Re: Tectonic News - off topic

[Allan Edels <edels@msn.com>]

Phil:

I've actually noticed that the majority of people have been extra kind and 
courteous.  I've had 2 different people point out parking spots for me in 
different shopping centers/malls.  I did have one person who insisted that 
she was in front of us in line at the crafts store, who was not kind or 
courteous.

Allan Edels

Oh, yeah. DINOSAURS!!!!  (They're not courteous OR kind!!!)


> From: Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>
> Reply-To: bigelowp@juno.com
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Tectonic News
> Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 10:24:10 -0800 (pst)
>
>
>
> On Mon, 12 Dec 2005 08:58:12 -0500 "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr."
> <tholtz@geol.umd.edu> writes:
> > > From: Dora Smith [mailto:villandra@austin.rr.com]
> > > Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2005 6:16 PM
> > >
> > > I have a question, though.   How old is the Rift Valley?
>
> > Neogene, but I'm not sure of more than that. Some hunting in the
> > tectonic and stratigraphic lit for East Africa would give you the
> > answer, though.
>
> Some sections in the Awash area contain late Middle Miocene
> vertebrate-bearing sediments (~ 11 mya), meaning that sediment was
> infilling a large depression at that time.  Also meaning that this
> particular depression predates the beginning of the rifting process.  But
> IIRC, there are basalts in the area, suspected of being rift basalts,
> that are dated as Oligocene. (~ 30 mya).  So the earliest glints of the
> rift process may be as old as Paleogene (mafic-rich volcanic activity
> usually precedes the valley-forming block faulting).  At the other end of
> the time scale, Mount Kilimanjaro is a rift-related composite volcano of
> Plio-Pleistocene age.
>
> Speaking of large depressions....
> Has anyone else noticed that people on the streets/cafes/malls/grocery
> stores/work are crankier *more* than usual this holiday season?
>
> <pb>
> --