When Did Plate Tectonics Begin? Plate Tectonics Part 4
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:00:00] Welcome to Planet Geo, the podcast where we talk about our amazing planet, how it works, and why it matters to you. Mr. Boys.
Chris Bolhuis: [00:00:15] Dr. Reimink, how you doing today,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I'm well, how are you?
Chris Bolhuis: That's twice in a row. Now you've called me Mr. Bullis. That needs to stop. Um, that's . No, I'm on Christmas break right now. You, uh, yet I, do not wanna be called
Dr. Jesse Reimink: going, going back to Oh. five baby. Back to oh five. [00:00:30]
Chris Bolhuis: Hey, I I gotta, I wanna show you something right now. Okay? I'm gonna unzip my hoodie here a second. I want you to look at this.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Oh. Do you have a shirt on there? Okay, you do? Oh, uh, Tyrannosaurus is riding a mountain bike? What is going on with that?
Chris Bolhuis: [00:00:45] Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's pretty
Chris Bolhuis: is a sweet shirt, isn't it?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, we're, what's it? Uh, what's the brand we're repping here?
Chris Bolhuis: I don't know. I just saw the shirt and um, I'm like, I have to have that. I love t-shirts and you know, anything geology related. That's funny. I gotta have it,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so we [00:01:00] were here in, uh, over the holidays and, my nieces were here in town and we went to this state park nearby, which has this amazing light festival. Like I'd never been to it before, but it's probably about three quarters of a mile through the woods where it's just completely lit up, like [00:01:15] lights everywhere. It was unbelievable. And, uh, so we're walking along, you know, my nieces are having a great time. we went, and there's two, know, running around looking at things. Then then there's a couple dinosaurs and a volcano, and they're like, look, uncle Jesse, a dinosaur , you must like that. [00:01:30] There's a dinosaurs and a volcano. Like, you know, they have a little section there. So anyway, we had to take a photo in
Chris Bolhuis: That's great. They know
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, totally,
Chris Bolhuis: They know who you are. You got a photo of it. All right, cool. Yeah. Good deal. All right. Well, hey, how are you doing today?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:01:45] I am Good, man. We're back. We're back with new stuff. And, uh, this is, uh, this is part four in our plate tectonics question series, which has been a we covered. a winding journey. I think So the origin of this, just to go back to what, mid 2022, you know, [00:02:00] Q3 2022, was that, you know, you had this series of questions that you gave your class to kind of test them on, you know, their bitching and owner about how they thought they knew plate tectonics. You gave them these kind of, some rather cursory, but some [00:02:15] pretty deep questions about, uh, plate tectonics and, and sort of how it, is written in the rock record, I guess, or how it affects the rock record. Like how does plate tectonics generate basalt? And then we, so we went through several of these and we went through sedentary rocks. We covered some [00:02:30] igneous rocks. We talked about planetary plate tectonics in the last one in this series, in episode three of this section. And so today we're not done, but we're, we're maybe halfway through ish around about there.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, this episode here is, [00:02:45] I'm gonna just be flattered honest with you. It's a bunch of questions that I really want to ask you. this is higher level stuff I think today is gonna drive home the point, at least for me, that I think there's more about plate tectonics that we don't know than we [00:03:00] actually do. And so when I have a bunch of 15 year olds telling me, oh, I got this, I know this, you know, that's a, That's also a little irritating for me too, because I'm like, well, wait a second. I mean, you know, there's a, there's a lot here. We don't know. And I think the biggest [00:03:15] thing in this, Jesse, is whenever somebody first learns about plate tectonics, and you learn about the mechanism of plate tectonics, everything out there all says convection. Convection within the mantle, convection the [00:03:30] asthenosphere drives these lithospheric plates about, and, and, you know, it's just like, there's something about this that rubs me the wrong way. It's, I just don't think that this is as easy and complete as what it's made to be. I, there's something more going [00:03:45] on. it's not, it can't be just convection. There's a lot going on with.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's right. I think, uh, it's not just convection. that, that's for sure. That's for sure. right. Um, it's not as simple, uh, as that. And, and you know, that's in many ways the textbook answer, which [00:04:00] is, is good enough for students in your class. And, and good enough for students in my class, the, the intro level class I teach, but at the higher level classes, you gotta dive deeper and you gotta really understand that there's a lot of nuance to this, and this is theme of this complicated one. so the theme of this [00:04:15] episode I think, is when did plate tectonics start on earth and. Let's give away the ghost here IME immediately that we don't know the answer to that. And that is a huge part of my research. So it's a good thing. We don't know cuz it's a, fair amount of job security for me, [00:04:30] is that a lot of what I do is, is try and understand when did plate tectonics start on earth because we don't really have that pinned down well at all.
Chris Bolhuis: That's right. So we're gonna start with that. And then I think the next question is, well, why is that answering that question important? Why [00:04:45] is, you know, answering when did plate tectonics begin? Or what do we think? What is our best idea about this? And, and who cares? So what that's where we're gonna start. And then what we're really gonna do after that is I'm gonna ask a bunch of questions that kind of get into[00:05:00] nuance. and a little bit of the research world of what's going on today. And so we're gonna introduce some things that maybe most of our listeners have never heard of before. Thing like seduction and squishy lid tectonics and, and things [00:05:15] along this line. And, I'm do my best to keep you on track. Okay.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You're gonna have your work cut out for you
Chris Bolhuis: you and I were talking about this, we were talking about this before we started, and, you know, you're like, well, I mean, this could be really, really big, Chris. And, and I'm like, okay, [00:05:30] yeah, it could be, but we don't need to do that. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep you on track with us. Um, but that's really the theme of, of today then is we're gonna, I'm just gonna ask you a bunch of questions and it's really, this is gonna be a conversation back and forth that really [00:05:45] started with the topic for today. When did plate tectonics begin? And why is that an important thing? So let's, can we start?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, let's start. Let's go for it.
