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http://hdl.handle.net/2122/8838
Authors: | Hurrell, Stephen | Editors: | Scalera, Giancarlo Boschi, Enzo Cwojdzinski, Stefan |
Title: | Ancient Life’s Gravity and its Implications for the Expanding Earth | Publisher: | Aracne Editrice, Roma | Issue Date: | Dec-2012 | ISBN: | 978-88-548-5693-6 | Keywords: | Ancient Gravity Expanding Earth Reduced gravity Earth Scale effects |
Subject Classification: | 04. Solid Earth::04.03. Geodesy::04.03.05. Gravity variations | Abstract: | Galileo Galilei emphasised in the 17th century how scale effects impose an upper limit on the size of life. It is now understood that scale effects are a limiting factor for the size of life. A study of scale effects reveals that the relative scale of life would vary in different gravities with the result that the relative scale of land life is inversely proportional to the strength of gravity. This implies that a reduced gravity would explain the increased scale of ancient life such as the largest dinosaurs. In this paper, various methods such as dynamic similarity, leg bone strength, ligament strength and blood pressure are used to estimate values of ancient gravity assuming a Reduced Gravity Earth. These results indicate that gravity was less on the ancient Earth and has slowly increased up to its present-day value. The estimates of the Earth’s ancient reduced gravity indicated by ancient life are also compared with estimates of gravity for Constant Mass and Increasing Mass Expanding Earth models based on geological data. These comparisons show that the Reduced Gravity Earth model agrees more closely with an Increasing Mass Expanding Earth model. |
Appears in Collections: | Book chapters |
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File | Description | Size | Format | |
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Hurrell2011-Ancient Lifes Gravity and its Implications for the Expanding Earth - Erice.pdf | Book chapter | 438.01 kB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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