A new OLD whats-it ?

[SwampDonkey]

I believe the greatest shift was east <-> west Furby, not so much north ^ south during the period of the fossils.   Those trees occurred after the Cretaceous period, which was closer to the present day situation. The major shift at Cretaceous to present day was the breaking apart of NA from Europe and Antarctica from Australia according to your maps.

[isawlogs]

 Tom .
  It has every thing to do with a fossilized forest , it is a part of it .  This peice is 42million years old ( carbon tested dated )

  It is on Ellessmere Island in the arctic , I dont know much about Global Warming ... but if there was a tropical forest there once .....  Who are we to think there could not be another . 

[Furby]

Actually Donk, look again.
There was a rotation going on.
The area may not have been to the equator, but was much further South.

[SwampDonkey]

Yes there was some movement, but not that significant. And your talking about a period of millions of years in between the Cretaceous and Now. And it's a lot of conjecture as to when it moved and how much since it's been millions of years. But, one thing is for sure, those fossils are real concrete evidence that trees grew there and they have been carbon dated for age. We also know that a tree's life is just a drop in the bucket compared to the movement of the plates on the earth.

[Furby]

Yes we do.
Most of us know the flaws in carbon dating as well, so...........

[isawlogs]

Furby

    What are the flaws .. I am one of um that dont know 

[Ianab]

Carbon dating only works out to about 50,000 years.

The way it works is that a certain % of the carbon floating around is a radioactive isotope of carbon. I think it's formed natually by radiation in the upper atmosphere. So when something that contains carbon, like a piece of wood, gets buried the radiactive part of the carbon slowly decays away from the time it was locked up. By comparing the ratio of normal carbon and carbon isotope, you can make an educated guess how old something is.

The main flaws are

After 50,000 years most of the carbon13 has decayed away, so there is nothing left to measure.

You have to assume that the amount of carbon13 in the atmosphere has allways been the same, but you cant prove that. So it's not 100% accurate, but it does give a good guide as to wether something is 100 years, 1,000 years or 10,000 years old.

With the really old fossils and rocks I believe they can look at other radioactive isotopes and use them to judge age. Also they can look at fossils in rocks above and below the sample and see what is present. The types of fossils give and indication of the age as well.

It's not an exact science though, but it does let them put a timeline together.

Cheers

Ian

[Furby]

Marcel, my post was sort of in a way a smart arse remark.
It really all comes down to what you belive as "facts" are "found" to support both sides.

[isawlogs]

 Furby , I did not take it to be a smart arse remark .. I did not know there was issues with carbon dating ... I learned another thing here today . 

  That peice of wood is still old . Really old . 

   

[farmerdoug]

We may not know how truely old it is but I sure think that piece of wood would ruin a saw blade in a hurry.

Farmerdoug

[SwampDonkey]

Now in all this confusion, I still didn't get the story on this fossilized tree. You can't just plunk this thing down and simply ask whazit, can ya?  It came a long way from Chelsea Quebec, we know that much.