Chris Bolhuis: well then I'm, let's go with that then. The question is, when did plate tectonics begin, and then [00:06:00] why is that important? Let's start with that.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, the short answer is that we don't know when plate tectonics began on earth, So I'll kind of give you my view of the landscape of the research landscape. Like what do most researchers, knowledgeable, [00:06:15] thoughtful people think about this? Most people agree, I would say there's a consensus view that plate tectonics began at least by about 2.5 billion years. So plate tectonics has been operating for the last two and a half billion years there history. [00:06:30] Now, you'll see scientific papers written to the contrary that would say plate tectonics only began 500 million years ago, or only began 700 million years ago. Those are fringe ideas, and in my opinion, not super well founded. Um, consensus view is [00:06:45] that Plate tectonics has been operating at least for the last two to two and a half billion years on Earth. Before that, it's anybody's guess. people have different, you know, there, But if you talk to 10 people who study this thing, you'll get 10 different opinions about when Plate [00:07:00] tectonic
Chris Bolhuis: But there has to be a ballpark, right? there has to be a range in this that's more acceptable.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I think most people would, really agree that around between 2.7 and 3 billion years ago was probably a good [00:07:15] time. They would sort of, if you had, if you forced somebody to pick a number, they'd probably pick something in between there. I mean, maybe half the community would pick something in that window and and half would be earlier than that.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. so here's where my mind goes with this. Listening to you talk about,[00:07:30] you know, the nuances and so on about when play tectonics began. My mind goes to this, we talked about this in some of our earlier episodes, that the great diversity of rocks that we have on our planet, they exist because of plate tectonics, right? And [00:07:45] so if we can then date you know, radiometric date, these rocks, these diverse set of rocks, then doesn't that give us a, an idea like, Is that a, how do you do this? Is that, is this where you start?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's exactly right, Chris. that's exactly [00:08:00] the the thinking that goes into this is you, you gotta really think about, well, what, what are the key things? If I'm gonna go to some other planet with my spaceship and I'm gonna go down and land on the surface and say, does plate tectonics operate here? You know, I don't have [00:08:15] any other evidence apart from the rock record. You know, what do you need? What do you need to see to say, yes, plate tectonics is operating and on the modern earth it's easy. We can watch GPS movement, we can see the ground, uh, you know, uplifting. We can see volcanoes popping [00:08:30] off. We can see subduction on trenches. It's dead easy on a modern planet going back in time where we only have the rock record, it becomes really, really hard. Paleo magnetism is a really, really powerful one, and we'll kind of get into that next episode. But if you, you know, can look at [00:08:45] a Paleomagnetic record and see that. A single area in a sequence of rocks. If a single location had been moving at a rate of centimeters per year, that's a good indication of, maybe that's a plate tectonic like movement that's sort of similar. But as you go further back in [00:09:00] time, paleo magnetism becomes less reliable or non-existent in the really old rock record. So it's really a, a Sam, there's a sampling bias here that the further back in time we go, the less rocks we have. So the less information we have and, and you [00:09:15] know, we can't play this game of, do we see the diversity of rocks that we, see on the modern earth that tells us play tectonics exists.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay, but why not? though? If we, if we see,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So let me ask you let, let me turn the question around real quick. what is [00:09:30] the single rock That is most diagnostic of plate tectonics to you?
Chris Bolhuis: Um, okay, let me, this, this requires some thought like the rock that most signifies or, or like [00:09:45] screams. This is produced because of plate Tetons. I would have to say granite.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So that's definitely one of the, one of the ones people use and, and when we start to see real true granites in the rock record is around 2.7 billion years ago. So [00:10:00] that's why most people kind of pinned that number down
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. But hold on. But, but you, kind of disagreed with that. were you thinking more along the lines of gneiss and these really intensely metamorphose rocks? Is that what your, where your thought went? Because I, I, the reason why I, said granite is because [00:10:15] granite is produced by distillation. Distillation happens because of. Plate tectonics, you know, so that's why I said granite, but I was torn between, do I say granite or do I say, the Acosta nice. I mean, that's your , that's your rock. Sometimes we just call you Acosta.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:10:30] right? So, so that's, that's one. Um, I don't disagree with you at all. That granite is definitely one of the ones and that's what people use. You know, researchers have used that historically for a long time to say, oh, plate tectonics has been operating, cuz there's these certain types of granites that arise on the scene 2.7 billion [00:10:45] years ago. Another one that people point to is blueschist, blueschist, and eclogites cuz blueschists are these really high pressure, low temperature ones that are indicative of subduction zone metamorphism. And so,
Chris Bolhuis: Can I interject a second? what what you're saying with this is that [00:11:00] these rock. eclogite, and you said blueschist, eclogite and blueschist, they only happen in the temperature pressure, recipe. That can only happen in a subduction zone. It can't happen anywhere else. And so the minerals that [00:11:15] you find in this rock are indicative of those temperatures and pressures, which tell you of subduction. So. Okay.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: right. And there are, there are researchers, you know, very well-respected researchers who, you know, want that to be the distinguishing [00:11:30] feature that say if there is blueschist in the rock record, if we find an old blueschist, then it means that there was a subduction zone system in that location at that time. So let's say there's a 2.7 billion year old blueschist somewhere, and that, that means subduction was happening there 2.7 billion years ago. [00:11:45] Therefore, that's plate tectonics. If you see enough of those around, if you see a bunch of 2.7 billion year old blue shift, now you have to question is blue shift a stable. You know, rock, is it going to last through multiple plate [00:12:00] tectonic cycles, through multiple Collisional erosions? Is it gonna be overprinted ever? And blueshift is a, a pretty easily overprinted rock, so it's not necessarily the best
Chris Bolhuis: what do you mean Overprinted? Okay. Yeah, but we like, we do you mean when you say overprinted? Um, because [00:12:15] what you're, what you're saying I think is that these minerals that are in there may have existed in a rock before.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's exactly right.
