The great breadths of time.

This site shows several images of what appears to be mountains, but are really batholiths, which if I understood correctly, are just really big plutons. Edited by gigahound, : No reason given.

You're right, I'm mixed up here about something, but that's ok, we're not really discussing minerals anyway.However, I would like to have something clarified; Is the heat from just radioactive decay, or is it also from the deep? If so, then don't we have two heating processes?

Creationists claim rock cools quickly.
Scientist say "NO!"
I asked "Why not?"One solid proof for scientists is Fick's law which describes the rate of cooling of a mass. With some tweaking, this equation can determine the cooling rate for rock of varying size, varying rates of cooling, various depths...etc.While this really isn't an answer to "Why not?", it does illustrate that cooling is not fast.This might be enough to satisfy some people, but I guess I'm a bit more stubborn. For instance, it appears to me that while Fick's law shows the cooling process to be slow, isn't the process also hampered by the additional heat generated by continuing pressure, ongoing radioactive decay, and the rising of heat from the depths below?

This site explains that the heat in the Earth is trying to escape into space. For us, that would equate "the heat is rising", i.e., from the cores and mantle.I have an old Discover Magazine with an article about a diamond mind (the deepest one on Earth at the time of the article, I believe.) and some scientists took a trip to the bottom and noted how hot it was. I do believe there was some molten material below them (they were in a series of natural caves of some sort with some chasms/cliffs). My point being that, the further down you travel, the hotter it gets, and that heat wants out. So it makes sense to me that the heat is traveling "up" until it disperses to a point that appears cool to us.Obviously I'm in no position to tell you you're wrong, but this is currently where I stand on the subject.

I am working my way to there. Wanted to get several my misconceptions taken care of first, and some things clarified. If we can, I would like to wait a little longer before discussing things that could increase the cooling rate. I think that point treads dangerously close to Creationist ideas, and want stay neutral for the purpose of the discussion.

Maybe I'm miss-understanding one of you, but what you wrote here... ...doesn't seem to mean quite the same as what JonF said earlier in the thread when I brought up insulation; Is there a difference between the two statements or is it just the wording?

Whew! I had let the insulation point drop earlier because JonF's statement had me thinking I was wrong. I think we agree here, although my wording may not have implied it; There is some "old" heat trapped in the rock due to insulation of surrounding rock. And while it is a slow process, that heat does escape.Would it be proper to say that this insulation process occurs in "pocket" regions within the Earth, or is it uniform throughout?Also, is it proper to say that the surrounding rock will also remain "warm" while the insulated "pocket" is cooling?Are the above statements a description of conduction {convection being heat transfer within a fluid)?

Ned has brought up chemical processes once or twice. I'm not avoiding, just putting it on pause. I think I'm ready to go there now.By chemical process, are we describing creation of the layers/rocks or the creation of heat. If we're just describing "stuff", then I think we can skip it, since I would like to remain with heating and cooling.

How likely is it that some rock has cooled and reheated in cycles before being disconnected from it's heat source?Can we determine how long a rock has been hot before it began cooling?Is there a "line" that determines when a rock is considered hot?...Does it have to be hot throughout or is the outer region enough?Can we duplicate the heating process in a lab? For instance, can we seal a rock in a container and record an increase in temperature from the readioactive decay? Can we detect an increase in the temperature of the container?

Thanks for all your help everyone! I think I'm done with this topic for a while. Managed to correct several misconceptions that I had and re-learned some basic Earth Science.One of the main questions was "why does it HAVE to take such great breadths of time to see what we see?" I think the answer is that it really doesn't have to, however, all current evidence suggests that on Earth, things did take a long time to happen, and things are still happening today, at a very slow pace...but sometimes it's "fast".I have interests over several topics, so I'll be around, not sure how often I'll participate...this is only the second time since I became a member.Mods, feel free to close this up if you like.