Space Forum / Astronomy / May 2006

You mean that big meniscus the lithosphere sits on, ..things being
liquid and all?

No, ...only eroded plateaus.
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/nonsense/mtbldgcollis.html

But are they an eroded plateau?   Or have they crumpled up by the
sideways push exerted by the free-fall of the subducting plate pushing
the Americas East?

Does it?  What makes way for it?   Is this like pit craters on Mars,
where the stuff coming out leaves a hole, and you get subsidence for
everything to fall into>?   Like all this mantle evaporates, ..then
crust rains down, builds up then gets eroded back into the holes?

When the sediment builds up on the sea floor, that's not 'getting
lower', ..that's 'getting higher'.  All of the continents are full of
stuff that has got higher.  In fact the old sea floor is the highest
bit of the planet (and that's flat.)
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/nonsense/mtbldgcollis.html
Are you sure you know what mountains are?  How did the old sea floor
(now above the Himalayas) (that are flat) (and extended) (and look like
the Basin and Range) drop by eight kilometres to make way for the new
one?   How did the space for the sea to drop to, happen ..leaving
everything flat?

Yes, I know...every schoolchild has, .. 257,000 sites on the web.  But
have they heard how they form?  Google it up  <"plate tectonics" "how
subduction zones form">  How many sites?  And one just added since
Georgia's Core Standards of Education were discussed in class.
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/ng/georgia.html
(Not a word-string to ignore lightly.)

What could be simpler than everything being accounted for just by the
surface of the Earth moving 'up' (outwards from the centre), rather
than the flungabout nonsense of plate tectonics which accounts for
nothing when you look at it?

Not as cranky as saying that the crust pushes the mantle down, which is
what both the usgs and nasa say.  At least there is some logic to
saying that the mantle pushes the crust up - the mid-ocean ridges are
elevations, and you can see the way the crust is pushed up in the Red
Sea.   But then Plate Tectonics says that these are *pulled* up, by the
horizontal forces generated by vertically falling slabs in subduction
zones.    And for the Red Sea the nearest subduction zone is ....
where?

Since the essence of science ir testability you can try this by pulling
on your bootstraps, and see if you can force your boots into the
ground.    Or better still, ...see if pulling on somebody else's
bootstraps half a world away will force your shoes into the ground

(You're a dope Dan.) Another one. (Dopey Dan) Where in the class would
you like to sit?

Findlay wants to propose that the earth is blowing up like a balloon.
Maybe McDonalds is pumping their waste grease down there?

 For findlay, since he abhors either clarity or brevity:
Plate tectonics does not occur.
The earth is expanding.
Everything must be forced to fit those two axioms.

Don't ask.  You'll only get a flood of meaningless drivel.

George

I'm saying that the Earth is getting bigger.

We  can see this in the continuing elevation of old depositional
surfaces over geological time.  Uplift (or sea-floor drop) has been
global and on a scale much greater than can be accommodated by ice-cap
formation or isostatic bounce.  A critical point in global growth  was
reached in the Mesozoic when the effect of membrane stresses penetrated
the mantle allowing the extrusion of the ocean floors we see today.
All ocean floors have developed since that time (prior to which there
were only continental seas).   Take away the ocean floors and the
continents all fit back together on an Earth that was approximately
half the size of that at the present.  Ergo (since the Mesozoic) the
Earth has got bigger by the extent of the ocean floors.  The structures
by which this enlargement has ocurred are concurrent/ consanguineous/
commensurate etc etc, with, and depict/ describe  the Earth's spin;
i.e., enlargement has occurred in a way which is expressed by the
symmetry of the Earth's spin.

Plate Tectonics does not (and never has) recognised spin symmetry of
deformation., and those here versed in the lore deny it or say nothing.
Those who deny  maintain the near century-old position of saying that
since we know of no way the Earth can have got bigger (to this extent),
therefore it can't be happening/ have happened, and assumes destruction
of the ocean floor as it is created.  Thus is born the idea of
subduction, and the paired equation of creation of ocean floor (at the
ridges) with its destruction (at so-called) subduction zones.  In turn
is concluded that convection in the mantle occurs, which is recycling
the mantle and breaking up the crust by the residual heat of the
planet's formation and radionuclides in the outer core: hot below cool
above means convection.   Note the order of easoning:-
http://users.indigo.net.au/don/nonsense/why.html

