An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Historic planetary instability and catastrophe. Evidence for electrical scarring on planets and moons. Electrical events in today's solar system. Electric Earth.

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Robertus Maximus
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Robertus Maximus » Mon Jan 16, 2017 7:54 am

webolife wrote:RM,
Interesting conjectures throughout the OP articles.
However, I'm failing to see how these various terrestrial structures would be unique to Earth based on the premise of an electrified plasma environment... why not the other planets and moons as well, don't they have plasma environments and alleged electrical discharge features?
As for me, I'm still a rapid continental drift adherent. The current Plate Tectonics model would have come into place after the seafloor spreading came to a halt.
The currently accepted New Global Tectonic paradigm is based on a process unique to Earth, ‘plates’ have never been identified on any other terrestrial body in the solar system and I am sceptical of their existence on Earth.

Plate Tectonics is geology’s Big Bang, it is another example of Big Science and just like any other branch of Big Science it attracts lots of funding and makes lots of careers to the exclusion of alternatives and competition as such criticism is limited to groups such as NCGT (http://www.ncgt.org/)

Yes, other planets and moons do have their own plasma environments and electrical discharge features and that is the point; Plate Tectonics cannot explain any of the features on say Mars, Io or Titan.

What I have suggested will not explain all of the features on Mars, Io or Titan because each body has its own unique history but we can find landforms that have some degree of overlap formed during a period when their plasma environments were at least as active as Earth’s and probably more active- perhaps with the exception of Io, it’s still pretty active there! For example, the uplift of planation surfaces to form mountains, even today, is a complete mystery- despite the claims of Plate Tectonicists. My suggestion to look at Johnson and Anderson’s work would provide a solution not only on Earth but elsewhere in the solar system.

In modern geology Plate Tectonics is the starting point for explaining not only the Earth’s surface features today but also of the distant past. In the spirit of the Electrical Universe paradigm I have suggested an alternative- Earth’s electrical nature and environment is the driver of global tectonic activity- not moving plates. Like Plate Tectonics I have suggested that Earth was different in the past unlike Plate Tectonics I have suggested that Earth’s present surface features formed rapidly during a period of electrical instability.

I’m highly sceptical of continental drift in the modern guise of Plate Tectonics and the ‘Fast Forward’ version Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, as you can probably guess.

Just consider the following, when we look at a map of Earth it is easy to see the ‘fit’ between South America and Africa- it looks as if they split apart only yesterday!

However, that is just the problem- we are told the two continents were last in contact some 150 million years ago! During this time dinosaurs came and went, sea levels rose and fell and the occasional asteroid collided with Earth. Yet, during this vast expanse of time South America and Africa conspired to preserve their coastlines as evidence of a former connection for our benefit today. Really? Given the known modern rates of erosion the continents would have eroded to sea-level in some 10 million years. Plus, because of the fractal nature of coastlines you can virtually fit any coastline to any other coastline producing absurd continental arrangements.

Could it be that the idea of continental drift and development of the New Global Tectonics paradigm of movable continents whether on a static or expanding Earth was misguided from the start? Based on a geometric illusion no more valid than seeing faces in the clouds?

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by webolife » Mon Jan 16, 2017 8:30 am

Hmmm... I question your objection to the continents fitting. The 80+% coastline fit [based on inclusion of continental shelves, seafloor spreading and the related "parallel" [aligned] mid-ocean rift complex argue soundly for a model of continental drift [or alternately the expanding earth hypothesis, with which I do not agree]. Fitting as though they were separated yesterday, as you put it, argues for the possibility of a rapid and recent drift episode, which I favor. The uniqueness of the plasma environment about Earth does not seem to me to be a superior argument to the uniqueness of continental drift/plate tectonics on this planet, particularly as the latter adequately explains the gamut of seismic patterns around the earth: earthquakes, boundary mountain ranges, volcanic chains, island arcs, etc. Can your alternative do better?
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Junon » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:04 am

Can the expanding Earth theory fit with the changing plasma environment as well as Jan Lamprecht's correct version of the hollow Earth hypothesis? In other words, could the planet have been smaller in the past and expanded, creating the hollow space within? Otherwise, is there any possibility of the oceanic ridges having been electromachined in place? This would explain the geometric shape-match between the continents, as a giant arc going across the planet could create that effect. That assumes the arc retains the same circumference as it moves, so any movement left and right would create the matching geometric pattern that we see.

