Feb 22,
2008
The Expanding Earth
Debate - Part Two
Problems with
subduction theories are causing increased interest in
theories of expansion. But expansion is also problematic,
and the answer may lie elsewhere, in the evidence for
electrical scarring of planets and moons.
Modern solutions
to the enigma of
continental motion on Earth include what geologists call
sea-floor spreading. A necessary counterpart to
sea-floor spreading is what happens to the additional crust
that is formed by the
upwelling magma.
Jupiter's icy moon
Europa is considered to be an example of such cracking,
drifting and consolidation. Hypothetical processes on our
planet are projected onto the
Europan geography and said to explain the
furrows, dual-ridge faults, darkened swaths and
innumerable
looping rilles that mar its surface.
Conventional
understanding of how the Earth's
continents were formed and why they appear to fit
together along their shelf boundaries suggests that there is
a graduated
flow of heat coming from the interior. It is believed
that the core of our planet has remained liquid for the
several billion years since its inception due to heat from
radioactive decay. A rotating
liquid iron core supposedly drives the
electromagnetic fields and which keeps the material of
Earth's mantle in a fluid state. Huge convection zones
within the mantle circulate that heat upward to the bottom
of the crust, where it melts weak points in the thinnest
parts. The weakest seams in the crust are located along the
mid-ocean ridge that circles the planet in a north to
south direction.
At some point in
the deep past, all the continents were joined together along
the mid-ocean spreading zone into the ancient supercontinent,
Pangaea. Some literal breaking point was reached in
stability and it began to be forced apart, forming the
continents of today. Over
eons of time, the pieces of the original landmass have
been sliding into each other as they make their way around
the circumference and are forced together on the other side
of the world. In places where the fractured blocks meet,
some are continuing to be dragged under other blocks.
According to the theory, these
"subduction
zones" are the reason that more earthquakes occur along
the crustal plate boundaries and why there are
more volcanoes located on or near the fractures.
Problems
associated with the current theory are as follows:
1. The power
required to move continental landmasses around has not
been adequately explained. If the power comes from
thermal convection from the core of the planet, then
heat energy equivalent to molten iron in the billions of
megatons has been radiating from the interior for almost
4 billion years. There has been no process developed or
seriously proposed for the initial spreading.
2. No
consistent models of relative plate motion have been
created. Spreading zones surround some places, such as
the plate boundaries of Antarctica and Africa. Where are
the so-called subduction zones needed for the recycling
of the old crust?
3. The
density paradox. Continental rock is supposed to be
lighter than the oceanic crust into which it is extruded
so that it accretes on the edge of the oceanic plate and
doesn’t immediately sink back into the mantle. What
causes the crust to become so dense that it then sinks
under its own weight into a subduction zone and then
back into the mantle? And why is a theoretically lower
density plate sinking under the Alps?
4. Rocks
other than oceanic sediments have been found in the deep
trenches of subduction zones. Older material rather than
younger has been found in
trench slopes off Japan. Sediment anomalies have
been found in the mid-Atlantic basin.
5. The
elasticity paradox. The current theory requires that the
continental rock be thick and elastic under mountain
ranges, yet thinner and more brittle than the oceanic
crust in the spreading zones.
In order to
provide a theory that resolves some of these problems
S. Warren Carey's book,
Theories
of the Earth and Universe: A history of dogma in the Earth
Sciences was published in 1988. Carey's two premises
are that there is a
continuous process of creation going on in the Earth's
interior and that the Earth is receiving new matter from
space in a normal process of accretion. As a result, this
planet is approximately 50% larger than in was during the
Age of Dinosaurs, for example.
Carey did not
provide an explanation for how matter was formed out of
nothing in the Earth, nor did he consider it a problem. In
his eyes, the
nature of the question was more fundamental:
"As a geologist,
I insist that the Earth has expanded, and leave it as a
cosmological problem of the whole universe. Hence I do not
see it as a problem specifically for the Earth, or for the
solar system, but for the Universe and Cosmos."
However, just as
with
Plate Tectonics theory, the current
Expanding Earth theory has its difficulties, as well.
1. How do
mountain ranges form if there is no compression of
continents? No folding or uplift would be expected on a
globe that has no points of contraction. The
Expanding Earth theory states that the crust of the
planet thins at certain points when the Earth expands,
allowing the mantle material to balloon upward where it
cools, forming a gravity slope. The elevated crustal
blocks crack and slowly slide down, forming mountains
and other structures that are said to originate due to
tectonic folding and uplift. However, no mechanism to
explain such phase changes in the mantle material has
been forthcoming.
2. The
Earth’s crust is presumed to have been continental
silica-alumina (sial) with ocean bottom crust only
forming later as Pangaea began to crack apart 200
million years ago. No reason is given for why there was
so much time needed for the process to begin. Nor is a
source identified for the required energy.
3. The rapid
increase in expansion speed to 8 millimeters per year
over the last 200 million years remains unexplained.
Although the
number of published objections to Earth expansion is not as
great, their fatal nature is by no means diminished. In
order for Carey's theory to work, it was necessary for him
(and the Plate Tectonics school, as well) to add new
processes and invent arcane energies that remain unclear. In
part three, we will examine the reasons why
electric discharge machining might be the answer to
these mysteries.
By Stephen Smith
__________________________________________________________________________
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