Re: Earth expansion - puzzled......
From: don findlay (don_at_tower.net.au)
Date: 02/08/05
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Date: 8 Feb 2005 06:21:19 -0800
Bob wrote:
> Don (and sci.geo.geology learning community):
>
> Thanks for the reply (and quite a reply it is). You must've put a
fair
> bit of energy into it. The tree of responses (postings) going back
to
> the original posting is considerable - and I was getting bogged down
> playing catch up - so I do appreciate you stating your position. I'm
> going to start to participate by considering what you wrote in reply
to
> my earlier posting. It seems that my first assessment of your
position
> was not too far off. I see two scientific questions that are
embedded
> among lines of your reply. I also see a lot of something else (e.g.,
> those dumb guys, those bad scientists, those... - you know the stuff
> that I'm referring to) that I personally think detracts from any
> science that you are advocating. I saw comments of the same vein in
> the postings of others. I would like to suggest that we refrain from
> going there. I would like to try to directly lay out the two
> scientific questions that I recognize in your reply (and in the
earlier
> postings of the group) - and give the group the opportunity to
respond
> openly and fresh.
>
> Question #1: Is the Earth capable of very significant expansion?
First, my apologies for the dud link in the earlier post. It should
have been :-
<http://users.indigo.net.au/don/nonsense/index.html> or try
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/nonsense/drivel.html
Second, don't worry about the vernacular. This is the Bear Pit where
all is revealed. It is paradigm change in action, warts and all. I
respond to people in the vein they do to me. ...As a mirror. ...Fire
with fire, ....'George' with george. Besides, I do believe they like
it, or they wouldn't persist. I quite enjoy sledging them for their
dumb retorts too. It seems we both do, but all the ladies have taken
themselves off in disgust. Something to do with the analogy of their
skirts going up and their skin getting all rumpley when spinning on
skates (to do with possible Moon capture as a mechanism for upsetting
the Earth's equilibrium). Recently I tried to break the cycle of
violence by giving everybody a great big kiss, but it made no
difference. Recalcitrants all. But I thoroughly agree with your
sentiments. If enough people insist, we'll all do our best I'm sure,
...but it's difficult, ...difficult.
Is the Earth capabable of very significant expansion? I guess
answering that question is the destination that geology is gradually
moving towards. The *empirical* evidence is that it is, that it is
enlarging by the mechanics of 'underplating', i.e., the addition of
mantle material to the underside of the crust, and (just a guess, but
probably) that the reversals of the Earth's magnetic field are linked
to this. I think, though it is not a consensus view, that the
apparent 'growth' at ridges is not an expression of dyke intrusion (as
plate tectonics says) but of the exhumation of newly-plated mantle
layers to the base of the crust. That exhumation is evidenced in what
we see as 'abyssal hills', which are the most extensive landform on the
planet and which plate tectonics admits it has no good explanation for
within its 'dyke-intrusion' model.
>>From a *theoretical* point of view, to the best of my understanding of
what other people say, ... no, the Earth is not capable of significant
expansion, but my own take on it is that we do not know enough about
the relationships between mass and energy, or how mass comes into
being, or how it relates to electrical charge (or at least I don't) to
voice an opinion one way or the other. This debate about not having a
mechanism for expansion seems silly to me. To me it is not the issue,
and I would put it aside till the geology is properly in place. The
theory deals with mass - energy relationships at a very fundamental
level, and apparently meets with the same 'politics of consensus' in
the field of physics that geology does in its field. I personally
think (knowing very little about it), that the arguments re. 'density'
are naive, constructed as they are on our understanding of how things
are at the Earth's surface, and do not take into account considerations
of 'electrical soup', when the critical zones are more likely in the
core. Moreover, our only way of investigating this is via seismic
studies, which basically has to do with the difference between
'ductile' and 'brittle', which is not only a material difference, but a
difference in the *rate* of applied stress. I don't see how that
aspect of rate can easily be factored in, when even the global
symmetries of structure are ignored.
> Question #2: Is there subduction and destruction of lithosphere
(crust
> and rigid uppermost mantle) at convergent plate boundaries.
