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走进神秘的落基山脉第7期:原始落基山的高度

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  • Leaves with teeth do better in colder climates because teeth are actually really advantageous in jump starting growth at the beginning of the growing seasons.
  • In this case, you can see this beautiful fossil leaf here with teeth, and each of the teeth are a little hotbeds of photosynthesis,
  • so when that leaf first comes out of the bud, it gets a jump start on leaves that do not have teeth.
  • Miller uses this information to find out about the height of the young Rocky Mountains.
  • In a simple but powerful technique, he compares the number of leaves with teeth to those without.
  • You go to a particular area, and you pick up all the species of leaves that are there from the trees that are growing in that area,
  • and you compare the number of species that have teeth to the number of species that have smooth margins.
  • That gives us some idea of what the temperature is.
  • So the higher the proportion of plants with jagged edges compared to plants with smooth edges,
  • the colder the temperature of the site.
  • And the colder the temperature, the higher the mountain.
  • So if you 've got into a hot air balloon here today, and you float it straight up into the atmosphere,
  • the temperature will decrease in a very predictable way, and it turns out that for about every mile you go up in the atmosphere,
  • you lose about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • So if we know how temperature changes with elevation, we can back out elevation from those estimates of temperature.
  • To work out the height of the early mountain, Miller needs to compare samples from two areas,
  • one at the base of the mountain and one at the top.
  • Fossils found at the base of the Rockies near the present day Denver have an amazing story to tell.
  • These ancient leaves are incredibly similar to plants growing in the tropics today.
  • So after the Rockies rose, down in the area of Denver, it was sub tropical and tropical forests,
  • we have palms, and cycads, and canopies like we see in the tropics today.
  • Up here we had a forest that looked probably more like a forest that grows in North or South Carolina on the east coast of the U.S. By comparing the ancient fossil leaves from the top of the mountain with fossil leaves from the foot of the mountain,
  • Miller has come up with a surprising conclusion.
  • It turns out that the fossil leaves here are predominantly toothed as compared to those that are in Denver which are predominantly smooth margin.
  • And it turns out the ones in Denver grew in a climate that was about, on average about 75 degrees Fahrenheit,
  • the ones up here grew in a climate that was probably about 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • So if we know how temperature changes with elevation, that means that this site, when these fossil leaves were deposited,
  • was about a mile higher than Denver.
  • Today it's only a half mile higher.
  • So 60 million years ago, the mountains would be twice as high as they are today.


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注释:① jump-starting n. 借火;起动 v. 起动(jump-start的ing形式)
例句:
1. What we are doing is jump-starting these concepts and demonstrating their potential.
我们现在做的是跳跃性的展示这些概念和潜力。
2. Maybe the economic measures already taken will end up doing the trick, jump-starting a self-sustaining recovery.
或许现有的经济措施最终会发挥预期的效果,推动经济的持续发展。

pick up 捡起;获得;收拾
例句:
1. I'd really like to pick up Grandpa at the railroad station.
我真想去火车站接爷爷。
2. I'll go to pick up some odds and ends at the store.
我要到商店买些零碎的东西。
3. She soon picked up French when she went to live in France.
她到法国居住后很快就学会了法语。

turn out v. 结果是, 生产, 出现, 关闭, 翻转, 证明是
例句:
1. Remember to turn out the lights before you go to bed.
临睡前别忘了关灯。
2. The news turned out to be false.
那个消息后来证明是假的。

句子讲解:

1. You go to a particular area, and you pick up all the species of leaves that are there from the trees that are growing in that area, and you compare the number of species that have teeth to the number of species that have smooth margins.

  【结构简析】 由"and"连接的两个句子,这些动作是自然而然发生的。你到了一个地方,先是 "pick up" 摘叶子然后就是"compare"这些叶子。其他成分是用来说明这些叶子的修饰成分。

  【参考译文】 去一个特定的区域,摘下该地区树上所有不同种类的树叶,然后比较该地区齿状形树叶物种的数量。

  2. So if you've got into a hot air balloon here today, and you float it straight up into the atmosphere, the temperature will decrease in a very predictable way, and it turns out that for about every mile you go up in the atmosphere, you lose about 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

  【结构简析】这个长句子要表达的意思非常的简单,就是你愈往上走,就愈感觉到冷。

  【参考译文】如果今天你就坐在热气球里,在这儿你会直线上升飘到大气层中,可以预见温度会不断的下降。事实也证明,在大气中每上升一英里,就下降华氏20度左右。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
balloon [bə'lu:n]

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n. 气球
vt. 使膨胀
vi.

联想记忆
elevation [.eli'veiʃən]

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n. 提拔,海拔,提高
[计算机] 标高

联想记忆
predictable [pri'diktəbl]

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adj. 可预知的

 
conclusion [kən'klu:ʒən]

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n. 结论

 
smooth [smu:ð]

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adj. 平稳的,流畅的,安祥的,圆滑的,搅拌均匀的,可

 
tropical ['trɔpikəl]

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adj. 热带的,炎热的,热带植物的

 
potential [pə'tenʃəl]

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adj. 可能的,潜在的
n. 潜力,潜能

 
photosynthesis [.fəutəu'sinθəsis]

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n. 光合作用

 
recovery [ri'kʌvəri]

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n. 恢复,复原,痊愈

 
species ['spi:ʃiz]

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n. (单复同)物种,种类

 

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