At about 15 years ago, archaeologists have asked for a better understanding by the geologists of the period called the Quaternary or recent as it is called by us.
It would be more or less the last 4 million years. And because of that request at the time, is in fact, that these archaeologists needed it to understand human evolution and many species exist today and that already disappeared. And just having the sediments to prove many of the theories, with their fossils. Understanding the sediments would be the best way after all to know before hand if, for example, where possible find fossils, raising chances through catastrophes occurred.
You must remember that the sediments reflect on a lot not only pre-existing rocks, but also the Paleo Environment, or Paleo biomes, or legacy environments with Paleo weather for those who do not understand. If I have mapped and the ancient environments, is borne by those who seek civilized species, or animals or botanical fossils only upon those environments possible for these searches.
For example, if it is known that the sediments were from somewhere and ancient seas or oceans, there may be better if occurrences of fossil fishes. And knowing these Quaternary sediments, or the last 4 million years and is fundamental to improve the search for the archaeologist who can not spend too much money in their searches. In other words, this scientist requires a methodology that facilitates their search targets. If the targets are evidences of the Quaternary, is prevented from being with stirring sediments or rocks before. Recalling that the planet Earth has more or less 4.5 billion years.
And believe me, give it to a scientist without having information, to be digging in search of occurrence of the last 5000 years, and suddenly be looking at the same point except that excavating sediments 200 million years. Just go down the street from Lake you can see this phenomenon. If you hesitate, you catch a bit of land of 4 million last year. If you let a few meters, you can get more than land 2 billion years. Waste of time and money.
In the last 10 years, another category of professionals made the same request, climatologists and meteorologists, wanted better explanations of the past 4 million years. The obvious … How were those years with glaciations.
In that application, many geologists were excited, and some others were worried. Present models of how the events were in terms of weather catastrophes are possible, the sediment record this one more time.
But something in record time is still very large. The “Relative Errors“Are still in the house of 1000 years to 10,000 years. Remember the probabilistic universe it’s still our best tool. You can not even with existing technology to be deterministics. We were always within a probability range of uncertainty. Or certainty.
And society at large presses that meteorologists and climatologists forecast demand for models with relative errors of 1 year to 4 years. As an example mean that a farmer with subsidies to be able to withstand a drop or increase in production, due to climate change . But that speculation made by Nature is still a sign that geologists are struggling.
For those who have signed the Nature click on the link below and see the story on.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7320/full/nature09508.html
For those who have not, see the review at Ars Technica by clicking below.
Good week
Benedito Ubiratã
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