The Nonsensical "Growing Earth" "Theory"

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Robert Schunk, Aug 15, 2011.

  1. Gneiss2011 Registered Senior Member

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    Indeed.

    I can't wait!
     
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  3. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    OK, we've established that an accurate and rigorous Pangaean reconstruction without gaping gores is possible only if the Earth was smaller in the Permian than it is today. And since no one has bothered to challenge or refute what I've written, then I presume that no one disagrees and/or can offer counter-evidence or -arguments.

    Score at the end of the first inning: Expansion Heretics 1, Plate Disciples 0.

    The Arctic Paradox is another "crucial test" that allows us to compare the predictive/explanatory power of EE vs PT.

    Of all of the ocean basins, the Arctic is the least studied for obvious logistical reasons. However what is known is that it is an extensional basin, surrounded by "passive margins" and no "active margins" (the latter being where PT claims that plates converge and subduction takes place). This means that the circum-Arctic continents -- Eurasia and North America -- must have moved away from one another (to the south) as the Arctic basin opened. Accordingly, PT on a constant-sized Earth would predict that we should find evidence of this southward movement after the breakup of Pangaea in the Permo-Triassic, based on paleontology (climate zones) and paleomagnetism. Unfortunately, all of the geological evidence indicates otherwise.

    "Tropical fossils (with a diversity of brachiopods, corals, and fusulinids), together with quite independent paleomagnetic data, establish that during the Permian, the equator crossed North America through Texas and New York. The present equator crosses Brazil. Hence North America is now some 35 degrees nearer the north pole than it was during the Permian. Similarly, European fossils and paleomagnetic data indicate that the Permian equator lay a few degrees south of France. The present equator is in central Africa. Hence Europe is now some 40 degrees nearer the north pole than it was during the Permian. Likewise, central Siberia is now about 20 degrees closer to the north pole than it was during the Permian. So, since the Permian, the continents have converged on the Arctic, which consequently should have contracted by some 5000 km. Did it? Just the opposite -- throughout that time, the Arctic has been an extending region, opening the Arctic Ocean. This is impossible, unless the earth is expanding." (Carey, 1988.)

    According to EE (and to be discussed later in more detail), the earth has expanded asymmetrically, with the largest amount of expansion occurring in the southern hemisphere. The opening of the Arctic basin means that North America and Eurasia have moved south, away from the north pole. The continents apparent northward drift is actually the southward drift of the equator caused by an earth expanding faster in the southern hemisphere than in the north. "The overall pattern of expansion is clear. Although the Arctic has opened, the much greater expansion of the southern hemisphere has caused the parallels to sweep [south] across North America and Eurasia." (Carey, 1976.)

    A picture is worth a thousand words (from Davidson, 1995).
    [There would be an image here but the Blog police won't let me insert one because I don't yet have enough merit badges -- sorry for the mixed metaphors -- so you'll have to look at the attachment (assuming that's not verboten.)]

    So, to summarize, we see that on a constant-sized earth, the opening of the Arctic would cause the southward displacement of the circum-Arctic continents. So far, so good. But PT must also predict that displacement away from the poles would cause the continents to move closer to the equator, i.e. the latitudes would move north, even by just a little amount. But the facts say otherwise -- the latitudes have moved south, and by a very large amount, 20 to 40 degrees -- which refutes this important prediction deduced from PT and thereby falsifies it. But the very same evidence is entirely consistent with EE, which predicts that the disproportionate expansion in the southern hemisphere will cause the latitudes of North America and Eurasia to move south. And that's exactly what happened.

    Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Flash Gordon and the Expanding Earth" -- Episode 3: Flaming Death!

    ...or maybe the Pacific Paradox.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2012
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  5. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    That's one interpretation, I suppose.
     
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  7. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    Care to offer any counter-evidence or counter-arguments on this particular topic -- something that validates PT and refutes EE when it comes to reconstructing Pangaea? In other words, what's your "interpretation" of this evidence? I'm all ears.
     