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Grey Cloud » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:32 am

Re the S. America - Africa fit: Surely it needs to be more than just a visual fit? Does the geology of eastern S. America match that of western Africa? And is that geology dissimilar to western S. America and eastern Africa, for example? Or the Atlantic coasts of Iberia or Central America? What about the flora and fauna?
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by webolife » Tue Jan 17, 2017 12:40 am

The answer is that there are several uncanny geologic, and [fossil] floral and faunal matches across the Atlantic.
As expected, in a catastrophic crust-splitting deluge there are some places where the match is not so "perfect".
(However, how would this differ in the case of an EDM gouged ocean?)

What does the EDM model account for that less exotic more evidencial models do not?
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Robertus Maximus » Tue Jan 17, 2017 11:15 am

Grey Cloud wrote:Re the S. America - Africa fit: Surely it needs to be more than just a visual fit? Does the geology of eastern S. America match that of western Africa? And is that geology dissimilar to western S. America and eastern Africa, for example? Or the Atlantic coasts of Iberia or Central America? What about the flora and fauna?
The point to remember is that the ‘fit’ came first, the cartographer Abraham Ortelius in 1596 first proposed such a former ‘fit’, based on what geological or palaeontological evidence? None; the geometric similarity came first.

Much later how much more geological evidence was available? ‘When plate tectonics was first elaborated in the 1960s, less than 0.0001% of the deep ocean had been explored and less than 20% of the land area had been mapped in meaningful detail. Even by the mid-1990s, only about 3 to 5% of the deep ocean basins had been explored in any kind of detail, and not much more than 25 to 30% of the land area could be said to be truly known (Meyerhoff et al., 1996a). Scientific understanding of the earth’s surface features is clearly still in its infancy, to say nothing of the earth’s interior.’

In 1972 as the Plate Tectonics paradigm was steamrollering its way through geology Paul S. Wesson wrote: ‘Since nearly all coastlines fit, there seems little point in continental drift re-constructions. (2) The congruence of coast-lines that can never have been in juxtaposition, even if drift is valid, has been demonstrated by Lyustikh (1967), and (3) Australia has even been connected to the east coast of America by Voisey as a demonstration of the ubiquity of possible fits. (Taylor [1965] discusses this and other interesting aspects of drift.) It is important to realize that coastlines need never have been in actual contact to show parallelism: some influence connected with the midocean ridge system may have given the impression of a fit while the real fit is in fact a remote one. (4) Fault matching frequently causes problems which should not occur, such as the Cabot versus Great Glen system (Wilson 1962) which has opposite senses on either side of the Atlantic (Webb 1968; Russel and Burgess 1969); this is connected with general difficulties in tracing orogenesis across the gaps left after drifting (Holmes 1965, p. 230). (5) Pieces are often left out of re-constructions to improve the fit (e.g., the Caribbean region was excluded from the 1965 computer fit of Bullard et al.), while others are included ad hoc with the same object in view (e.g., the Rockall Bank). In the reconstruction of the southern continents by Smith and Hallam (1970), the South Orkneys and South Georgia were omitted because they made the computer-fit worse…

What about the flora and fauna? ‘Meyerhoff et al. (1996b) showed in a detailed study that most major biogeographical boundaries, based on floral and faunal distributions, do not coincide with the partly computer-generated plate boundaries postulated by plate tectonics. Nor do the proposed movements of continents correspond with the known, or necessary, migration routes and directions of biogeographical boundaries. In most cases, the discrepancies are very large, and not even an approximate match can be claimed. The authors comment: “What is puzzling is that such major inconsistencies between plate tectonic postulates and field data, involving as they do boundaries that extend for thousands of kilometres, are permitted to stand unnoticed, unacknowledged, and unstudied” (p. 3).

