How Life Drives Mountain Building on Earth & What This Means for Space Exploration | GEO GIRL

[@tott598]

This was a new one for me, despite being obsessed with evrything about evolution for all my life, love it when these new wild ideas pop up, so much to daydream about 😁

[@JamesSimmons-d1t]

dreams are nice. we may survive millions of years here, but we cannot know about life elsewhere, and even our tiny abilities in high tech will vanish forever with the coal.

[@tott598]

@@JamesSimmons-d1t should have gone "within the coal" 😄

[@Dragrath1]

@@tott598 Eh while it might have made a fun pun my OCD nitpicker is kind of glad they didn't since coal is fossilized peat so it is unlikely our remains will end up part of coal directly unless someone goes about making peat bogs into cemeteries. Granted there appears to be growing evidence that coal veins aren't formed from just any old peat bog but preferentially those which formed as part of volcanic subduction arcs the largest concentration of which formed during the Late Paleozoic ice age as a result of tropical low lying continental shelves or basins shifting between peat bog and shallow seas with the rise and fall of sea levels between glacial and interglacial cycles. We are kind of breaking down that glacial interglacial cycle by dumping large amounts of carbon back into the atmosphere so we might no leave much coal beds to form. Instead the type of carbon deposition which dominates during hothouse climate conditions with abrupt rises in carbon dioxide concentrations is black oil shales where ocean eutrophication leads to mass accumulation of dead organic carbon inaccessible to aerobic decomposition piling up on the sea floor and getting buried. It is kind of ominous that we find these kinds of shales for basically every mass extinction as the massive loads of eutrophied organic material either wash out to sea and or sink to the sea floor. Within the black oil shale isn't as catchy though....

[@tott598]

@@Dragrath1 Ah yes, pendantism usualy doesnt work well with poetic expressions, for example when someone mentions "a gasoline rainbow on a puddle of rainwater", the explenation of how the light bends because of the 2 different refraction indexes of the mediums is not relevant information and takes away, rather then ads to the expression. Or another example would be "the chocolate starfish". Different, but similair concerns. 😆 Not all wordplay are puns, some of it is actualy good :p

[@noeditbookreviews]

You are? Me too!!!

[@AshkonHemmati]

Speaking to a lady, she mentioned her daughter is into geology, and I had her write down your channel! Excellent work, keep it up! And by the way, your sound levels are perfect.

[@toweypat]

Wow! I never would have guessed that life on Earth made mountains bigger. Amazing!

[@toastyburger]

I upgraded my membership today, and look what I got! Two videos in the same day! What I understood from this video is that life helps to build taller mountains at convergent plate boundaries by "lubricating" the plates with graphite. Other process, such as volcanism, can create mountains without the help of organic carbon. I'm thinking about the Cascade Range near me, which sits along a subduction zone. It's both a convergent plate boundary and a region of active volcanism. I wonder if organic carbon helped it along or if it's more like Hawaii? Anyway, I heard elsewhere about the hypothesis that life requires plate tectonics, and look forward to your deep dive on the subject. In the meanwhile, I'll get caught up on the "Not All Tectonics is Plate Tectonics" video. Thanks for the education, GEO GIRL!

[@johnrobinson5156]

Great presentation 👏 Enjoy GeoGirl . Looking good 👍

[@eaterdrinker000]

While I respect Rachel's intellect and presentation skills, we now know she has a overwhelmingly attractive physique and skin tone, which she has chosen to show off in this episode. I might fixate on this video for a long time.

[@joecanales9631]

Howdy Doc, thanks for your videos, always interesting. I hadn’t seen a connection mountains and life before, but you showed us one! Seems to me the complexity of molecular dynamics that represents life is tied into systems that require a large enough difference in entropy to drive this complexity. I guess these areas of high energy or entropy gradients are conducive to life and tectonics: hot spots, thermal vents, spreading centers. I predict life will be common in the universe, anywhere with complex systems driven by hot in one spot and cold in another. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Geo Girl.

[@olorin4317]

Worlds with plate tectonics and “stable” long term land could be pretty rare. Having a large moon and the process that created it may be pivotal.

[@JamesSimmons-d1t]

good. hundreds more necessities for life list-able...and for life to avoid asteroids and comets too large, for 4 billion years, VERY unlikely? Which elements can, which can't be in what range of abiogenic parameters...

