Debate: The Earth Is Expanding

[OilIsMastery]

Topic: "The Earth Is Expanding"
Affirmative: Yours truly
Negative: James R.

"When studying the history of the creation and formulation of plate tectonics one can come to the conclusion that it is, and was at best only a hypothesis. A hypothesis, which uses an assumption at its basis. This is the assumption that the Earth has retained a constant size during its geological evolution. This assumption however is not supported by facts." -- Stefan Cwojdzinski, geologist, 2005

"The causal understanding of Earth expansion is not yet fully understood, but the empirical processes involved are confirmed by such numerous and different sets of data that this should be considered fact." -- Stefan Cwojdzinski, geologist, 2005

"The idea of an earth which is constant and unchanging has been restated so often throughout history that it has now become established as a firm fact. It needs no proof -- which is lucky since there is none." -- Stephen Hurrell, engineer, April 2006

I. Expansion History

1854

Roberto Mantovani, violinist and scientist, born in Parma on March 25, 1854. He was part of an orchestral team reaching the volcanic Réunion Island in 1878. During his stay on the island, Mantovani had the occasion of observing the huge volcanic fractures on the Indian ocean shore near the town of Saint Denis. He argued that, on a global scale, all the continents might have undergone the same disjunction processes as the volcanic flanks. The global fractures are today the oceans. After several years from his observations, Mantovani published his idea in 1889 in the Bulletin of the Societé des Sciences et des Arts of Saint Denis, where the Italian established his family and became Consul of Italy. After an economic crisis and an epidemic plague in the Réunion Island, Roberto Mantovani left his post as Consul to go and live in San Servan, near the port of Saint Malo, in northern France, where he continued his activity as violinist, managing a school of music. As a scientist, he gave public conferences on the idea of planetary expansion. Mantovani was not a mere precursor of the continental drift idea: instead, Mantovani’s ideas on Earth expansion were more general compared to those of Wegener who was not taking into account the possibility of variation of the Earth’s radius. His more famous paper, quoted later by Wegener, was published in 1909, in a popular magazine 'Je m’instruis'. The paper contains the first suggestive mapping of the breakup of the Pangea continent based on geological arguments. The great novelty in the 1909 paper was the mapping of the Pacific view: dotted lines were drown between pairs of geographical points which once were in contact while today are separated by the huge extension of the Pacific basin. The idea was that the corresponding points were in contact before the expansion of the Earth. The enlarging of the huge fractures formed all oceans. We had to wait the sixties to find the same kind of lines in the Indian and Atlantic oceans in plate tectonics. According to plate tectonics this is not true for the Pacific Ocean, because in this case the plate movement is inverse and the ocean tends towards closing. The 1909 Pacific map was forgotten, and only Mantovani’s Pangea representation is reproduced today in some books dealing with the history of science.

Source: Roberto Mantovani an Italian defender of the continental drift and planetary expansion (Scalera & Jacob 2003)

1906

Eduard Suess publishes The Face of the Earth.

"Early science was egocentric, and uniformitarian, in the sense that it assumed that things have always been pretty much as we now see them .... A century ago geologists believed that the mass, volume, and diameter of the Earth were fixed inheritances, that the axial obliquity to the ecliptic was immutable, that the earth was a dying body dissipating primal heat from a still molten core, that magnetic north was north and south was south, and always had been so, that physical constants had been and would remain constants, and that continents were fixed permanent features which heaved and sagged from time to time against an ebbing and flooding sea. ... During the nineties Suess knew this had to be changed, for he recognized that 200 to 300 million years ago Africa, South America, India, and Australia had been a super-continent sharing the Glossopteris flora and a common ice age." (Carey 1976).

1915

Alfred Wegener publishes The Origin of Continents and Oceans. In Chapter 1, titled Historical Introduction, Wegener writes and I quote, "In a short article in 1909 Mantovani expressed some ideas on continental displacement and explained them by means of maps which differ in part from mine [duh!] but at some points agree astonishingly closely."

In other words continental drift was Mantovani's original idea NOT Wegener's.

And that was all Wegener ever said about expansion because he just assumed a priori that the earth is a constant size.

Sound familiar?

"During the thirties and forties and early fifties Wegener's ideas were generally rejected as a fantasy--fascinating but false. 'Ein Marchen, a pipe dream, a beautiful fairy story' chanted the American bandwaggon. During these decades of repudiation, arguments which denied continental dispersion passed without scrutiny or test. They were correct, a priori, because everyone knew continental dispersion was wrong." (Carey 1976)

1933

The main points of the life and scientific production of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg (1896-1976) have been reconstructed. The events took place between America and Berlin: in America from 1925 to 1928 the young Hilgenberg, with a diploma in Mechanical Engineering, worked as a Geophysicist in an oil prospecting company. It was there that he probably developed his interdisciplinary ideas, which, influenced in various ways by the European cultural climate, brought him into the field of global tectonics. He conceived a theory about the expansion of the Earth based on the nature of the gravity field. In 1933, the theory was published in his classic work 'Vom wachsenden Erdball'. Upon his return in Germany he performed various types of research at the School of Engineering, then that of Geology and Paleontology at the Technical University of Berlin. He was also briefly involved as editor of the scientific publications at the Technical University of Berlin, where he made a contribution towards saving the book collection as the war ended. During the years spent in Berlin, he continued to refine his elegant version of the theory of Earth’s expansion publishing articles and books on this subject up to the last years in his life. The importance of Hilgenberg lies in the fact that he marks the beginning of the integration of various scientific disciplines from Physics to Paleontology and Paleomagnetism, in support of a universal tectonic theory, and that he made paleogeographic reconstructions on globes with smaller radii than the present one. All those who have worked or are working with one of the versions of expansion tectonics owe him enormous gratitude for his inspiration and for the scientific and moral lesson of fifty years spent in unflagging defence of his ideas. The material gathered and kindly made available by his daughter Helge has been indispensable for this recalling.

Source: Ott Christoph Hilgenberg in twentieth-century geophysics (Scalera & Jacob 2003)

Earth Expansion In German With English Subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUkEu6YYR3s

Hilgenberg Globes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOp8j6eOBlI

"The Wegener bombshell of gross continental separation promptly triggered the concept of earth expansion as opposed to drift, but books in German by Lindemann (1927), Bogolepow (1930), Hilgenberg (1933), and Keindl (1940) got little attention in English literature. A second wave by Egyed (1956), Carey (1958), Heezen (1959), Neyman (1962), Broskke (1962), Barnett (1962), Creer (1965), Dearnley (1965), Jordan (1966), Steiner (1967), and Meservey (1969) ran against the orthodox tide, which in geology, is lethal." (Carey 1976)

1976

Samuel Warren Carey publishes The Expanding Earth.

