The Expanding Earth

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The Expanding Earth

Postby John » Wed 17 Feb 2016 2:07 pm

Along with Robertus Maximus, I cannot accept that the intriguing theory of Plate Tectonics is a correct explanation of what appear to be continental positional adjustments. Plainly the Mid Atlantic Ridge plays an important part in that area. Presumably its actions are the end product of very deep and violent activity. This activity is far from being properly understood and theories describing its behaviour are obviously suspect. We just cannot sort this out yet.
What I find particularly incredible are the 'every which way' movements attributed to the movement of tectonic plates. There is no agreed power source and no explanation for the such dissimilar paths attributed to colossal areas of land (such as India and Australia et al).
One thing seems clear. The aforesaid Ridge is widening the Atlantic and this may account (with other geologic evidence) for the seeming earlier conjunction of Africa with at least the South American continent. This ocean varies in width between 1770 and over 4000 miles. Taken at the lower figure, this is a hell of a long movement by a super massive landmass. It is claimed that Africa itself is an almost stationary, original land mass.
Whatever the truth about such Earth movements, I think we must accept that the Atlantic is both a new(ish) sea and occupies a newly expanded ocean floor. This idea presents few, if any, directional problems, the main thrust appearing to be east to west. No doubt there would have been some concomitant expansion in every direction.
Given the drive by inner Earth to create the Atlantic, how would such a force be inhibited from acting similarly elsewhere? And, even if it doesn't, surely the move west by America must have impinged on the still vast Pacific? There seems little discussion relating to the decrease or increase in its huge expanse other than by possibly marginal subduction. If the Atlantic has expanded, say 1700 miles, by pushing America to the west, then the effect on the Pacific should show pretty distinct traces. 1770 miles is a lot of subduction! But...
I have found in "The Roots of Cataclysm, Geo Pulsation and the Atlantic Supervolcano in History" by Richard W. Welch in 2009 (only an internet summary) some serious comment about this. He seems to think (with others) that subduction can account for changes in the size of the Pacific; perhaps it does. To see fully what he has to say it is necessary to buy his book which am doing (from Amazon at a more sensible price!). Among his many other interesting conjectures (which all seem well researched) he supports an idea that postulates that the action whereby the spin of the Earth is to some degree variable, that its variability may be responsible for continental movement and ice ages. I am not qualified to judge the validity of this idea but perhaps it could also explain the ballooning so very apparent to our eyes.
More on the probability that the Earth has indeed expanded can be found in "Dinosaurs and the Expanding Earth" by Stephen Hurrell, 2011 (also being acquired).
As the hot inner core of the Earth spins slightly independently from its crust and at a slightly variable rate, it must surely be affected by friction with the crust and be subject to variable levels of heat generation, adding to its intrinsic nature. This would increase the likelihood of sudden expressions of its force generating splits at the surface such as the Mid Atlantic Ridge, forcing apart some landmasses. This continental disturbance must add to the variability in Earth's rate of spin. As the Earth spins west to east there will likely be a measure of drag in the crust. This drag will promote 'drift' east to west as in the Atlantic model. All these thoughts have caused me never to have accepted the 'Plate' theory and to long favour the idea of an Expanding Earth.
I wonder yet again at the apparently total disinterest shown in this plainly more understandable Expanding Earth idea and it is, I think, a far more likely scenario than so called Plate Tectonics. I think that the acceptance of Plate Tectonics was a hangover from the desperate attempts by 'establishment scientists ' to shut down any avenue of enquiry resulting in any way from the cataclysmic work of Immanuel Velikovsky!
John
 
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Re: The Expanding Earth

Postby Robertus Maximus » Mon 22 Feb 2016 7:51 pm

John,

The problem with both mobile tectonics and expansion tectonics is that they are ultimately based on the idea of a ‘fit’ between continental coastlines- South America and Africa being the most frequently cited (see my reply in the Pangaea thread by Peter).

In 1972 with the new global tectonic paradigm barely 10 years old, Paul S. Wesson had a paper published in The Journal of Geology, ‘Objections to Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics’; Wesson outlined 74 objections- evidence- against the then new steamrollering paradigm.