Chris Bolhuis: And, and so if you date the eclogite or blueschist, then you're not dating when that rock formed, you're dating [00:12:30] when the minerals that are in that rock.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: E, exactly. So there's two parts to that. You're dating when the minerals formed and when the rock was metamorphosis to that particular pressure and temperature window that tells you it's subduction that creates a blueschist. So, so we can date blueschist [00:12:45] Metamorphism, but. question is, let's say a blueschist formed 3.2 billion years ago, But then it didn't survive till present because that rock might have been eroded. It might have been broken down in it, into its [00:13:00] constituent parts and, broken apart. Or it could have been caught in a collisional orogeny where the shift was heated up to higher temperature conditions. And the blue sh metamorphic signature has been overprinted now, now it's an amphibolite or a granulite or a migmatite or some gneiss you know, [00:13:15] some other higher temperature rock
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. But doesn't it still give you a minimum age though
Dr. Jesse Reimink: it would give you a younger age, But it wouldn't give you, it wouldn't be a blue shift anymore. You could take a blue shift and turn it into AIG Tite just by [00:13:30] putting, you know, increasing the temperature. So you would lose that, that key.
Chris Bolhuis: I get that I get That has value though. If you have a minimum age on it, or a younger age, I should say, if it got overprinted, it turned into a different mineral. plate. [00:13:45] Tectonics had to have happened at least this long ago, at least 2.7 billion years ago. Right? I mean, that's what I'm saying there. It has value, at least in saying it has to be older than this.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's exactly right. So, you know, [00:14:00] this kind of comes into the, the key, the battle we're fighting, the uphill battle we're fighting when we're trying to answer the question of when did plate tectonic start is we're dealing with. Very few rock samples. the further back in time we go, the less rocks there are. If you wanna find a rock [00:14:15] that's 3.8 billion years old, it's less than one part per million of the continental land mass is that old. So it's a tiny fraction of the surface of the earth that is that old. And so it's really, these are rare rocks and we're dealing with a survivorship [00:14:30] bias, a preservation bias when we deal with, you know, small numbers of samples.
Chris Bolhuis: right. I don't know what you meant when you said a preservation bias on that, like I want to come back to that in a second, but first though. Alright. You have found [00:14:45] rocks that are 4.03 billion years old. Is that right? The Acasta Gneiss in the Northwestern erritory, so,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I didn't find them, but I, I sort of teased out some details, but they had been discovered before me. But yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: All right. And that is intensely. [00:15:00] Metamorphose rock. I mean, it's, it's nice It's a beautiful rock. It's gorgeous. It's this toothpaste squished rock. It's awesome. Right? Um, so help me with this, because if that rock is 4.03 billion years old, [00:15:15] then that rock is, had to have formed because of plate tectonics. you said, you know, nice is indicative of tectonics. So doesn't that mean that that's when it started? Or, or at [00:15:30] least minimum.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: nice is not a very diagnostic one. nice can be produced in other tectonic settings, or other gEODynamics systems like non plate tectonic plants. there's probably nice, deep down in Mars, you know, it just, [00:15:45] all it requires is some heat and pressure to get a nice and the
Chris Bolhuis: But it requires differential pressure though this doesn't, it doesn't require lithos static, equally applied pressure it, requires this, you know, differential, kind of the, pressure you get if you put something [00:16:00] in a vice that's
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, it's very rare that it, that you don't have any differential pressure in a, in a real situation, like a real planet situation. So in Mars, if you have, the, the lid is stagnant, [00:16:15] it doesn't mean that the lid is not internally deforming. Like you can have little bits of deformation. It's just not breaking across the lithosphere. So you, you will get, nice and magnetite in these really high temperature rocks, down in the deep crust of Venus, let's [00:16:30] say for instance, even if there's no plate tectonics.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So, Jesse, let's go back to what you said a second, just real quick. Kay. Um, because I wanna move on to the next question. What did you mean when you said preservation bias? what is that?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: let's take an [00:16:45] example. I guess let's say well, what types of rocks are the easiest to erode, do you think? Like, I mean, which, which types of rocks are eroding the most right now?
Chris Bolhuis: Sedimentary?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Sedimentary? rocks. Right. And, but [00:17:00] uh, maybe pick a tectonic setting. Like what tectonic setting. has the fastest erosion rates
Chris Bolhuis: The ones that have the fastest uplift rates.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: For sure. For sure. Right. And, you know, so any sort of active tectonic regime, mountain chains, [00:17:15] uh, you know, especially in the mid-latitudes, near the equator,
Chris Bolhuis: by the way, when you're asking me these questions,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: sorry, sorry,
Chris Bolhuis: damn, I better get these right
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I'm putting you on point here,
Chris Bolhuis: you were gonna ask the all
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No, that, that's exactly right. So, you know, like if you [00:17:30] you know the, the rock type. Exists, the least, the shortest amount of time on earth is like ash, you know, volcanic ash or volcanic tera. That stuff is gone, tomorrow basically on a geologic time scale. So you really, knock off [00:17:45] the surface stuff easily. So if we go back in time, there's very few ashes preserved back in time. I mean, there are there, but proportionally there's much less. So what is preserved as we go back in time, it's actually the deep crust. Most of the rocks That are really old are [00:18:00] gneisses. They're migmatites. They're amphibolites, they're these really high grade rocks. Why? Because the top of the continent has been eroded off over time in the middle part has been uplifted up in the middle, the middle parts, the nicest and the ammolite, we don't have as much [00:18:15] information. Like, it's not as much useful information in there. It's not as diagnostic again. Also because these rocks have been like the Acasta gneisses, 4 billion year old rocks. Those things have been metamorphoses probably eight times in their life, maybe 12, just. [00:18:30] Overprinted Overprinted. Overprinted in the highest grade one. The most, the one that defines their mineral today happened 1.9 billion years ago. So the rock itself is a metamorphic rock that was made 1.9 billion years ago. [00:18:45] But the elements there in some of the minerals, Zircon being won, preserve their primary magnetic chemistry. Right? So there's this long tortured history here, which means it's hard to really tell did that rock form in a plate tectonic scenario, or [00:19:00] not 4 billion years ago? That's