  8. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    You observed the lack of responses to your post, and interpreted that to mean no-one was able to contradict EE. And I said "Well, that's one interpretation." And it is but one interpretation, or do you so lack imagination that you can't imagine why people might not want to engage you on this topic.

    To the other... Have you looked at any of the other dozen or so threads that have been done on sciforums about expanding earth tectonics versus plate tectonics?

    Do you understand the significance of the agreement between models predicting the orbital evolution of the earth-moon system and the records we have extracted from tidalites (at least in the context of this 'discussion')?
     
  9. Gneiss2011 Registered Senior Member

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    What do you mean by "the Arctic", "extensional basin", "passive margins" and "active margins"?

    Why moving "to the south"?

    What do you mean by "the Arctic basin opened"?

    are important (for the record).

    What is Carey's source or evidence that "all of the continents except Antarctica have converged on the Arctic [...] since the Permian"?

    What is Carey's source or evidence that "since the Permian [...] the Arctic has been an area of extension"?

    Why moving "south, away from the north pole"?

    No issue on my side. Thanks for the picture.

    Which amount? How many km?

    I have never read "Flaming Death!" in the EE literature before.

    The Pacific Paradox is even better than the Arctic Paradox, because it has been debunked several decades ago in a (not peer reviewed) journal.

    Trippy, please. This is the first time I engage a real discussion about EE arguments with an EE proponent since several month. And there is the opportunity to change the mind of an EE proponent, for the first time since... 1970?
    (exerpt from William Carnell Erickson, S. Warren Carey Rogue Scientist from Down Under, 1988)

    Could you let Hoyasaur focus on the "Arctic Paradox"? NOTA BENE: this is a question, not a demand.
     
  10. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    By all means. Hoysaur, feel free to disregard my previous post (for now at least).
     
  11. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    You raise several pertinent questions, which I will attempt to answer. But I won't address all of them in a single post, and I may jump around a bit if your questions and/or my replies are related, so please bear with me.

    Let's start with the toughest ones first:

    I don't think I've ever seen it in the EE literature either, or any earth science literature for that matter. I was making a cinematic allusion to the old "serials," such as "Flash Gordon," "Buck Rodgers," etc., that used to be shown in movie theatres and on Saturday morning TV. (TCM occasionally shows them.) Invariably, one of the episodes was titled "Flaming Death," but as I recall it was usually episode 7 or thereabouts, not episode 3. So, if you'll forgive me, it was my lame attempt at levity and humor, as was my use of "same Bat time, same Bat channel" in an earlier post, which you certainly must have recognized as tongue-in-cheek.

    Bring it on!!! And I look forward to the same opportunity to change the mind of a PT adherent.

    I presume this is a rhetorical question. Or perhaps you're giving me a quiz. If it makes any difference, and it really shouldn't, I have a BS in geosciences, magna cum laude, from the U of AZ, and completed all of the coursework for a PhD in metamorphic petrology, also at UofA. My reasons for not completing my dissertation, which was going to be on blueschists and subduction zones, were personal but largely financial. (I didn't see much future for myself as a 40-year-old post doc or as a fledgling and untenured Assistant Professor of Geology starting a new career at the University of Nowhere. Plus, I discovered I didn't really enjoy teaching, having taught Mineralogy and Crystallography labs to sniveling sophomores.)

    I haven't bothered to define many tectonic-related terms because I assumed they were common knowledge.

    Passive and active margins, as you certainly know, are two kinds of "plate boundaries" separating oceanic lithosphere from continental lithosphere. If you don't mind, I will quote from Wikipedia, since that's the closest source at hand, and it seems pretty accurate:

    "A passive margin is the transition between oceanic and continental crust which is not an active plate margin. It is constructed by sedimentation above an ancient rift, now marked by transitional crust. Continental rifting creates new ocean basins. Eventually the continental rift forms a mid-oceanic ridge and the locus of extension moves away from the continent-ocean boundary. The transition between the continental and oceanic crust that was originally created by rifting is known as a passive margin.

