geological question...

a large majority of artifacts are found under layers of earth.
1.how do things which may have lain on the ground, become buried
over time by earth?
2.is it simply earth blown by wind which buries over time?
3.is the earth constantly bombarded by celestial dust which over time
becomes layers of earth?

thank you.

Soil is anything but "celestial dust". Its essentially organic material (ie dead things), water and air.

I agree that it is mostly organic materials, like decaying plant and animal matter.

Things also become covered due to geologic phenoma, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc. Hurricanes and other serious weather can also move soil and water to cover fossils and items (or uncover them). Even runoff from a strong rain can move soil to cover or uncover items.

I like the celestial dust idea, though. Sounds kind of fancy. I suppose if you have meteorites that make to earth, you might have dust and materials from them pack down into the soil, but by and large, items are covered by normal geological process here on earth.

[edit on 1-1-2008 by TheHypnoToad]

Artifacts get buried by many enviro. elements, wind, floods, etc.... earthworms deposit an inch of soil per 100 years...Some Lavannas and Madison, personal finds from NY... enjoy...

reply to post by last time here




if one is burried recently, their remains are interred the necessary '6 foot under'....will future excavations of a grave site determine that the 'strata' the bones were discovered in were several hundred years earlier than the day they were ritually buried?


some of those bones, fossils, artifacts, we find or excavate may not have just dropped on the surface of the land, they may have fallen into a hole or a ditch which caved in or got avalanched.



that cosmic debris thought is real , but i wouldn't figure that it would count much, maybe 1 mm in a decade & mostly accumulated on the sea floor...

but what might make a geologic difference is an impact by a meteorite/comet which might bury an existing landcape or topography by as much as several feet of material thrown up by the impact.



all in all, a thought provoking question, not easily or conviently explained

We live on an exciting planet to say the least. I have seen beaches disappear in a matter of months only to reappear just as fast. In the great deserts of the world billions of tons of sand drift with the wind and in the great lakes region of the united states I have seen sand dunes devour houses inch by inch, Our planet is in a contestant state of change. It’s no wonder that artifacts from ancient civilizations get buried. On another note look what we are doing in our land fills. Are we not burring artifacts from our civilization. What’s to say that the ancients didn’t do the same, just a thought.
As far as space dust goes, you’re right on the button. Yes, there is a measurable amount of space dust that falls each year, As far as scientist can estimate there is approximately 1,000 tons of space dust that settles on the earth each year. Whether we breath it in or in settles on land or sea it still adds up.

Keep exploring and the truth will be known

OceanExplorer

Originally posted by St Udio
reply to post by last time here

 

if one is burried recently, their remains are interred the necessary '6 foot under'....will future excavations of a grave site determine that the 'strata' the bones were discovered in were several hundred years earlier than the day they were ritually buried?


some of those bones, fossils, artifacts, we find or excavate may not have just dropped on the surface of the land, they may have fallen into a hole or a ditch which caved in or got avalanched.

this is a very good question, I am an archaeologist and I will explain this. In general, there is the "the law of superposition" in archaeology/geology, where by layers of rock/dirt that are above other layers are younger than than the layers below. This is typically, how artifacts are relatively dated to eachother (i.e. older or younger).

However, when you find pits, e.g. burials, storage pits, etc that are dug into the ground, obviously the surrounding layers of dirt are older than the contents of the dirt within the pit.

But, one can make the distinction between the two by serval ways.
1) the pit will appear as a disturbed area within the soil profile indicating that it isnt of the same age as the surrounding dirt.

2) artifacts contained within the burial/feature will be of a different age than those of the surrounding layers, based upon already know ages of artifacts types.

3) the very fact that it is a burial down into lower layers, indicates that it was dug AFTER the soil layers were layed down. relying upon the above mentioned law of superposition, since the burial couldnt have been dug unless the dirt was already there.

these arent always hard and true facts though, artifacts can move through the soil column dependent upon the type of soil or even animal digging through the soil profile (bioterbation).

Quite often you find artifacts of varying ages mixed together within a single soil layer and it takes a bit of knowledge of how soils work to figure out what goes where.
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as far as cataclysmic events they are also move obvious in the record than you might think.

In the January '08 issue of National Geographic theres a great article full of pictures about a 'mud volcano' that erupted in Indonesia, burying entire villages under feet of mud - as much a 60ft deep in some places. Potentially, the homes and businesses buried under all that mud could prove to be a goldmine for future archaeologists.

Another Question:

i live in michigan. my toilet flushes counter clockwise.

if you live beneath the equater, does your toilet flush clockwise?

why?

Originally posted by last time here
Another Question:

i live in michigan. my toilet flushes counter clockwise.

if you live beneath the equater, does your toilet flush clockwise?

why?

Yes...Basically it has to do with the earths rotation, making the nothern hemisphere Twirls Counter Clockwise and the southern hemisphere Twirls Clockwise.

It is called the Coriolis Effect and is also responsible for cylones and other vortex phenomenons in nature. there is more here.

that was interesting. thank you very much bluess!!!