Feb 21, 2007
The Expanding Earth Debate - Part One
Images of Jupiter's moon Europa have sparked interest in an unusual theory. Are some celestial bodies, including Earth expanding? Or is electricity a better explanation?
What is the origin of the Earth? How long has it existed? How did it come to be the celestial body that we inhabit today?
These and similar questions have been on humanity's mind since we began to think. As the process of scientific investigation has developed and instrumentation invented, the structure and behavior of our planet has been deduced and theories affirmed to explain our evolution.
For the past 100 years or more, scientific advancements have revealed features on Earth and other planets that seem to indicate the crust is cracking and spreading in a continuous movement. Many hypotheses have been put forward to explain the observations. In this series, we will look at two: Plate Tectonics, or sea floor spreading and the Expanding Earth.
"Continental drift" was an attempt to explain the observation by many explorers and cartographers since the days of Magellan that the edges of the continents seem to fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In 1915, Alfred Wegener formally proposed that the continents were moving around on the surface of the earth, alternately cracking apart and crashing together over millions of years. He did not explain how they moved, or what force could be involved, only that the observations supported his contention.
Over time, paleontologists found that some continents, now separated by oceanic gulfs, contained fossils on or near their coastlines that were identical. The conclusion was that the extinct animals had once lived side-by-side on one giant landmass, so the theory of Pangaeawas created.
Glaciers and other geological processes such as volcanic rock correspondence on continental shelves were also considered confirmations that there has been a breakup of one single continent over a long period. Later, discoveries that the bottoms of the oceans were marked with "magnetic striping" and that the magnetic poles of the Earth seem to wander from place to place and reverse themselves periodically lent credence to the theory. If the continents do not move, how did the poles move?
The "continental drift" theory gradually metamorphosed into a new version in which the continents were like gigantic corks bobbing on a molten ocean. According to the theory, continents are supposedly built from lighter elements and the mantle made of denser materials - sial and sima are the two substances said to enable the continents to slide around. It is now known that the two materials are not separated in layers, but gradually merge into each other near the mantle boundary.
Since the continental "roots" extend down into the interior of the Earth for upwards of 700 kilometers, the force required to move those billions of tons is so improbable that plate tectonic models have been developed that depend on unsuspected crustal "subduction zones" and not on movement (for example: Lowman, P. D., Jr. Plate tectonics with fixed continents: a testable hypothesis-I. Journal of Petroleum Geology 8:373-388). Just as with Wegener, though, evidence is lacking for such zones.
In the nineteenth century, at least three different reasons for the alignment of the continents were proposed.
1. Thermal Expansion – the Earth is being heated because of its internal radioactivity, or because of some other external force yet unseen, and increases in size because of its thermal coefficient of expansion.
2. Aether Absorption – some kind of energy that we haven’t yet identified is absorbed by the Earth and changes into matter, causing it (and presumably other bodies) to expand. This theory relies on versions of mechanical gravity or Le Sage gravity.
3. Mass Creation – in an unknown process involving the creation of matter from nothing, there is an addition of material to the inner shell of the Earth’s crust, causing it to expand like an inflating balloon.
Recently, S. Warren Carey's Mass Creation theory has gained prominence in some circles as a viable alternative to the theory of Plate Tectonics. Because of the problems with subduction and the apparently random distribution of magnetic stripes on the ocean bottom, Plate Tectonics is coming under increasing pressure. In part two we will consider both theories in contrast and how Jupiter's moon Europa has been used to support both,
By Stephen Smith
A close-up image of the mysterious channels that dominate the surface of Jupiter's "fractured" moon, Europa.
Credit: NASA/JPL
Feb 22, 2008
The Expanding Earth Debate - Part TwoProblems 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 callsea-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 thefurrows, 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 heatcoming 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. Overeons 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 volcanoeslocated 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 intrench 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
Gigantic cycloid rilles on Jupiter's moon Europa. Credit: NASA Voyager II
Feb 26, 2007
The Expanding Earth Debate - Part ThreeNew conjectures about Earth expansion and crustal deformation of Jupiter's moon Europa have been offered in favor of the "expanding Earth" theory. But what has actually happened to Europa?
As we continue to investigate the two main theories of continental formation currently under discussion on various message boards and in several science forums around the net, some may notice that we are deliberately ignoring several concepts. The "hollow Earth" hypothesis, theoretical mirror-matter creation, electro-gravity and other detailed aspects to the Expanding Earth theory are not germane on this level. In future Thunderbolts Picture of the Day articles, we will consider the electrical nature of gravity and other suppositions.
Visual artist Neal Adams has produced a short video in which he attempts to prove Earth expansion using the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa as a template. Adams believes that the "fit" of Europa's blocks of surface material along the edge of giant rifts extending for hundreds of kilometers demonstrates the principle. Because S. Warren Carey affected no concern for the means by which the Earth expands, Adams has proposed a new idea in which he details how matter is created and added to the volume of our planet and, presumably, other planets. At this stage of our examination, we will use the video created by Neal Adams as primary documentation and address its problems and assumptions directly.
First, the video clip does not put the images in perspective with the rest of the terrain. Thelarge swaths that cover the surface of Europa are characterized by features that cannot be attributed to spreading - spreading from some kind of tectonic activity notwithstanding.
1. They all exhibit braided formations at varying scale. Nothing in the geo-morphology of deep-mantle zones can explain braided topography.
2. The curvilinear sweep to the swaths suggests the sinusoidal track of electric discharges rather than canyons that were formed by cracks in an expanding crust. Similar explanations from plate tectonics theorists regarding crustal deformation and surface folding are also refuted by the observational data.
3. In many places along the swath, as the camera pans up, there is obvious evidence that the terrain on either side is underneath the ice, not separated by it. Shallower impressions of an elongated raised mound and the smoothed-over edges of a dual-ridge fault are immediately apparent as the pan begins. The appearance is that of erasure and blurring of terrain caused by the larger swaths, not cracking, eruption and freezing due to chasms in the expansion zones.
4. Spreading cannot occur in rifts at either side of another rift as in the video and leave behind ridges along the fracture, thousands of meters high. Spreading relieves tensional energy; it does not compress the crust.
5. The end of the video animates the removal of a triangular block from one side of a swath, whereupon it is lifted across the boundary to fit against the edge of its twin. Since the crust was broken into blocks and explosively thrown out from the center of the discharge track way as the electric arc passed, then broken pieces, with ridges and canyons intact, are expected to have fallen back to the surface. Suggesting that they were separated into discrete blocksbecause Europa's crust is spreading misses the observational cues.
The geological configurations of the giant black swaths on Europa reveal their braided shapes. In many cases, there is the impression of a huge, cylindrical column of helical filaments branded into the surface that wraps almost entirely around the planet. The scorched swaths are long parallelograms 50 kilometers long and 20 kilometers wide, connected along their short sides by narrow dark bands at approximately 45° angles. Most of the contours along the perimeter in these features have been contorted, erased and overlaid with others of similar nature. Areas covering thousands of square kilometers are shattered into blocks with identical form. How did they all spread out over this planet-sized moon?
In previous Thunderbolts Picture of the Day articles about Europa, it was shown many times that electric arcs playing across Europa in swirling, wavering blooms of plasma or in huge bolts of lightning are a more satisfactory explanation for what we see. Plate Tectonics and Earth (planetary) Expansion theories are insufficient and resort to far more inscrutable mechanisms in the accomplishment of their purposes. In the Electric Universe, what we see is what we get. Ordinary processes that we can use for experimental confirmation or falsification of ideas are available to us without recourse to a universe that must make use of creation ex-nihilo and movement without mechanism.
By Stephen Smith