1983

"I have been continually amazed that the simplicity with which Earth expansion answers so much of the Earth's evolution has been so delayed in universal adoption." -- Klaus A. Vogel, engineer, 1983

1984

New Scientist:

"The geological and geophysical implications of such Earth expansion are so profound that most geologists and geophysicists shy away from them. In order to fit with the reconstruction that seems to be required, the volume of the Earth was only 51 per cent of its present value, and the surface area 64 per cent of that of the present day, 200 million years ago. Established theory says that the Earth's interior is stable, an inner core of nickel iron surrounded by an outer layer that behaves like a fluid. Perhaps we are completely wrong and the inner core is in some state nobody has yet imagined, a state that is undergoing a transition from a high-density state to a lower density state, and pushing out the crust, the skin of the Earth, as it expands." -- Hugh Owen, geophysicist, 1984

1985

World renowned physicist William R. Corliss said it this way:

"The Expanding Earth Hypothesis goes back to at least 1933, a time when the Continental Drift Hypothesis was accorded the same sort of ridicule. Now, Continental Drift is enthroned; and ironically many of its strongest proponents are vehemently opposed to the Expanding Earth, ignoring the lessons of history." -- William R. Corliss, physicist, 1985

1986

"A recently reported study of brachiopods concludes that 'the balance of evidence seems to require an expanding earth' (Ager 1986).

Source: Expanding Earth?? (Mundy 1988).

1992

"The many geophysical and geological paradoxes that have accumulated during the past two or three decades are apparently the consequences of forcing observational data into an inadequate tectonic model."-- Karsten M. Storetvedt, geophysicist, 1992

1998

"The greatest disturbance of traditional geological views came from the concept of oceanic seafloor spreading. By now, this has developed into a well-balanced theory which is in agreement with the results of geological and geophysical observations." -- Yury V. Chudinov, geologist, 1998

"Now that the subduction concept has been developed for almost 30 years, it can be said that it has not been fruitful geologically." -- Yury V. Chudinov, geologist, 1998

"There is no doubt that the subduction model constitutes the weakest link in the construction of plate tectonics, as has been repeatedly pointed out." -- Yury V. Chudinov, geologist, 1998

1999

"In 1928 Rollin Chamberlin complained that if continental drift were true, geologists would have to 'forget everything that has been learned in the last 70 years and start all over again.' [Sound familiar?] And that is what they did. Between 1928 and 1968 many things changed in American earth science." (Oreskes 1999)

2005

"To date however, there is no direct unambiguous evidence that mantle convection and/or mantle circulation actually takes place; in fact, there is some evidence to the contrary. Moreover, there is no evidence that oceanic basalt can be repeatedly recycled through the mantle without being substantially and irreversibly changed. Yet, mantle convection/circulation and basalt recycling are fundamental necessities for the validity of plate tectonics. Furthermore, plate tectonics theory does not provide an energy source for geodynamic activity." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2005

2007

"In the oral session, except for one presentation that was clearly pro plate tectonics, and another one that did not address the issue of global and large scale geology specifically, there was general consensus that subduction, and therefore plate tectonics, is mechanically impossible." -- Stavros T. Tassos (seismologist/geoscientist) and Karsten M. Storetvedt (geophysicist), November 2007

II. Introduction To My Argument

Scientists tell us that the universe (that means everything) is expanding.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june98/universe_2-27.html
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast25may99_1.htm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/accelerating.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/expansion_001011.html
http://www.dailycal.org/article/14597/researchers_probe_expanding_universe
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=expanding-universe-slows-then-speeds&page=3

But those who have faith in the plate tectonics hypothesis don't believe scientists.

According to plate tectonics, there is one very special and magical place in the universe that is not expanding and that maintains a constant size.

That magical place, big surprise, is of course the Earth, or so they claim.

Earth they say is special because it's the only astronomical body in the universe alleged to have invisible magic subduction zones.

“Earth is the only planet with plate tectonics. That means it’s special in space, and it’s probably special in time, too. There must have been a time when the Earth didn’t have plate tectonics. The Earth had a very different tectonic, geologic style. There were no mid-ocean ridges with continents moving apart. There were no subduction zones where oceanic crust would have been going down,” Stern explained.

Link

Earth is the only planet where subduction is known to occur. Without subduction, plate tectonics could not exist.

Link

Why does plate tectonics occur only on Earth? This is one of the major questions in earth and planetary sciences research, and raises a wide range of related questions

In response to Why does plate tectonics occur only on Earth? There is a very simple answer: "Subduction exists only in the minds of its creators." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1976

Does Ganymede have subduction? No: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fsg1XJTbKA

Does Europa have subduction? No: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH_5SFHXSzo

Does Mars have subduction? No: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d44Jj_3gp-M

And now to the point

Does the Earth have subduction? No.

III. The Myth of Subduction

"People don't want to see it. They believe in subduction like a religion." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1981

"I had taught subduction for more years than any of the present generation of people had been with it. And when they have been in it as long as I have they'll abandon it too." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1981

Link

"Subduction is not only illogical, it is not supported by geological or physical evidence, and violates fundamental laws of physics." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

In order to maintain Earth’s current diameter, subduction MUST remove older Pacific Ocean seafloor at a rate equal to ALL new seafloor area added anywhere on the planet—not just the small ~25-40 mm/yr (~1 to 1-1/2 in/yr) of new seafloor added annually along the Atlantic Ocean midocean ridge. The total new seafloor growth, both E-W and N-S, along the ~65,000 kilometers of midocean ridges undoubtedly exceeds ~300 mm/yr (~12 in/yr), and ALL of it must be vectored into the Pacific Ocean basin, the only area on the planet where subduction is believed to occur.

There are other reasons to doubt the validity of subduction. One is the illogical question of why the East Pacific Rise (EPR) should generate ~80 to ~160 mm/yr (~3-1/4 to ~6-1/2 in/yr) of new ocean seafloor—right in the middle of the supposed subduction area, and simultaneously subduct a greater amount elsewhere around its perimeter, leaves one puzzled. This EPR growth is four times greater than seafloor growth anywhere else on the planet and this large amount of new oceanic seafloor does not appear to be accounted for in the VLBI measurements. Where are measurements showing the Pacific Ocean basin DECREASING IN WIDTH?

Also unaccounted for are the vast amounts of new N-S seafloor being added circum-Antarctica that are causing Antarctica to INCREASE IN TOTAL SURFACE AREA AND EXPAND RADIALLY OUTWARD FROM THE PLANET’S CENTER.