Chris Bolhuis: All right. That makes sense. Okay. All right, if subduction happens in only one place on a planet, does that equal plate tectonics on that planet? So if you have this [00:19:15] planet, this outside of our solar system, or even inside of our solar system, it has subduction that we know has happened in one spot. Does that mean, oh, that planet is tectonically active?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Well, I think there's a difference between tectonic active and plate [00:19:30] tectonics as the main operating force like you could, so I, I
Chris Bolhuis: Oh my gosh. You
Dr. Jesse Reimink: You but hey, this is where your job
Chris Bolhuis: You're getting, really doctory on me. I feel like a little kid that just got scolded. Well, [00:19:45] Chris, there is a difference between tectonic active and plate tectonics. Oh my gosh. Okay. School, me, jesse, let's go.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: keeping me outta the weeds was gonna be easy here. I mean, come
Chris Bolhuis: Holy cow. All right.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: no, but you
Chris Bolhuis: but [00:20:00] I could not avoid that. Like I couldn't resist. Let's go
Dr. Jesse Reimink: but this is kind of where it gets fun, I think is Like this is where geology is very artistic because, we can dream up many different scenarios of this. So, you know, it plate [00:20:15] tectonics is the, earth is broken up into however many 30 different tectonic plates and they all interact and they have different plate boundaries, right? So does one subduction zone system, like let's say the earth was a stagnant lead planet and it had one subduction zone system. Does would that [00:20:30] subduction zone system like start plate tectonics across the planet, would the planet then break up apart into a bunch of different plates and, and sort of kickstart plate tectonics? Or does it mean, oh, you know, some random subduction zone system just kind of started randomly And, then it shut off and, and [00:20:45] then it wasn't actually a plate tectonic planet. So my opinion is that subduction on one place does not equal plate tectonics. Um, subduction on three or four different places would, maybe be a better indicator of a global system of plate [00:21:00] tectonics.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. And you're saying this, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying No, that does not mean it has plate tectonics because there are these. Other niche settings that can cause [00:21:15] subduction that are not plate tectonic. You know this forceful driving around of these lithospheric plates. That's what plate tectonics is, and that subduction doesn't always mean that
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And if you're listening to [00:21:30] this, just let me say one thing, cuz that's a great point, Chris, and that brings us nicely into the next series of, of discussion points, I think. But let me interject one thing here is that I think a lot of our listeners do read science news or see science news headlines, especially geoscience news headlines. And [00:21:45] I would caution to always be very careful when reading headlines that say, plate Tectonics started X time on Earth. So and so pointed it out in this paper and showed it definitively started at this time. Because a lot of that [00:22:00] stuff, and I've, I have papers out there that do make this claim too, but be very, very cautious in reading those headlines and thinking. Now we know plate tectonics started 3.7 billion years ago, or 2.5 or 4.3 billion years ago. [00:22:15] That's a really attention grabby news headline that is used for a lot of different papers that do exactly what we're talking about. They identify a subduction zone, potential subduction zone signature in some suite of rocks in one location at one point in time, and then say, oh, must be global [00:22:30] tectonics.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay, so question for you then. You said be cautious, but, so if they're gonna read an article like this with that very attention grabbing headline that's published not in the original journal, this is somebody that is synthesizing the research [00:22:45] and putting out a paper in a a pop science, kind of setting for everybody to read and absorb. Um, whose fault is that? is that the research paper that is responsible for that attention grabbing headline? Or is [00:23:00] that? the person that writes for science today or something like that? Or is that too touchy of a
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's a really tough question. No, no. I that No, i, it's a great, it's a really really great question. My opinion, and this is just, you [00:23:15] know, one guy's opinion. My opinion is that it, I'm not sure if it's anybody's fault. I'm not sure if it's a problem because the reader, you know, you, you need to read things carefully. And so the part of the ownership is on the reader, um, so part of it's like not a problem that there's [00:23:30] a bunch of, you know, news headlines that say this. You just have to read cautiously. But there are researchers, there are science journalists, many of them are great. And, and there are some that, that sort of really put the splashy, catchy title out there. And, you know, [00:23:45] it's behooves all of us. And, and I'm, I'm not, um, I'm not blameless here because I do this too. Like, it's good for me if I publish a paper that has a, that gets some public, you know, interest. Right. That that's a very good thing. And uh, you know, as long
Chris Bolhuis: [00:24:00] But, but we all know that you are not very good at coming up with splashy, catchy, awesome titles.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: am terrible at it and everybody I've ever published a paper with will back that up and
Chris Bolhuis: uh,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you know, you are bad at that, Jesse. So,
Chris Bolhuis: All right. [00:24:15] Okay. Fair enough. Uh, I wanna move on, Jesse, to the next set of questions that deal with these kind of niche studies that you've alluded to. Uh, actually, several times. You've already talked about stagnant lid tectonics, and [00:24:30] so are there variations on plate tectonics? Things like stagin and squishy lid tectonics and episodic tectonics, stagnant lid. Like I [00:24:45] think Mars is a stagnant lid tectonic system, right? I mean, or so let's go through some of them. We don't have to talk about all these little nuances, but like, I think just to bring home the point that, there's a lot that we don't know about plate [00:25:00] tectonics yet.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's exactly right.
Chris Bolhuis: start with seduction. I want to hear what you say about this.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: let me just list those again, Chris, in a, in a slightly different order, because there's, I'm gonna put them as a gradient. There's plate tectonics, which we know and love on earth, which is that system of global plates. The [00:25:15] lithosphere, , the crusted upper mantle are broken apart. The lithosphere plates, they move around, interact with each other. That's plate tectonics. That's one end member as far as we know of how planets can operate. basically how do you get heat out of the planet? How is heat escaping the planet Its plate [00:25:30] tectonics. The other end of the spectrum is stagnant lid. tectonics there is a single plate, there is one tectonic plate. It is not broken. It's a solid thing. and heat is escaping through there in a different way. And then in between there, there's a huge gradient. So I would [00:25:45] say that you. kind of go from, um, stagnant lid being the one end member. I'd put sAG reduction next, then I'd put squishy lead tectonics, then episodic tectonics, then plate tectonics in kind of that order going from one end of a [00:26:00] spectrum to the other.
