Myron this video was phenomenal. You are an incredible communicator and teacher, the very fact that I live in a time where you exist and in a time where you can upload and produce your own educational content is one of the best perks of this crazy wonderful existence.
Imagine what it was like when my ancestors settled Iceland around the year 900. They were extremely tough people. Thanks for the geological lesson! I love Iceland ❤
As a Norwegian I'm somewhat weary of the romanctic notion that Vikings were somehow possessed of almost superhuman abilities. They were simply people living on unproductive land who supplemented their income by killing and stealing in much the same way as most of the humanity which has generally populated poor agricultural land throughout history.
Always glad to watch your videos. Two months ago, we followed the Oregon Trail from northern Kansas into mid Wyoming, then Tetons, Yellowstone then to Missoula to see the bath tub rings. Loved Glacier NP, Little Bighorn BF, Devils Tower then Black Hills.
You, sir, are the Mister Rogers of Geology. 🙂Fred Rogers knew that understanding helps to reduce irrational fears without diminishing rational respect for great forces. You just did that here, thanks very much!
Thank you for bringing some joy to my life this afternoon. I find your videos so enjoyable. I prefer your long form videos, but this was a tremendous explanation and a real treat to see today. Thank you again for all of your videos. They are just wonderful! They bring me joy.
These fissure eruptions in Iceland seem similar to the lava flows in the El Morro area of New Mexico where I understand there were also fissure eruptions or "curtains of fire" around 1000 AD. Once I saw a piece of broken Anasazi pottery with little painted stripes that had been caught in a piece of pumice that hardened around it. Although that may have come from the area around Sunset Crater in Arizona which also erupted about 1000 years ago. I wonder if the composition of the lava is also similar in these fissure eruptions Iceland/New Mexico, or completely different from each other? Would it be a low silica content that creates this kind of eruption?
Mr. Cook, your channel should be called The Joy of Geology. Your obvious enthusiasm and extremely clear explanations are sure to inspire many future geologists. Thanks so much!
1st time I have seen you...about Gulf of Mexico escarpment?...I think. Really enjoyed it and learned something new at 64...thank you. You make it easy to understand. I am now watching your video on Pangaea and Iceland and tectonic plates. Your visuals are very very good as well as your descriptions. I wish I had you as my teacher when I was young. Well done.
That’s a lot of quality information packed into such a short video. I’ve been watching several other geology channels following Iceland, but if they explained some of these details, I must have missed it. Love your channel Myron.
Such a great way to visualize it! I should look it up, but what’s the avg depth of the ocean in terms of those pieces of paper? And does the oceanic plate tend to dive below the continental plate because it is less rigid? I thought it was because it was heavier. Lots to learn. Thanks again!
In the this age of cheap AI voices and art flooding RU-vid content, a real voice and a real human with something of value to communicate. Big thanks to you.
This is one of the best channels on the internet. You never cease to amaze me with knowledge. Never realized just how thin the crust really is. Great video.
Another wonderfully put together educational video! I really like geology... Such deliciously layered information. Then you have Myron here... The cherry on top. The red little delicious ball on top. Telling the story of all the delicious lays below. Making this information so easy to consume! Myron thank you for presenting simple real world information we can all relate to. In one way or another. It makes learning so much easier and fun!
Very interesting, I didnt know there was such a huge difference in crust thickness. It always struck me that there seems to be very few hotspots given the size of the earth, and the apparent size of the spots themselves, Idve thought there be more points of convection or whatever it is.
Myron, you are great at story telling. Great videos. Glad I found your channel. When I saw your name, I thought, I know that guy! I was one of the crazy drilling guys you had to put up with in West Texas in the mid 80s and 90s.
Wow! What fun to hear from you Sam. I definitely remember you, you were great to work with all those years ago. I sure hope all is well with you and loved ones. For the time being, all is well in my world but you know how life can send you some curve balls...I know they're coming.
Kia ora from NZ 🇳🇿 Myron, thank you so much I learnt much today - appreciate visual explain(s) relative to ball and sheet(s) of paper - indeed this earth human(s) live when viewed/seen from this perspective is fragile. I'm 61 year(s) old still learning, expanding, stretching my understanding best I'm able to at my age 🌊 🦗 🌱
I find it useful to visualize the convection currents driving the plates. We should all have experience, hence intuition about convection currents in a near boiling pot of water or air with smoke or dust in it.