This raises the pivotal questions of HOW and WHERE subduction could be occurring because there is NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of seamounts or soft sedimentary debris filling the deep ocean trenches or piled up on North or South American shores, semi-liquid debris that would easily have been scraped off the top of any subducting ocean floor.

The Pacific Rim of Fire, the supposed subduction area, suffers frequent earthquakes, but Benioff zones and seismic tomography that scientists point to when trying to justify subduction, only APPEAR to support subduction because they merely provide epicenter depths of earthquakes without providing the direction or extent of movement.

The only way subductionists can PROVE SUBDUCTION is to demonstrate that the Pacific Ocean basin is actually being REDUCED IN SIZE, and that offshore islands or seamounts are rapidly moving closer to shore or are descending into the deep ocean trenches. The simplest solution would be direct trans-Pacific measurements of the changing distances between fixed points on each of the five Pacific continents and Alaska. (Use of satellite measurements (VLBI, LAGEO, GPS) should be avoided because the global grid system of latitude and longitude has itself changed by increased distances between parallels and meridions.)

However, there is no need to go to all this trouble. Since it has been shown earlier that the planet is obviously expanding there is no comparable problem, either physical or mathematical (except for the expanded global grid system). Midocean ridges are the enabling mechanism of global expansion, acting like cranial sutures that permit the human skull to grow to maturity. The midocean ridges simply add new basaltic seafloor from core magma that increases Earth’s total surface area, diameter and circumference, and, like Antarctica, EXPANDS ALL SURFACE AREAS RADIALLY OUTWARD FROM THE CENTER OF THE PLANET!

Source: Subduction's Fatal Flaw (Myers 1999)

Expansion poses no geophysical problems--the planet just keeps on growing and expanding, wherever and in whatever form it occurs, but the annual increase in diameter (~5-10 cm/yr or ~2-4 in/yr) is very small and difficult to measure.

Subduction, on the other hand, is purely hypothetical because it is based on a fundamental assumption that the planet has always been the same size since it was formed 4.5-4.6 billion years ago; something almost impossible to prove. This philosophical assumption requires that any addition of surface area to one part of the planet would require an equal compensatory loss in some other region of the planet. Maintaining a constant diameter, however, raises a number of troubling questions about the mechanics of subduction:

a. Not generally realized is that subduction, at a minimum, would require the Pacific basin to decrease in width by at least the ~2-4 cm/yr increase in width of the Atlantic basin in order to maintain Earth at a constant diameter and permit the entire Pacific Ocean basin to be swallowed! But, for subduction to be valid, another ~8-16 cm/yr of East Pacific Rise (EPR) growth (the greatest rate of new seafloor growth on the planet [Fig. 2]) also must be swallowed, for a total minimum subduction rate of ~10-20 cm/yr (~4-8 in/yr).

b. And to the above totals one must add an amount equal to additional seafloor growth along thousands of kilometers of midocean ridges in the Indian Ocean and around Antarctica. The Indian Ocean, which has opened even wider than the Atlantic, also has no evidence of subduction within its confines. How can worldwide seafloor growth in oceans outside the Pacific be vectored smoothly into the Pacific basin where the EPR is generating a prodigious volume of new seafloor in the middle of the Pacific subduction area?

c. A major flaw in subduction dogma is the very young age of the oldest Pacific Ocean sediments ever found in the Pacific basin. These sediments were cored on Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 129 at Site 801B (18° 38.52´N, 156° 21.582´E, Central Pigafetta Basin, just east of the Mariana Trench) and were found to be only ~169 Ma (Middle Jurassic) in age; roughly equal to the oldest sediments found in the Atlantic Ocean.

d. Using these ODP data and extrapolations from magnetic anomaly lineations (isochrons) in the same area, Nakanishi, et al, arrived at a slightly older age of ~195 Ma, postulating “the shape of the early Pacific plate was a rough triangle” covering an area of 0.04x10[6] km² at ~190 Ma, 0.6x10[6] km² at ~180 Ma, and 3x10[6] km² at ~170 Ma. The Pacific plate is now estimated to cover an area of 108x10[6] km²—which means that the entire Pacific plate has been generated within the last ~195 Ma, thereby constraining the age of the Pacific basin to be no more than ~200-205 Ma.

e. Proponents of subduction may argue that sediment ages less than ~200 Ma supports their contention that all the older Pacific seafloor has been subducted since the Atlantic basin first opened approximately ~160-175 Ma, and therefore none of the original Panthalassan seafloor can be found today. But this is only an inferred assumption and valid only if subduction has really existed. This is now a moot point because the evidence shown in Heezen and Tharp’s map shows that Panthalassa (Wegener's eo-Pacific Ocean) never existed.

f. If subduction were actually occurring to offset worldwide seafloor growth, there should be constant and sustained seismic activity reflecting disappearance of older seafloor at the same rate new seafloor is being generated. There is indeed a great deal of earthquake activity throughout the Ring of Fire, but it is not equally distributed around the Pacific Ocean perimeter commensurate with the constancy of new seafloor growth that must be vectored in from oceanic areas outside the Pacific basin.

g. There is no empirical proof that Pacific perimeter earthquakes are caused by subduction; this is inferred and purely hypothetical. There are more logical explanations such as crustal adjustments due to relaxed curvature and flattening of the Earth's crust as a consequence of expansion in diameter. Earthquakes, though powerful, are merely secondary effects of planetary expansion, not primary geophysical actions with independent motive power.

h. Subduction fails to explain a satisfactory causative mechanism able to force thin ocean floors only 10 km thick to dive beneath thick continental shields 25-40 km thick without leaving behind some physical evidence. There is no evidence of ocean floors and seamounts diving into the deep ocean trenches (the trenches show little or no sedimentation, and no toppled seamounts). As noted by Roger Revelle in 1955, material recovered from even the deepest trenches “resemble in many ways deposits laid down in shallow water.”

i. This exposes a related problem--the missing soft sediments that should have been scraped off the ocean floor when descending beneath a rigid continental shield over a period of two hundred million years. These soft sediments are an unconsolidated top layer of ocean floor ~10 meters thick. Massive amounts of sediments should be piled up against continental shores, or in the deep ocean trenches off the eastern coasts of Asia and Australia, the western coasts of North and South America, or in the Aleutian Trench. The sediments just aren't there; the ocean trenches are relatively free of sediments and there are no mountains of soft sediments piled up against any Pacific shore.

Source: SUBDUCTION'S PROBLEMS (Myers 1999)

Also see: Eclogites In the SCLM: The Subduction Myth (Griffin & O'Reilly)

No Subduction (Neal Adams): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJfBSc6e7QQ

IV. Delta G

There is no gravitational constant because the Earth is expanding. This explains the giant size of the dinosaurs, how Pterosaurs could fly, and how Tarascosaurus could run 50 miles per hour.

