Journey to the Center of the Earthby Jules Verne

As you can see, there are a number of things in this picture that just don’t make sense

• No light• No ancient reptiles• No oceans• No air• Too hot for life• No people on boats

Plot

• Prof. Harwigg finds an ancient text by Icelander Arne Saknussemm

• Goes down Sneffels mountain in Iceland

• Travels around the inside of the earth through a series of caves

• Reaches the Central Sea• Gets back to the surface through

an eruption of Stromboli, in Italy

The Science Behind the Book

• Hollow Earth Theory• Underground Water Theory• Plate Tectonics• Magnetic Pole

HOLLOW EARTH THEORY

“Gazing around, I began to think of the theory of the English captain who compared the earth to a vast hollow sphere in the interior of which the air is retained in a luminous state by means of atmospheric pressure, while two stars, Pluto and Proserpine, circled there in their mysterious orbits. After all, suppose the old fellow was right!”

-Harry, looking at the electric light in the cavern of the Central Sea

Sir Edmund Halley’s Theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth

•Idea developed in 1692•Earth consists of four concentric spheres •Suspended in atmospheres•Atmospheres are luminous, possibly contain life

Leonhard Euler’s Theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth

•Developed in the 1700s•A central sun inside the earth with a radius of 600mi•Provided light to the inhabitants of earth’s interior

Sir John Leslie’s Theory

• 1829 – “Elements of Natural Philosophy,” mentions a hollow earth

• Idea of two suns within the earth, named Pluto and Proserpine

This is the “English captain” that Harry is talking about!

“’Besides, as we approach the center, I except to find it luminous…”

-Prof. Hardwigg

UNDERGROUND WATER THEORY

“A vast, limitless expanse of water, the end of a lake if not of an ocean, spread before us, until it was lost in the distance. . . . It was in reality an ocean, with an the usual characteristics of an inland sea, only horribly wild—so rigid, cold and savage.”

-Harry, upon seeing the Central Sea

The Underworld

http://www.wfu.edu/~sporsl5/FYS/lastjudgment.htm

May Actually be True . . . Kind of

•Discovered by Michael Wysession of Wash U this past February •Red shows unusually soft and weak rock believed to be saturated with water

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070228_beijing_anomoly.html

The Beijing Anomaly

• Analyzed over 600,000 seismic waves• Noticed that some slowed while passing through the

mantle under Asia• As water is sucked under the crust, heated up, rises

into overlying regions of rock• Volume at least as much as the Arctic Ocean

PLATE TECTONICS

“This . . . island must have made its appearance from out of the great world of waters at a comparatively recent date. . . . If this really be the case, its origin can be attributed to only one cause—that of the continued action of subterranean fires.”

-Harry, talking about Iceland

Verne’s Idea of Plate Tectonics“Long before the existence of volcanoes, it was composed of a solid body of massive trap rock lifted bodily and slowly out of the sea, by the action of the centrifugal force at work in the earth.”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:East_Pacific_Rise.jpg

“At a later period in the world’s history, a huge and mighty fissure must, reasoning by analogy, have been dug diagonally from the southwest to the northeast of the island, through which by degrees flowed the volcanic crust.”

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcano-tours/typo3temp/pics/9e041daa80.jpg

“. . . despite the enormous thickness and weight of the upper crust, the mechanical forces of the combustible gases below became so great, that they actually upheaved the weighty back and made for themselves huge and gigantic shafts. Hence the volcanoes . . .”

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geophys/volcano.html

What’s Actually Happening

http://www.revisionworld.com/files/seafloor.jpg http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10155&tid=282&cid=2396

MAGNETIC POLE

“Why, that the needle instead of dipping towards the pole as it does on earth, in the northern hemisphere, has an upward tendency.”

Really?

“”This proves,” I cried, “that the great point of magnetic attraction lies somewhere between the surface of the earth and the spot we have succeeded in reaching.””

http://earthsci.org/education/teacher/basicgeol/platec/magfield.gif

Proof of Wavering“. . . near the seventy-third degree of latitude, where Sir James Ross discovered the magnetic pole . . . .”

• 1831: Northwest Passage, Ross located the Magnetic North Pole

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html