For those that might be curious about the Philippines and its geology then this program might be quite useful. Another by Iain Stewart on the rise of the continents. Unfortunately it doesn't deal with the Philippines per se as it is all about the creation of the continents however it does give you an insight into the absolutely colossal magnitude of forces involved in plate tectonics and continental drift. In this program he talks mainly about the slamming of the Indian sub continent into the continent of Eurasia and the creation of the Himalayas. Given that the Philippines is bounded by two active subduction zones it does help the watcher to visualise the catastrophic potential and forces at play on a group of islands that are essentially a series of vent holes in the earth for plate activity. Available on BBC iPlayer "Professor Iain Stewart shows that where the South of Eurasia is today there was an Ocean and how in 250 million years all of the continents will collide together." http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b036ks6f/Rise_of_the_Continents_Eurasia/
Having said that, there is also one of these, in the four part series, on Australia. Australia is actively heading on a collision course with Asia. So something in between has got to give. "For the final chapter of Australia's story, Iain travels to Indonesia to meet the Bajau people of the Banda Sea - sea gypsies who glean almost all they need to live from the rich colourful waters around them. Contained within these waters is evidence that shows Australia's eventual fate. Over the next 50 million years, Australia will collide with Asia, its isolation will be over, and it will become forested and lush once again. " http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p019bd2j/Rise_of_the_Continents_Australia/
Yeah. Iain Stewart is quite good at making this stuff watchable by the general public. i would be interested to hear your reaction.
Trying to watch something like that at home, with the Mrs and the daughter, would be nigh on impossible, so I wait until I am back on the shows, so that I can get my laptop out in the evenings, and scrounge the hotel WI-Fi to my heart's content. Unless it is some kind of movie, preferably pinoy channel, Xfactor, BGT, food parties with local friends, interminable window shopping trips, I don't get much of a look in........ But I have put my foot down with a firm hand if Chelsea, or any Italian Football team are playing, I will watch, regardless of consequences...
Its easy for me. Once my daughter was asleep, my wife watched Big Brother on her ipad and I watched the documentary on TV
Yep, as the Australian plate is "rapidly" pushing north towards Asia then the Philippines forms part of the meat in the sandwich. That's not to say that this collision will happen tomorrow as the final outcome is tens of millions of years away, but the stresses and forces involved in what is slowly but actively going on as we speak, gives rise to the volcanic and seismic activity in the region of the Philippines. The Australian plate is the fastest moving continent on the planet just now.
Tens of 'millions' of years, John I know that was definitely a typo In less than 10 billion years our little rock will probably have boiled away to nothing inside the outer layers of our Sun when the Sun enters the Red Giant phase. I will need to watch these too I like Iain Stewart.
Yes - corrected - thanks. I think it was 50 million that Iain Stewart estimated. Apologies there for the typo. The only thing I can't get my head around is whether or not the earth has always, roughly, rotated on the same access etc. there seems to be a supposition from the plate tectonic / continental drift fraternity that it has remained so since the beginning of time. I know it has wobbled about by a few degrees but significantly more than that? Many seem to claim that the earth is like a big flywheel that will never change its rotational axis. I would like to see Iain Stewart do a program on the Philippines. He did a series on volcanos recently too but similarly, in that series, the Philippines didnt get a mention. I don't believe it is because the Philippines lacks significance geologically, so it will have to have been for some other reason that they didn't take the cameras in. A one hour program like the ones on the Rise of the Continents, on the Philippines, by Iain Stewart would offer both Iain Stewart and his audience and the Philippines a lot of potential - a great program in the making, potentially, starring a country for whom its geology is both its greatest asset(s) and its achillies heel.
I just fixed my iPlayer installation last night Adobe Air was stuffed so I finally got to download some programs for next week's final trip to Poland and the Fracking documentary was one of them. I wanted some good comedy programs as well but sadly they are a bit thin on the ground at the moment and the BBC Si-fi stuff has no Dr Who on just now So I better get used to dubbed programs, trouble is when they dub you can't make out the spoken English
Some of them are on youtube now. Just watched the one on Africa. It deals with why the plates move at all. It turns out Iain Stewart is a volcanologist with specialist interest in earth hazards, natural disasters and earthquakes tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.
Oss. Here's another from Iain Stewart. This one might be of interest to you as it: 1] Gives a first class account of continental drift and the proof thereof. 2] Demonstrates that most, if not all of the worlds best geologists came from Scotland and 3] Demonstrates and shows how Scotland collided and fused with England many moons ago (right at the end). I use this one as a teaching aid:
There's a 1 of 3 too, featuring 3 great scottish scientists: Kelvin of Largs (degrees Kelvin) James Watt James Hutton Its a goody. There were some great Scots about in those days
Our spin axis is purely the result of the collision that created the Earth-Moon system, we ended up spinning the way we do because the early Earth was hit by a Mars sized planet at just the right angle, the angular momentum imparted by that collision gave us our current rate and angle of spin. In the early days the spin was much faster and the day much shorter, not sure but it might have been as short as 12 hours or less. When the moon coalesced out of the debris, it was much much closer about 12,000 to 20,000 miles away (240,000 miles today) and really huge in the sky, the tides it created on earth were massive, think about where life might have come from, at that time the Moon was mixing our oceans like nothing else in history, tides were maybe 100 metres high or more, water and land i.e. minerals and carbonaceous compounds plus water were interacting constantly, very high energy environment all round. When you have a huge lump of rock that close it forces stability in the rotation of both rocks, without the moon our axis of rotation would have wobbled all over the place, if not for the fact that we are a double planet (Earth-Moon) then the Earth would have tended to become tidally locked to the Sun, in other words our rotation would probably have slowed and life would have been very unlikely. The energy lost in the tides and an odd fact of orbital mechanics where tidal bulge's slightly precede the moon due to Earth's rotation result in the moon being gradually accelerated away from us, eventually we will lose the Moon altogether and even before then its influence in stabilising our axis will be lost and Earth will pivot wildly. Long time back the lock between the Earth and Moon was much stronger so yes our rotational axis relative to the Sun has always been tight, less so as time passes and the Moon gets further away but for all our history we have had a great counterweight keeping us in balance, fascinating to think we would not be here if we didn't have that wonderful man in the moon orb hanging in the sky.
Seriously are we world class geologists? Wow that's nice to know I knew about the Scotland England collision a while back, it has been a long long time that we have been fused, would be a shame to break up the political fusion just because we can't stand right wing England but that's another topic altogether
It all started in Scotland, Oss. Seems to have been a breeding ground for them. But then Scotland is an ideal breading ground too. Yes, absolutely amazing really.