Improvements in our knowledge of the absolute value of the Newtonian gravitational constant, G, have come very slowly over the years. Most other constants of nature are known (and some even predictable) to parts per billion, or parts per million at worst. However, G stands mysteriously alone, its history being that of a quantity which is extremely difficult to measure and which remains virtually isolated from the theoretical structure of the rest of physics. Several attempts aimed at changing this situation are now underway, but the most recent experimental results have once again produced conflicting values of G and, in spite of some progress and much interest, there remains to date no universally accepted way of predicting its absolute value. The review will assess the role of G in physics, examine the status of attempts to derive its value and provide an overview of the experimental efforts that are directed at increasing the accuracy of its determination. Regarding the latter, emphasis will be placed on describing the instrumentational aspects of the experimental work. Related topics that are also discussed include the search for temporal variation of G and recent investigations of possible anomalous gravitational effects that lie outside of presently accepted theories.

The Newtonian gravitational constant: recent measurements and related studies (Gillies 1997)

Measurement of Newton's Constant Using a Torsion Balance with Angular Acceleration Feedback (Gundlach & Merkowitz 2000)

"It is important to note that all the periods [Earth's orbit and year] were likely of different duration in the geological past." -- Mazmunder and Arima, 2004

"This implies that slow Earth expansion might have occured if G varies (Runcorn 1964, pg. 825)." -- Mazmunder and Arima, 2004

Tidal Rhythmites and their Implications (Mazmunder & Arima 2004)

Atom Interferometer Measurement of the Newtonian Constant of Gravity (Fixler et al 2007)

V. Abridged Works Cited

Carey, Samuel, The Expanding Earth, 1976

Carey, Samuel, Theories of the Earth and Universe: A History of Dogma In The Sciences, 1988

Chudinov, Yury, Global Eduction Tectonics of the Expanding Earth, 1998

Hurrell, Stephen, Dinosaurs and the Expanding Earth, 2003

Maxlow, James, Terra Non Firma Earth, 2005

Oreskes, Naomi, The Rejection of Continental Drift, 1999

Suess, Eduard, The Face of the Earth, 1906

Wegener, Alfred, The Origin Of Continents and Oceans, 1915

 

[James R]

I'd like to thank OilIsMastery for starting this debate. However, with so few actual arguments put so far, it seems that my task is an easy one.

The first half of OIM's opening post (I. Expansion History) is a documentation of people who have put forward theories of an expanding Earth. However, the topic of this debate is not "That theories of an expanding earth exist", but rather "That Earth is expanding". To answer that question we need to look at the arguments, not the history of the people who have argued.

And so, we come to OIM's actual argument (II. Introduction To My Argument).

First, OIM refers to the general theory of the expansion of the universe - that is the expansion of space and time according to the general theory of relativity. I do not dispute that the universe as a whole is expanding. I argue here that the Earth is not expanding. OIM implies that scientists who believe in the expansion of the universe must also believe that the Earth is expanding. However, this is not true. The expansion of the universe as a whole happens on large scales. On a planetary scale, the local gravitation prevents the expansion of planets such as the Earth.

OIM then goes on to talk about plate tectonics. His argument appears to be that the Earth must be expanding if the theory of plate tectonics is false. Most of the rest of his post talks about subduction and similar processes, in an attempt to disprove the theory of plate tectonics.

Let us suppose, however, that the theory of plate tectonics is, in fact, false. Does that mean the Earth must be expanding? Perhaps it does, but OIM has done nothing to justify this claim so far in this debate. Similarly, the fact that plate tectonics does not occur on other planets, true or false, seems to me to be irrelevant to the question of whether the Earth is expanding or not.

Part (III) of OIM's presentation above has not, therefore, been shown to have any relevance to the current debate. Perhaps in his following posts, OIM will explain how any of this is relevant to the debate question.

It is difficult to discern OIM's precise contention in part IV. Delta G of his argument. I am not sure whether he is claiming that the strength of the gravitational force has increased over time, or that the local gravity of the Earth has increased (perhaps due to the proposed expansion of the Earth?).

Or maybe he is arguing that the Earth is expanding because gravity has varied over time. If so, hopefully we will see some evidence presented by OIM in his following posts on that topic.

Alternatively, perhaps OIM supports the views of Neal Adams, who claims that the earth's gravity has decreased over time. OIM's reference to the dinosaurs, above, seems to suggest that this may be the case. It is hard to see how the Earth's gravity could be less when it was smaller, if it had the same mass that it has today, unless perhaps gravity has decreased universally in strength over time. However, astronomical data does not support such a hypothesis. I will wait to see if this is OIM's argument, before taking more words to rebut it in detail.

---

I now to turn to my own side of the debate: that the Earth is NOT expanding.

First, I want to define the terms of this debate, as I understand them. I assume that we are not talking about tiny, almost unmeasurable additions to the Earth's mass due to things such as meteor impacts adding small amounts of mass the Earth over time. I assume we are talking about a continual and significant increase in the Earth's overall diameter over, say, the past 3.5 billion years, over which time the Earth has perhaps doubled its diameter.

A calculation can show that meteor impacts and the like may have caused Earth's diameter to expand by perhaps 0.0042% in 4.5 billions years, and I concede this point in the debate if it is made. However, I believe that OIM arguing for a significant increase in diameter, of the order of 30-50%, and not a minuscule 0.0042%.

The default scientific position on the question of the expansion of the Earth, I submit, is to assume no expansion after formation, unless some clear evidence can be presented giving a mechanism for the expansion. OIM has not suggested any mechanism that might cause expansion so far, but I look forward to his arguments in the following posts of this debate. Elsewhere on the forum, he suggested tentatively that new matter is constantly being created in the Earth's core. Perhaps he will present some evidence for that argument; we will have to wait and see. To "win" this debate, I do not need to "prove the negative". The onus is on OIM to prove that the Earth is expanding.

As can be seen from OIM's extensive history above, many people have toyed with the idea of an expanding Earth over the years. Recently, the expanding earth position has been associated with the young-Earth Creationist movement, among others. Young-earth Creationists claim the Earth is only 6000 years old or so, that Noah's flood actually occurred, and so on. This is clearly nonsense, as many types of scientific data confirm. It is not clear if OIM believes in young-Earth Creationism from the above, although I know from other statements on the forum that he does not believe in evolution. I will wait and see whether he wishes to bring in Creationist arguments here.

I here briefly outline my arguments against some of the popular theories of an expanding Earth. More detail will be provided once OIM gives the arguments he intends to rely on to prove his case.

1. Assuming a fixed Earth mass, the surface gravity would have been 4 times its present value when the Earth was half its current diameter. There is much evidence that Earth's surface gravity has never been that large.