Chris Bolhuis: got you.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: is that a helpful framing? and
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, well one end member is stagnant lid, so it makes sense to start with the end member. So we'll go from stagnant lid tectonics. What is this and give us an example of where this happens and, and kind of why,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: so [00:26:15] stagnant lid tectonics is where there's only one tectonic plate. It's the entire planet is covered by one plate. It's not broken anywhere. And you have to ask yourself, how does heat get out of the planet? Cuz there's this heat that is in the core. There's radioactive [00:26:30] decay going on in the planet. It needs to escape somehow. So how does that heat get out? And it usually gets out by mantle, plume, vulcanism, Olympus Mans on Mars is heat escaping. That's vulcanism escaping. It's taking heat from the interior of the planet, dumping it out under the surface and into the [00:26:45] atmosphere. And that's a stagnant
Chris Bolhuis: Olympus Mons, by the way, is the solar system's largest known volcano. It's on Mars. Um, this, this thing dwarfs anything that we have on an earth scale,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's right. it's a, And [00:27:00] it's a great way to frame stagnant lid tectonics because it's not moving, the plate's not moving. Um, the next one on that list, I would've put SAG reduction. So this is kind of a play on subduction. So subduction is one plate. Dives down beneath [00:27:15] another plate. SAG reduction would be one plate kind of sags down and then goes into the mantle. So the way you could envision this happening is if you took, let's say Olympus Mans, which is this giant, giant volcano, right? And has an [00:27:30] equally thick lithospheric root beneath it, most likely, a volcano doesn't just up vertically. It's like an iceberg. It builds up and it sinks down as well. And so the crust right next to Olympus Mons is not nearly as thick as Olympus [00:27:45] Mons. So at some point, Olympus Mons might build up so thick that the root drops off and that could create some like buoyancy differences that could allow that crust to kind of sag down underneath its own weight. And it could suck little bits under [00:28:00] it. So it's kind of like a suction happening at the surface where you have heavy stuff dripping off and light stuff kind of rebounding up.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So from my limited outside of your world experience. [00:28:15] Okay. . Um, cuz I certainly do not live in this world like you do . Um, I envision maybe this being a possibility in, let's say a continental margin sediment and material being shed off the continents into [00:28:30] the ocean basin. And it just, this sediment accumulates and then it sinks down due to ISO adjustment or isy and which allows for more deposition to happen. And then it sinks due to the weight and more deposition and so on. And [00:28:45] eventually this weight can. To the point where it causes that margin, the continental margin area there to get so heavy that, it starts to sink and forms this kind of subduction zone [00:29:00] that was created due to kind of weight sagging.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that's exactly right Chris. That Is definitely one of the scenarios that people, would say this is a potential sagduction scenario. The other one is, If you have a a, a sort of a mini continental [00:29:15] block and you erupt a ton of basalt on top of that, the basalt is much more dense than the, the sort of intermediate andesite rock that makes up the continent. And so you have this density inversion where that basalt wants to, to kind of slough off the edges of the continent, kind of wants to [00:29:30] slide off And if you build up enough of that, you could create this density, sort of what we call density inversion, where the top is heavier and more dense than the bottom and it wants to invert, it wants to slide off the top and kind of slough off the margins. And so that would mean the continent would [00:29:45] kind of be buoyed up through the basaltic pile on top of it. And uh, and this is one model that people would use to explain some of the archean rocks that we have on the earth.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. And means very, very, very old. Yes. The, some of the oldest rocks we have, so, [00:30:00] okay. Um, real quick then back to, uh, a question that I asked earlier, seduction, which would be a subduction zone due to one of these mechanisms that we just described, would be an example of well subduction occurring in one [00:30:15] place that does not prove plate tectonics exist on that
Dr. Jesse Reimink: it's close to subduction. It's not quite subduction because it's not like a continuous. Conveyor belt, whereas modern subduction, you know, the oceanic crust has this slab pole mechanism that [00:30:30] pulls more slab down and it creates more oceanic crust. SAG reduction does not have that mechanism. It's like one pile of basalt sloughing off the edge and then it's done. So it's kind of a, an episodic , breaking of the lid or an episodic movement. which kind of leads us [00:30:45] nicely into the next one, which would be episodic or squishy lid tectonics. Those are kind of similar things, but it's basically, the way to think about that is, is just as the name implies, you don't have this continuous subduction zone system these come out of a lot of [00:31:00] GEODynamics models, so big computer simulations of the physics of a planet where they see subduction will happen. But it'll happen for a brief amount of time, a couple million years, and then it'll stop The idea being that, in the modern [00:31:15] subduction system, the oceanic plate dives down. It gets really dense and that begins to be an anchor. That anchor pulls down more of the plate, it's called slab pull, pulls down more of the plate, and the plate is strong enough. It's like your anchor rope is strong [00:31:30] enough that it holds onto the anchor and the anchor can hold that thing down in the mantle. It kind of pulls the rest of the stuff down into the mantle. Back in the early earth, the mantle was probably a couple hundred degrees hotter than it is today. And so that anchor rope was weaker [00:31:45] and so as soon as that anchor forms and starts to pull down the slab will kind of break off. Cuz it's weaker and Exactly. And then it breaks and, then it shuts off subduction for a little while until the forces build up enough to start subduction [00:32:00] again. Hence the term episodic. And so that's, that's usually people would say that that does happen, or it probably has happened. We just don't really know how to identify it in the rock record, it comes out of a lot of computer models, so a lot of people see, [00:32:15] results that are kind of episodic, tectonic settings. So, yeah.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. interesting. let's go to the next question then. Let's leave these variations on plate tectonics and go into this, which I don't know if you've already answered, but [00:32:30] what key signature do you need to see that convinces you that, okay, this planet has plate tectonics.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, the, it's a really tough one. I, so I deal a lot in geochemical signatures, which are [00:32:45] one step removed from. The rocks. They're in the rocks. But usually I'm dealing with, formerly igneous rocks that have been metamorphoses multiple times, like the Acosta, nice complex samples. And so, you know, I'm looking at [00:33:00] relatively arm wavy geochemical signatures, and I have written papers that suggest that plate tectonics started around 3.7 billion years ago. I, you know, I wouldn't stick my career on that result. but sort of what I would like to see is not just one location, but multiple, [00:33:15] so multiple locations around the world that have some similar signature. the, where the simplest answer is plate tectonics. Maybe not the only answer, but the simplest, answer is that signature is a plate tectonic signature. So that's what [00:33:30] I've used previously in, in my research and, um, you know, I'm, I'm happy with it being the simplest, if not only answer,
Chris Bolhuis: Um, so I don't know if I'm really satisfied with your answer and here's why. maybe some of our listeners do understand what you mean when you say, [00:33:45] I'm looking for this chemical signature, but I, I, would say that most don't, because I don't really feel like I do either. I
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That's totally fair.
