The Bottom of the Ocean Is Sinking

The Bottom of the Ocean Is Sinking
www.livescience.com...


Satellite data enables scientists to map the seafloor, which is sinking under the weight of rising seas. (This map shows gravity anomalies in the western Indian Ocean. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

The bottom of the ocean is more of a "sunken place" than it used to be.

In recent decades, melting ice sheets and glaciers driven by climate change are swelling Earth's oceans. And along with all that water comes an unexpected consequence — the weight of the additional liquid is pressing down on the seafloor, causing it to sink.

Scientists have long known that Earth's crust, or outer layer, is elastic: Earlier research revealed how Earth's surface warps in response to tidal movements that redistribute masses of water; and 2017's Hurricane Harvey dumped so much water on Texas that the ground dropped 0.8 inches (2 centimeters), the Atlantic reported.

So this is interesting...who would have thought that rising sea levels would mean that more weight was put on Earth's crust? I don't know about you but I think this redistribution of weight has an effect on everything. But for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. I am no scientist but my question is what do this kind of ocean compression mean in the big picture of things?

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

More earthquakes to come?

The implications would depend on how much of the ocean floor is sinking and where would it not? Resulting in more earthquakes because of plate pressures and more volcanic activity etc. I no expert. Is there one in the room?

I personally don’t care one bit! When I was a kid we where all doomed with the coming ice age. Then black holes, then nuclear wars and the USSR, then killer meteors, then global warming, oh I forgot Y2K. I’ve got to get to work, the leaches need my tax dollars, enjoy..

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

Years ago i saw a little snipped in a newspaper about Scientists finding a area of the planet that had no mantle and they would need to re-write all their science because of it , never heard another word about that !

originally posted by: WUNK22
I personally don’t care one bit! When I was a kid we where all doomed with the coming ice age. Then black holes, then nuclear wars and the USSR, then killer meteors, then global warming, oh I forgot Y2K. I’ve got to get to work, the leaches need my tax dollars, enjoy..

We were also doomed because we'd never be able to grow enough food to feed 7 billion. But then food scientists solved the problem and here we are.

We were doomed because of Y2K, but hundreds of thousands of programmers worked very hard to soothe out any problems and in the end it passed without major incident.

We are doomed when AIDS arose, but thanks to the hard work of virologists, the virus is more or less under control now.


It's great that you personally weren't worried, but other people were, and solved problems before they became emergencies.

a reply to: Painterz

I really liked the stories of old pharts being wheeled out of rest homes to clean up Fortran bugs in Y2K, that none of the newbie's knew how to deal with. Gee, what woulda, coulda, or shoulda, happened if the computer revolution, act 1's, Fortran, had happened thirty years earlier in the Twentieth Century. It's one thing to push a wheel chair, but digging up graves, ain't a gonna do anything to solve problems.

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

That does not sound too clever. The ocean floor sinking.

a reply to: purplemer
In another O.P. I replied that Paleo Coastlines and present ones are at the same high water point. I was making the argument that we are at the Zenith of an inter glacial period. Greenland's ice sheet has to go somewhere if it melts, and we are topped out right now, with the Paleo records. So maybe there is some kind of balance point, where the thin oceanic crust sinks under this extra weight. We won't know, unless things warm up enough to melt Greenland, green again.

I never thought about that happening. Good find OP. So the sinking might offset the higher water levels on the shores, so there may not be so much lost land as thought. I would think that the added stress could have an effect on fault lines, but that is just a guess. Maybe volcanic activity will increase too.

Lake superior pushed down considerably during the glacier, it is supposed to rebound some day.

a reply to: Painterz

Uh, AIDS killed 40,000 Americans before Regan even addressed it. It wasn't until I rock Hudson died, finally funding kicked in. 4 years after the first known case.


By the early 90s, countless numbers had died here in the U.S. because the government ignored it, many more died than had to.

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

I often wonder how quick Pangaea broke apart and if the opposite could happen , I've always been told "If it happens once it will happen again"

If?? it will happen in a few 100 million years earth
smd-prod.s3.amazonaws.com...
what is strange to me is that it started with one giant landmass and ends up one giant landmass .
The questions are why was the earth so lopsided to begin with ?And why will it end up back to being so lopsided ?
There is no good reason the earths mass was off center and there is no good reason why earths mass will once again be off center .
Being it all started as a ball of dust it should be well centered and land masses should be evenly disturbited more or less .
really more of a bumpy roundish rock with water added but it look more like a potatoes with one side being Much larger then the other .
If you look at a gravitational map of earth it is all out of wack ( wonder what a gravitational map of mars or Venus would look like or better yet Uranus .

Now there is a planet taht had one heck of a impact in the past it was turned sideways and rotates like a tire rolling down a road wile earth is more like a wobbly top spinning .

Wait, what?!?

Rock is heavier than water. It sinks. So then why wouldn't Mt. Everest be dropping like a rock (see what I did there?) towards the center of the Earth?

a reply to: AnonymousCitizen

Because the ROCK is pushing it up. It is where two plates are colliding, snashing into each other at a very slow rate. That is why the mountains there are so huge.



The rock is pushing up the rock.

originally posted by: rickymouse
I never thought about that happening. Good find OP. So the sinking might offset the higher water levels on the shores, so there may not be so much lost land as thought. I would think that the added stress could have an effect on fault lines, but that is just a guess. Maybe volcanic activity will increase too.

Lake superior pushed down considerably during the glacier, it is supposed to rebound some day.

True...and I don't think the Earth will implode on itself.

originally posted by: midnightstar
If?? it will happen in a few 100 million years earth
smd-prod.s3.amazonaws.com...
what is strange to me is that it started with one giant landmass and ends up one giant landmass .
The questions are why was the earth so lopsided to begin with ?And why will it end up back to being so lopsided ?
There is no good reason the earths mass was off center and there is no good reason why earths mass will once again be off center .
Being it all started as a ball of dust it should be well centered and land masses should be evenly disturbited more or less .
really more of a bumpy roundish rock with water added but it look more like a potatoes with one side being Much larger then the other .
If you look at a gravitational map of earth it is all out of wack ( wonder what a gravitational map of mars or Venus would look like or better yet Uranus .

Now there is a planet taht had one heck of a impact in the past it was turned sideways and rotates like a tire rolling down a road wile earth is more like a wobbly top spinning .

Meteorite impact on the other side of Earth?

a reply to: Skywatcher2011

i would not worry too much , in the uk ever since the last ice age began to melt Scotland has been rising and the south of England has been sinking , that is one of the reasons that the thames barrier was built .

Anything to promote the global warming scam.
a reply to: Skywatcher2011

And still no ABYSS sequel in nearly 30 yrs? Waaaa