2. If the Earth's mass is supposed to be increasing over time, no believable mechanism for that mass increase has yet been proposed.

3. If the universal gravitational constant has increased over time, this would suggest a compression of the Earth, not an expansion.

4. If the universal gravitational constant decreased over time, then the surface gravity in the past, when the earth was smaller, would have been much larger, which would not allow for the existence of animals such as large dinosaurs.

5. If the Earth was much smaller in the past, then the oceans would have covered all of the land and there would have been no land life on Earth. The only way around this is to suggest a mechanism for the gradual creation of ocean water as the Earth expanded.

6. Paleomagnetic data shows that 400 million years ago, the Earth's radius was within 2.8% of today's value. This severely limits any possible rate of expansion.

7. Evidence from structural geology, seismology, petrology and isotope geochemistry all support the theory of subduction, contrary to the arguments outlined by OIM above.

8. If it is proposed that the Earth's mass stayed the same but its overall density has decreased over time, a mechanism for the decrease in density is needed.

9. Expanding Earth theories do not seem to be able to account for the formation of mountains (whose presence is normally explained by subduction).

10. An expanding Earth would suggest an increased moment of inertia and therefore a lengthening of the day over time. However, the verified lengthening of the day seems to be entirely accounted for by tidal interactions between the Earth and the Moon.

11. Paleogravity studies appear to indicate that Earth's surface gravity has never been significantly greater than it is today.

In summary, there is no plausible process that can explain how the Earth might be expanding, and modern measurements fail to find any evidence of an actual increase in the Earth's radius over time.

---

I have not cited any references for the above statements. I will wait until OIM puts his actual arguments before going into more detail to justify my rebuttals. However, an overview of expanding earth theories can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_earth_theory

 

[OilIsMastery]

I'd like to thank OilIsMastery for starting this debate.

And I'd like to thank you for participating...

First, OIM refers to the general theory of the expansion of the universe - that is the expansion of space and time according to the general theory of relativity. I do not dispute that the universe as a whole is expanding. I argue here that the Earth is not expanding. OIM implies that scientists who believe in the expansion of the universe must also believe that the Earth is expanding. However, this is not true. The expansion of the universe as a whole happens on large scales. On a planetary scale, the local gravitation prevents the expansion of planets such as the Earth.

The Earth is part of the universe. Plate tectonics believes that the Earth is somehow magically not a part of the universe.

OIM then goes on to talk about plate tectonics. His argument appears to be that the Earth must be expanding if the theory of plate tectonics is false. Most of the rest of his post talks about subduction and similar processes, in an attempt to disprove the theory of plate tectonics.

Let us suppose, however, that the theory of plate tectonics is, in fact, false. Does that mean the Earth must be expanding? Perhaps it does, but OIM has done nothing to justify this claim so far in this debate.

According to the Wikipedia entry on subduction, written by plate tectonics faithful themselves, "without subduction plate tectonics could not exist." There are only 3 possibilities (1) plate tectonics (2) rejection of continental drift and (3) expansion. Since 1 and 2 are obviously false, we are left with choice 3.

Similarly, the fact that plate tectonics does not occur on other planets, true or false, seems to me to be irrelevant to the question of whether the Earth is expanding or not.

The fact that subduction has not been observed anywhere in the universe supports the argument that all planetary bodies, including the Earth, are growing.

Part (III) of OIM's presentation above has not, therefore, been shown to have any relevance to the current debate. Perhaps in his following posts, OIM will explain how any of this is relevant to the debate question.

See quote above: "Without subduction plate tectonics could not exist."

astronomical data does not support such a hypothesis.

What astronomical data?

I assume that we are not talking about tiny, almost unmeasurable additions to the Earth's mass due to things such as meteor impacts adding small amounts of mass the Earth over time. I assume we are talking about a continual and significant increase in the Earth's overall diameter over, say, the past 3.5 billion years, over which time the Earth has perhaps doubled its diameter.

Why do you assume that? Wouldn't mass accretion cause a planet to expand?

"For the past 50 years or so, scientists have been talking about dust condensing at low pressures and gradually becoming pebbles, then boulders, etc. and building planets." -- J. Marvin Herndon, 2008

"My research, based on irrefutable evidence of constant accretion of meteorites and meteor dust, concludes that Earth began as an asteroid remnant of an earlier comet captured by the Sun. The proto-planet then grew over uncountable years (possibly many more than the 4.5 Ga now believed) in an accretion process that is still underway and will continue into the future at an accelerating pace because of Earth’s constantly increasing mass and gravitational power." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

A calculation can show that meteor impacts and the like may have caused Earth's diameter to expand by perhaps 0.0042% in 4.5 billions years, and I concede this point in the debate if it is made. However, I believe that OIM arguing for a significant increase in diameter, of the order of 30-50%, and not a minuscule 0.0042%.

What about the Moon impact?

The default scientific position on the question of the expansion of the Earth, I submit, is to assume no expansion after formation, unless some clear evidence can be presented giving a mechanism for the expansion. OIM has not suggested any mechanism that might cause expansion so far, but I look forward to his arguments in the following posts of this debate.

That cannot be considered to be a persuasive, logical, or scientific argument. The reason being that plate tectonics has presented no clear evidence or mechanism for subduction and mantle recycling. No invisible magic conveyor belt has ever been observed. And no one has ever observed the Earth cannibalizing it's own skin.

"To date however, there is no direct unambiguous evidence that mantle convection and/or mantle circulation actually takes place; in fact, there is some evidence to the contrary. Moreover, there is no evidence that oceanic basalt can be repeatedly recycled through the mantle without being substantially and irreversibly changed. Yet, mantle convection/circulation and basalt recycling are fundamental necessities for the validity of plate tectonics. Furthermore, plate tectonics theory does not provide an energy source for geodynamic activity." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2005

Furthermore, "The insinuation that we still do not know a physical process responsible for an accelerated expansion of the Earth is not a scientific counter argument. The physical nature of many processes has regularly been recognized in science, long after they were first recognized as real phenomena. It is not the task of the geologist to explain problems beyond their discipline. Their task is to see and correctly explain all geological facts." (Cwojdzinski 2005)

Elsewhere on the forum, he suggested tentatively that new matter is constantly being created in the Earth's core. Perhaps he will present some evidence for that argument; we will have to wait and see.

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ure-of-fusion-at-the-centreof-the-earth-.html

To "win" this debate, I do not need to "prove the negative". The onus is on OIM to prove that the Earth is expanding.

And this I've already shown.