[@marcondespaulo]

Not only the Moon being so large and so close, but also Jupiter being so massive and acting like a giant meteor magnet.

[@nathanmiller5658]

Great video GG! I really love these super detailed, very scientific explanations, even on subjects, or especially on subjects which are an initial conjecture of a new physical mechanism.

[@michaeleisenberg7867]

Hello Rachel 🪻, I love how you magically 🪄 processed this information and presented it to us. Excellent job! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@philc1372]

Thanks

[@ronaldbucchino1086]

Fascinating -- thanks Doc.

[@danon-theautisticmaker8112]

Ya it would definitely make sense how that bio matter could & would loosen, almost lubricate the bond of the rock material thus increasing it's plasticity & allowing surface breaking to happen, expanding till forming of the plates, & then the plate tectonics to move, shift helping the creation of thicker crust forming.

[@testostyrannical]

Need to hear the straight dope on plate tectonics and life, really looking forward to the next ep.

[@pequerobles]

Another terrific video 👏😘

[@tomschmidt381]

This was certainly a Saturday morning surprise. I've long be aware life has re-sculptured the surface of earth, but had no idea it may have facilitated mountain building. Those little single cell critters certainly have done a lot. I re-watched the earlier tectonics video and that raised another question. Seeing how tectonics has changed over time what if any effect did the impact that formed the moon have? I assume the impact reshuffled surface material.

[@GEOGIRL]

Well continental crust (and thus, mountains) were extrememly limited (if present at all) by the time of this impact. So (to my understanding at least), it is likely the impact just set back the timeline of crustal differentiation and mountain formation on Earth a bit as it contributed a lot of heat which slowed down Earth's cooling process. If there was any pre-existing continental crust before this impact it was likely re-melted, re-mixed with the other lithospheric material and then re-differentiated (into oceanic and continental crust) later. Hope that makes sense! :) Also, disclaimer, I am not an expert in the moon-forming impact or anything so deep in Earth's history (in the Hadean eon), so take these thoughts with a grain of salt ;)

[@williamnajera1173]

I'm amazed by the way it looks like you aren't reading off of anything with these massive segments of information, you are by far the most interesting geologist who can communicate this info relatably that I have been lucky enough to encounter!

[@GEOGIRL]

Thank you so much! That is so kind and encouraging :D

[@Oberon4278]

So if there was no plate tectonics before the carbon was laid down, how did the carbon get into the crust? What bootstrapped the movement?

[@wapartist]

For some reason I’ve become obsessed with geology recently. Love your content!

[@GEOGIRL]

Thank you! So glad you enjoy my content :D

[@DjSapsan]

I know why :)

[@rockets4kids]

@@DjSapsan Welcome to the "men of culture" thread...

[@wapartist]

@@DjSapsan haha . I promise im not a geology creep

[@nickfosterxx]

Wow. Today I Learned... Thanks, nice explanation. Another video saved to playlist.

[@shadeen3604]

excellent vidio DrGeo girl thank you

[@_andrewvia]

Thank you Dr Phillips. Sci Show is fully staffed with researchers who glean enough content to fill 5 or 10 minutes of video. You, by yourself, are generating college-level content which easily fills a half hour. That's really awesome!

[@GEOGIRL]

Thank you so much! That means so much :D

[@whattheheckisthisthing]

Super interesting video! I like your presentation style

[@BillySugger1965]

One of my favourite documentary series is the BBC’s Earth Story, presented by biologist Aubrey Manning (available on DVD, do watch it, it’s beautifully made and presented). The series is about geology, but from the perspective of a biologist learning about a sister field of science and discovering deep connections between the two. One of the series’s recurring themes is how geology has influenced the development and evolution of life, and how life has influenced Earth’s geology. Thank you Geo Girl for exploring this link again 😊

[@erinl4111]

So fascinating!

[@qwertyuiop1st]

Given that Titan seems to have quite a bit of carbon my reflexive assumption would be that it tends to have 'a lot of mountains'. (What percentage of mountainous surface would count as 'a lot' for a world like Titan may be a good bit different from what would count as 'a lot' on Earth....) Yet another fascinating video!

[@trtlphnx]

Very Apt Conversions It Is!!!

