At least that’s the case according to some bad movie geology.
This is what happens when movies get made with no dogs involved—all the common sense is stripped right out of them.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I read through the whole thread, but it seems like the punchline must be in the YouTube link that I studiously avoided to follow (I don’t even have sound on this computer).
I miss the days when people used to communicate in writing. I suppose it’s only going to get worse.
OK, the video: some geologists are in the cone of a volcano. They dig around a little, and find…a fossil ammonite. From the Devonian or whatever.
Writing, eh? I’ll have to try some of that sometime.
Sounds like the location scout and production designer won the argument over the science consultant.
“Finding fossils in a volcano is both impossible and stupid”
“So, it looks freaking cool! Makes a great gimbal shot.”
“ok, get props to bring the fossil in… let’s put them near the steaming vent”
You also don’t usually find oil around active volcanoes (in a stupid flick that a bunch of well-known respected actors should have been ashamed to appear in).
And the less said about this turkey, the better…but its earlier version has the redeeming features (for Trek fans, at least) of seeing Wil Wheaton get deep-fried in magma, and Terry Farrell without the spots.
Now we know how ammonites went extinct: by threwing themselves in boiling lava. They had sensed, thanks to all their tiny furry tentacles, that the future had nothing more to offer but silly TV shows.
Wow. I’ve always held that The Core is the worst geology movie ever made, but now I have to see this one. The Core could still win for overwhelming numbers of errors, but that one scene wins for sheerest stupidity of the sort a kid coming out of 8th grade science wouldn’t commit.
Well, Carlie, I only saw the first few minutes of this one, and I left out stuff like the first volcano erupting catastrophically with no warnng until moments before the eruption.
And given that the plot involves The End Of Humanity, I bet there’s more.
[…] Terry Farrell without the spots.
But I liked her spots! It was a huge disappointment to me that she airbrushed them out in “Trials and Tribblations”… ;)
I can’t trust you guys on whether or not it is truly bad until Phil Plait has reviewed it.
Ow, my brain hurts. Ow.
On the bright side, now I get to pull my kids in here and see who can spot the science goof first… the 5YO or the 7YO? (My money’s on the 5YO. He’s been into geology lately.)
Ugh, just reading the comments lets me know that it was one of the Sci-Fi channel groaners, wasn’t it. [peeks at link] Yup.
This is one reason, back when I was in the science fiction club at our public library we HATED the term ‘sci-fi’. It always connoted something really cheesy and horribly made.
“Eureka” is ok, though, any show that celebrates nerd-dom like that is cool in MY book!
The worst science movie of all time is “Special Report: Journey to Mars” starring Judge Reinhold.
“When the worlds first spaceship is close to its goal, Mars, the TV-network GNN begins it’s live coverage of the last two hours. Then the problems starts. The landing-computer malfunctions, the captain Eugene Slader gets very sick and back on Earth it is discovered that big financial corporations have an interest in the failure of the mission – and we, the viewers, can see it all live on televison.”
The fossil is a problem on oh-so-many levels:
A) Fossils are exceedingly rare in igneous rocks, and most especially in those which form the cone of a volcano!!
B) Yes, ammonites are from the Mesozoic and the Devonian, but also from the intervening Carboniferous and Permian.
C) Most importantly of all: ICELAND IS TOO YOUNG FOR AMMONITES!!! Iceland sits atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, in the middle of oceanic crust. Geologically, the rocks down its middle are extremely young, and even the oldest parts of emergent Iceland are only a few million years old. To find Mesozoic rocks in the Atlantic ocean basin you’d have to fly hundreds of miles east or west (although if you went to continental masses like Greenland or Scotland you could find them well enough).
It seems everyone has forgotten Jules Verne recorded an entire biome of prehistoric critters deep within the bowels of a volcano in Iceland. So why not a lone Ammonite?
(Did anyone else get the feeling Verne was trying to poke fun at paleontologists in Journey to the Center of the Earth? )
Dunc @9: Well, how would they explain a Trill appearing on Kirk’s Enterprise a hundred or so years before anyone knew they existed?
I was sad she left DS9, but really, the new Dax was almost equal in fanservice (but a total drag in personality and usefulness, of course).[/trekkie]
PaulC: Yeah, it kinda sucks, but that is the direction of things. It’d be nice if people would include a text summary or transcript or something, though.
You’re not giving the writers enough credit. Obviously, this was a laccolith, and the fossils come from the sedimentary layers pushed to the side. Mt. Elden in Flagstaff is a perfect example; I’ve pulled Mississipian crinoids, worm burrows and scallops off the slopes of this volcano, and there’s a notable Devonian placoderm quarry on its slopes as well.
The Iceland part is a bit tougher to explain away ….
Now you know how I, a horse trainer, feel watching ANY movie that has a horse in it. So many errors on so many levels. Yeesh.
Mt. Elden’s inside the caldera?
Well, I don’t think they were actually under Iceland by that point. They got erupted back up in Italy, remember? (Not that trying to rescue 19th C. SF from its errors is really a worthwhile endeavour. BTAIM, Verne’s place in the literary pantheon is assured.)
I’m confused. You see, from the Young Earth Creationists, I *know* that ammonites didn’t run as fast as snails. So how’d it get so high?
I watched the clip. The badness that most jumped out at me was that they called Verne’s novel “VOYAGE to the Center of the Earth.”
Folderol, I feel your pain. For me it is damn near anything dealing with SCUBA diving. Except Jacqueline Bisset, of course.