‘The known distributions of fossil organisms are more consistent with an earth model like that of today than with continental-drift models, and more migration problems are raised by joining the continents in the past than by keeping them separated (Smiley, 1974, 1976, 1992; Teichert, 1974; Khudoley, 1974; Meyerhoff and Meyerhoff, 1974a; Teichert and Meyerhoff, 1972). It is unscientific to select a few faunal identities and ignore the vastly greater number of faunal dissimilarities from different continents which were supposedly once joined. The widespread distribution of the Glossopteris flora in the southern continents is frequently claimed to support the former existence of Gondwanaland, but it is rarely pointed out that this flora has also been found in northeast Asia (Smiley, 1976).

‘Some of the paleontological evidence appears to require the alternate emergence and submergence of land dispersal routes only after the supposed breakup of Pangaea. For example, mammal distribution indicates that there were no direct physical connections between Europe and North America during Late Cretaceous and Palaeocene times, but suggests a temporary connection with Europe during the Eocene (Meyerhoff and Meyerhoff, 1974a). Continental drift, on the other hand, would have resulted in an initial disconnection with no subsequent reconnection. A few drifters have recognized the need for intermittent land bridges after the supposed separation of the continents (e.g. Tarling, 1982; Briggs, 1987). Various oceanic ridges, rises, and plateaus could have served as land bridges, as many are known to have been partly above water at various times in the past. It is also possible that these land bridges formed part of larger former landmasses in the present oceans.


In my view the use of fossil evidence to plot former continental arrangements is futile. If not found in isolation fossils of both marine and terrestrial life-forms are found in ‘graveyards’. Such ‘graveyards’ are not indicative of past environments but a global cataclysm.

David Pratt has written a summary of objections to Plate Tectonics: http://davidpratt.info/tecto.htm

Paul S. Wesson, ‘Objections to Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics’ paper can be found here; https://www.jstor.org/stable/30059314?s ... b_contents

Two decades of objections to Plate Tectonics and alternatives can be found here: http://www.ncgt.org/

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by webolife » Tue Jan 17, 2017 1:24 pm

RM,
You may be surprised that I agree with most of the objections raised in your post, but you are missing some things [in translation]:
1. All of the studies prior to 1970-ish are based on comparatively very little data, so a strong case cannot be made either way from that information.
2. The paradigm being challenged in your article is a plate tectonic model built on the gradualist premise of over a hundred millions of years of drift. The floral and fauna differences and fossil comparisons are made on the present continent positions assuming they would have been similarly distributed before the rift. Again this is a uniformitarian assumption that doesn't necessarily hold in the case of a catastrophic crustal separation.
3. Coastlines would have been devastated by seismic wave action during and throughout the split, so the differences, as I noted previously, would be expected. The ubiquitous fit comment is the voice of detractors from Wegener's original theory, which were based on data not including the more modern mappings of the continental shelves, which did much to confirm the actual fit of the continents. That there are still a number of ways the fit might work doesn't hinder the theory a bit. If it were found opposingly that numerous proposed fitting don't work, then you'd have a good objection.
USGS generalized map of a particular fossil correlation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent ... il_map.svg
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Grey Cloud » Tue Jan 17, 2017 2:08 pm

RM and Webolife,
Interesting and stimulating discussion: thanks.

Webolife,
3. Coastlines would have been devastated by seismic wave action during and throughout the split, so the differences, as I noted previously, would be expected.
Are you not trying to have your cake and eat it here? If the geology matches then it supports your view; if it doesn't then it's down to seismic wave action.

In my, admittedly limited, understanding of this subject the fossil evidence at least points to vertical movement. Whether this movement was in geological time or human time is a different, albeit related, question.

