Re: Pt. 9 Louis Agassiz - Darwin's Contemporary

Robert Carnegie wrote:
John Harshman wrote:
Question: without the sun, would we have liquid water oceans? Would we
have hyrdothermal vents, which rely on the existence of liquid water oceans?

Not to undermine /all/ of your argument, but would you be referring to
the boiling hot volcanic hydrothermal vents, there?

Yes. Do you understand the mechanism by which they work? They require the recirculation of liquid water, and much of this happens far from the vents themselves. Something must keep that water liquid long enough for it to drain back to the hot spots. Heat from the vent itself isn't enough.

Also, Jupiter's moon Europa is suspected to have an ocean under its
ice layer. And it isn't "in contact with the Sun" like we are.

It's still warmed by the sun. Of course some of its heat comes from tidal forces with Jupiter. I suppose one could argue that before we had the sun, there was a very massive, very close, non-luminous body that heated the oceans by tidal friction, and that disappeared just when the sun appeared. But I don't think Sharon is making that claim.

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