You're really amazing at translating potentially scary science into easy to understand terms, it's incredible. I like scaling the earth down to an exercise ball especially. the usual comparison I hear is "if the earth were the size of an apple then the crust would be thinner than the apple's peel" and that's too small! you can't easily picture an apple peel sliding around on the apple. sheets of paper on an exercise ball? well you can try it out for yourself no problem! Well done. Also thank you for mentioning that iceland is on a hot spot! I learned that surprisingly recently and I'm still confused why it isn't as well known as hawaii. I spent years wondering why iceland was an island when the rest of the atlantic ridge isn't!
Wow, I'd never heard that Iceland was also atop a hot spot. That's a great further insight into what's happening. Thanks. I had always imagined, or understood, that the movement of plates over a hot spot, is what changed its location on the surface. But here's one that's crossing the spreading zone of a mid oceanic ridge. How does that work?
I'm a doctor of physics and usually think in terms of nano, femto, or atto seconds. I still can't get used to 😅millions of years 🤷🤷🤷. The 11 sheets of paper visualization was perfect....I understand a little bit better 👍👍
I have enjoyed the program and very much appreciate the on going work. Do you know about the lava flow from Quebec to Alabama? I'm in north carolina and saw the video on the Appalachian. We did a summer trip on their caverns and so enjoyed that. Thanks!
Hi Myron. I hope you, Shawn Willsey and Nick Zentner unite. You 3 are the titans of the Pacific Northwest/Range and Basin geology. All three of you love geology and sharing geology with your fellow man. On Feb 4, Nick and Shawn hook up. Can't wait to see the three of you together. Very special!
That is understandable as the hotspot is moving in the same direction as the European plate. If stationary is would be moving away. Also it has moved from the north to south in the past, the North American plate is moving west.
Remember that the spreading zones wander too. And NA has moved in a giant arc since it broke away, heading northwest, then west, and now southwest. But note that NA is so large that motion relative to Earth's axis will depend upon location on the plate. And NA is also slowly rotating counter clockwise.
What a good teacher the earth is naturally wonderful from the elemental mineral as crystals grow deep in the caves undisturbed in a vacuum as the waters moved here and there under the crust. It's too vast and too marvelous for anyone to know it all. What we need to do here is to scale it up. . . Fascinating truly it is.
Thanks as always Mr Cook! I have a question however: with the use of that exercise ball can please explain the mathematical scale (ie the size of the ball to the actual earth). I'm assuming that scale can then be applied to the width of the paper. My prayers out to all of the Icelanders 🙏.
As the Earth’s ice melts, it redistributes weight on a global scale. This causes those paper thin crusts to stretch in some places and contract in others or to sink a little more in places and be floated up in others, changing the stress loads, causing more fractures
I'm not sure the expansion of the mid Atlantic ridge can be treated as a continuous process since Greenland was still connected to Eurasia prior to the same timeframe for the emergence of the North Atlantic Large Igneous Province its hard to tell causality from that development but the formation of the North Atlantic from what I have read on the subject seems to be a well defined period of continental rifting associated with the break up of the minor supercontinent Laurasia quite probably linked towards the hotspot's plume emergence. In that sense it seems to be more episodic in nature involving many facets of Earth's systems. That said I'm glad the role of intrinsic motion on hotspots was brought up as that seems to be a fascinating relevant detail that has come to light only relatively recently in large part enabled by technological improvements, in particular it seems hot spots over time tend to drift towards the nearest mid ocean ridge systems, Hawaii is a bit of an outlier in a number of respects but it does overlie one of the Large Low Sheer Velocity provinces in the mantle the other of which lies beneath Africa parts of the south Atlantic and western Indian ocean.
I absolutely did find this video interesting. I usually do but this is right on point. all the upheaval we live in daily exists on this thin layer of our earth, and is more or less totally to be expected! at least as far as the earth is concerned, and not the ideology of some of it's inhabitants :)
Following these recent eruptions north of Grindavik has been fun but I need to learn about Icelands glacial covered volcanos... melt water and magma make for powerful and violent behavoir
Right around the time that Pangea broke up wasn't there a large meteor strike that is 250 Mi wide crater, which also caused the Great dying? How would that have affected the continental crust?
Hi Myron. If it's not too far outside your field, can you explain why the deep sea is colder than both the air and the hot crust below it ? I assume it's about precipitation, but the sea lies directly ontop of a magma 'oven' and active fault lines, so it should in my mind be much hotter ? Perhaps the bottom, the sea crust is 'insulating' the water, or the heat are going somewhere else ? Anyway, thx for fine videos. My father was a geo-nerd too :-)