As can be seen from OIM's extensive history above, many people have toyed with the idea of an expanding Earth over the years. Recently, the expanding earth position has been associated with the young-Earth Creationist movement, among others. Young-earth Creationists claim the Earth is only 6000 years old or so, that Noah's flood actually occurred, and so on. This is clearly nonsense, as many types of scientific data confirm. It is not clear if OIM believes in young-Earth Creationism from the above, although I know from other statements on the forum that he does not believe in evolution. I will wait and see whether he wishes to bring in Creationist arguments here.

Red herring and straw man which I will ignore as blatant fallacy.

1. Assuming a fixed Earth mass, the surface gravity would have been 4 times its present value when the Earth was half its current diameter. There is much evidence that Earth's surface gravity has never been that large.

Assuming a fixed mass Earth cannot be considered a scientific argument. If you're going to assume, then you might as well assume an expanding Earth.

2. If the Earth's mass is supposed to be increasing over time, no believable mechanism for that mass increase has yet been proposed.

Irrelevant. See commentary above. No believable mechanism has been provided for subduction. Nor is the debate about the precise mechanism for expansion.

"The insinuation that we still do not know a physical process responsible for an accelerated expansion of the Earth is not a scientific counter argument. The physical nature of many processes has regularly been recognized in science, long after they were first recognized as real phenomena. It is not the task of the geologist to explain problems beyond their discipline. Their task is to see and correctly explain all geological facts." (Cwojdzinski 2005)

3. If the universal gravitational constant has increased over time, this would suggest a compression of the Earth, not an expansion.

Why is that?

4. If the universal gravitational constant decreased over time, then the surface gravity in the past, when the earth was smaller, would have been much larger, which would not allow for the existence of animals such as large dinosaurs.

All of that is speculation since we don't know in what way gravity varies over time. Only that it varies.

5. If the Earth was much smaller in the past, then the oceans would have covered all of the land and there would have been no land life on Earth.

Not if there were no oceans. However we do observe the fact that all the continents were covered in water in the geological past.

The only way around this is to suggest a mechanism for the gradual creation of ocean water as the Earth expanded.

No problem. Water comes from volcanoes.

6. Paleomagnetic data shows that 400 million years ago, the Earth's radius was within 2.8% of today's value. This severely limits any possible rate of expansion.

What paleomagnetic data?

7. Evidence from structural geology, seismology, petrology and isotope geochemistry all support the theory of subduction, contrary to the arguments outlined by OIM above.

References, links, sources? You didn't address any points I made in Part III titled The Myth of Subduction. You dismissed it all because you were afraid to address it.

8. If it is proposed that the Earth's mass stayed the same but its overall density has decreased over time, a mechanism for the decrease in density is needed.

Yes. See commentary above.

"The insinuation that we still do not know a physical process responsible for an accelerated expansion of the Earth is not a scientific counter argument. The physical nature of many processes has regularly been recognized in science, long after they were first recognized as real phenomena. It is not the task of the geologist to explain problems beyond their discipline. Their task is to see and correctly explain all geological facts." (Cwojdzinski 2005)

9. Expanding Earth theories do not seem to be able to account for the formation of mountains (whose presence is normally explained by subduction).

Absurd. In expanding Earth theory mountains are accounted for by oceanic seafloor spreading and excess mass stress tectonics.

10. An expanding Earth would suggest an increased moment of inertia and therefore a lengthening of the day over time. However, the verified lengthening of the day seems to be entirely accounted for by tidal interactions between the Earth and the Moon.

"It is important to note that all the periods [Earth's orbit and year] were likely of different duration in the geological past." -- Mazmunder and Arima, 2004

11. Paleogravity studies appear to indicate that Earth's surface gravity has never been significantly greater than it is today.

What paleogravity studies?

In summary, there is no plausible process that can explain how the Earth might be expanding

What processes have you considered?

modern measurements fail to find any evidence of an actual increase in the Earth's radius over time.

What modern measurements and what studies are you referring to?

I have not cited any references for the above statements. I will wait until OIM puts his actual arguments before going into more detail to justify my rebuttals. However, an overview of expanding earth theories can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_earth_theory

Wikipedia is your only reference? You've got to be kidding. The only request I made of you was that you try to reference your opinions: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2056849&postcount=9

You didn't even try.

 

[James R]

I was hoping that OilIsMastery would put arguments in favour of the proposition that the Earth is expanding, but there's not much more to respond to in his second post of the debate than there was in the first one.

I will separate my response to OIM's second post into sections.

OIM's Errors

The Earth is part of the universe. Plate tectonics believes that the Earth is somehow magically not a part of the universe.

This is simply a false statement, which is not supported by any actual evidence.

According to the Wikipedia entry on subduction, written by plate tectonics faithful themselves, "without subduction plate tectonics could not exist." There are only 3 possibilities (1) plate tectonics (2) rejection of continental drift and (3) expansion. Since 1 and 2 are obviously false, we are left with choice 3.

OIM's claim here, as in his first post, is that if plate tectonics is false then the Earth must be expanding. So far, though, he has failed to explain the connection in his posts, and why expansion is the only viable conclusion from among thousands of other potential theories if plate tectonics is indeed false. Perhaps we will get this in OIM's third post.

Suffice it to say that, as a matter of logic, proving one theory wrong does not prove a different theory correct unless the entire content of the alternative theory is merely the negation of the first theory. Since the theory of expansion of the Earth has content beyond the theory of plate tectonics, disproving tectonics does not prove that the Earth is expanding. As an analogy, a proof that my car is not white does not prove that it must be blue.

OIM's arguments for an expanding Earth

OIM has not stated his actual arguments for an expanding Earth in any coherent form so far. Thus, I am forced to trawl his post for hints as to what his actual argument is. I point out that most of the definite statements he has made to express an actual position are unreferenced and unsupported, so far. Here are the definite statements I have found from OIM:

The fact that subduction has not been observed anywhere in the universe supports the argument that all planetary bodies, including the Earth, are growing.

No argument has been given for the truth of this statement, nor any references cited.

Wouldn't mass accretion cause a planet to expand?

Perhaps OIM is arguing that accretion is the cause of the expansion of the Earth, although he phrases the argument as a question to me. I believe I have already dealt with this in my previous post.

In return, I must ask a direct and simple question: By how much do you argue that the Earth's diameter has increased over the past, say, 3.5 billion years, OIM? Am I wrong to assume that you are arguing for a 30-50% increase in diameter over that period? Are you in fact arguing for a 0.0042% increase in diameter?

If your answer is the latter, then I concede that you have "won" the debate. I agree that the Earth has expanded by perhaps 0.005% over the past 3.5 billion years due to accretion. Is this really all these is to your side of this debate, though? Surely not.

What about the Moon impact?

Another almost-argument framed as a question. Is it your argument, OIM, that a Moon-sized object has collided with the Earth, causing its radius to increase significantly in the last 3.5 billion years or so?

