The great breadths of time.

This heat difference is very well known in the oil industry - here in West Texas a 10,000 foot well will be about 160 Fahrenheit at the bottom; southeast of Dallas it would be nearly 300 degrees at that depth. The difference is largely due to different minerals below there and, I presume, to differing thickness of the crust. At Brawley, California it's more like 700 degrees at that depth, because the crust is thin over the rift that formed the Sea of Cortez - you're nearly drilling into a pluton, or the mantle.Edited by Coragyps, : add comment

Thanks for all your help everyone! I think I'm done with this topic for a while. Managed to correct several misconceptions that I had and re-learned some basic Earth Science.One of the main questions was "why does it HAVE to take such great breadths of time to see what we see?" I think the answer is that it really doesn't have to, however, all current evidence suggests that on Earth, things did take a long time to happen, and things are still happening today, at a very slow pace...but sometimes it's "fast".I have interests over several topics, so I'll be around, not sure how often I'll participate...this is only the second time since I became a member.Mods, feel free to close this up if you like.