Chris Bolhuis: I, I don't feel
Dr. Jesse Reimink: So I think like, one thing that you could look at is in [00:34:00] modern subduction zones,
Chris Bolhuis: Hold on. I got like, do you have a way to explain this? Because like, I have to throw this out there sometimes because, um, my mom, you know, I'm trying to catch her not listening to this podcast because that would hurt me. You know, I'm, I'm her [00:34:15] son and
Dr. Jesse Reimink: every minute of planet Geo.
Chris Bolhuis: this is gonna be like, can you please explain a chemical
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, so this is for Joyce. So, so Joyce, here's what happens. Um, there are certain elements in it in modern subduction zone [00:34:30] systems. The volcanic arc, the volcanoes above a subduction zone system, Mount Fiji, the cascades in the us, in the northern US and in British Columbia, the Andes Mountains, those are produced by water, leaving the slab and going into the mantle. [00:34:45] So there's water involved in this process, and that's not common on all those other seduction. Stagnant lid. Squishy lid, tectonics water is not necessarily involved in those, those systems there. So water's key here on modern plate tectonics. [00:35:00] So there are particular elements that water will move. More than they'll move other elements. So you could look for ones that are quote unquote water mobile or fluid mobile. Things like uranium are fluid mobile, things like barium or [00:35:15] fluid mobile. And you compare those water mobile ones to ones that are not water mobile, that stay behind when water leaves. And so if you see a, a granite or a, an endocyte that is enriched in uranium and barium. That might [00:35:30] be a subduction zone. Signature.
Chris Bolhuis: So then if they're mobile, if these elements, these chemical signatures are concentrated, that concentration happens because they were, water mobile. And so the water is what [00:35:45] concent. in certain areas and if you go back to some of our previous episodes on plate tectonics, talk a lot about the importance of water in plate tectonics it, it hits,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: for sure. And, and you know, if you're sitting there listening, [00:36:00] Joyce or anybody else and, and you're thinking, wow, that's a really arm wavy argument. It is completely. But it's all we have because as I described, the rocks have been metamorphs multiple times. All their magnetic signatures are gone. We don't know where they initially formed on the surface [00:36:15] down in the crust. You know what? Latitude, there's so much. We don't know. We only have geochemistry for many of these old rock locations. And so that's why the many of the, the pieces of evidence though, you'll read those Science Daily or those science, uh, news articles about when plate tectonics [00:36:30] started. A lot of them are speaking about geochemical signatures, cuz that's all we have. that's all the information we have.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Which are usually, these geochemical signatures are usually gonna. Elements that concentrate
Dr. Jesse Reimink: many many times. [00:36:45] many times. there'll be that or there'll be different isotopic, uh, systems that get really complicated and nuanced and, you know, we'd have to have charts to really explain this Well, it is beyond the scope of
Chris Bolhuis: Okay, well, let's not go there. that leads me into our final question for [00:37:00] today. I think, I think I might come up with another one, but do planets evolve into and out of plate tectonic states? because I, I'm struck with this thought. [00:37:15] Why is earth so unique in that it has plate tectonics and most systems that we are aware of, most other planetary systems do not.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: That, tris my friend, is the question like, why is Earth [00:37:30] unique? What is the key? Thing that makes it unique. Th that we don't, we don't know that, you know, we talked last episode about water. You know, we could talk about magnetism, we could talk about an atmosphere in oceans. We can talk about many different [00:37:45] things, that make Earth unique but time is maybe one of them because the answer to this question, do planets evolve into or out of plate tectonic states? The answer is probably yes. Venus used to be in a different tectonic state than it is today. [00:38:00] Mars used to be in a tectonic state that is different today. Maybe earth maybe was in a different tectonic state. It didn't, it wasn't born and had plate tectonics right away. It had some magma ocean phase, then it went into maybe some stagnant lid or episodic [00:38:15] lid, um, and then went into plate tectonics. And in the future, earth will probably cool down such that it becomes a stagnant lid planet, like the end state of a planet is cooling down such that there's no heat to actually break the lithosphere anymore. And [00:38:30] so, um,
Chris Bolhuis: Or when the lithosphere maybe gets too thick, right?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: because you've lost so much heat that the planet is cooling down and getting, you know, the liters getting thicker and thicker when that it can't be broken.
Chris Bolhuis: Because again, the lithosphere we're talking about this crust, [00:38:45] the the, the, you know, the part that the, the skin of the earth, right? And then this crunchy, brittle mantle below it. And so we're, when we talk about lithosphere, these are the tectonic plates that we're discussing that are moving and shifting about and so on. And, [00:39:00] um, it's, it's all about the rock behavior. The lithosphere is cold, crunchy, relatively cold. I, you know, I'm, I'm, this is in relatives. Terms, but it's cold and crunchy. It's brittle. Okay. So that's what we're talking about. So that over time, as Earth continues to [00:39:15] cool off, that crunchy outer layer of the earth is gonna get thicker and thicker and thicker. And eventually you probably get to a point where it's evolved out of the ability to, to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, that, that's exactly right. Like as the planet cools down, it, it kind of evolves towards a stagnant lid [00:39:30] regime and, but it could start in a stagnant lid regime as well. So yes, you can evolve in and out and, and there are pretty good models or people who model planetary heat loss and they model the, the GEODynamics of the system that say that plate tectonics is really this kind of [00:39:45] Goldilocks environment where it's gotta be not too hot, not too cold, and then you get plate tectonics is happy for a little while in the sort of middle age of a planet, which,
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. So, and then the size of the planet
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Absolutely, absolutely. A lot of things the, the [00:40:00] starting.
