Landy, Teacher's corner and Earth Expansion


First, Teachers like Landy there should piss off if they haven't
already done so. Earth Expansion is not for them. No allusion to
Earth Expansion is made in the school curriculum and the logic for it
will only confuse students whose first interest is passing exams which
are pitched solidly in the direction of Plate Tectonics. However for
Teachers who are not like Landy Earth expansion is recommended as a
gap filler for their students, between passing exams and going on to
uni - just so students can give their tutors a nice bit of stick when
they get there. They say education is all about pushing the envelope
of ideas. So let's test them, ..with the logic for Earth expansion.

First students have to recognise the important semantic difference
between Plate Tectonics and Earth Expansion. Plate Tectonics is a
theory; Earth Expansion is an observation. Pitching theory (based on
a "convenient assumption"), against observation, is an unequal contest
which observation is bound to win hands down before things even get
off the ground. So from the outset students are at a solid advantage
against dickheads like Landy. Though they have to be careful not to
get too bolshie 'cos Landy wields the big red pen. (Albeit
incompetently, let it be said.) So .. tread carefully, ..tolerance
for new ideas is a load of wank. It's Ok if you just have this great
new idea about subduction, ..that volcanoes it builds on the hanging
wall might be 3,764m high instead of 3, 763 and a half, ..that's ok,
but anything that implies subduction might be entirely wrong is a no-
no, if students surmise that in front of them is a shirt with a bad
case of the Landy stuck on

Next, ..knowing they're on the front foot, students should take on
board the many contradictions of Plate Tectonics, just to realise the
rubbish that a Landy might try to confuse them with. Then having got
that under their belt they can tackle the architecture of spreading
ridges and transform faults. This is so they can realise that the two
are really the same thing, and that cross-faults are the natural
breaks that happen to a ridge when a ridge segment gets too long for
an Earth changing its curvature (getting bigger). Then they can
build up a picture of sequential cross-fault (transform fault)
development and a chronology, so they can see through time how the
continental crust fractured across-ways as well as along the way
(ridges). That lets them do the jigsaw in the Atlantic, Indian and
Southern oceans, where they get the feel for the crust being all-of-a-
piece before it broke up. (None of this Plate Tectonic Baltica -
Lemuria nonsense.)

Then students will be ready to tackle the Biggie. Dakine, that
is, ..the genie in the bottle, .. the geezer with the rubber
numbers, ..the Grande Thaumaturgee with the Big Ears and the Al Jolson
mitts,.. who swears subduction is the best thing since sliced bread,
and who therefore prefers Pacific Political *Sub*scription to Pacific
Geological *In*scription. Doing this they will automatically see the
way in which the circumglobal mountain belt has dilated to allow for
the extrusion of the Pacific as a dynamic continuum, in which gross
dilation has terminated the existence of continental seas, possibly
for ever, ..and paved the way for proper geological comprehension as
Earth Expansion - the geology for the next millenium.

(Hurray...... !!)

"Look, do you think this will win you friends and influential people?"
"Nope. They're all on the wrong side of the tracks
already, ..worrying about what's going to happen to their
superannuation if spin gets a run before they get the runs...
.

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