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Years ago there was a program on TVO (the equivalent of PBS) for children called The Big Blue Marble. The opening picture for the show was the picture of earth that had been taken from one of the first space flights. It did look like a big blue marble but the name sounded so dead and inanimate that it irked me to no end every time the program came on the T.V.

The reason why it irked me so was buried in my subconcious and was based on some perspective that I had seen in my mind's eye. The picture in my mind's eye was that of a vibrant, growing organism known as the planet earth.

It wasn't until later in life that I studied geology and realized that the earth was a growing organism. From Gondwonaland to Pangaea to the present day the earth has grown. With the destruction of the earth's surface to the construction of the earth's surface life in many form abounded and died leaving, as its legacy, its body.

Hundreds of millions of years of whatever life grew died and left its body. On its body new organisms grew and died. Interspersing with the detritus of what had come before. Year after year, layer after layer the organism grew. Proof of its growth can be easily be seen in the Grand Canyon.

From the cambrian rock to the desert of the present day, it is there for you to gaze at in awe and wonder. One can easily imagine that if the earth wasn't a living entity or organism then reason would have it that we would be living on the bottom of the canyon.

When you talk about the surface you talk about the crust of the earth. You get the feeling that that is the end of the line. The last level. There isn't anymore. In my mind's eye is that picture of the Big Blue Marble.

It isn't though... is it? What would the circumference of the earth be if we measured from the bottom of the canyon? Does the pressure exerted by this biomass of eons have an effect on the earth? Does the mid-Atlantic rift find its cause as being the crust evening itself out from the weight of the bio-mass? The questions aren't endless? They can all be answered. Can't they?

Phew Kensloft, i won't even pretend to understand any of your post, but i thought i'd post a pic of "The Big Blue Marble" just for you....

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Dear Abbey,

I have posted this in two places. The other is in earth changes. The reason why I chose to add it to the astronomy thread is that I thought it would pique the interest of some astronomers. Usually, when one thinks of planets, one thinks of inanimate objects floating in the sky. Lifeless objects or are they?

Here on earth - are you familiar with geology - living entities have been living and dying for hundreds of millions of years. From the echinoids, trilobites or dinosaurs they have all left their remains on the earth. Lifeforms grew from whatever soil or remains that there were. As evolution moved along so did the changes in the lifeforms. They grew from whatever there was that they could feed off of on the earth.

In the beginning when the earth was initially cooling what formed was the rock of the pre-cambrian and cambrian eras. With the water and its erosive effects on this rock there came a soil. In the soil, eventually, life grew. At first microscopic then multicellular. They grew on the nutrients that were provided in the soil, air and water. It all evolved into what we see before our eyes today.

What we see today is a result of these lifeforms piling on top of each other, steadily growing upward. It is much akin to a garbage dump. The more you dump, the higher it gets. If you can imagine this happening over the eons you can see that there is a growth. What most people think when they think of planets is that if they were to come back and visit every couple of hundred years or so it would still be the same size.

If they were to come back to earth it would have grown, so to speak, from the biomass that were the trees, animals or plants. When you go to the Grand Canyon and look down into its depth you see the original rock that was the earth when it first cooled. As you look up you see the different strata or layers of rock that, at one time, were the lifeforms of those particular eras. After millions of years the weight of the biomass on the levels above it create a pressure that turns it into stone. Layer by layer you can see the growth of the earth.

The earth's crust is that bottom level. Everything that is above it was laid there over the eons raising it to the level of what we see today. If we dig from the top to the bottom we will uncover the remains of the life forms that came before us. This is called palaeontology. Archaeology is the same principle but it only covers a minute amount of time when compared to the earth's age.

I hope that this clarifies the idea a little more so that you can understand what my premise is all about.

Thanks for the picture.

Thankyou, i do understand that post a little better but i won't make any promises to start studying Geology or go out & buy a telescope.

I may go & visit Jodrell Bank, it has a radio telescope called the Lovell, its only about 40 miles away. :driving:

Anybody that is in the know of Geology will be able to discern what it is that I am saying but, happily, there are those whom don't quite understand, whom you have reminded me to address otherwise what I had said would be considered as being esoteric. The museum of Palaeontology website at the University of California at Berkeley. This link: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/tectonics.html

-will get you to a page that will show you the formation of the continents with a time line. Scroll down the page to Plate Tectonics Animations and have fun. This will give you an idea of how the continents have gotten to where we are today.

If, by chance, you make it to the obsevatory bear in mind, while peering into the telescope, that out there are, probably, a multitude of planets that are, as the earth is, teeming with life. There could be life out there.

These continents were the bottom of the Grand Canyon. As the planet is today it belies the belief that the world is static and immutable. Space exploration is opening our eyes and we are beginning to see that there is life even where we don't believe that there is any. The Big Blue Marble is more the Big Blue Greenhouse.

A lot of the terminology that is used in geology owes itself to geology having been developed in the British countryside using the ancient names of the local tribes (that had lived in these areas early in British History) as the basis for the nomenclature. The three lowest (deepest) layers of the earth lie exposed in and around Wales.