[@jadams3427]

'Love your videos, Rachel. Thank you. I used to think you were a geology nutty teenager, locked in your bedroom by your parents (that's how it looked in the videos), so you could keep talking geology without bothering them ! The idea amused me. Nowadays, I know this is just my own nonsense ! I am in automotive design, but I wish I had studied geology. I recommend Nick Zentner videos too, to your followers.

[@geosamways]

Great video Rachel! Very interesting! I am intrigued by trying to understand causes and effects. It is a critical part of systems thinking, particulalrly in geosciences (entirely relevant to the global warming story).. Your comment about hot-spot volcanoes made me think back to how the crust came into existence in the first place, and how it evolved with time. I think in the first instance there was a largely vertical differentiation of minerals, based on density, as the lighter silicates rose to the top, resulting in the less dense minerals forming a relatively uniform crust. But then mantle magma convection cells must have created localised hotspots that exploited local weaknesses in the crust (which could never be completely uniform). The surface is then locally loaded up with piles of volcanics (like the shiled volcanoes on Mars), which are also mineralogically differentiated as they rise, cool and crystalise, which thickens the crust and changes the denisty distribution again. This results in lateral variations in crustal density and thickness, which means some areas of crust are more likely to be dragged along by convecting mantle than others, and sink lower than others. Sooner or later, the lateral differentiation of the crust into thicker and thinner areas, with different densities, must result in something getting shoved under something else. Wherever this happens, you will get basins that start to recieve the products of weathering and organic productivity, resulting in even more lateral variations in density and thickness. So I wonder if you get basins full of organics preferentially deposited along existing proto-plate boundaries, that are already starting to subduct, collide and form plate tectonic mountains chains. The organics depoisted in the associated basins just happen to facilitate and accelerate the process!

[@michaeleisenberg7867]

👋Rachel 🍍, I love this video. I had to watch it again! If I ever go back in time, to geology 101, any test question that asks how or why did this happen, the answers are, in order: 1. Volcanism (LIPs), 2. Rifting and Orogeny, and the catch all when no has a clue, 3. Impacts!

[@Afridisamiullah776]

Amazing video soo much knowlegeble. Still waiting fro biomarker video, huge fan from Pakistan

[@UnionYes1021]

Thank you again for sharing your expertise and enthusiasm on this topic. You have my enduring gratitude doctor!

[@GEOGIRL]

Thank you so much ;D

[@cedricsalazar3169]

Hi, Rachel!! I have always wondered how we technically define “mountains.” I think it will be interesting to learn more about it in the same way that you defined sand as a sediment size in your previous videos rather than the material as it is most commonly being referred to.

[@barbaradurfee645]

Do you sleep Rachel? Wow nice work amidst all your other projects.

[@paintbrush3554]

This is a great video!!

[@ianhorsham7751]

At first this didn't pass the smell test for me. However, not so sure now. Nothing ceases to amaze me. I do recall that Mars had detected seismic activity. I wonder what we may find there in the future.

[@patrickgriffiths889]

Excellent. Thanks.

[@EdwardRLyons]

Some 25-30 years ago or so there was a geology series on British TV (I think it was on Channel 4) where one episode included this possibility, of a link between life and plate tectonics. I'd love to see that episode again in particular, but I've never been able to track down details of the series, never mind the episode. My recollection is that the link was supposed at the time to be the regulating effect that life has on the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere, maintaining it within relatively stable limits, thus preserving the presence of copious amounts of liquid water on the surface and even in the crust. This water was then hypothesised to have a role in lubricating the tectonic plates, maintaining their mobility. So the link between life and plate tectonics was indirect. It's hugely interesting for me to see the latest thinking on the link between life and plate tectonics, that it's carbon that acts as the lubricant. Great video!

[@neotericrecreant]

Another banger.

[@briancurtis6022]

So biogenic oxygen isn't so much a requirement for mountain-forming, but it could be an accelerant. (Not a catalyst, since it's also consumed in the process.)

[@royaleblizzard2460]

Wow....Amazing 😍

[@girolamocastaldo8653]

Very clear, thank you

[@berylman]

In my hiking of the Appalachians I've found these exposed massively deformed rock faces with natural graphite within the layers and always wondered why. Great video!

[@theeddorian]

The large blank spot is that while graphite formation might help lubricate subduction zones, it offers no explanation for the appearance of rift zones where new crust forms. Effectively graphite might speed up crustal formation, island arc formation, and mountain ranges along the far edges of subduction zones succeeding the volcanic arc formation.