    "Passive margins are found at every ocean and continent boundary that is not marked by a strike-slip fault or a subduction zone. Passive margins define the region around the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and western Indian Ocean, and define the entire coasts of Africa, Greenland, India and Australia. They are also found on the east coast of North America and South America, in western Europe and most of Antarctica. East Asia also contains some passive margins. (Emphasis added.)"

    "Active margins are found on the leading edge of a continent where subduction occurs. These are often marked by uplift and volcanic mountain belts on the continental plate, and by island-arc chains on the oceanic plate. Less often there is a strike-slip fault, as is defining the southern coastline of W. Africa. Most of the eastern Indian Ocean and nearly all of the Pacific Ocean margin are examples of active margins. While a weld between oceanic and continental crusts are called a passive margin, it is not an inactive margin. Active subsidence, sedimentation, growth faulting, pore fluid formation and migration are all very active processes on passive margins. Passive margins are only passive in that they are not active plate boundaries."

    I probably should've chosen a different term than "extensional basin," which is overly broad and includes things like backarc basins, which occur behind active margins (e.g. the CA Central Valley), but what I meant was that the Arctic formed by the separation of continental land masses and is bounded by "passive margins" (see above). I probably should have used the term Carey used for describing the Arctic basin -- sphenochasm -- but I knew that would need some 'splainin'. Or, I could have split the difference and described it in terms of "the 'rotational opening model', often referred to as the 'windshield wiper' model," which is how the opening of the Arctic is described in some recent articles on Arctic tectonics, which incidentally were co-authored by my UofA structural geology prof, George Gehrels.

    Geologically, the Arctic actually consists of two large basins -- the Amerasian Basin and the Eurasian Basin, separated by the Lomonosov Ridge, which interestingly enough, is a submarine continental ridge, and the smaller Canada Basin. Sorry for not being more precise.

    Now, was all that really necessary?

    More to follow...
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2012
  12. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    But Gneiss2011 (which, by the way, is a very nice moniker -- are you a petrologist?), my assurance of "more to follow" shouldn't preclude you in the meantime from offering references or whatever to articles or whatever that demonstrate that "all of the continents except Antarctica have NOT converged on the Arctic" or that "the Arctic has NOT been an area of extension," so please provide them. Believe me, I would love to believe in PT, hook, line, and sinker, and cast off the EE albatross to the Vestibule of the Futile -- sorry, more mixed metaphors -- so I can sleep more peacefully at night with the full knowledge that all is right with the world (or the Earth, as it were).

    Are we not all seekers of truth; are we not on an unending quest for knowledge and understanding; are we not Devo? (Musical allusion, sorry.)
     
  13. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Neither of these are claims made by PT so...
     
  14. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    I can't cite his specific sources because Carey didn't provide footnotes in his two books. However, his 1976 book includes about 800 references, so I suspect they're listed in there. But I think I can answer the rest of your question.

    Carey was apparently the first to suggest that rotation of the Alaskan orocline caused the Arctic to open, and he did so before he converted to expansion. Here's what he wrote in 1976:


    "The Alaskan Orocline was described by Carey (1955) and Carey (1958), according to which North America had rotated 28° against Eurasia about a pivot in Central Alaska, thereby opening the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans. This rotation was confirmed paleomagnetically by Irving (1958). Subsequently, Dr. David Stone went to the Alaskan Geophysical Institute, inter alia to investigate paleomagnetic rotation around the Alaskan Orocline. In due course Packer and Stone (1972) selected nine Jurassic sites along the Aleutian Range - Alaskan Range belt, which they accepted as paleomagnetically stable and mutually consistent, for comparison with the North American block. Their samples did indeed disagree with the American Jurassic pole. But far from showing a sinistral [counter-clockwise] rotation of 28° with respect to the American block, they showed a dextral [clockwise] rotation of 52°! Surprisingly, this result is precisely should have been predicted from the expanding earth. For, not only the Arctic, but the North Pacific has opened as new crust since the Paleozoic.

