r/EarthScience • • Aug 24 '26

Discussion How would a mixture of Argon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Xenon serve as a replacement for our air?

8 Upvotes

The exact percentages I came up with are 72% argon, 22.3% oxygen, 3.5% hydrogen and 2.1% xenon, these being the main gasses aside from other negligible inert gasses that would add up to .1% (probably nitrogen and some carbon dioxide). I'm asking this for the purpose of a fictional story that halfway takes place on an alien planet, but with such an environment that a human can live in and be healthy while doing so. The size of the planet is only a bit smaller than Earth with much less water on the surface but going down much deeper into the crust.

So, these are my main questions:

Would these gasses have any unintended psychological effects on the human mind?

Would these gasses interact with each other poorly?

How would fire act in such an environment?

Would this gas mixture affect the creatures that are living there, causing them to grow differently from humans? If so, what might be different?

Would you change any of the percentages?

My apologies if I'm thinking too much into this, because the research I've already done tells me that not much would change aside from the air density. But, I may have missed something. Thank you for taking the time to read this!!

EDIT: Nitrogen would probably take place in the water, like the rivers that stretch out all throughout my fictional planet, which would feed into the soil, which would feed into the vegetation which would feed into the fruits which would feed into the animals which would feed back into the ground or water. I hope this fixes the nitrogen issue.

r/EarthScience • • Aug 31 '26

Discussion How can Earth get covered in snow in modern day?

4 Upvotes

I am working on a writing project and I love the concept of Earth getting completely covered in snow for a long period of time, but how could this actually happen? It would likely had to have happened artificially but I'm not completely sure. What do you all think I should do?

r/EarthScience • • Aug 18 '26

Discussion At what point in Earth's history was the ratio of overall land area the highest compared to the sea, and vice versa?

6 Upvotes

Currently we have a ratio of about 71% sea to 29% land on the earth's surface, which is probably more land favoured than normal considering the cool temperatures and large ice caps.

But I'm just curious when in Earth's history appears to have the highest ratio of land to sea, my immediate instinct is to assume it was one of the recent glacial maximums in the last 2 million years when sea levels dropped by up to 150 meters and huge amounts of new land was exposed, but I've also heard that the early Triassic also had very low sea levels, I don't really understand how that works if there were no major ice caps on earth but maybe someone could explain that to me.

Conversely, when was there the least amount of land and highest sea level? I've also heard the mid Cretaceous mentioned for this when you had sea levels so high that things like the Western Interior seaway in North America while large parts of Europe, Africa, Australia and South America were also flooded, but again I don't know anything about other points in earth history where this might have been more dramatic.

r/EarthScience • • 21d ago

Discussion Earths surface

0 Upvotes

Is there a measurable curvature for the earths surface?

r/EarthScience • • 4d ago

Discussion Earthquake tremors felt in SL

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2 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 20d ago

Discussion ¿2030 y 2045?

0 Upvotes

¿De dónde sale exactamente la idea de que en 2030 y 2045 ocurrirá una catástrofe? ¿Cuál es el origen de esas fechas y en qué estudios, informes o fuentes se basa esa afirmación? Me gustaría saber si existe alguna evidencia científica que lo respalde o si se trata simplemente de una predicción o rumor difundido en redes sociales.

r/EarthScience • • 1d ago

Discussion Stone Water Pump TWRA Property

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1 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 6d ago

Discussion [Open-Source Concept] Multi-Ply Laminated Marine Pykrete (MPL-Pykrete) for Polar Ice Reinforcement

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2 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 6d ago

Discussion [Open-Source Concept] Multi-Ply Laminated Marine Pykrete (MPL-Pykrete) for Polar Ice Reinforcement

2 Upvotes

TL;DR: Combining active Arctic sea-ice pumping with a pre-rinsed, desalted macroalgae (seaweed) gel matrix to 3D-print high-tensile, multi-layered "rebar" ice that resists flexural ocean swells and summer melt.

Hello everyone, I have been running a theoretical thought experiment around mechanical sea-ice preservation and wanted to put this concept out to the community as an open-source (CC BY 4.0) proposal for peer feedback, CFD/thermal modeling, or further collaborative development.

The Core Concept: MPL-Pykrete: Current geoengineering trials—such as pumping ocean water onto winter sea ice—add thickness, but the resulting ice remains brittle under wave action. Additionally, salty brine drainage creates internal structural weakness.

By introducing a desalted seaweed fibre slurry in alternating cycles, we create a laminated composite—effectively 3D-printing bio-reinforced ice.

Structural Layering Breakdown: Layer 5 (Top): Pure Seawater Ice — White, High-Albedo Solar Protective Cap

Layer 4: Seaweed Gel-Ice Matrix — Tough Structural "Rebar" Layer

Layer 3: Pure Seawater Ice — Thermal Buffer

Layer 2: Seaweed Gel-Ice Matrix — Tough Structural "Rebar" Layer

Layer 1 (Bottom): Base Natural Sea Ice

Key Mechanics & Mitigations: Tensile "Rebar" Layering: Macerated seaweed (packed with alginic acid and cellulose) forms a flexible gel-fibre matrix. When flash-frozen, it absorbs bending and shear stress from ocean swells, preventing micro-fractures from propagating through the ice sheet. Pre-Rinsed / Desalted Biomass: Rinsing harvested macroalgae (e.g. invasive Sargassum or cultivated kelp) with rainwater or low-salinity washes before processing removes surface salts. This raises the slurry's freezing point to near 0°C and prevents brine channel formation, creating a dense, non-porous composite.