[@GEOGIRL]

Absolutely. It speeds up tectonic processes once they get going, but the formation of these plate boundaries is originally driven by convection deep in the mantle. Well said :)

[@theeddorian]

@@GEOGIRL There is a lot to sort out before that correlation becomes clear.

[@ianbotha9912]

There is a study in South Africa that investigates the role lightning had in erosion in the Drakensberg Mountains. Their conclusion was that lightning was the main erosion factor, not water. That could be a good study to follow up on in other mountain ranges.

[@danwylie-sears1134]

At some point, increased deformability has to mean lower mountains: if you go all the way to hypothetical rock soup, it would flow into layers by density, rather than making mountains.

[@marvinmartin4692]

The core is heated by uranium in the core and with the nickel iron core as well the heat as well as the moon play a role in tectonics as well as asteroid impacts ! Life had a very insignificant impact on plate tectonics!

[@robertanderson809]

Like, Gaia lubed the crustal motion. Without intent or care, but chemistry seems wildly complex. Fun!!

[@meesalikeu]

the question sounds silly on the face of it, but who the heck would have thought mountains could be even associated with life? it’s fascinating and surprizing. thx for drilling down on this for us. 🎉

[@RobertMStahl]

Plus, Lynn Margulis (who brought up these facts, too) also cites the myriad miracles recorded vis a vis anaerobic bacteria b4 oxygen, truly myriads, such that that 'power' is why the anaerobic 'perspective' escaped in2 our guts, N, the black lake bottom. In addition, James MacAllister goes in2 some detail about the carbon in question in his piece on biological relativity, on his KZbin channel.

[@leechild4655]

I never considered this but it does make sense when you think it through. Similarly we would not have fire without organic material that can burn. No life, no fire.

[@hotbit7327]

One of the best popular science videos I've seen, great job GeoGirl!

[@GEOGIRL]

Thank you so much ;D

[@theobserver9131]

Wow! If I wasn't familiar with your credentials, I'd have filed this in the faux science can.....I could not have imagined the connection between mountain building and life! There's one for James Burke.

[@jamesleatherwood5125]

As i found out the other day, in order for there to be the kind of plate tectonics you need in order to have an effective and stable carbon cycle that allows for more stable climate and therefore the time for complexity to evolve, you apparently need more that just density-differentiated rocks, the proper core size to heat ratio, and a mars sized protoplanetoid screaming in to crack the thinner crust up and start the whole process. You apparently also need some lubrication of the kind water canbot provide. Turns out you need sedimentary layers comprised of organic molecules, and specifically you need a buid up of microscopically small carbon packets providing some slippage and frictiob reduction the way graphite lubes up a sticky car window. So. As one single piece of one filter, not even the great one, just a basic filter any life really needs to get through in order to be thriving instead of surviving, in this case specifically the need for complex life to have a stable enough environment for long enough to develop, meaning both a moon and plate tectonics (both of which were provided to us by theia's collision) you also need a layer of dead microbes to form a slippery sediment layer to overcome the initial binding friction and send one plate hiigher and the other lower So in order to ger the kind of sustained plate tectonics we have, just to get started in the first place, needs photosynthetic micriscopic life to develop in a planetary ocean and start dying, takibg atmospheric carbon wirh it. And this needs to happen before the last protoplanetary collision of the initial planet forming stage has has happened, and it needs to hapoen before the recycle-breakdown type of bacteria form for the waste material in question has a chance to evolve. And it needs to do it so in enough time before before that collision to have formed a sedimentary layer if spent carbon and dead microbes. Then when the proto planetary collisiob happens the plate edges can move relative to each other and the process stars. And as long as there is microscooic dead things falling down to the ocean floor and assuming tgeirs enough radiation in the core to keep the insides hot enough to have a magnetoshpere generated. So. Complex life needs plate tectonics and moon, but plate techtonics needs microscopic life as lube and another big pkanetary body to makes quakes and shake and slippy slidies. And thats just ONE piece of one part of the "Stable Carbon Cycle" filter that basically, as far as we know, is kind of foundational to long term survival of anthing that evolves in any planetary system, and is essential for intelligent life such as the type we are ourselves to be able to evolve and flourish. Image how complex some of the more complicated later filters are if this one is fairly basal!

