Geologically speaking, wouldn't the Earth have only six continents? Europe and Asia are actually one land mass; the are different 'continents' in a cultural sense only. - Stephen Gilbert
Geologically speaking, one might talk of the different tectonic plates the earth has. Geographically speaking, one might talk about continents. Thus, I would add "...geographically dividing it into five oceans and seven continents". --Grant
If an entity from another system within the known universe (or any other universe for that matter) were to read (assuming that was possible) the Earth page, ya gotta wonder what said entity might think! --Grant
The count of oceans is at least as arbitrary as that of continents; the Arctic Ocean is clearly distinct, but there's no obvious place to divide the Indian Ocean from the Pacific, or the Antarctic from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
Also, are imports and exports even meaningful concepts here? --Vicki Rosenzweig
I think the exports and imports part has some interesting information ($5.6 trillion a year in production; shows who produces it and where it goes). Is there some easier and immediately understood way to phrase it? --KQ
- I added a note explaining that imports and exports were actually internal trade among the nations of Earth, and that no significant extraterrestrial commerce is occurring at this time. Bryan Derksen
At this point the wikipedia is a compendium of human knowlege if an alien were to read the wikipedia he/she/it mighe find that it did not reach an ideal NPOV, but who cares? I'd argue that we can't possibly do this without the input of the aliens themselvs, and anyway if aliens start reading and getting involved in the wikipedia, we'll have to change a lot of things anyway... MRC
- Yeah, like the You were NOT abducted by aliens, you damn drunk page. --STG
Consistency or no, I'm not going to move most of Earth to Earth (planet) right now. From an astronomy point of view that would be logical, but I suspect its orbital parameters and suchlike aren't what people first think of when they think Earth. However, there is a slight ambiguity problem with Earth-as-our-world, Earth-as-a-planet, and earth-as-soil. Is this best left as-is, or is there a better way to handle it? -- April
- Sounds good to me, to leave as is. Earth for the kind of information already there, Earth (planet) for any astronomical type thingies (yup, being technical today) and soil as the topic for the Earth (soil) type thingies (if it's already done that way). Rgamble
Deleted the reference to "intelligent species, including humans, apes, dolphins and maybe a few others". Ranking other species as "intelligent" gets into a whole load of complex debates that it's really not worth getting into here - for instance, there's research currently claiming some extremely impressive cognitive abilities for parrots that I'd imagine others working in the area would dispute hotly. --Robert Merkel
From the main article:
- There is evidence that these processes are not balanced. Historical measurements of the mean sea level indicate that the Earth's ocean level is falling at a rate of approximately one foot per century, even in the face of warmer weathAt this rate of ocean level drop, over the past five billion years t
er that should melt ice from the poles. This may be due to a combination of subductive trapping of water, and ultraviolet cracking.
At this rate of ocean level drop, over the past five billion years the ocean level would have fallen approximately 9,500 miles. Does anyone know the real rate at which water is being lost? Bryan Derksen
- Don't know the real rate, but that statement doesn't seem right to me. The author will first have to define "historical" and then have to explain away the fact that at the pre-dawn of human history much of the continental shelfs' were exposed as the last of the continental glaciers receeded. Since that time there has been a continued and long term increase in sea level with some of the fastest rates of increase occuring in the last 100 years. It has been estimated that there are probably hundreds and maybe thousands of submerged human archeaological sites in the world. Earthquakes and local subsidence can't explain them all. The author may have misread the fact that water in our oceans are continually cycled through subduction zones of the Earth and may have thought that this water was somehow lost. Far from it. It is recycled by becoming so super (and I mean super) critically hot that it melts surrounding rock and eventually escapes through volcanoes as steam (in fact without water we would have no plate tectonics to speak of). In addition to this is the fact that the earth is being bombarded with millions of tiny coments (well, smallish snowballs of ice and dirt) that I've read actually adds a non-insignificant amount of water to the oceans each year. --maveric149