    "When a segment of a spherical shell is forced to adjust to a sphere of larger radius, radial gores must develop. This is what van Hilten (1963) called "the orange-peel effect." The focal point for the Arctic sphenochasm [FYI: a sphenochasm is a triangular gap of oceanic crust separating two continental blocks and converging to a point], the North Pacific sphenochasm, and several smaller sphenochasms, is, coincidentally, at Dr Stone's base, the Alaskan Geophysical Institute. Hence, although the Arctic sphenochasm has indeed opened as indicated long ago by me, the Pacific has also opened concurrently. Hence the Alaska and Aleutian ranges (which extend south-west from the pivot into eastern Siberia), should show a large dextral rotation against North America, which is what Packer and Stone found. [...] The North Pacific sphenochasm heads in the Gulf of Alaska with one near-great-circle arm trending down the cordillerra, and the other down the island arcs of the Aleutians, the Kuriles, Honshu, and the Ryukus." (Carey, 1976, emphasis in original.)

    But you don't need to take Carey's word for it when it comes to Arctic tectonics:

    "Early ideas on the geology of the northern Alaska continental margin were extrapolated from studies of the surrounding landmasses. Carey (1958) originally suggested that the Beaufort Sea margin of Alaska was created by a rift in which northern Alaska was rotated away from the Canadian Arctic Islands by oroclinal bending about a pivot in the Gulf of Alaska. Regional geologic considerations led Tailleur (l969a, b, and 1973) also to postulate that rotational rifting played a crucial role in the tectonic evolution of the region. Based on data acquired during oil exploration, Rickwood (1970) concurred with the rotational rift hypothesis and proposed that rifting was crucial to creation of the trap that holds the supergiant hydrocarbon deposit at Prudhoe" (Grant, et al, Geology of the Arctic continental margin of Alaska, 1994.)

    Here's some recent thinking with respect to timing -- the Arctic began "opening" during the Mesozoic:

    "The Arctic Ocean accommodates, besides the vast shelves, the two deep Amerasia and Eurasia basins. It has been inferred that the former began to develop in the Late Mesozoic, when east Siberia and Alaska, in a not fully understood way, rotated away from Canada, with a rotation pole in the Mackenzie Delta and an inferred transform fault along the former Eurasian margin, today's Lomonosov Ridge. The Eurasia Basin is separated from the Amerasia Basin by the latter, which is a sliver of continental lithosphere that apparently detached from the Eurasian shelf by the opening of the Eurasia basin in early Cenozoic time." (Lorenz, Eurasian Arctic Tectonics, 2005, emphasis added.)

    "The present-day scenery of the [East Arctic] began forming with opening of the Amerasia Ocean (Canada and Podvodnikov–Makarov Basins) in the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous and with Cretaceous–Cenozoic rifting related to spreading in the Eurasia Basin. The opening of oceans produced pull-apart and rift basins along continental slopes and shelves of the present-day Arctic fringing seas, which lie on a basement consisting of fragments of the Hyperborean craton and Early Paleozoic to Middle Cretaceous orogens." (Khain, et al., Tectonics and petroleum potential of the East Arctic province, 2009, emphasis added.)

    "Sea floor spreading anomalies in the Eurasian Basin (the northern continuation of the mid-Atlantic ridge system) constrain the history of formation of the Arctic Ocean by rifting back to about 55 Ma, but the earlier history of the adjacent Amerasian Basin remains an unsolved plate tectonic puzzle. The wide variety of proposed solutions to this puzzle was chronicled in Lawver et al. [1990]. Since then, increasingly sophisticated geophysical data sets and seismic based geologic relations has lent support to the "rotational opening model", often referred to as the "windshield wiper" model. This model proposes that Early Cretaceous rifting translated a small continental plate, known as the Arctic Alaska-Chukotka microplate, southward from the Arctic margin of Canada. The plate rotated about a pole located in the McKenzie Delta region, opening the Amerasian Basin by rifting while closing the Angayucham and Anyui ocean basins to the south [e.g. Grantz et al., 1990]. Data in support of this model include correlation of the upper Paleozoic-Mesozoic stratigraphy of the North Slope of Alaska to the Sverdrup Basin of Arctic Canada [Grantz et al., 1990; Embry et al., 1990; Toro et al., 2004], and magnetic and gravity anomalies that identify a paleo-spreading center in part of the Amerasian Basin [Laxon and McAdoo, 1996; Brozena et al., 2002]." (Miller et al., New Insights into Arctic Paleogeography and Tectonics from U-Pb Detrital Zircon Geochronology, 2006, emphasis added.)