Chris Bolhuis: Mars is too
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yep. And. the starting chemistry of the planet matters. How much radioactive decay is going on. Lots of different things go into this. Um, and so Chris, let me just end and keep me outta the weeds. I'm gonna try and keep this 20 seconds here, but I [00:40:15] just, I I, I'm feeling a little self-conscious that I've given my opinion here a lot. And, and my opinion is that plate tectonics some sort of mobile lid system, meaning plate tectonics. The, the liter is breaking, it's either squishy lid or episodic tectonics [00:40:30] started about 3.7 billion years ago, and then we got to a modern, like plate tectonic regime around 2.7 or 3 billion years ago. But I just wanna say that you will talk to very good researchers who [00:40:45] disagree vehemently with me on that one. And so there's a lot of people with a lot of different opinions on that. some people would pin plate tectonics at 4.3 billion years old. They think plate tectonics was going on then. Um, and some people say it didn't happen till 600 million years ago. [00:41:00] So,
Chris Bolhuis: You know what, Jesse? I think that's okay. I appreciate you doing that, putting out your little disclaimer. Okay. Um, but I, I don't think that it's absolutely necessary to do that because this. is our podcast. We get to have our thoughts now. These are educated thoughts. This is an educated discussion [00:41:15] that we're having. and you said that right, from the get-go, that this is what we think this is, you know, where my research has led me. it's, it's fine. ,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Okay. Good. All right. All right, good. Well, there we go.
Chris Bolhuis: You're, you're gun shy, I think from all these [00:41:30] conferences where people sit back and,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: yelled at, get yelled at, for some ideas. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Chris Bolhuis: Oh. Which, which again, is really entertaining to
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Super entertaining. You
Chris Bolhuis: I've never seen this happen to you, but man.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No, it's, uh, it's it's very entertaining to watch happen. [00:41:45] I, um, on that note, you, know, this paper that I was struggling to get published, so it is, it probably by the time this airs it will have been accepted. I just got back over the holidays, I got back news that I had two reviews and they were [00:42:00] very nice, minor comments, and the editor was happy to accept it. Um, you know, if I made the changes. So that one will hopefully be coming out. Yeah, it's kind of fun to finally see something through. I mean, this thing's been two years in the making through reviews and negative reviews. [00:42:15] Hard criticisms. Valid criticisms. Invalid
Chris Bolhuis: So I wanna ask you about that. Okay. Can I ask you a little bit about this? Um, cuz we've been, you know, we've hit this time to time on our episodes cuz I, I want updates on this. how much did you change due [00:42:30] to the responses that you got, the feedback that you got? Did, was there then? Alright, back to the drawing boards. I got, I gotta look at some things again and So on. Like what, what what was the process?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: the process? goes, you really, what I do is I first take, I [00:42:45] first look at the read the, reviews, which I always, and I think everybody does this. I get pretty defensive. It feels like
Chris Bolhuis: Mm-hmm. .Absolutely.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: of them are, not. Um, and so I just put it away for a week. Right, like read 'em, put it away for a week and calm [00:43:00] down
Chris Bolhuis: I think the personal attacks, are understandable as well, because the reviewer is probably doing research in a related area that may contradict what your conclusions are. And so that reader took your findings to be personal. [00:43:15] You know, so it's just kind of this, this
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, it goes back And, forth like that. So, you know, I always put it away for a couple weeks And then, you know, revisit it and you can kind of hell of calm down by that point. And, and you can kind of say, all right, what are reasonable [00:43:30] critiques here? And in this case, in this paper, um, there were a couple reasonable critiques and there was a lot of, of sort of not understanding. And the way to read this is if people didn't quite get it, it's my fault for not explaining it well enough [00:43:45] and my fault for not like giving enough of a backstory or giving the right introduction to why we did this or how this fits in. So I kind of have to have to say, you. know, okay, they, they clearly don't understand this, or they're, [00:44:00] they're. Yeah, they don't agree with this point, but maybe they're not understanding that point I'm trying to make, so I need to explain it clearer. that's kind of the way it goes. But I would say the end product here is significantly improved from the starting product and that, that makes it [00:44:15] worth it. Right. That makes the, the stress of this review process and the how long it takes, it makes it worth it when the end paper is a lot better.
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Interesting. Very interesting. Um, can, can we have the title.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: The title is, yes, you may, and it's gonna [00:44:30] be, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, uh, which is a nice journal. It's like a disciplinary journal. So it's, it's very much like solid earth science. Um, it, the title is going to be quantifying the effect of late Bombardment on [00:44:45] Terrestrial ercan.
Chris Bolhuis: Oh wow. Okay.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: which is, um, the late heavy bombardment to meteorite.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. This is late bombardment to the early bombardment era? Correct.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yes, that's right. we, we, basically What we did is we, we calculated [00:45:00] the probability that any point on the surface of the earth would have experienced enough pressure from a meteorite impact, what we call shock pressure, meteorite impact hits. And it sends a shock wave through a planet and that can shock mineral grains in ercan, [00:45:15] it can really shock mineral grains and it's very diagnostic. So we calculated the probabilities that ercan would be shocked given different impact scenarios, basically like, um, in the timing of different impact scenarios. So it's an interesting, I think it's interesting. [00:45:30] Some people don't think it's interesting, but it might get published. So
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. Well very cool. Very cool so, uh, alright, what's next for you? Are you already working on your next publication or is this, is your next thing gonna be a spinoff from this?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: No, this? is [00:45:45] a little bit of a one and done, uh, paper. We've got some collaborators who are maybe gonna help take the lead on the next paper on this, but I've got probably six papers that are at various stages. I've got some students who are writing papers, which is exciting for me, a PhD student and a [00:46:00] master student who just finished, um, and they're both writing papers at the moment, so I'm helping them. Um, they'll be first author and I'll be a co-author, but we're, we're sort of getting those papers written and hopefully submitted. So that's kind of the main thing.
