Entertainment vs. info

On Black Friday, I went to see 2012 for a matinee showing and hopefully avoid being kicked, prodded, trampled on and otherwise annoyed with the throngs of shoppers itching to brawl for $20 HDTVs and Zhu-Zhu hamsters.
2012 accomplishes its mission in that it is entertaining, but that’s about it. The only believable plot elements were the fact that the government kept the impending destruction of the Earth a state secret and that only a limited number of elite scum were allowed a ticket aboard the “ark” to hold the seed that would re-populate the planet after the cataclysm.

Although like most fiction, the science behind 2012 has some roots in geologic fact. It is true that throughout the Earth’s ~5 billion year history, there have indeed been geomagnetic polar reversals. But there is no evidence to suggest that this caused massive tectonic shifts within a 24 hour period. Not to mention, the over-heating of the earth’s core and mantle is the least of your problems if there was a solar flare large enough to cause such a phenomenon—you would’ve already been burnt to a crisp by direct radiation.

So, the 3 take away lessons from 2012 are: (1) Governments cover-up and lie (2) geologic changes occur over the geologic time scale, which is measured in tens of thousands-millions of years (always...this includes climate change as well); (3) you are sorely mistaken if you are part of the oligarch class. Not a chance.

Remember, this stuff is only 4000 years old!

This is what a geologic "contact" looks like, at least between the Arapahoe and Laramie formations in Golden, Colorado.  This picture was taken in the parking lot behind the materials testing building at the Colorado School of Mines.  It's called an unconformity because there was some significant amount of time that past between the deposition of these layers during the Cretaceous Period. 

Although difficult to determine the ordering from the photograph due to the fact that both units contain quartz sandstone, my sense is that the older Laramie Formation is on the left, upturning the younger Arapahoe Formation due to a thrust fault further west.  Plus, the older formation looks a bit more weathered than its younger sister.

And would you believe that the Geology Museum at Mines has trilobite fossils on display that they claim are about 450 million years old?!?  Gah!  I wonder how these critters fit into the Creation Museum's disgraceful exhibits?  They probably have Adam sprinkling them on his pizza...because by their reckoning of time, Domino's would be have to be delivering to Gondwanaland.