If so, you'll need to present your evidence or argument in more detail than a single sentence framed as a question. Right now, there's nothing I need to rebut.

That cannot be considered to be a persuasive, logical, or scientific argument. The reason being that plate tectonics has presented no clear evidence or mechanism for subduction and mantle recycling. No invisible magic conveyor belt has ever been observed. And no one has ever observed the Earth cannibalizing it's own skin.

Reading between the lines, it seems OIM is arguing that the Earth is producing material in the crust, and that material is somehow causing the Earth's diameter to increase.

I have yet to see an argument for where the additional material is coming from.

I concede, by the way, that "new" crust is constantly being produced by volcanic activity on the mid-ocean ridges. This is verified by direct observation. However, I argue that this is not "extra" matter being produced out of nothing, as would be required for an increase in the Earth's diameter over time. Rather, this is matter pre-existing inside the Earth, which comes to the surface by being carried in the molten mantle.

OIM cites the following site as support for his argument that new matter is constantly being created in the Earth's core:

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ure-of-fusion-at-the-centreof-the-earth-.html

A cursory glance at the article shows that its actual argument is that fusion reactions may be taking place in the Earth's core. This is a speculative idea at best, but let us once again assume that it is true. Would this be a mechanism that could produce "extra" material to increase the Earth's radius over time? Clearly not, since the fusion relies on pre-existing matter to work. Moreover, the fusion reaction would actually result in a net mass decrease of the Earth (albeit very small) due to some of the mass involved in the reaction being converted to heat according to the well-understood equivalence of mass and energy.

Assuming a fixed mass Earth cannot be considered a scientific argument. If you're going to assume, then you might as well assume an expanding Earth.

This seems to be a veiled argument that the Earth's mass is, in fact, increasing. I'm glad we have cleared that up, then.

Now, to prove his case, OIM must prove that the Earth's mass is indeed increasing, and propose a plausible mechanism for the significant increase required to change the Earth's radius by 30-50%.

All of that is speculation since we don't know in what way gravity varies over time. Only that it varies.

This seems to be a claim that the strength of gravity, or the Earth's local gravity, has increased over time. We are still no better informed by OIM about the exact nature of his argument relating to this than we were in his first post.

Let's hear the details, OIM. Then, I will know what I need to refute.

Not if there were no oceans. However we do observe the fact that all the continents were covered in water in the geological past.

I note that there is extensive fossil evidence of land-based life dating back millions of years. OIM needs to provide the evidence that the entire Earth was covered in water prior to a certain date, and specify the date. Then, I will know what I need to refute.

No problem. Water comes from volcanoes.

Apparently contrary to the previous quoted paragraph, OIM argues that additional water is continually being created on Earth. Or, perhaps this is supposed to happen in addition to the pre-existing oceans. I can't tell yet, and I'll wait and see whether this point is central to OIM's argument or not.

Absurd. In expanding Earth theory mountains are accounted for by oceanic seafloor spreading and excess mass stress tectonics.

I am willing to concede this point. That is, if it is established that the Earth is expanding, I am willing to concede that mountain formation may be possible within that theory. That argument is peripheral to the debate. The main point, of course, remains to be proved.

"It is important to note that all the periods [Earth's orbit and year] were likely of different duration in the geological past." -- Mazmunder and Arima, 2004

I agree with this point. A non-expanding Earth does not in any way imply that the period of rotation of the Earth has not changed over time. Or, at least, OIM has not argued that point.

In summary, there is no plausible process that can explain how the Earth might be expanding

What processes have you considered?

It is not my task to argue for the affirmative case. It is yours, OIM.

OIM's arguments about his onus of proof

OIM has repeated a particular quote (Cwojdzinski 2005) several times, presumably to emphasize it. He claims that, for some reason, he does not need to explain how the Earth is expanding, or how it has expanded in the past.

It would seem to me to be a simple and logical follow-up question, when one found out that the Earth was expanding, to ask "What makes it expand?" Apparently, and puzzlingly, OIM does not think that this is an important question.

It seems to me, however, that he has failed even in the simpler task of establishing that the Earth is expanding - his primary task in this debate. What evidence has he presented for expansion so far? Anything?

Response to OIM's response to my arguments

Apart from what was covered above...

7. Evidence from structural geology, seismology, petrology and isotope geochemistry all support the theory of subduction, contrary to the arguments outlined by OIM above.

References, links, sources? You didn't address any points I made in Part III titled The Myth of Subduction. You dismissed it all because you were afraid to address it.

I do not think I need to address your arguments against subduction at this point in the debate. In order for subduction to become relevant to the debate, you will need to show (a) evidence that the Earth is expanding; (b) that I am forced to rely on the theory of subduction to refute the evidence of the expansion of the Earth. So far, I have not relied on that theory in my argument.

References that support my arguments above

Here, I cite references to a couple of my statements above, queried by OIM. Since at this time I do not need to make an extensive argument in favour of plate tectonics, or anything like that, I will refrain from citing references on that at this time.

3. If the universal gravitational constant has increased over time, this would suggest a compression of the Earth, not an expansion.

Why is that?

The matter in the Earth, in such a case, would gravitate more strongly than it did in the past. The Earth's overall density would therefore be expected to increase. For constant mass, the Earth's diameter would then decrease.

6. Paleomagnetic data shows that 400 million years ago, the Earth's radius was within 2.8% of today's value. This severely limits any possible rate of expansion.

What paleomagnetic data?

McElhinney, M. W., Taylor, S. R., and Stevenson, D. J. (1978), "Limits to the expansion of Earth, Moon, Mars, and Mercury and to changes in the gravitational constant", Nature 271: 316-321

11. Paleogravity studies appear to indicate that Earth's surface gravity has never been significantly greater than it is today.

What paleogravity studies?

Stewart, A. D. 1983. Quantitative limits to the palaeoradius of the Earth. pp. 305-319 in Carey, S. W. (ed). 1983. The expanding Earth (A Symposium, 1981, University of Sydney, Australia). University of Tasmania, Tasmania.

Summary of argument so far

The onus on OIM is to provide positive evidence that the Earth is expanding. So far, he has presented none, as far as I can tell.

Therefore, I have had practically nothing to refute in this debate so far.

I hope that OIM presents some evidence for the expansion of the Earth in his next post, or this debate could be rather boring from this point onwards.

 

[OilIsMastery]

This is simply a false statement, which is not supported by any actual evidence.

So the Earth is or is not part of the universe?

OIM's claim here, as in his first post, is that if plate tectonics is false then the Earth must be expanding. So far, though, he has failed to explain the connection in his posts, and why expansion is the only viable conclusion from among thousands of other potential theories if plate tectonics is indeed false. Perhaps we will get this in OIM's third post.