[@gaufrid1956]

I enjoyed your video. It's an interesting question.

[@anothersquid]

I approve of your cephalopod plushie.

[@terenzo50]

If I understand you, it's more of a peri hoc ergo propter hoc than a post hoc ergo propter hoc situation. Please give Hope a loving squeeze for me.

[@jackprier7727]

Fun, wonderful, enlightening, fascinating--Yeah graphite is slippery, for certain. Now for the other argument-- The severe erosion of landforms which are non-vegetated means WAY more sediment transfer than in otherwise comparable but vegetated landforms. Gotta be a huge factor in there also--

[@tigrecito48]

Can someone explain to me how life doesnt make the Earth gradually get bigger? I did ask someone this before and they said it doesnt make the Earth grow. But, I thought energy gets transformed to matter. Energy cant be destroyed. So isnt all life that uses solar energy, turning that energy into matter? So the sun is therefore making the Earth has more mass? Or does the sunlight not actually produce anything physical in plants? Chlorophyll creates sugars? I cant remember how it works exactly. I did study environmental science many years ago. Maybe sunlight just makes the useable energy so the tree can move the physical elements out of the earth to create the tree/plant? like carbon & phosphorus. And that energy is again released in the same amounts back into the air? i dunno... please explain how it works, thanks.

[@TheDanEdwards]

What you're missing (among other things): the Earth radiates light, in the infrared. Indeed, current human-driven climate change is happening because we're interfering with the outgoing IR.

[@rebdomine1]

Energy can be converted to mass, but that's not what is happening with photosynthesis. The Earth loses energy through heat about as much as it gains from sunlight (or it was before me messed with the atmosphere). Photosynthesis uses sunlight to break the bonds in CO2 to free up the carbon for use in sugars, and release O2 as a waste product. It takes a lot of energy to create a little bit of mass. The C in E=MC^2 is the speed of light and is a very big number. We run particle accellerators like the LHC that use the energy of entire cities to create tiny fractions of a gram of antimatter.

[@LuisAldamiz]

E=mc^2 only really applies (at least in any intense form) to nuclear physics, where most of the mass exists as result of strong nuclear energy (gluon field). This field is not breakable nor can be created anew unless in the energy density of Big Bang physics. Some of it "leaks" to the nucleus and that can be exploited in nuclear energy generation (fusion) inside stars (which is anyhow fed by massive gravitational energy input and that makes it impossible to replicate at our scales, no matter what the abracadabra physicists and engineers say). The weak nuclear force allows for fission nuclear energy, which also exploits E=mc^2 at an even lesser scale. The rest is classical chemistry (with a bunch of bio-chemistry tricks that are of course fascinating) and don't really change mass of things, only turn higher energies such as visible light into lower energies such as heat, transfering the difference to chemical bonds that store energy (sugars, ATP, etc.) that is used later for biological functions. So what does the Earth get from all that overall? Heat, most of which is returned to outer space, greenhouse gasses allowing.

[@d36williams]

that are on your wall, top right of camea frame, is dope

[@TropicalCoder]

That's amazing! I never knew where graphite came from. Never even questioned it. Did diamonds come from carbon that came from living organisms? Do diamonds have the same isotopic carbon ratios as well? I know there is an abundance of carbon in the universe. Does it all manifest as molecular gasses, or are their natural carbon compounds as well?

[@rachidilloul5410]

Merci !

[@AlEndo01]

Several times you mentioned carbon-rich deposits facilitating mountain formation. Is that only with organic carbon (as opposed to inorganic)? The total amount of elemental carbon is stable before and during life.

[@ChristopherSummer89]

This Video was very helpful for my Studies -- that which produced Oxygen (Cyanobacteria), also seems to have (as a Side-Effect) given a massive Boost to the Beginnings of Orogenesis. Very useful Information, thank you very much!

[@adrianconte2848]

How about mountains creating circumstances for life to thrive? Micro and macro climate impacts? Which in turn favored increases in mountain building in a feedback loop?

[@tigrecito48]

That guy who made that comment sounds like a genius! lol

[@patryn36]

So this triggers a question for me: how is it determined that the carbon is organic in origin? Is it solely a timing thing or are there fossils and such denoting the difference?

