:'(
3> I am aware that the core is thought to be made of a solid block of iron.

Again as far as I'm aware the inner core is solid but the outer core isn't.

:'(
1> If large quantities of oil/coal were to reach the mantel? What would happen?

Nothing if there isn't enough oxygen to sustain a reaction.

:'(
2> Did you assume that I had a child's image of a damn Furness at the heart of the earth?

No.

 

[scalyblue]

(Give me a break)

The earth was around for a couple billion years before there was any life to create fossil fuel.

You basically asked if removing the fuzzy dice hanging off the rearview of your car will cause every steel refinery in the world to spontaneously explode. This makes it very clear that you have no sense of scale, and you have not done even one iota of research on Wikipedia, so why would anybody give you a break?

 

[Tsunamie]

(Give me a break)

The earth was around for a couple billion years before there was any life to create fossil fuel.

You basically asked if removing the fuzzy dice hanging off the rearview of your car will cause every steel refinery in the world to spontaneously explode. This makes it very clear that you have no sense of scale, and you have not done even one iota of research on Wikipedia, so why would anybody give you a break?

So the scale of my predicted doom is off. I get now that it's off by several billion years. However a simple explanation would have been sufficient. Not a load of insults? Or are you that immature?

Ps. I did do a little research. I floated the idea here because I wanted constructive critics and the opinion of other critical thinkers. Not the insults from what appear to be a couple of children.

Unfortunately there is no handy place to ask stuff like. "What happens to material that passes its ignition temperature in oxygen less environment?"

Radioactive decay and the accumulated heat from the bombardment phase of the formation of the earth, so far as I'm aware.

Does this statement then infer we are losing large amounts of heat and the mantel will start to solidify eventually? As there is no additional energy entering the system?

Nothing if there isn't enough oxygen to sustain a reaction.

I am expecting more. As material that gains energy past its ignition point would not burn. (Agreed as there is no oxygen) However I assume the accumulated energy the matter contains would propel the liquid state of the mantel? I don't expect that potential energy to simply have nothing happen after the material passes ignition temperatures. I expect it to explode or unleash large quantities of its energy.

Also, after trying to get my head around calculating how heat is lost.

http://smu.edu/geothermal/heatloss/heatloss.htm

From the planets core outwards, I have yet to try and work out how much energy we lose per year in general, if in fact the earth even loses heat energy.

 

[borrofburi]

Ps. I did do a little research. I floated the idea here because I wanted constructive critics and the opinion of other critical thinkers. Not the insults from what appear to be a couple of children.

This is like going to an evolution conference and saying something like "evolution can't happen because of the second law of thermodynamics!" and complaining when everyone there simply laughs at you: what you said displays great ignorance and a significant lack of understanding. How are the scientists at such a conference supposed to respond? "Critically" respond to his hypothesis? Spend the requisite hour to explain what the second law of thermodynamics says, what evolution says, and why thermodynamics is perfectly consistent with evolution? No, they laugh at the guy, and then move on to more interesting things. If that guy *really* wants to know, he could go take a thermo class and an evolution class and then do a quick google search on entropy and evolution (hopefully leading to this very interesting article).

So what you've done here is post indicating a significant lack of understanding of oil, the world, and geothermal energy; what you need to do is take a geology or earth sciences class and possibly a class on drilling for oil, and most of your questions should be answered naturally.

Unfortunately there is no handy place to ask stuff like. "What happens to material that passes its ignition temperature in oxygen less environment?"

Yes there is, it's called chemistry class, and the answer is simple: nothing / it melts. There are experiments where you put wood in a vacuum on a hot plate and watch it melt because there's no oxygen (ok well there's a little, but it goes away quickly) to allow a fire to happen. Also, that question is a *much* better thing to simply creating a thread to ask than making assumptions about it and developing a hypothesis, basically your hypothesis had a *large* number of things wrong and made assumptions, it would have been fine if instead you had made a thread asking several questions about what *does* happen.

Does this statement then infer we are losing large amounts of heat and the mantel will start to solidify eventually? As there is no additional energy entering the system?

The sun adds a lot of energy to the system, not sure if it's a net loss or not. I do object to the word "large amounts", if for no other reason than that large is a relative term, and while yes, the sun does lose *large* amounts of energy and will eventually stop fusing hydrogen and thus stop producing heat, it also has *extraordinarily large* amounts of energy to supply its "large" amounts of energy loss for a "long" time. See how quickly these silly relative terms lose a lot of meaning?

Nothing if there isn't enough oxygen to sustain a reaction.

I am expecting more. As material that gains energy past its ignition point would not burn. (Agreed as there is no oxygen) However I assume the accumulated energy the matter contains would propel the liquid state of the mantel? I don't expect that potential energy to simply have nothing happen after the material passes ignition temperatures. I expect it to explode or unleash large quantities of its energy.

"I am expecting more" so what? He told you nothing happens and your response is "I feel like you must be wrong"?

It can't explode, there's no oxygen. I suppose if there were some other reactive component that lead to exothermic reactions it might explode, but that seems unlikely. Potential energy goes untapped all the time, for instance diamonds at atmospheric pressure have potential energy, and yet we never see a diamond explode, rather over scores of years it slowly turns into graphite.

 

[JacobEvans]

It can't explode, there's no oxygen. I suppose if there were some other reactive component that lead to exothermic reactions it might explode, but that seems unlikely. Potential energy goes untapped all the time, for instance diamonds at atmospheric pressure have potential energy, and yet we never see a diamond explode, rather over scores of years it slowly turns into graphite.

Isn't it the other way around?

Doesn't graphite become diamond?