Re: Calcium in water...

Actually, Linda, the Arctic Ocean connected to the Gulf of Mexico several
times with the rise and fall of the continent during the most recent phase of
collision between N. America on the one side, and a combination of Africa,
Europe and the British Isles on the other.  The mountain chain had the
altitude of the Himalayas according to some, then some 220 million years or so
ago reached a maximum then began pulling apart, leaving part of the African
continental mass in So. Georgia and Florida, and pulling Greenland loose from
the North American landmass, with remnants of the mountain range left stranded
in NW Africa, the Appalachian roots, some high country in the British Isles
and the mountain spine separating Norway and Sweden.  There was apparently
something like the Great Rift Valley of Africa forming right up through the
worn down mountains which eventually became a new phase of the Atlantic
Ocean.

There is some evidence in sea floor studies off the east coast that suggest
this is a cyclic phenomenon and has been through at least four phases.

The effect of compression rippled Tennessee, with the "downs" forming Walden
Ridge and its continuation southwest of Chattanooga on into Alabama, and the
"ups" forming what now is the Tennessee River valley where you live, the crest
of Crab Orchard (?) ridge which further south becomes the valley of the
Sequatchee River, and the lower and lower ripples seen toward Nashville.

In southwestern West Virginia coal areas the fluctuating elevation of the
interior of the continent shows as alternating bands or layers of coal and
muddy shale.  The shale forms from salt-water-lain sediments and the coal from
lush swamp forest lands in shallow water. Many fossils of ferns and grasses
can be seen in West Virginia coal layers.  Limestone formed further west from
south to north in deeper water of amenable temperatures, although the water
extended from the Gulf to the pole.

The pattern is disrupted violently in Texas and other Gulf states inland as
far as Oklahoma and Arkansas by the Chulub Crater event of some 63 million
years ago.  A rather sizeable chuck of something broke up, part of it striking
in Iowa about a year after the main body hit near where the northern tip of
Yucatan is now found.  The events caused massive ecological havoc and is
thought to have brought about the demise of the dinosaurs and a significant
percent of other northern hemisphere species of both plants and animals.
Cockroaches, Alligators and some very primitive mammals survived it appears,
as did a branch of the dinosaurs that we now recognize as birds, along with
some a limited range of primitive, coniferous and seed-bearing plants.  The
ecosystems of the northern continents are boringly similar as compared to
those south of the equator as a result.

Neil Mogensen           z 7 western NC

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