Reviewers Wanted: for major work

Posted on 4 April 2016 by Scottish-Sceptic

Sometime soon, I’m going to be publishing a major work outlining various processes that are/may be responsible for the ice-age cycle. At least one is a new re-interpretation of a common feature of the climate which as far as I know has never been proposed before (even by me), so it will be good!
My intention has to put everything together in one “brief” article, which means I have to assume a certain degree of understanding in the reader. But this is very difficult when a paper combines ideas from many disciplines and covers at least three major new theories both from geology and climate each of which need explaining to a readership. So, I will inevitably have been too brief in some areas, and could cut down in others.
So, if anyone fancies getting a pre-release version in return for checking whether it makes sense, which parts need expanding and which parts could be cut, please get in touch.

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7 Responses to Reviewers Wanted: for major work

    • Scottish-Sceptic says:
      5 April 2016 at 16:21

      I saw the article and found it useful. However, the heat flow through the crust is said to be quite small so I’ve not considered the direct flow of heat. Having said that, I think the theory is more than likely right in terms of volcanic activity triggering events, so I might well give it some more thought.
      Mike

  2. wryheat2 says:
    17 April 2016 at 23:31

    Hi Mike,
    I am willing to give your paper a look. I am a retired geologist living in Tucson, Arizona, USA. I’ve been an explorationist and traveled extensively, even to Scotland. (Did you know that there is a low-grade copper deposit southeast of Oban?) I write a blog: https://wryheat.wordpress.com/ Take a look and see where I stand on the climate issues (skeptical). One picky thing: Most journalists and some scientists who should know better say “ice age” when they actually mean a glacial epoch. I hope you use the term “ice-age” correctly to refer to a period of glacial epochs and interglacials. Ice ages seem to have a periodicity of about 145 million years. You can reach me at wryheat@cox.net.

    • wryheat2 says:
      17 April 2016 at 23:33

      Forgot to mention my name: Jonathan DuHamel

      • Scottish-Sceptic says:
        18 April 2016 at 08:55

        Jonathan, thanks. If you’ve ever climbed a big hill and kept thinking the next rise will be the top … well that’s where I am now. I keep thinking the end is in sight but unfortunately, completion still looks no closer now than it did back in March when I first thought I was close to completion.
        On Copper deposit – I am aware several copper mines. There’s the “Cave of Caerbannog” of Monty Python fame above Loch Tay which is an old copper mine – unfortunately, the only copper ore left is in the pillars holding up the roof! But no I was not aware of Low grade deposits near Oban.
        Looking online I cannot find anything, can you tell me more about the location?
        For info, I did do some research into copper mines in Scotland some time ago – but quite without success. For example, I spent one holiday looking for the supposed copper mines of Shetland – only to find a single grain the size of a pin head when finally someone told me exactly where to look. But if I had read about Oban, I may have ignored it as I needed high grade copper ore. I even got the family to go to an old “copper” mine on the Ochills and we collected every green looking rock lying around. I then preceded to smelt it in the back garden only to get this boring steel looking blob at the bottom.
        For years I assumed I had miraculously produced some iron (bang went my pre-conceptions that iron was difficult to smelt) – until I noticed that despite being kept in the damp shed, it wasn’t going rusty. Since then, it’s gradually been dawning on me that it might not be iron (I assumed it was because the only non-copper mineral I could see that made sense was a zinc-iron sulphide one). For a while, I’ve been meaning to dig it out from the shed (literally!) to see whether it’s going black.
        On terminology, I try to avoid using predefined terms, because they tend to come with their own baggage of pre-existing concepts as to what “is happening”. So, I tend to use descriptive terms which are as simple and intuitive as possible. Which I think is the right approach when there’s no way anyone could ever be an expert on all the areas I’m covering.
        So, when using ice-age(s)”, I tend to use it according to its original definition meaning purely “an age of ice” – a colder period in contrast to warmer “inter-glacials”. So, it is a statement of prevailing temperature: a period when ice accumulates and not a defined period.
        I only really need the term in two contexts: First in the phrase “ice-age cycle” (the repeated change from periods without ice to periods with ice) and the second is to describe the change in temperature from the “ice-age” or “ice-age maximum” to the interglacial.
        However, I am starting to worry about the phrase “ice-age maximum” because it is confusing when I’m mostly talking about temperature. It may be “ice-age maximum” but it is also “ice-age minimum” (temperature).
        But if I started referring to the whole period from 5million years ago (or I could argue 20million) as “the ice-age” I would be stuck with terms like “non-inter-glacial” and “non-interglacial minimum temperature”.

  3. wryheat2 says:
    18 April 2016 at 15:17

    The property I referred to is Garraron farm located on Lock Melfort about 12 miles south of Oban. Petrographic sampling shows unmistakable evidence of porphyry copper system. The general geology shows prospects of Pb-Zn surrounding Cu-Mo. Apparently, however, the copper grade is very low. My company examined the property in 1973.

    • Scottish-Sceptic says:
      18 April 2016 at 16:14

      The nearest copper mine I have on record is at Kilmartin. But as you can see the SW of Scotland is filled with copper mines:
      http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Copper.png
      (Garraron is the orange dot, the scale is UK national grid 1000 = 100km)
      KILMARTIN, a parish, in the district and county of Argyll, 7½ miles (NNW) from Lochgilphead; The substrata are chiefly mica and chlorite slate, with veins of crystalline limestone and hornblende: copper-ore has also been found, and was formerly worked, but with what success is uncertain.
      A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland. Originally published by S Lewis, London, 1846.

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