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- Greenhouse gas cycles, specifically those tied to gas hydrates and their collection at ocean depths greater than 600 feet during the eustatic Highstand, and their melting and warming of the atmosphere during the Lowstand, when there is not enough water depth to keep hydrates frozen (discussed more in section 2.C.iii. of this chapter).
- Caves and studies of the age of stalactites and stalagmites, including studying the number and thickness of calcium carbonate growth rings, rings which have been built up across geological time by slow deposition in caves, and rings which measure time just like like tree rings.
- Normal faulting, and the relative age of different fault blocks, which can be estimated based on the sequence in which the different faults occurred and the deepest layers which are faulted.
- Thrust fault sheet correlations, showing how rock sequences repeat because compressive forces tied to plate tectonics pushed layers of rock up and over the same layers of rocks, causing repetitions in the geological record to be found with the drill bit. Sometimes three and four thrust sheets are stacked on top of each other in the Canadian Rockies south of Calgary, or in Columbia's thrust belt in northern South America.
- Paleontology correlations of microfossils demonstrate certain layers of rock are the same age as layers of rocks someplace else.
Any of these geologic processes could have been selected to illustrate how the geological is something to be acted upon. Likewise, any of these geological processes demonstrate how puny mankind is in comparison, particularly when we consider mankind since the creation of written historical records, about 6,000 years ago.
Cuneiform script is one of the earliest forms of written records. It was created by the Sumerians approximately 3,000 B.C. in the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys.3.150 This is now southern Iraq. Cuneiforms wedge shaped symbols were drawn with a blunt reed called a stylus on clay tablets. These pictographs were replications of certain signs to indicate the names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, and other "determinants."3.151
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paradoxes