Plate Tectonics ignores the conundrums posed by the break-up of a
pre-existing crust, and how heat was lost to form a crust in the first
place.  So there is a cycle of mantle creation and destruction inferred
from convection and assumed from a simple pairing of what are
considered to be laterally equivalent geological structures (ridges and
subduction zones). To cause the opening of the continents in the first
place however Plate Tectonics must assume the existence of a
Panthalassa - and ancient ocean of a size exactly matching that of the
oceans of the present day, and essentially coincident with the Pacific.
Despite the continual movment of continental plates, no landlocked
remnants of ocean floor remain.  Its once-existence is purely
hypothetical.  All hypothetical ocean floor has been subducted.  Plate
Tectonics cites the absence of this ocean floor as proof for its
once-existence.  (We'll talk ophiolites if anyone wants to raise the
point.)  This ocean floor had no sediments on it - it was purely
mantle-exposed at surface.   Plate Tectonics further complicates the
picture by adding in another ocean, this one which *does* have
sediments on it, and which closed to form the Himalyas, crumpling the
crust as it did so.  The so-called movement of India was a participant
in this.  However the Himalayas are not crumpled and geologists of Asia
know perfectly ell
that India has not moved the way Plate tectonics has, that to assert
that it has is purely a western fabrication, and that rather the
edifice of the Himalayas is collapsing over India.   So Plate
Tectonics, the self-declared western Cultural Superior (since by
definition it can't be wrong) thus shifts its goalposts to say Ok, so
India must be pushing UNDER Asia (thus violating its axiom that crust
cannot subduct) (saying that not subducting, that's just pushing under
- not pulling under) (and evidently it's easier to push under than pull
under), and lifting it up-  so that it collapses like a good edifice
should.

I'll draw a line here, but we can continue if you like.

Plate Tectonics is Bullshit from go(ah) to woah.  I'm saying that, and
also that, that so many 'believe' it, is bullshit too.  They just think
others do, and so they should too, ..because people are like that -
very easily conditioned to behave like Pavlov's dogs - as this thread
shows.

I'm also saying that there is no known way this can happen, is a
first-rate reason for looking for one.  And that an answer is probably
to be found in the way that matter comes into being, not at the scale
of gravity and gravitational effect, though I suggest Moon Capture
(transfer of rotational kinetic energy) could be a mechanism for energy
input to the system = some sort of 'slow explosion'.

Ah,  Ben of Ben-and-Bill, the definitive dills.  ( I wondered when he
would turn up.)

hmmm...The one sheet keep sliding under the other. No wait, this time
I'm getting a bulge on just one sheet and it is rolling back under
itself...Damn, sheet tectonics. Maybe if I get a couple of paper plates
it will work out.

If you really want to do something to impress, have one sheet pass
through the desk!

JT

You mean like the biggest mountain range on the planet - the spreading
ridges?   Or do you have in mind a smaller one?

You're awa wi' the faeries, Ian, .. a bullshit artist, to think any
girl would fall for that one.
You'll need more than a strong jaw, blond hair and muscles, when Bonnie
gets a hold of all you funny men.   You'd better look out.

How does your sheet of paper work for these?

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/pia/PIA06169.htm
The mountain on the left is part of the ridge, and rises at least 13
kilometers (8 miles) above the surrounding terrain.

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/uranus/miranda10.htm
Miranda reveals a complex geologic history in this view, acquired by
Voyager 2 on January 24, 1986, around its close approach to the Uranian
moon. At least three terrain types of different age and geologic style
are evident at this resolution of about 700 meters (2,300 feet).
Visible in this clear-filter, narrow-angle image are, from left: (1) an
apparently ancient, cratered terrain consisting of rolling, subdued
hills and degraded medium-sized craters (2) a grooved terrain with
linear valleys and ridges developed at the expense of, or replacing,
the first terrain type: and (3) a complex terrain seen along the
terminator, in which intersecting curvilinear ridges and troughs are
abruptly truncated by the linear, grooved terrain. Voyager scientists
believe this third terrain type is intermediate in age between the
first two.

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/pia/PIA06162.htm
Five narrow angle frames comprise this view of the 'wispy terrain' on
the anti-Saturn side of Dione. To the surprise of Cassini imaging
scientists, the wispy terrain does not consist of thick ice deposits,
but rather the bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures.

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/pia/PIA07800.htm
A masterpiece of deep time and wrenching gravity, the tortured surface
of Saturn's moon Enceladus and its fascinating ongoing geologic
activity tell the story of the ancient and present struggles of one
tiny world.

http://www.solarviews.com/cap/pia/PIA06191.htm
The view is about 300 kilometers (200 miles) across and shows the
myriad of faults, fractures, folds, troughs and craters that make this
Saturnian satellite especially intriguing to planetary scientists.

Don't get much attention at home, do you Don? Try getting out of the
basement, give mommy a kiss and go clubbing tonight. Do you a world of
good...

g(regwrld)