Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

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Journey to the Center of the Earthby Jules
Verne

• Presented by Katie Omberg

http//michaelmay.blogspot.com/2007/02/journey-to-
center-of-earth-in-3d.html
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As you can see, there are a number of things in
this picture that just dont make sense

• No light
• No ancient reptiles
• No oceans
• No air
• Too hot for life
• No people on boats

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Plot

• Prof. Harwigg finds an ancient text by Icelander
  Arne Saknussemm
  
• Goes down Sneffels mountain in Iceland
• Travels around the inside of the earth through a
  series of caves
  
• Reaches the Central Sea
• Gets back to the surface through an eruption of
  Stromboli, in Italy

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The Science Behind the Book

• Hollow Earth Theory
• Underground Water Theory
• Plate Tectonics
• Magnetic Pole

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HOLLOW EARTH THEORY

• Gazing around, I began to think of the theory
  of the English captain who compared the earth to
  a vast hollow sphere in the interior of which the
  air is retained in a luminous state by means of
  atmospheric pressure, while two stars, Pluto and
  Proserpine, circled there in their mysterious
  orbits. After all, suppose the old fellow was
  right!
• -Harry, looking at the electric light in
  the cavern of the Central Sea

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Sir Edmund Halleys Theory
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth

• Idea developed in 1692
• Earth consists of four concentric spheres
• Suspended in atmospheres
• Atmospheres are luminous, possibly contain life

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Leonhard Eulers Theory
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth

• Developed in the 1700s
• A central sun inside the earth with a radius of
  600mi
  
• Provided light to the inhabitants of earths
  interior

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Sir John Leslies Theory

• 1829 Elements of Natural Philosophy, mentions
  a hollow earth
  
• Idea of two suns within the earth, named Pluto
  and Proserpine
  
• This is the English captain
• that Harry is talking about!
• Besides, as we approach the center, I except to
  find it luminous
  
• -Prof. Hardwigg

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UNDERGROUND WATER THEORY

• A vast, limitless expanse of water, the end of
  a lake if not of an ocean, spread before us,
  until it was lost in the distance. . . . It was
  in reality an ocean, with an the usual
  characteristics of an inland sea, only horribly
  wildso rigid, cold and savage.
• -Harry, upon seeing the Central Sea

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The Underworld
http//www.wfu.edu/sporsl5/FYS/lastjudgment.htm
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May Actually be True . . . Kind of
http//www.livescience.com/environment/070228_beij
ing_anomoly.html

• Discovered by Michael Wysession of Wash U this
  past February
  
• Red shows unusually soft and weak rock believed
  to be saturated with water

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The Beijing Anomaly

• Analyzed over 600,000 seismic waves
• Noticed that some slowed while passing through
  the mantle under Asia
  
• As water is sucked under the crust, heated up,
  rises into overlying regions of rock
  
• Volume at least as much as the Arctic Ocean

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PLATE TECTONICS

• This . . . island must have made its appearance
  from out of the great world of waters at a
  comparatively recent date. . . . If this really
  be the case, its origin can be attributed to only
  one causethat of the continued action of
  subterranean fires.
• -Harry, talking about Iceland

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Vernes Idea of Plate Tectonics

• Long before the existence of volcanoes, it was
  composed of a solid body of massive trap rock
  lifted bodily and slowly out of the sea, by the
  action of the centrifugal force at work in the
  earth.

http//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ImageEast_Pacif
ic_Rise.jpg
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• At a later period in the worlds history, a
  huge and mighty fissure must, reasoning by
  analogy, have been dug diagonally from the
  southwest to the northeast of the island, through
  which by degrees flowed the volcanic crust.

http//www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcano-tours/typo
3temp/pics/9e041daa80.jpg
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• . . . despite the enormous thickness and weight
  of the upper crust, the mechanical forces of the
  combustible gases below became so great, that
  they actually upheaved the weighty back and made
  for themselves huge and gigantic shafts. Hence
  the volcanoes . . .

http//hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geophys
/volcano.html
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Whats Actually Happening
http//www.revisionworld.com/files/seafloor.jpg
http//www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid10155tid282cid
2396
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MAGNETIC POLE

• Why, that the needle instead of dipping towards
  the pole as it does on earth, in the northern
  hemisphere, has an upward tendency.

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Really?

• This proves, I cried, that the great point
  of magnetic attraction lies somewhere between the
  surface of the earth and the spot we have
  succeeded in reaching.

http//earthsci.org/education/teacher/basicgeol/pl
atec/magfield.gif
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Proof of Wavering

• . . . near the seventy-third degree of
  latitude, where Sir James Ross discovered the
  magnetic pole . . . .
  
• 1831 Northwest Passage, Ross located the
  Magnetic North Pole

http//www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29
dec_magneticfield.html