Geology Questions For The Eager

[DR OSMAN]

I want to ask Somali geologist or enthusiasts some environmental questions.

1. How is land measured above sea level? is it by seeing the lowest depth of your local sea-bed vs your continental land-mass and Mountain Peaks? or is by measuring a global sea-bed vs your land elevation.

2. If we drained all the oceans of water how low is the sea-bed. If I was in say Bendar Bayla, would it be like looking at the grand canyon depth?

3. Did continents come first before oceans? I suspect u need land for sea-water to be even contained.

4. Was all the continents under water and rose up to elevation?

5. Are Islands just broken land mass from continents or where they the remnants of a land continent that went under water?

6. I always wondered with curosity if u dig a continent to it's lowest depth will u just encounter sea water? I ask cause the continents appear sitting on top of ocean kinda like filling bath-tub with water and placing board on top of the water.

 

[The alchemist]

You will benefit from using ChatGPT from the way you shoot these types of questions.

 

[Liban89]

I want to ask Somali geologist or enthusiasts some environmental questions.

1. How is land measured above sea level? is it by seeing the lowest depth of your local sea-bed vs your continental land-mass and Mountain Peaks? or is by measuring a global sea-bed vs your land elevation.

2. If we drained all the oceans of water how low is the sea-bed. If I was in say Bendar Bayla, would it be like looking at the grand canyon depth?

3. Did continents come first before oceans? I suspect u need land for sea-water to be even contained.

4. Was all the continents under water and rose up to elevation?

5. Are Islands just broken land mass from continents or where they the remnants of a land continent that went under water?

6. I always wondered with curosity if u dig a continent to it's lowest depth will u just encounter sea water? I ask cause the continents appear sitting on top of ocean kinda like filling bath-tub with water and placing board on top of the water.

I'll do my best:

1- two methods are used to estimate the global average of sea level;

a- by using tide guages which provide a constant point of reference, a datum, or base level, establishing an averaged out elevation of sea level from many tide gauges over an extended period of time. This datum is now called the North American Vertical Datum (or NAVD) and is the elevation (close to mean sea level) on which all map elevations are based. So if a wharf, highway or building is “20 feet above sea level,” it is 20 feet above this official North American Vertical Datum.

b- NASA uses satellites which constantly beam radio waves or lasers on the surface of the ocean, this generates a contentious but very accurate average of sea level for the entire globe.

2- at the beach it would be more of a slope, as you go in there will be sudden drops ranging from Meters to kilometers, like any other place on the surface the sea bed has hills, mountains, etc. The deepest part of the ocean is Marian's Trench, it is bout 12 kilometres deep (it will easily swallow mount Everest if dropped in it), The only exception one might find is river beds as there are none in the ocean.

3- earth is a rocky planet, of course continents came first then water condensed from the atmosphere and seeping from the rocks themselves as ground water as soon as it was cold enough temperature wise, water filled the low areas of the new planet as Oceans, seas, lakes and other water bodies.

4- check #3

5- islands are part of the earth's crust in between law laying areas filled with water (oceans/seas).

6- thinnest part of the crust is the ocean floor, in Hawaii you have to dig about 5 kilometres, or 70 kilometres at Everest before you reach the hellish inferno of earths mantle, it is the second layer which is about 3500+ kilometres in depth and varies from 1000 C to 4000 C depending on the depth. Humans have never been able to dig to more than 12 kilometres on the continental shelve if I remember correctly.

like you, I used to think of oceans as immense but in reality the total amoun of water on earth is pathetic compared to other materials the planet is made of. It is like wrapping a thin 0.01mm thick plastic layer on a giant cargo ship. lol