Objections continue to this day e.g. see: http://davidpratt.info/lowman.htm , http://davidpratt.info/sunken.htm and http://www.ncgt.org/

In the first part of Wesson’s paper ‘Classical Objections’ he looks at issues relating to the idea of ‘fitting’, here is what Wesson has to say (I have not included the numerical references in the original paper):

‘Since nearly all coastlines fit, there seems little point in continental drift re-constructions. The congruence of coast-lines that can never have been in juxtaposition, even if drift is valid, has been demonstrated by Lyustikh (1967), and 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.

‘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). 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. The resulting reconstruction can only be understood if the initial breakup of Antarctica and Australia occurred during an undetected ancient spreading episode. This sounds suspicious, as is the comparison of the fauna with that of Africa, Europe, and India on this reconstruction.

‘The fauna of Antarctica and Australia, especially the marsupials, have been investigated by Marten (1970), who brings in the hypothesis of sea-floor spreading from the Darwin Rise. However, it would seem the whole matter can be resolved quite easily if a little consideration were given to vertical movement of (now submerged) mountain chains in-stead of trying to explain everything in terms of horizontal movement (though see Elliot et al. 1970). In the present case there is then no need for continental drift, and this tends to be confirmed by the attempted Africa-Antarctica fit of Dietz and Sproll (1970b), which likewise runs into trouble and results in the Antarctic Peninsula overlapping South Africa; this embarrassment can only be avoided by assuming that the peninsula is a fold belt that did not exist at the time when Africa and Antarctica were joined.’ (1)

Of the Bullard ‘fit’ Karsten Storetvedt writes: ‘Science historian Homer Le Grand writes that Bullard and co-workers “had massaged the data and though the term ‘garbage in, garbage out’ had not been coined, charge could be made against their use of a computer” (Le Grand, 1988, p. 204). What one had witnessed was nothing more than a game for the gallery.’ (2)

Returning to Wesson’s paper we have already seen that: ‘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.’ (my emphasis) Could it be that the ‘some influence’ is due to a double matrix fracture pattern or ‘DeKalb fracture pattern’? - Which is ‘observed ubiquitously throughout the globe including ocean floors’. (3)

Geological considerations aside the fact that coastlines are fractal in nature and ‘nearly all coastlines fit’, can this really be taken as evidence of former associations?

To my mind any criticism and argument levelled against Plate Tectonics applies equally to any of the various Expanding Earth hypotheses as both approaches presume a perceived ‘fit’ in the very distant past as fact, the only difference being the radius of the Earth in the former is fixed whilst in the latter it is not. The fit comes first, the geology second. Surely the geology should come first?

In the case of Stephen Hurrell’s work (see: http://www.dinox.org/ ) I respectfully disagree with Hurrell’s conclusion that an expanding Earth is required to account for changes in gravity at the surface of the Earth.

In my opinion the change in gravity which brought an end to air/ land gigantism on Earth (including the larger dinosaurs and mammalian megafauna) was due to a change in the charge/ polarisation of a constant sized Earth.

I see gravity as a secondary phenomenon arising from the primary electrical characteristics of a body. The physical size of a body need not alter in order to bring about a change in the surface gravity of that body- all that is required is a change in charge and resulting polarisation of the body. Such a change could result from a cataclysmic close encounter with a body of differing potential or a change in the electrical environment surrounding the body.

Regards.

References:

1. Wesson. Paul. S. 1972. Objections to Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics. The Journal of Geology Vol.80 No. 2.
2. Storetvedt. Karsten. M. 2015. Geoscientific Urban Legends. NCGT Journal Vol.3 No. 4.
3. Editorial. 2015. Howard DeKalb and the double matrix fracture pattern. NCGT Journal Vol.3 No. 3.
Robertus Maximus
 