    So, while Arctic tectonics remains enigmatic, the consensus seems to be that (1) it opened as a sphenochasm (the "rotational opening" or "windshield wiper" model), just as Carey originally proposed in the 50s, and (2) it began opening in the Mesozoic, i.e. after the Permian. And I could find nothing (on line) that indicated that subduction has taken place in the Arctic since that time.

    Again, I don't know what Carey's specific sources were. But you might want to take a look at "Fragmentation and Assembly of the Continents, Mid-Carboniferous to the Present" (Irving, 1983). (FYI: Nearly all of Irving's references that pre-date Carey's 1976 book are referenced in the latter.) Irving's paper includes maps "showing the motions of the major continental blocks" that were "prepared by first rotating each block into its correct palaeolatitudinal and palaeoazimuthal position for successive time intervals, using the palaeomagnetic poles (palaeopoles). The continents were then assembled into their palaeolongitudinal position using evidence from sea-floor spreading based mainly on the work of Laughton (1975), Norton and Sclater (1980) and Sclater et al. (1977)."

    These maps clearly show that "all of the continents except Antarctica have converged on the Arctic [...] since the Permian." But don't take my word for it: check out the two animated GIFs that I've attached, which I created last night from Irving's maps. [See note below about how to view the GIFs.] Needless to say, the continents are shown on a constant-sized earth. (IMO, the South Pole perspective is the best depiction. I slapped the gifs together pretty quickly so they're a bit jumpy.)

    [Well, the blog police have converted my GIFs into JPGs, which don't animate. So I put them on a web page: frontier-knowledge.com slash earth slash paleomag.html. On Windows, click CTRL-F5 to rerun; on a Mac, click Command-R.]

    Your turn...
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2012
  15. kaduseus melencolia I Registered Senior Member

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    That's funny, so all the planets have a mass that was given upon to them when they formed from the milk of the heavens.....

    Earth is expanding, growing in mass and volume, for whatever reason.
    The sun throws out how much matter an hour? and non of it sticks to the earth?

    Anyway, I got an interesting question for you, the earth has a dimple at the north pole and a pimple at the south pole, the majority of the land mass is in the north, and oceans in the south, question is why?
    I don't believe PT or EE can explain this observation, I believe the answer lies in the stellar mechanics of the sun and the 'field' in which the earth exists.
     
  16. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    Are you saying that neither PT nor EE can explain the asymmetrical arrangement of the continents (i.e. most of them are in the northern hemisphere)?

    What "'field' in which the earth exists" are you referring to?
     
  17. Gneiss2011 Registered Senior Member

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    Thank you

    I'll do.

    Good.

    It is not. I want to check the meaning of those terms you use, in order to repel misunderstanding.

    And you were right about that. There is no need to explain every word. I'll ask you again if I don't understand a word, or if i guess that i understand a word in a different way than you do.

    So you use "passive margins" and "active margins" with their common/mainstream meaning. No more to say.

    So by "the Arctic", you mean the oceanic crust area near the North pole, in the arctic ocean, that Wikipedia name "North Polar Basin".

    Whith your previous explanation about "the Arctic", and since this area has an oceanic crust seaflour and has extended by seaflour spreading since its born, I guess that I understand what you mean by "extensional basin".

    I think that it was necessary.

    For me the Artic is the area inside the arctic circle, and it's not a extensional basin.

    Whith your recent explanation, in this sentence you are claiming that "[the oceanic crust area near the North pole] is an extensional basin, surrounded by "passive margins" and no "active margins"

    Except if i am wrong about your use of "extensional basin", I agree with the sentence. It can add that those passive margins are themself surrounded by continental shelf (themself surrounded by emerged continents).