[@rebdomine1]

Carbon isotopes are how we tell this. Organic carbon deposits have more C12 in them because plants can't process heavier C13 as well. So when we find carbon deposits that have very little C13, we know it is organic in origin. Heavier in C13 means it was geological in origin, like the carbon from a volcano. This is also how we know the extra carbon in the atmosphere over the last few centuries is from fossil fuels, it has little C13 in it, because the coal, oil and gas that we burn is organic in origin.

[@patryn36]

@@rebdomine1 that sounds like an assumption since we know only present and very recent past life chemistry for certain, previous to all that may have had slightly different processes, like being not optimized enough to be picky about which isotope works better. So it seems to me that saying life is hooked into tectonic processes to the point that it affects to that degree sounds to be a bit of a stretch. Thinking that a deposit being light in one element being a sure fire sign that life did it is also a bit presumptious, density variations happen without life being involved and heavier items tend to sink when in a liquid, and from a bit of info search it looks like whatever triggered the permian extinction had a sizeable effect on the atmosphere, that whole situation sounds as if a massive proton bombardment event happened or something else of that nature which would alter the ratios that are being depended on. It is an assumption that the ratios we know of now have always been when they may have been different, one of the element's isotopes being used to point to whatever caused the event decays into nitrogen and the variety is the one that is most common as well.

[@billkallas1762]

I like the term "sinkers".

[@nicholasmaude6906]

So, Rachel, a lot of big mountain ranges formed more easily due to graphite lube?

[@GEOGIRL]

Yep, basically ;)

[@sparkyfromel]

the amount of material created by living organisms is just insane , IE pretty much all chalks

[@Dragrath1]

Yeah the link between tectonics and life is very much a chicken or the egg picture what with the sample size of one thing. I have had some concerns about the carbon isotope bias thing in recent years since I learned how volcanic carbon's carbon 13 bias is derived from it being less compatible in crystal lattice structures that some of what we think is living source carbon biases might just be due to it being crystalized carbon sources. I hope the life carbon bias is a unique enough signature but my concern is that crystal lattices may be overprinting their own carbon 12 bias onto carbon sources when they crystalize. Is there a way we can check for this bias? On that note regarding having only a single sample of life there is an increasing possibility based on the growing evidence for multi gas disequilibrium and the algal bloom like variations in the coverage of the anomalous unidentified UV absorber that something life like if not life itself is going on in the Venusian atmosphere. Phosphine(though in lower quantities than initially reported) Ammonia potentially even oxygen and the weird behavior of the Anomalous UV absorber which continues to defy explanation as well as the large elongated bacteria sized particles found by sampling probes descending through the Venusian atmosphere. Whether it is or isn't life, and if it is it will be strange what with it living within sulfuric acid droplets, the weird chemistry going up in the Venusian atmosphere will likely be an important clue in untangling some of these questions given Venus's many similarities and differences to Earth.

[@nicholasmaude6906]

3:01 - Are there ancient coal-deposits from that long ago, Rachel?

[@GEOGIRL]

Yep! Before the GOE there was plenty organic matter from early life (microbes) which led to the formation organic deposits in the rock record, like coal. The early organisms that led to the GOE (oxygenic cyanobacteria) were just one type of organism around before the GOE, there were many other anaerobic microbes that were present likely even before oxygenic cyanobacteria! :D

[@nicholasmaude6906]

@@GEOGIRL How does the quality of the pre-GOE coal compare to, say, Carboniferous era coal in terms of quality and energy content?

[@GEOGIRL]

@@nicholasmaude6906 Oh well, organic deposits that old are extremely deformed, fragmented, weathered, eroded, and/or altered by now, so they are certainly not high on the list of 'useable' fossil fuels ;)

[@robbabcock_]

It would be awesome to see Dr. GeoGirl do John Micheal Godier's "Event Horizon" program to discuss this topic!

[@Kosmonooit]

Mountains can also arise when areas around them erode, is Drakensburg South Africs

[@FlameofDemocracy]

Did massless energy start to create mass in lifeforms, therefore adding more weight? Interesting to consider.