Chris Bolhuis: how, how, many publications have [00:46:15] you, you've been at Penn State now for a couple years, right? Two and a half years,
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Uh, I've been here Three and, a half years now
Chris Bolhuis: Three and, okay. Wow, you, okay. So you've been at Penn State for three and a half years now. How many publications during that time?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: during that time? [00:46:30] That's a good question. I would say I have had probably on average, let's see, five, I've probably had 12 publications in that. time something like that. and, and I am hoping this next year will be [00:46:45] a big slug of them with student papers coming out and everything like that, so,
Chris Bolhuis: All right. Interesting. I, I don't know if this is interesting to our listeners, but it is to me, um, obviously because, you know, I, I care about you and all that, but I, um, it's [00:47:00] just like this, this world that you live in is so different from the world I live in, and we talk, I think that's one of the, we come at this podcast from very different angles and and like, I, I just getting an insight into that, um, is helpful for me anyway. I hope [00:47:15] it is for everybody else, but
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah. Well, it's I think it is very interesting and, and well may maybe not interesting, but it's important for people to know how the scientific publication process works. Because I think most people, or many people think, oh, if it's published, it must be right. [00:47:30] It's been through peer review, it's right. And there is a lot of published stuff that is wrong. Not all of it. I I, you can't just write off publications as wrong, but you can't just wholesale accept them either as it's been published in a scientific journal, [00:47:45] therefore it's Right. Um, and that's the benefit that's the process of, of this whole scientific endeavor is, is sort of going back and forth and finding the correct path. Eventually we will come to some consensus on the, the correct ideas, but it ta might take a
Chris Bolhuis: Okay. So one final [00:48:00] question before we sign off here then. Do you think that during your career that will have an answer about when plate tectonics began on earth that is accepted and [00:48:15] definitive?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Ooh, that's a good question. I struggle with this one because part of I want to say yes, I want to say yes in the worst way, because, you know, it's something I probably will dedicate many decades to. Um, [00:48:30] so I want to say Yes. in the worst way, and there's some new techniques that are coming out. There's more and more researchers, there's more and more discoveries, and so my hope would be yes, but. I'm cynical only because of the way the earth works, that we [00:48:45] just have so few rocks that are really old that it's gonna be hard to really pin that time down. Like, and part of this is philosophical. Like I, uh, just gimme 20 seconds here to just, there's a phil philosophical difference here. Some people would say [00:49:00] that when you're approaching the question of was plate tectonics operative on earth before, you know, 3.5 billion years ago, let's just say that some people would say, plate tectonics happens today, so therefore you have to disprove it. what's your null [00:49:15] hypothesis? You have to prove that it didn't happen 3.5 billion years ago. And some people would say that the null hypothesis is that plate tectonics did not happen. So you have to prove it happened 3.5 billion years ago. So the kind of onus of evidence is like, do you have to prove it or disprove [00:49:30] it? is it plate tectonics until proven otherwise, or is it not plate tectonics until proven otherwise? So part of it comes down to this really deep philosophical question of what is your, your default state? When you think about the early earth, which one do you have to prove?
Chris Bolhuis: [00:49:45] Damn Jesse. Oh my gosh. I, I, I want to have a bourbon with you right now. on my front porch
Dr. Jesse Reimink: we're philosophizing.
Chris Bolhuis: Oh, man. All right. So, um, where do you fall on [00:50:00] that?
Dr. Jesse Reimink: I've had very, very dear mentors who I respect so much who fall on either side of this line. I, I just don't know where I stand on it really. I think, if you pin me to the ground and said, you have to make a decision, [00:50:15] I would default that you have to disprove it. But I, I wouldn't hold, like, I'm not strongly in favor of that one. so I don't have a very strong opinion. Do you have like a knee jerk reaction to that? What you, what do you
Chris Bolhuis: I think my reaction [00:50:30] would be you have to prove it.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: you have to prove it? Okay. That
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: that I think
Chris Bolhuis: Uh, the reason is because to fall on the side of having to disprove That plate, tectonics happened back then [00:50:45] assumes that everything is just always the same. You know, it's this kind of, this uniformitarianism that. geology takes a lot of shit over. because we really don't make the assumptions that are tied in with uniformitarianism. Um, I think that's why.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: [00:51:00] That's, I, I agree completely with that. And the part of me that agrees with, with your sentiment there is, is exactly for the reasons you're outlining. Like, seeing what the modelers have done where they can, they can see SAG reduction in, GEODynamics models. They can [00:51:15] see episodic tectonics, they can see mantle, overturned tectonics. They see all these different varieties of tectonics, not plate tectonics, different varieties of, of how planets could operate. That kind of makes me think we need to prove plate tectonics, because [00:51:30] there's o other options out there. So yeah, it's a, it's a tough one for me.
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah, I, I think I find myself like thinking through my thought process I can, I can see that, I can see myself going either way. You know, if you, if you [00:51:45] say you have to prove it, well it's going on now, so when did it, you know, it's, it had to start at some point. I, it's just kind of this circular logic thing
Dr. Jesse Reimink: totally .You get into this
Chris Bolhuis: Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: egg kind of thing where you're like, ah, I don't know which one's which. I mean, it's complicated [00:52:00] .So, uh, anyway, well that's a very philosophical ending to this, uh, this, this little topic here, but, uh, a fun
Chris Bolhuis: you never know where we're gonna go. We did, this was thing we did with this episode, it was really kind of wide open. Um, this was more of just a discussion and [00:52:15] not as scripted as our normal episodes are. So, but I liked it. It was good. Good talk. Yeah.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Yeah, me too, man. Hey, with that You can follow us on all the social medias at Planet Geo cast. Send us an. If, uh, uh, hopefully there's something that struck you about this conversation [00:52:30] and, uh, if so, send us an email, planet geo cast gmail.com. Go to Camp Geo our conversational textbook for the geosciences. It's the first link in the show notes and, uh, what else? Oh, go to our website. You there, you can donate to us. you can support us and, check [00:52:45] stuff out about us and see all of our past episodes. That's planet geo cast.com.
Chris Bolhuis: Cheers.
Dr. Jesse Reimink: Cheers.[00:53:00] [00:53:15]