Perhaps a daft question(s) due to my lack understanding but - Accepting that there was a 'Pangea', then why was there only a single continent? Why was the Earth's surface not covered more or less entirely by 'continent'? What waas happening to the rest of the Earth's surface while Pangea was breaking up - in other words, if something caused Pangea to break-up and move around, what effect did it have on the rest of the planet?
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Robertus Maximus
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Robertus Maximus » Tue Jan 17, 2017 10:38 pm

Junon wrote:Can the expanding Earth theory fit with the changing plasma environment as well as Jan Lamprecht's correct version of the hollow Earth hypothesis? In other words, could the planet have been smaller in the past and expanded, creating the hollow space within? Otherwise, is there any possibility of the oceanic ridges having been electromachined in place? This would explain the geometric shape-match between the continents, as a giant arc going across the planet could create that effect. That assumes the arc retains the same circumference as it moves, so any movement left and right would create the matching geometric pattern that we see.
I am highly sceptical of Expanding Earth theories for the same reason I am of Plate Tectonics, namely they are both based on the idea of a continental ‘fit’.

Expanding Earth proponents have now included fossil evidence of the largest dinosaurs claiming that these animals could only have survived on a physically smaller Earth with a reduced gravity, for example: http://www.dinox.org/

With the exception of its formation period it is my view that the Earth’s diameter has remained constant throughout its history, however, Earth’s surface gravity has changed since its formation, most recently increasing.

Jan Lamprecht has demonstrated that a hollow Earth model can equally be invoked to explain seismic data just as much as a solid Earth can. Mainstream geology needs a solid Earth for its dynamo to generate Earth’s magnetic field. If the Earth’s magnetic field arises because of the planet’s interaction with its environment then we can consider other possibilities such as Lamprecht’s.

Elsewhere it has been suggested that rocky bodies form by expulsion from larger gas giant and/or dwarf star bodies, if Earth formed in this way it is likely electrical forces were involved, experiments have demonstrated bodies formed in this way tend to be hollow suggesting Earth’s hollow cavity would be primordial. In comparison to other terrestrial bodies in the solar system the Earth appears to have and abundance of volatiles, I have considered the possibility that the ‘hollow’, perhaps, contained trapped hydrocarbons, water, nitrogen for example, that have been continuously upwelling throughout the planet’s existence. Superdeep drilling has certainly revealed copious amounts of brines and hydrocarbons in Earth’s crust.

In my opinion Earth has certainly experienced a catastrophic electrified period during which electric-discharge machining took place. If we consider Valles Marineris on Mars has formed through an EDM process then why not similar features on Earth? It is certainly a possibility. Presently I favour subsidence over EDM as the cause of certain ocean basins, although that’s not to say only subsidence took place to the exclusion of EDM, it may well be that magnetic anomalies are evidence of such discharges. Mid-ocean ridges I see as possible channels currently involved in the charge exchange process between Earth and its environment.

In a recent TPOD https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2017/0 ... ron-bands/ the discovery of two ‘jet-streams’ at the Earth’s core was considered. In the original paper the southern ‘jet-stream’ surrounds Antarctica; Antarctica is surrounded by mid-ocean ridges, the two may not be unrelated.

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Junon » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:51 pm

Shouldn't gravity decrease as the Earth equalizes its charge with its surroundings? Wal Thornhill writes that "low gravity [of Saturn] suggests low internal electric stress." So if we get less volcanoes etc with the equalization of charge, then by the same process, gravity will decrease, right?

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by Robertus Maximus » Thu Jan 19, 2017 11:10 am

Junon wrote:Shouldn't gravity decrease as the Earth equalizes its charge with its surroundings? Wal Thornhill writes that "low gravity [of Saturn] suggests low internal electric stress." So if we get less volcanoes etc with the equalization of charge, then by the same process, gravity will decrease, right?
Short answer, no. Low internal polarisation equates to low internal electrical stress which in turn gives us low surface gravity.

