Category: continental drift

Monday Geology Picture: An Early Map of Arabia

A Map of Arabia by Abraham Ortelli, circa 1570. Map print hanging in the Dubai Museum, September 2013.
Map of Arabia by Abraham Ortelius, circa 1570. Map print hanging in the Dubai Museum, September 2013.

Back in September 2013 I visited Dubai for one day during a layover when I was flying from Alaska back to South Africa. I was fortunate enough to be able to sleep on the flight from New York to Dubai, so when I arrived in Dubai I took a quick shower at the hotel then headed out to explore for a few hours. I spent some time at the Dubai Museum. The museum is located in a fort that is the oldest building in Dubai and has several interesting exhibits. I’ll blog a little more about my visit to the museum later this week.

For now, I want to share this picture of an interesting map that was displayed in a little nook in one part of the museum. As I was walking through the museum, the map caught my eye, so I took a picture of it. The map is titled “Map of Arabia in 1570 by Abraham Ortelius”. I was intrigued by the map as I thought that 1570 was quite early for such a detailed map to have been produced for the region. When I did some googling after the museum visit, I discovered that the map comes from a book known as the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), which is considered to be the world’s first modern atlas. This atlas was compiled by Abraham Ortelius, a Flemish cartographer and geographer. I’ll have to do some reading on Ortelius– he sounds like he was a very interesting person. According to Wikipedia, he was apparently one of the first people (the first person?) to propose the theory of continental drift… long before Alfred Wegener!

Plate Tectonics by Squirrel– “Ice Age: Continental Drift”

My friend Arthur just made my day by sending me a link to the teaser for the 4th installment of the “Ice Age” movie series. This clip is adorable but also completely ridiculous scientifically.

“Ice Age: Continental Drift” Trailer taken from YouTube.

This clip makes me smile and laugh, but I do worry– a little– about young children believing in plate tectonics by sabre-toothed squirrel after watching this movie. I think most children are smart enough to figure out that plate tectonics (which isn’t called continental drift, by the way) doesn’t really happen by squirrel. However, I wonder if there’s any way to talk 20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios into including an extra on the DVD or on their movie website that explains how plate tectonics really works. Even just a two or three minute clip– it could even be a cartoon– with a proper scientific explanation would be wonderful. I know that many children watch all of the extras on their favorite movies religiously.

If I wrote a letter and tracked down the contact information for the people in charge of the “Ice Age” movies, would other geologists also write letters and help me with my campaign? Note that I don’t want them to change their script– I just want them to include some educational information as a sort of extra. There is plenty of time for this campaign as the movie is not scheduled to come out until 2012. I’ll get started on my research, but please reply below or send me an email if you’d be willing to support my effort– even if it’s just signing a letter that I write to Fox.

Also, I have a few connections to the entertainment industry through some skeptical friends of mine. I’ll do some networking and try to come up with the best way to reach Fox & Blue Sky Studios, the two organizations in charge of this movie.