Basically, no. "Convergent plate boundaries" means 'plates moving
towards each other' and makes no discrimination between 'plate under'
(subduction) and 'plate over' (overriding). Over-riding relates the
deformation to the crust - mantle 'slip' (detachment/ decoupling/
severance/ separation) interface, which has a symmetry related to the
Earth's spin (that plate tectonics ignores). Increasingly (with its new
tool of gps) plate tectonics is using the language of 'overriding',
without (apparently) being aware of where that is leading. Earth
expansion interprets the 'subduction' of plate tectonics as the
gravitational collapse of the uplifted Earth's crust over the marginal
cratons, though the crust - mantle relationships along the Western
Pacific (say) may be better interpreted as decoupling due to a
combination of expansion and spin (overriding). The relationships
along the Eastern Pacific are clearly overriding related to the opening
of the Atlantic (crustal 'lag'/ westwards movement of the Americas).
The question "What is causing the uplift?" is the same as the question
"Why is the Earth expanding?" and has two parts to it, one is the
passive 'gap-filling' of mantle into crustal pull-aparts, the other is
the forceful intrusion of the mantle into the crust. The latter
predicates the former. I speculate Moon capture, and the transfer of
rotational kinetic energy, but I'm not wedded to it.
> I assume that we are all students of the scientific method, a good
> club. As such, one asks an 'open' ques, collects data (evidence)
> pertinent to the ques., analyzes the data, hopefully makes logical
> interpretations, and then states a best conclusion. If the group is
> agreeable and reading this, lets see if we can post the evidence that
> addresses these questions. The evidence is the key to all this. I
> suggest one caution: not to mix the hard data you can offer and the
> interpretations so closely that the reader can't separate one from
the
> other.
The hard evidence is dealt with (to some extent) on my site. Three of
the hardest bits of evidence, which plate tectonics unforgiveably
refuses to address (because they are not 'in books' but are obvious to
anyone with half an eye) are:-
1. The aggregate spiral symmetry of the globally distributed
transforms, symmetrical (in a 'dilated Pangaean way) with the Earth's
rotation. (above */drivel.html link)
2. Transform faults are offset at their terminations (i.e. not at the
ridges, but the other end) , defining a pattern of sequential formation
and the way that the ridges have grown ALONG their length. (Obvious in
the mantle crust, this becomes more obvious when we compare the simple
difference in the lengths of continental margins with the ridges.
3. (And this one is really unpardonable). Plate tectonics portrays
'mountain building' or crustal uplift as due to the collision of plates
that crumple the crust. But the high mountains of the planet are
eroded plateaus, which are NOT crumpled, but are flat-lying. This
discrepanacy between theory and fact is either just simply ignored by
plate tectonics, or ad hoc accounted for (in theory) by abandoning the
rule that continental crust (being less dense than mantle) cannot
subduct, to say that yes, it can in the case where mountains are flat;
it can be thrust under and thereby lift the whole plate, ...this in the
areas (e.g. India) where expansion says it is the otherwise uplifted
crust collapsing over its marginal edifices. They do the same thing
with the more dense mantle, saying that since every rule has an
exception, this is the reason that we find mantle pushed over
continental crust. This is to account for the fact that there are
slices of mantle material along the flanks of the high mountainous
stands (which expansion explains as simply the exposure of the
collapsing crust-mantle interface). It doesn't occur to them that
rather than adjust their model on both counts (for dense and less
dense) their model might just simply be wrong.
Basically plate tectonics (geophysics) argues from theory, whilst
geology argues from the geology. Plate tectonics theory depends more
on what has been destroyed, than what has been created, because it
depends on the balance between the two. Both Expansion and plate
tectonics agree on the creation of ocean floors; plate tectonics goes
that one further and adds in its destruction (= two thirds of the
surface area of the Earth) as an essential part of its argument. All
agree that if this "assumed destruction" were not to be taking place,
then the Earth would be getting bigger. Although destruction was a
"convenient assumption" in the beginning (because increase is
unacceptable), plate tectonics says that is no longer so, but can only
provide the evidence for "convergence", and refuses to acknowledge the
alternative of overriding to subduction, even though it is implicit in
the gps, which is confirming the commonality of motion vectors across
plates and the nonsense of "independent movement" AS WE SPEAK. The
bottom line is that plate tectonics refuses to recognises the
architecture of spin. When it does so, enlargement follows
axiomatically.
> If there are no issues about this - - - Ready, set, go..........
Now, sit back and see the responses we get as evidence of how dialogue
works. Hopefully you will be a moderating influence.
> Cheers,
>
> Bob
- Next message: don findlay: "Re: Plate tectonics - Back to the FAQS"
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