    Thank you.

    I am not.

    No problem.

    According to mainstream science, or rather according to what i understood of the current consensus among mainstream science, most of continents moved to the North since the Permian. But not converging (moving from every direction). Especially, North America and Europe moved together from Devonian to Jurassic. See Ronald Blakey's maps here.

    According to mainstream science, or rather according to what i understood of the current consensus among mainstream science, there has been seafloor spreading (of less than 10,000,000 km²) between North America and Siberia since Jurassic, but not during Jurassic or Permian. See this map. By this are, North America and Siberia have diverged of about 2,500 km.

    And this area was not in the Arctic or near the North Pole during the Permian, but souther, according to that map.

    There has been seafloor spreading between North America and Europe since Jurassic. See those maps.

    Please also notice that, according to Ronald Blakey's maps, North America and Europe moved away roughtly West-East along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Gakkel Ridge. This does not conflict with a South-to-North movement of those two continent, according to Galilean relativity and Newtonian mechanics.

    So Carey's claim about Arctic Paradox would become "Paleomagnetic measurements show that all of the continents except Antarctica have moved on to the North Pole by several tens of degrees since the Permian. Wholly independent data from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous give the same conclusion in progressively diminishing degree. Yet since Jurassic there has been seaflor spreading between North America and Eurasia, which diverged (which moved away from each other)"

    Please correct me if i'm wrong or if i write mistake.

    PS: Sorry if I added too many wikipedia links.
     
  18. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    (I presume that all of your comments about the divergence/convergence of "North America" and "Siberia" refer entirely to the Arctic and not the Pacific. Also, I had to remove your URLs from my reply because the blog won't let me include them since I haven't yet posted 20 times.)

    According to Carey and most (but not all) expansion advocates, including myself, there was no "seafloor spreading" (and indeed no large-scale ocean basins) before the Triassic when the Pangaean dismemberment began. In other words, all of the continents were originally contiguous until Pangaea broke apart. (Of course, that doesn't mean there were no Pre-Cambrian or Paleozoic seas -- there were, but they were all, according to EE, "intracontinental seas" on top of continental crust. The trilobites we find in Ohio and elsewhere were obviously not deposited in the modern ocean basins. It also doesn't mean there was no mantle-derived mafic rock in the intracontinental seafloors or that that the continents didn't "grow" during the Pre-Cambrian or Paleozoic. But we can discuss all of that later.)

    Blankely's pre-Mesozoic maps are (presumably) based on paleomagnetic data plus the assumption of a constant-sized earth. As you know, there is no Paleozoic oceanic crust present today (except for the odd ophiolite). According to EE, there was no oceanic crust before the Mesozoic; according to PT, the pre-Mesozoic oceanic crust was entirely subducted (and, conveniently, at precisely the same rate new that oceanic crust was formed). Hence, any pre-Mesozoic oceanic crust shown on Blakely's maps is inferred by necessity because of PT's assumption of a constant-sized earth. (BTW, I use the term "seafloor spreading" loosely and for convenience, but it is inaccurate from an EE perspective because it implies the "conveyor belt" model of horizontal displacement endorsed by PT.)

    Right, but as Carey pointed out the northward movement of both North America and Siberia (i.e. the southward movement of the latitudes) must mean that North America and Siberia have converged. If they both drifted north on a globe, then they converged not only at the pole but also as each "wrapped around" the globe, i.e. east-to-west. So, if you're saying that they moved side-by-side and in tandem (i.e. in the same hemisphere on a constant-sized earth), then Siberia and/or North America must have wrapped around the glove to arrive at their current circum-polar location, with Siberia in one hemisphere and North America in the other, which means they must have converged not only across the Arctic but also in the North Pacific, i.e. roughly across the Bering Strait and points south. But there's no evidence for any of that.

