Sooner rather than later.
Astrobiologists have been continually surprised by how quickly life evolved on Earth—within 600 million years after the planet's formation, or about 3.9 billion years ago. Elkins-Tanton's findings may help explain why. "If water oceans were present shortly after the impact that formed the moon [some 4.45 billion years ago]," says Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an astrobiologist at Washington State University, Pullman, "much more time would be available for the evolution of life, and it would explain why life was already relatively complex when we find the first traces of it in the rock record."
Pin Chen, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says Elkins-Tanton presents a compelling scientific story that oceans form very early in the history of a terrestrial-type planet. Chen notes that the work also supports the suggestion that early Mars had a wetter climate than it does today and thus might have supported life. So, too, might a number of Earth-like planets that astronomers are just beginning to discover, says Schulze-Makuch.
Hope you've been enjoying Boardz N The Hood the past couple weeks and have been motivated to dust off those old relics and reminisce (your surfboards that is- not grandma and grandpa). I've posted a few more episodes since we spoke last- from amping groms to outdoor enthusiasts to artists in AND out of the ocean- these surfers cover the gamut. If you have time this weekend (and I know you fellow Quarantinians do), check out stories 1 through 7. Or just peruse the boards you find interesting. Who knows, you might find something new you want to ride and fire up the stoke again. Check them out below and look for new episodes every few days until the beach ban is lifted!
SURF:
What up everyone! Either I'm in a good mood because the weather is awesome outside or I have cabin fever. Regardless, the water is REALLY warming up (more on that below), there's some tropical activity off Baja today (no, seriously), and we're most likely closer to the end of this beach ban than the beginning. So we got that going for us. Before you know it, we'll be back in the water, doing turns in trunks! Can't wait.
As far as the surf goes, we had windy conditions early in the week from a passing cold front then clean fun conditions mid-week from a dying NW/SW. Still nothing big but it sure looked good with sunny skies and water temps hitting 68 in N County! So what's on tap this weekend? Great weather and not much surf. Sounds good to me since we're landlocked. We've got leftover S swell along W wind/groundswell this weekend. Best combo spots see chest high sets. And here's some numbers to mull over:
Tides and sun this weekend are:
- Sunrise and sunset are:
- 6:07 AM sunrise
- 7:26 PM sunset
- Water temps in N County today hit a peak of 68 due to the warm sun. A few feet below the surface it was most likely 64. But still...
- And I was told that the tides are on hiatus until the beach ban is lifted
FORECAST:
We've got a little bump from NW windswell on Monday/Tuesday (and leftover small S swell) for chest high surf and a touch more low clouds. The 2nd half of next week looks like waist high SW/NW and great weather again.
Charts show some activity off Antarctica late next week which could give us fun chest high+ SW around the 7th. Is that the weekend when the beach ban will finally be lifted? Our best bet is to stay the course, #stayathome, and help flatten the curve so we can paddle out again.
On a side note, there's a disturbance off Baja tonight. It most likely won't amount to much but it's a good sign so early in the hurricane season.
WEATHER:
After spending a week indoors due to torrential downpours, Mother Nature instead is telling us to get outside and enjoy the sunshine. Temps in the high 70's yesterday will inch up slightly today and Saturday for near 80 at the beaches. We have a slight dip in temps Sunday/Monday (not really), then high pressure sets up shop again the 2nd half of next week for more temps near 80. Get outside this weekend, do some exercise, and be in shape for when it's time to rip. Don't want those arms feeling like jello! Make sure to check out Twitter/North County Surf if anything changes between now and then.