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Re: The Expanding Earth

Postby John » Tue 23 Feb 2016 8:35 pm

Thank you Roberto Maximus. An enlightening post. I think i agree with at least the thrust of everything mentioned,bar the first sentence! I have never had the remotest belief in Pangea - it is totally lacking in geological probability and is quite without foundation beyond the obvious visual fit with Africa. I think it is this shape, that fostered the otherwise incredible theory of Plate Tectonics. I can still remember the hysterical joy of leading scientists when they 'realised' that they could abuse this theory to account for a lot of the Earth troubles that were being propounded and widely acclaimed by the great Velikovsky (and his newly acquired supporters) that predicated 'impossible' planetary movement and the birth of Venus relatively recently and in plain sight of educated ancient Greeks, et al.
My own idea of an Expanding Earth owes nothing to the seeming fit endlessly referred to. I do not, never have, subscribed to the wild idea that massive continents are being shuffled in random directions like a pack of cards. It is, however, a geological fact that the Mid Atlantic Ridge has fathered a very new sea floor that accommodates the Atlantic Ocean. Surely this means that (to that extent) the continent of S. America has shifted westwards. Africa itself is said to be mounted on fixed, immovable 'original' pillars and is near impossible to move - is this true? Another explanation could be that the new ocean floor simply covers the old one, but no-one seems have suggested this.
Either way, the movement indicated is Westward and again logic suggests that this is dictated by the spin direction of Mother Earth. I am also aware that this 'direction' may at times have experienced reversal and even been turned (effectively) upside down.
It seems to me (no arithmetician!), highly probable that the differing speeds of the Inner core and the outer mantle must have effects, not the least of which is friction. This friction probably accounts for the varying temperature of the core. I am lacking in the numbers field, but ...
Surely a rotation speed in the order of 1000 mph must have an impact on the outer mantle. As materials have to be forced to move there is a an unavoidable inertial resistance to the force which will be expressed as 'drag'. Such drag must (I think) presently act to extend the Earth's circumference, (with relatively small compensating north and south effects) moving all the landmasses, mainly in situ, westward , to some yet unknown extent.
This would likely have an effect on our gravity and account for the posited increase that may have wiped out the dinosaurs.
John
 
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Re: The Expanding Earth

Postby Robertus Maximus » Wed 02 Mar 2016 4:06 pm

John,

Africa poses huge problems for the mobilists as, along with Antarctica, these continents are surrounded by supposed spreading centres- the Atlantic and Indian Ocean ridges. One would assume that Africa would be under intense compressional forces yet the east of the continent is characterised by a great rift valley- which is assumed to be a product of extensional forces!

It is also documented that the continents have deep roots- or as you suggest- ‘immovable 'original' pillars’. These roots are considered to be at least 250km deep and perhaps up to 400km deep, surely such structures should be fatal to Plate Tectonics but why let facts get in the way?

Something similar to what you suggested ‘that the new ocean floor simply covers the old one’, has been considered. Continental type crust has been found uncomfortably close to mid-ocean ridges- where according to Plate Tectonics there should only be ‘new’ oceanic crust. This would suggest that the so-called basement basaltic layer of the ocean basins –the ‘new’ oceanic crust- is in fact an outpouring of basalt covering subsided continental crust.

Personally, I am sceptical of any lateral movements of the continents, as you have probably guessed. As I have written in the thread ‘An Alternative to Plate Tectonics’ I believe vertical tectonics has re-shaped the Earth’s surface. Most of this re-shaping occurred ‘recently’ during an almost certain cataclysmic event or series of events. That the Earth’s electrical potential is alien to that of the surrounding interplanetary plasma is evidence of this and currently driving geological activity on the Earth. (As electrical activity is almost certainly driving geological activity on Io and Enceladus).

If we look in Velikovsky’s ‘Earth In Upheaval’ from Chapter 9 ‘Axis Shifted’ it is clear that Velikovsky was considering electrical effects as being the primary forces at work during the cataclysm(s) - I too see such electrical effects being the prime movers, braking the Earth’s rotation rate and possibly disrupting the rotation axis- the cause being external rather than due to Earth’s internal structure. During these electrical exchanges the Earth’s internal polarisation was altered resulting in the value of G we experience at the Earth’s surface today.

Regards.
Robertus Maximus
 
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