Comments on: Atmospheric Remnants of Nuclear Tests Reveal Antarctica’s Tiny “Old-Growth Forests”

By: Barry Johnstone.

Barry Johnstone. — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:47:00 +0000

A mass of concentrated earthly material perennially rotating on its axis will not accumulate an accretion of BRYOPHYTIC vegetation.

By: Sean Morris

Sean Morris — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:25:13 +0000

Although its worth noting that atoms probably move in and out of the plant much faster than 1/second, just with a net gain less than that.

By: Douglas Main

Douglas Main — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:48:30 +0000

Chris: Thanks for the comment. As you probably realize I meant “glacial” in the more colloquial sense, meaning “very slow.” But it is worth noting that this is way slower than glaciers actually move.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:48:20 +0000

On average these mosses grow at the glacial speed of 1 millimeter per year

Glaciers move faster than 1 mm/year. Heck even the continental plates move around 1 cm/year or more. Mount Everest is rising around 4 mm/year.

For fun let’s assume you were piling atoms one on top of another and doing this at 1 atom/second. Each atom has a diameter ~0.2 nm
(0.2*10^-9)(3600)(24)(365.25) = 6.3 * 10^-3 m = 6.3 mm.

Just to put in perspective how slow that is.