As Earth, or Saturn, collect electrons from their environment this increases internal polarisation which gives us an increase in surface gravity.

Likewise, we can picture Mercury as being too highly polarised. Electrons are being stripped from Mercury’s surface- this charge exchange between Mercury and its environment results in the formation of ‘hollows’, the mainstream substitutes an electrical process (EDM) for a mechanical one hollows are formed by sublimation in their view. However, we also find similar features on Ceres.

It is my position that Earth’s tectonic activity is powered by a charge exchange process between the Earth and its environment. The increase in surface gravity is a consequence of this process separate from current tectonic activity.

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by webolife » Thu Jan 19, 2017 12:25 pm

RM,
I'm skeptical of the hollow earth hypothesis, as it explains far less about the rotation and revolution of the earth known from Newtonian mechanics, let alone having verification in seismology. Electrically driven surface gravitational variations should be much less "stable" than what is observed. On the other hand if electricity and gravitation are of the same [unified] origin, then we have a larger dilemma: the current state of affairs in the local universe is quite stable, so how can the plasma "machine" account for that? Clumsy wording... ie. how can a process which is by its
fundamental description highly variable account for the observed "stability" of the Earth and solar system?

GC,
The "all continent" Earth is the primordial condition of the Expanding Earth hypothesis. It is interesting to consider such a planet overlaid with an ocean, but the formation of the mountains doesn't follow from the Adam's scenario. On the other hand, as I stated elsewhere, I have no clear explanation for the existence of the supercontinent as a distinct entity. Fractioning during cooling is a general view I consider... The relative amount of continent surface seems to be roughly "conserved" over time... fossils contribute to understanding the positions of the continents to a small degree... I guess that's why we have this [alternative] thread! :)
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by seasmith » Thu Jan 19, 2017 3:45 pm

What do you all think of the recurring thesis that most of the catastrophic disruption had occurred over the eastern hemisphere (Atlantic and Indian ocean basins generally), while the Pacific basin has remained relatively pacific?
The now fairly intact Pacific 'plate' surrounded by its "ring of fire", and the mid-ocean split right down the middle of the Atlantic basin could support this theory.
Fracture zones ~orthogonal to the Atlantic and Red Sea rifts, like the Himalayas and the Wallace Line (Sunda Shelf) are said to result from the spreading eastern hemisphere crustal ~slabs rotating up against the more stable Pacific crust.

After a lot of heaving and buckling, Earth's rotational forces have since then reestablished the basic spherical shape (like a glassblower spinning a round bowl).
If i'm remembering the main bits correctly.

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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by webolife » Fri Jan 20, 2017 7:24 pm

I kinda go along with that... Another idea that has popped up a time or two: an impact in the Pacific basin somewhere creating the mantle hotspot that generates the Hawaiian Islands, also conducting a shock wave around or through the globe that "collided" and started the fracture in the center of the continental mass there... the rift that became the Mid-Atlantic Rift. Not my favorite theory, but it has some merits.
:?:
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Re: An Alternative to Plate and Expansion Tectonics

Unread post by moses » Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:52 pm

<(However, how would this differ in the case of an EDM gouged ocean?)

What does the EDM model account for that less exotic more evidencial models do not? webo>


Hello webo,
Initially we would have the flat Earth (no mountains or oceans), and a 4 prong Birkeland Current went through and around Earth. Thus forming the Atlantic Ocean in particular.

Creatures might well have lived where the Atlantic Ocean is now. So some creatures might have lived on both sides of this area, as well. Explaining what happened as each EDM event cut out material from where the ocean is now, is complex. Certain areas seem to have missed some episodes of laminated deposition, and consequently many creatures might have survived in such areas. Also many creatures might survive such a deposition that would initially be quite wet.

The oceans have edges that very much suggest EDM. The Mid Atlantic Ridge beautifully fits the idea of a current passing upwards both raising the ridge and producing the volcanoes. This theory deserves attention.

Cheers,
Mo

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