    Right, and that's exactly Carey's point. The Permian equator ran through both North America and Siberia; the equator today is many degrees to the south of both land masses. Hence, they moved north relative to the poles and equator; hence they must have converged, not only north-south convergence in the Arctic, but also east-west convergence in the sub Arctic. Keep in mind that their northward movement occured not on a flat 2-D map where the longitudes are parallel, but on a 3-D sphere where the longitudes converge.

    PT and EE agree on that, though "seafloor spreading" isn't a very accurate description from the EE perspective, as I mentioned above.

    I don't understand the relevance of Galileo and Newton in this context. In any case, those land masses did indeed move apart in the Atlantic. But did they converge in the Pacific as they must have on a constant-sized earth?

    I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're making. Carey said that North America and Eurasia have moved north since the Permian, suggesting convergence; but the geological evidence in the Arctic indicates divergence. I think the fact that Carey said that all continents other than Antarctica have moved north is just a general statement that includes North America and Eurasia.

    This is fun! And I genuinely appreciate that you don't just blow off expansion as pseudoscientific crap (even if that's what you really believe) but you seem genuinely willing to engage in a rational discussion, which is a rarity on most blogs -- especially so-called "science" blogs, alas. I hate flame wars because all they do is belch smoke and provide no illumination.

    Can I ask a favor? Since I can't yet include URLs in my posts, would you kindly post the URL for my web page that has the GIF animations of the Irving maps.

    www dot frontier-knowledge.com slash earth slash paleomag.html

    Thanks!
     
  19. kaduseus melencolia I Registered Senior Member

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    Yep, here is piccy for mars just to mess with your head (north is blue):-
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...est.jpg/674px-MarsTopoMap-PIA02031_modest.jpg

    Earth doesn't orbit at it's distance because of it's mass, its mass is constrained by it's orbit, it's orbit is a 'field' of the sun, similar to an electron shell if you will.
    The planets and asteroid belts don't orbit the sun at distance because of a mathematical formula, the formula is an interpretation of an observation.
    The ratios between the distances of the inner and outer planets show a certain periodicity, why does this periodicity exist, coincidence?

    All I'm trying to say is that the earth isn't a distinct form that is void of influence from the sun, it is part of that sun.
    Attempting to explain the history of the earth without reference to the past and current influences of the sun, which to be honest are very poorly understood anyway, will result in a less than satisfactory answer.

    Link for above post:- http://www.frontier-knowledge.com/earth/paleomag.html
     
  20. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    I've never understood why people are so afraid of "I don't know" as an answer.
     
  21. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    Well, that's exactly what Carey said in his 1976 book:

    "What causes the earth to expand?

    "My first answer is I do not know. Empirically, I am satisfied that the earth is expanding.

    "My second answer is that I may not necessarily be expected to know. The answer could only be expected to be known if all relevant fundamental physics is already known." (Carey, 1976, emphasis in original.)

    Unfortunately, the defenders of current dogma have latched on to Carey's honest (and fearless) answer as proving that the expansion hypothesis is nothing but "pseudoscientific crap," as it was eloquently described, in case you have forgotten, in the original post of this thread, which, in case you have forgotten, happens to be titled The Nonsensical "Growing Earth" "Theory." (I guess misnaming EE "growing earth," a term expansion advocates have never used in the literature, and then also applying the adjective "nonsensical" wasn't sufficient, so it was necessary to put quotation marks around the word "theory" to remove any lingering doubt that expansion doesn't even deserve that designation.)
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2012
  22. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    :Roll:

    And yet here you are seemingly arguing that because, in your opinion, PT does not appear to be able to provide what, in your opinion, is a satisfactory answer, then PT as a whole must be fundamentally flawed.

    And you're right. For me personally at least, the lack of a credible mechanism to cause the growth of the earth is one among many many reasons I have difficulty attaching credibility to expanding earth tectonics.
     
  23. Hoyasaur Registered Member

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    If you're referring to the misnamed Bode's Law (it should be called Titius's Law), then I think you're on to something. But instead of using the Earth-Sun distance as the baseline, as Titius did, you need to use Jupiter's sidereal period, as Carey did, in order to calculate the other planets' periods.

    Thanks for posting my link to the Irving maps.
     

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