Tanya Atwater, who as a grad student published the 1970 paper that the San Andreas fault was a transform fault, has been doing tectonic and structural animations in the last few years. Her latest involve the ice ages. I just received an email from my sister with an article about points where Al Gore is claimed to be wrong. If my sister finds the link to that article (so I don't have to paste it), I may post my comments on it. But, as part of the discussion I discussed how much I think sea level will rise this century. That is likely to depend on how fast Greeland ice cap melts, because I think that ice cap represents 20 feet of sea level (I don't think it was 20 m). The linked animation shows the deglaciation of North America in the last 20,000 years. Atwater presented that at a dinner meeting I saw in Ventura. She pointed out how fast the ice sheet in the cordillera (Rockies) disappeared once the mountain peaks poked out. It looks like it took 1000 years for an area the size of Greenland to melt. But, that does not mean it is impossible for Greenland to go faster, and I am interested in the scientific consensus on this. Nevermind Florida, I am part owner with many relatives of water front property in Rhode Island (at least is steep rocky coast).
You need hi-speed internet for the downloads: small version is 12.8 Mbytes
large is 65 Mbytes.
check out the mammoth animation and others on this site.
Chris

• deglaciation