[@tigrecito48]

i saw another interesting thing about how we are looking for life, but the wrong colour of life. ie mostly green. i dont think it was you that did it but i have a bad memory so forgive me if im just explaining one of your videos. lol. basically what im talking about is, that apparently, there are far more red suns in the universe than yellow suns like our own.. because red stars give off a different type of light, green plants wouldnt be efficient enough to be successful.. so apparently life would more likely be PURPLE on solar systems with red suns.. (at least life that uses solar energy)

[@tikaanipippin]

Sedimentary rocks may depend on erosion and sedimentation, and there are some sorts of rock that are entirely dependent on life, not necessarily organic deposits though. Limestones are usually fossiliferous, due to sedimentation of biological animal remains, specifically shells, corals and sponge spicules. Organic remains tend to become liquids or gases that will move through porous strata over geologic time to form oil and gas domes beneath impervious strata, and beneath the oil, denser water and soluble salt deposits. The exception is plant remains deposited in swamps that are anaerobic, which remain highly carbonaceous in the form of coal measures. Fossil organic carbon - fossil fuels - coal, oil, and gas - show the same isotope ratios for carbon as modern plant biomass, but inorganic carbon in the form of carbonates in limestones derived from animal shells have the same isotopic ratios as ocean bicarbonate with higher ratio of the heavier isotope carbon-13, since ocean bicarbonate is depleted of the lighter carbon-12 isotope by planktonic ocean algae that sequester C-12 just like land plants do.

[@cicad2007]

So, when the majority of graphite is subducted... plate tectonics will slow down, or stop? Then what?

[@GEOGIRL]

Well that is a question that can be answered a couple different ways... (1) Assuming all graphite could be subducted, yes, it may slow down plate tectonics since graphite helps make the rocks more deformable, but it would not cause it to stop completely; but (2) graphite is continually produced since life on Earth still exists, so it is unlikely all graphite will become subducted, at least in Earth's near future. If we think far future, like billions of years, it is possible all life may go extinct as Earth becomes uninhabitable due to the increasing solar intensity of our sun; however, by then, plate tectonics is likely to have slowed or stopped anyway due to the ever-increasing thickness of the lithosphere (see my tectonics v plate tectonics video for more on this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rGaaiYeEgdSKgdksi=66u4lywPLbU0sK5M) ;)

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

Life predates plate tectonics by ~2billion years. So, the question rather is - does plate tectonics depend on life?

[@GEOGIRL]

That is the major question I look into in the next video! :D It will be out next week ;)

[@objective_psychology]

Great video! Btw, I think you misused the word “necessitate”

[@williammontgrain6544]

12:33 um, that's not the Valles Marineras depicted in the far right picture. That's a section of the San Andreas on the Carrizo Plain in California. That's an entirely different planet. WTF?

[@barryfennell9723]

Is obsidian when pressurized oil in the tectonic plates moves towards a volcanic fissure? In that case obsidian rock by volcanoes would mean the planet probably has oil.

[@TheDanEdwards]

"Is obsidian when pressurized oil in the tectonic plates moves towards a volcanic fissure?"

[@LuisAldamiz]

Obsidian has no relation to oil at all: it is a volcanic glass made of non-carbon stuff, oil is made of carbon stuff. I just watched yesterday a video on Barbados island (which is unexpectedly rich in oil) and how it contrasts with its volcanic neighbors (all the other Lesser Antiles), where there is no oil whatsoever. Oil and volcanoes do not mix well, oil is sedimentary, not at all volcanic.

[@pedroulrich2465]

I really wish that I had geology class in my school… (Geopolitics (Which is what we’re having instead) is boring AF…)

[@badabing3391]

would it be true that life allows mountains that are taller than is possible otherwise?

[@mrpieceofwork]

"This just in: Pencils Push Peaks"

[@carlosalbertogonzval121]

Yes, the mountains have life, likely microbiological. The astrobiologists are exploring this scenario at another planets. For example, Mars have extremophile bacteria in its surface.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Plate tectonics is what creates mountains. Olympus Mons: "Hold my beer."

[@erkinalp]

olmpus is a volcano, volcanoes don't need plates

[@johnvl6358]

😎

[@jackshaftoe1715]

I was sure this was going to be mountains of shells I swear it !

[@BobSmith-ew5oi]

If the plates freeze orogeny will cease but so many other life sustaining process will go as magnetic field and oceans disappear by increased solar wind. The only life created rocks are the limestone and sedimentary from the deep ocean that ends on top of mountains. Then life processes begins the erosion of mountains to start cycle again.

[@LuisAldamiz]

So plate tectonics yes/no is a misleading question (like most yes/no questions), right?