NEWS OF THE WEEK:
The thing that gives us joy (the ocean that is, not Hostess Fruit Pies)- where did it come from or how was it formed exactly? We know that the stork brings babies, money grows on trees (or maybe I have that wrong), and hot dogs come from... well, we don't know exactly. But the point is, did some divine being turn on their hose a billion years ago and fill up our planet like it was a galactic pool? That would be the simple answer. The real answer (which is my best guess since we weren't at the beginning of Earth's formation), is that water remained a gas until the Earth cooled below 212 degrees Fahrenheit. At this time, about 3.8 billion years ago, the water condensed into rain which filled the basins that are now our oceans. Most scientists agree that the atmosphere and the oceans accumulated gradually over millions and millions of years with the continual 'degassing' of the Earth's interior. According to this theory, the ocean formed from the escape of water vapor and other gases from the molten rocks of the Earth to the atmosphere surrounding the cooling planet. After the Earth's surface had cooled to a temperature below the boiling point of water, rain began to fall—and continued to fall for centuries (kind of like last week's rains). As the water drained into the great hollows in the Earth's surface, the primeval ocean came into existence (and the first surfer paddled out at Lowers around that time). The forces of gravity prevented the water from leaving the planet.
Astronomers long contended that icy comets and asteroids delivered the water for them during an epoch of heavy bombardment that ended about 3.9 billion years ago. But a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge the past decade suggested that Earth supplied its own water, leaching it from the rocks that formed the planet as mentioned above. The finding may help explain why life on Earth appeared so early, and it may indicate that other rocky worlds are also awash in vast seas. Here's what MIT had to say:
Our planet has always harbored water. The rubble that coalesced to form Earth contained trace amounts—tens to hundreds of parts per million—of the stuff. But scientists didn't believe that was enough to create today's oceans, and thus they looked to alien origins for our water supply. Geologist Linda Elkins-Tanton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge didn't think researchers needed to look that far.
To make her case, she conducted a chemical and physical analysis of Earth's library of meteorites—a useful analogue for the building blocks of our planet. She then plugged the data into a computer simulation of early Earth-like planets. Her models show that a large percentage of the water in the molten rock would quickly form a steam atmosphere before cooling and condensing into an ocean. The process would take tens of millions of years, meaning that oceans were sloshing around on Earth by as early as 4.4 billion years ago. Even the scant amount of water in the mantle, which is much drier than the sand in the Sahara, should produce oceans hundreds of meters deep, Elkins-Tanton reports in an upcoming paper in Astrophysics and Space Science.
Our planet has always harbored water. The rubble that coalesced to form Earth contained trace amounts—tens to hundreds of parts per million—of the stuff. But scientists didn't believe that was enough to create today's oceans, and thus they looked to alien origins for our water supply. Geologist Linda Elkins-Tanton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge didn't think researchers needed to look that far.
To make her case, she conducted a chemical and physical analysis of Earth's library of meteorites—a useful analogue for the building blocks of our planet. She then plugged the data into a computer simulation of early Earth-like planets. Her models show that a large percentage of the water in the molten rock would quickly form a steam atmosphere before cooling and condensing into an ocean. The process would take tens of millions of years, meaning that oceans were sloshing around on Earth by as early as 4.4 billion years ago. Even the scant amount of water in the mantle, which is much drier than the sand in the Sahara, should produce oceans hundreds of meters deep, Elkins-Tanton reports in an upcoming paper in Astrophysics and Space Science.
Pin Chen, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says Elkins-Tanton presents a compelling scientific story that oceans form very early in the history of a terrestrial-type planet. Chen notes that the work also supports the suggestion that early Mars had a wetter climate than it does today and thus might have supported life. So, too, might a number of Earth-like planets that astronomers are just beginning to discover, says Schulze-Makuch.
Even so, Max Bernstein, an astrochemist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., notes that Elkins-Tanton's models don't include the possibility that the huge asteroid and comet impacts prevalent during the formation of our solar system boiled off the water. "Just because there was an ocean early on," he says, "doesn't mean that it stuck around long enough for life." Elkins-Tanton counters that even a huge impact would not cause Earth-like planets to lose more than half of their oceans.
BEST OF THE BLOG:
PIC OF THE WEEK:
As soon as the quarantine is lifted, this is the first place I'm going. After Pacific Coast Grill.
Keep Surfing,
Michael W. Glenn
Exhilarating
I Blame Solar Flares For Messing With My Moral Compass
The Quarantine Has Made Me Surfbored