Albedo Preservation ("Dark Ice" Shielding): To prevent dark organic fibres from absorbing solar radiation during continuous polar summer light, each organic slurry layer is capped with 4–5 layers of clean, high-albedo pure ice. Citable DOI & Open-Source Status Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) as open-source prior art—free for anyone to model, test, or build upon. Conceiver / Author: Stuart Peacock OSF Project / DOI Link: doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6UZBY

I would welcome any insights or critiques from anyone working in materials science, fluid dynamics, or polar engineering!

r/EarthScience • • 5d ago

Discussion Dear Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Seismology Team,

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0 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 9d ago

Discussion Travels with 6thExtinctionLab Mobile Unit -Time Capsules in an Iceberg

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1 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 10d ago

Discussion The deepest hole humans have ever drilled reached 12.2 km into Earth — and the deeper they went, the stranger it got

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2 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 18d ago

Discussion Chuva pode aumentar em 13,6% a absorção de CO2 pelo oceano, diz Nature Geoscience

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1 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • Aug 07 '26

Discussion Ice wall of Antarctica

0 Upvotes

What do you guys think about the Ice wall of Antarctica

r/EarthScience • • 21d ago

Discussion Thermal expansion of Oceans

1 Upvotes

Is there a way to calculate thermal expansion of the oceans due to the Super El Nino compared to a normal year?

And how would that affect other Oceanic sea levels?

Haven't posted much on here when a flare is needed and could not do it on my mobile app for some reason, was trying to add it to they did the math also

r/EarthScience • • 17d ago

Discussion Anomalia Magnética do Atlântico Sul (SAMA)

0 Upvotes

Uma hipótese que me ocorreu lendo sobre a Anomalia Magnética do Atlântico Sul (SAMA):
Sabemos que o campo magnético terrestre é gerado principalmente pelo geodínamo no núcleo externo, e que a SAMA está associada à dinâmica desse campo. Portanto, não faria sentido dizer simplesmente que “a mineração de ferro causa a SAMA”.
Mas existe uma pergunta diferente que me parece interessante:
A retirada acelerada, ao longo de poucas décadas, de enormes quantidades de minerais de ferro da crosta — especialmente em uma região coincidente com a SAMA — poderia produzir uma alteração mensurável no componente magnético crustal e, eventualmente, alguma influência no sistema geomagnético regional?
A primeira hipótese é relativamente simples: remover grandes volumes de rochas magneticamente ativas deve alterar o campo magnético local. Isso poderia ser procurado em séries históricas de magnetometria e comparado com os dados de produção e localização das minas.
A segunda etapa seria muito mais especulativa: existe algum mecanismo de acoplamento entre essa alteração crustal e a dinâmica geomagnética mais profunda que ainda não conhecemos ou não modelamos adequadamente?
Não estou propondo que a mineração explique a SAMA. Pelo contrário: a explicação atualmente aceita está relacionada principalmente à dinâmica do núcleo.
A questão que me interessa é outra:
Será que estamos descartando uma possível contribuição antropogênica simplesmente porque ela parece pequena em relação à escala da Terra?
No caso do efeito estufa, a importância do fenômeno não foi determinada apenas comparando a quantidade de CO₂ com a massa da atmosfera. Foi necessário descobrir o mecanismo físico, medir seus efeitos e compreender as retroalimentações.
Então, para quem trabalha com geomagnetismo/geofísica:
Essa hipótese já foi investigada? Existe literatura sobre a alteração do campo magnético causada pela remoção de grandes volumes de minério magneticamente ativo? E seria possível usar dados históricos de mineração + magnetometria + satélites (como Swarm) para testar isso?

r/EarthScience • • 20d ago

Discussion Areas where 1999 Gölcük Earthquake reached MMI X+

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1 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • Aug 12 '26

Discussion Undoing the continent drift

0 Upvotes

so i was listening to my teacher about the earth and she said earth is just a big magnet so i wondered if earth is just a big magnet we can possibly make a magnet thats big enough to pull all the continents together resulting in undoing the great continental drift because there're also tiny magnets inside the soil little ones it can possibly help attract the lands together and it will also help the big magnet that we can possibly make if you're wondering how do we make the big magnet Wrap many turns of insulated copper wire tightly around a large iron core (like a thick steel rod or pipe), then connect the wire ends to a strong DC power source (battery or power supply). The stronger the current and the more turns of wire, the stronger the electromagnet we can simply multiply this to make a large one but it will take decades of work.Thats all thanks

r/EarthScience • • 21d ago

Discussion Earthquake today at the Portuguese-Spanish border

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1 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • May 07 '26

Discussion What is you favorite geological feature?

15 Upvotes

Mine are volcanos

r/EarthScience • • 23d ago

Discussion geochemical and geophysical models -need a ruling please

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0 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 26d ago

Discussion 27th anniversary if the Chi-Chi (921) earthquake in Taiwan

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1 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • 29d ago

Discussion Two tragic earthquake anniversaries in Mexico

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0 Upvotes

r/EarthScience • • May 06 '26

Discussion does Earth have a default smell?

6 Upvotes

Im not sure how to ask this but i'll try my best without it sounding weird.

Does Earth air have a constant scent that we don't even notice everyday because of the sensory adaptation? I don't mean it in the specific smell of fresh air when we're in nature or when it's raining, but a "default" aroma that is all the time around us but we're so used to it that we don't smell it? When people who were in a submarine or in space for months come back, do they notice that there is a specific scent of Earth?

r/EarthScience • • Sep 17 '26

Discussion Four more M4.4-5.0 earthquakes in Colombia in the last day

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1 Upvotes