[@artysanmobile]

Ok, I give up? How has life dictated the movement of the earth’s crust? I’d love to hear the person to whom you referred explain that. As you say, correlation and causation were coincident but not linked. Circular reasoning may be fun but it isn’t generally good science.

[@GEOGIRL]

Well, it's not just correlation, we actually know the mechanism involved: life creates ogranic deposits which can form rocks like graphite which lubricate fault surfaces making the lithosphere more deformable and mountains thicker. So, it's not that life has fully 'dictated' crustal movement, but it has likely contributed at least a little bit in this way. Hope that makes sense ;)

[@ski364]

So life is a catalyst for mountain building. But not required.

[@JacquesMare]

Hi can you tell us what is causing the immense forces that is driving the mountain-building of the Himalayas in India? It seems like an unreasonable amount of force is exerted at the boundary between the Asian and Indian plates, more so than at other plate boundaries causing the Indian continent to basically destroy itself like in a slowmo car crash scenario. I also heard that the deccan traps in India had formed shortly after the meteor impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 mya, implying a possibly link between the impact and the rapid acceleration of the Indian plate movement towards Asia. Seeing that India is geographically on the otherside of the world from the where the impact had taken place, is it possible that the impactor crushed through the crust to drive the process that is slowly destroying India? If not, what could possibly be the driving force behind this action, other than normal continental drift, that can destroy a continent in such a spectacular way?

[@chochonubcake]

So sometime in the future, we may have sequestered enough carbon into the earth's crust to cause the tectonic plates to slide around like air hockey pucks. There would be no more earthquakes, but if you drove across country, your destination might have moved by the time you got there.

[@tedetienne7639]

Oh my gosh, am I going to have to change my “Geo Girl Sunday Morning Geology Time” to “Geo Girl SATURDAY Morning Geology Time”? I’m so calcified in my ways, if this is a permanent change, this is going to be a seismic shift for me. (Geology puns are the worst!)

[@GEOGIRL]

LOL the geology puns are so great 😂 Also, I'm not sure yet if it'll be permanent or not, it kind of happened on accident, maybe I'll take a poll to see which day people like better :)

[@tedetienne7639]

@@GEOGIRL - Ugh! I just realized - Instead of saying " if this is a permanent change...", I should have said, "if this is an unconformity..."! Opportunity for another geology pun... missed!

[@wildmanofthenorth1598]

Soil requires life

[@JamesSimmons-d1t]

Since it is impossible for any life form to travel interstellar distances, or even for a tiny number to move AND LIVE on another planet in the same solar system~IT WOULD HAVE TO HAVE NEARLY IDENTICAL BIOCHEMISTRY...odds against THAT are, well, ASTRONOMICAL... I have studied science fantasy for 65 years, while my parents held many national directorships in the sciences...love fiction, must accept reality. Manyway, need not complete these sentence frags because

[@josemariatrueba4568]

It's not impossible. Bacterial life has been found in asteroids landing on our planet after traveling huge distances in space coming from God only knows where.

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

I'm feeling destructive. I want to go to Titan and toss out a lit match.

[@fredwoods-o3g]

In one place you say; "yes, life caused mountain building", and back it up with a few maybe and probably statements. Then you go on to say; "no, life did not cause mountains". Suggest having a friend review the content before publishing. I know mountains exist on other rocky planets where life doesn't exist, so that question is answered for me.

[@GEOGIRL]

Sorry if my terminology was confusing, I meant to emphasize that yes, they likely contributed to mountain building on Earth, but are not absolutely required for mountain building processes. And yes, you are right that moutains exist on other planets, there is still no planet that we have explored deeply enough to definitively say that there is no life currently on that planet nor has there ever been (becuase remember mountains would be a signal for organic deposits, and thus, ancient life, not extant life). In any case, I agree with you, I just wanted to explain why I tried to emphasize these points in this way. Sorry for any confusion! ;)

[@fredwoods-o3g]

@@GEOGIRL Should include moons with planets, as there is the potential for a gas giant to have an inhabitable moon or two. And gas giants are more common, at least as far as current instrumentation can tell. You do bring up an interesting point about carbon, but the carbon has to exist before life can utilize it. Well, I'm not aware of any natural process on Earth that creates carbon from other atoms.

[@user-Vida-Locust]

I'm ready...my time is up. Ah, ta, ta, ta, ta...bye bye.