Gopherwood Range Theory
John Denke, Biology 101
University of North Texas
Fall Semester, 1999 AD

Abstract

Biologists know that gophers are found only in the Western Hemisphere. The gopher tortoise, species Gopherus polyphemus, is its eldest endangered species living in a certain Southeastern U.S. range. Also living within this range is the resilient Southern live oak, species Quercus virginiana. Its naturally-curved massive branches were used exclusively for the strongest shipbuilding frames. "Old Ironsides", the oldest commissioned ship still afloat in the world, is built from these Southeastern U.S. gopher's wood's forests. Thus, the ark's "gopherwood" name, "gopher wood", is identical to the species of wood in USS Constitution's frame, according to theory. Quercus virginiana (after Philip Miller, botanist)

Other biologists suggest three of the four known Gopherus living species: G. agassizii, G. berlandieri and G. flavomarginatus. However, all three range in non-forested areas. Ancient stone anchors, similar to 5,000-year-old anchors found at Bimini and the Middle East, are common in U.S. Gulf Coast hurricane flood zones.

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

GDG

I know very little about biology,
does this abstract hold water?

Thank you.

Wait, where does the gopher tortoise com into all this?

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Testudines
Family: Testudinidae
Genus: Gopherus
Species: G. polyphemus

Here is one last pitch of John's range theory.

Our core samples of Noah's ark are Quercus virginiana. That's the current problem. John's notebooks say Constantine Rafinesque named genus Gopherus. I read that's true. His notes say he had to. Why? Because Carolus Linnaeus had already named genus Quercus. The species name virginiana was gone too. John says Carolus named the species. Several sites say Philip Miller did. Which is it? Obviously neither of them, Carolus nor Philip, knew about the core samples.

Is a Southern live oak native to Virginia, he asks here, is it virgin Virginian? John writes, yes, of course, but at the range's extreme northeast edge. Francois Daudin had named species polyphemus already. The name Quercus (Carolus') was gone, the name virginiana (Carolus' or Philip's) was gone, and the name polyphemus (Francois') was gone, so Constantine named the genus Gopherus, according to John, for a common range. Noted here is western US was a frontier area not known (classified) yet. Was genus Gopherus and its species polyphemus classified first? Here it says it was, before the remaining three Gopherus' species were. John says it was Constantine's only choice at the time, but I disagree.

The question is did Constantine know the ark was Southern live oak? John says yes, he knew. I say no, he didn't know. If he did know about the ark's core samples, then the Gopherwood Range Theory holds water. On the other hand if Constantine didn't know, then the common range naming of Southern live oak and Gopher tortoise at the time is nothing more than a coincidence. Best I can tell, neither Carolus, Philip, Francois, nor Constantine, knew.

Verification that Noah's ark gopher wood is Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) by independent laboratories is expected soon. Should the University of North Texas student's 1999 classification be disproven, these notebooks will be pitched.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=Noah%27s+ark

Thanks.

I still don't see how the tortoise fits in apart from the name. Are you saying that the tree evolved into a tortoise or something?

Kopher means something by which one covers something, hence pitch. The derivation of the pitch, whether it be petroleum, or botanically based, is not relevant to its definition.

http://www.worldwideflood.com/ark/pitch/pitch.htm

Noah's ark core samples and the Heelstone core samples contain a residue of Pinus palustris pine tar from the Longleaf pine. Pinus palustris, after Philip Miller, botanist.

http://www.maritime.org/conf/conf-kaye-tar.htm

Any pine trees in Southeastern U.S.?
Any gophers there?

GOPHER WOOD... is not from a kind of tree... atleast not the one in the bible that noah used...

noah used gopher wood... which was basically, like particle board..

its many peices of wood, stuck together with a kind of sap.. as glue..
thus wood can easily be made into any shape from smaller pieces..
and is supposively, due to the large amount of sap, very tough stuff.

that is supposively what noah made the bulk of his boat out of...
and so.. it could of been made of any normal workable wood...

-MT

The root "gopher-" in "gopherwood" is a direct transcription of the Hebrew word gofer, used in the bible for the wood of which Noah built the ark. Some scholars suggest it might have been the cypress, but there's really not enough information to identify the species of tree. Our spelling of Hebrew words is influenced by Latin, which took them from their Greek transliterations rather than from the original Hebrew. In Greek the Hebrew letter fe is transliterated, quite logically, as phi, which has the same sound. For inexplicable reasons the Romans transliterated Greek phi as PH instead of the far more logical F. So that's the lame excuse we have for not spelling the tree "goferwood."

The name of the mammal gopher, on the other hand, is of dubious origin. Many unique animals of the Western Hemisphere were given their Native American names, but so far no one has found the word "gopher" in any North American Indian language. So many of them have been lost without being recorded that we'll never know whether the original settlers simply borrowed the name from some long extinct Indian tribe. Another possibility is that it's taken from the French word gaufre, "honeycomb", because of the honeycomb-like structure of gopher burrows. In either case, it's a no-brainer that it was written as "gopher" instead of "gofer" because we already had the Greek-spelled homonym in our language from the bible.

The gopher tortoise was simply named after the rodent because it digs burrows. The relationship between gophers and gopher tortoises is stricly lexicographic.

There is no mystical relationship between either of them and Noah's Ark, just an accident of phonetics.

One might as well light candles and ponder the cosmic significance of the fact that vi is a pronoun in both Danish and Bulgarian, but it means "we" in the former and "you" in the latter. Just an accident of phonetics.

Concerning the theory, it boils down to this:

Did Constantine Rafinesque (who named the genus Gopherus) know that Noah's Ark (the Elburz Mountain Range one) core sampled wood species from 40ft below its GL was Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) [being the same core sampled wood species from 8ft below GL at Heelstone (the Stonehenge United Kingdom one)]; or did Constantine Rafinesque (who named the genus Gopherus) not know that Noah's Ark (the Elburz Mountain Range one) core sampled wood species from 40ft below its GL was Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana)?

http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_177234625.html

Did he know; or did he not know?

40ft below GL at Noah's Ark: Southern live oak; Quercus virginiana
8ft below GL at Heelstone: Southern live oak; Quercus virginiana

Identical carbon-14 date ranges.

[note: The genus "Gopherus" was named after Carolus Linnaeus named genus "Quercus", after Philip Miller named species Q. "virginiana", and after Francois Daudin named species G. "polyphemus"]

Speaking of boiling down, the Special meeting of the Northern Area Committee, before going to the Planning and Regulatory Panel for final decision, is tomorrow.

Northern Area Planning Committee

1: Tuesday, July 4th, 2006, at 16.30, Amesbury Sports Centre

Planning and Regulatory Panel

2: Monday, July 10th, 2006, at 16.30, Amesbury Sports Centre

http://www.salisbury.gov.uk/council/major-projects/stonehenge/stonehenge-timetable.htm