Abaia and the undines

Jeff Wilson · 10 Dec 2008, 05:37 · from 2008-December.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:37:34 -0600
Subject: (urth) Abaia and the undines
In-Reply-To: <1f7617370812091447l39e73211q646269fb5455ebaf at mail.gmail.com>
References: <493ED04C.7060202 at verizon.net>
	<493EE060.6080708 at gmail.com>	<cdbc18280812091442u69966198uad4c84461a057a5f at mail.gmail.com>
	<1f7617370812091447l39e73211q646269fb5455ebaf at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <493F559E.9060705 at io.com>

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 2:42 PM, Matthew King <automatthew at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wolfe presumably knows--and expects us to know--that under the ice at
>> the South Pole currently sits a continent.  What's going on here? Is
>> this one of those singleton clues Wolfe likes to drop?
>>
>> Possibilities:
>>
>> - Everyone agreed to a cartographic inversion
>> - Magnetic poles reversed
>> - Antarctica drifted, like, really far
>> - A Velikovskian pole flip
> 
> Actually, Antarctica is the single strongest argument against my
> theory that the continents have shifted position noticeably by the
> time of BotNS: the Megatherian Erebus is named for the volcano
> on Antarctica in which, apparently, he makes his residence. I was
> kind of surprised that nobody mentioned this when I proposed it.

Existing volcanoes travel with the continental plates. In the case of 
Hawaii, there's a relatively stationary hotspot in the mantle that burns 
new ones through the crust as it passes overhead, leaving a trail of 
volcanic mountains.  Erebus is the last of a group of volcanoes over a 
closing-up vent with no particular hot spot. (this is all pre-1980 
concumer encyclopedia geology, btw,) So Mt Erebus stays at the edge of 
Antarctica, whether Antarctica goes or stays.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
< http://www.io.com/~jwilson >

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