You claim that there are thousands of potential theories yet so far you have failed to name a single one other than the 3 options I stated. As already pointed out to you, there are only 3 positions in the scientific community: (1) plate tectonics, (2) rejection of continental drift, and (3) expansion. Since 1 and 2 are obviously false, we are left with option 3.

Suffice it to say that, as a matter of logic, proving one theory wrong does not prove a different theory correct unless the entire content of the alternative theory is merely the negation of the first theory. Since the theory of expansion of the Earth has content beyond the theory of plate tectonics, disproving tectonics does not prove that the Earth is expanding. As an analogy, a proof that my car is not white does not prove that it must be blue.

I already proved expansion in my opening post. The oceanic lithosphere has been zircon dated. And the oceanic seafloor spreads show crustal growth over time. Your analogy is false because the number of paint options for your car is indefinite but there are only 3 options in the tectonics debate.

OIM has not stated his actual arguments for an expanding Earth in any coherent form so far.

The zircon dating of the oceanic lithosphere speaks for itself. I don't need to say anything other than look at the map.

No argument has been given for the truth of this statement, nor any references cited.

I provided 3 different citations from multiple corroborating sources in my opening post.

By how much do you argue that the Earth's diameter has increased over the past, say, 3.5 billion years, OIM? Am I wrong to assume that you are arguing for a 30-50% increase in diameter over that period? Are you in fact arguing for a 0.0042% increase in diameter?

I argue that in the past 200 million years (since the Triassic) the Earth's diameter has approximately doubled in size. See zircon dating of the oceanic lithosphere which shows this conclusively.

If your answer is the latter, then I concede that you have "won" the debate. I agree that the Earth has expanded by perhaps 0.005% over the past 3.5 billion years due to accretion. Is this really all these is to your side of this debate, though? Surely not.

Well at least you're not a fundamentalist and at least you're making progress...

Reading between the lines, it seems OIM is arguing that the Earth is producing material in the crust, and that material is somehow causing the Earth's diameter to increase.

I have yet to see an argument for where the additional material is coming from.

I concede, by the way, that "new" crust is constantly being produced by volcanic activity on the mid-ocean ridges. This is verified by direct observation. However, I argue that this is not "extra" matter being produced out of nothing, as would be required for an increase in the Earth's diameter over time. Rather, this is matter pre-existing inside the Earth, which comes to the surface by being carried in the molten mantle.

OIM cites the following site as support for his argument that new matter is constantly being created in the Earth's core:

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ure-of-fusion-at-the-centreof-the-earth-.html

A cursory glance at the article shows that its actual argument is that fusion reactions may be taking place in the Earth's core. This is a speculative idea at best, but let us once again assume that it is true. Would this be a mechanism that could produce "extra" material to increase the Earth's radius over time? Clearly not, since the fusion relies on pre-existing matter to work. Moreover, the fusion reaction would actually result in a net mass decrease of the Earth (albeit very small) due to some of the mass involved in the reaction being converted to heat according to the well-understood equivalence of mass and energy.

It's fission AND fusion in the center of the Earth and matter/mass are indeed being created in the core causing excess mass stress tectonics: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/8098/Excess-mass-stress.htm

But the real issue is not fission or fusion or cold fusion. The real issue is that in a quantized material infinite continuum as space is, the processes of fusion (multiplication-addition) and fission (division-subtraction) coexist, we have multiplication-addition by division-subtraction, and vice-versa, so that a/b=c. In both processes the daugther elements have higher binding energies than the mother elements, and both converge to iron (Fe), the element with the higher nuclear binding energy of ~8.8 MeV per nucleon. So if the fundamental quantity-quantum is the 1, only in a quantized continuum the multiplicative (1x1) = 1, that refers to the continuum, is equivalent and coexists with the additive (1+1) = 2, that refers to the quantum. Thus, and against mainstream theorizations, nature spontaneously runs against entropy, and this is not theory; it is hard core observation.

It is also important to note, that no matter what the temperature of the outer core is, and most likely it is quite high, the mantle is cold, and its rigidity increases with depth, because otherwise seismic wave velocity cannot increase with depth, for example for P waves from 6-7 km/sec in the surface layers to about 14 km/sec at the mantle-core boundary.

This seems to be a veiled argument that the Earth's mass is, in fact, increasing. I'm glad we have cleared that up, then.

Correct.

Now, to prove his case, OIM must prove that the Earth's mass is indeed increasing, and propose a plausible mechanism for the significant increase required to change the Earth's radius by 30-50%.

See above.

Furthermore "The insinuation that we still do not know a physical process responsible for an accelerated expansion of the Earth is not a scientific counter argument. The physical nature of many processes has regularly been recognized in science, long after they were first recognized as real phenomena. It is not the task of the geologist to explain problems beyond their discipline. Their task is to see and correctly explain all geological facts." (Cwojdzinski 2005)

And there is no known mechanism supporting plate tectonics or constant size Earth. You have already conceded that the Earth accretes mass and is therefore growing.

I note that there is extensive fossil evidence of land-based life dating back millions of years. OIM needs to provide the evidence that the entire Earth was covered in water prior to a certain date, and specify the date. Then, I will know what I need to refute.

It is simply a matter of fact that aquatic and marine fossils are found in continental environments, indeed older than 200 my they can ONLY be found in a continental environment because 200 my ago there were no oceans.

I am willing to concede this point. That is, if it is established that the Earth is expanding, I am willing to concede that mountain formation may be possible within that theory. That argument is peripheral to the debate. The main point, of course, remains to be proved.

You concede correctly.

I agree with this point. A non-expanding Earth does not in any way imply that the period of rotation of the Earth has not changed over time. Or, at least, OIM has not argued that point.

You agree correctly.

It is not my task to argue for the affirmative case. It is yours, OIM.

So you haven't considered any processes? If you haven't considered any processes, then how can you claim there are none plausible? YOU made the claim so you should at least try to support it.

OIM has repeated a particular quote (Cwojdzinski 2005) several times, presumably to emphasize it. He claims that, for some reason, he does not need to explain how the Earth is expanding, or how it has expanded in the past.

It would seem to me to be a simple and logical follow-up question, when one found out that the Earth was expanding, to ask "What makes it expand?" Apparently, and puzzlingly, OIM does not think that this is an important question.

I do think it's an important question. However the processes in the Earth's core are not yet fully understood. Or do you think man is omniscient?

It seems to me, however, that he has failed even in the simpler task of establishing that the Earth is expanding - his primary task in this debate. What evidence has he presented for expansion so far? Anything?

Zircon dating of the oceanic lithosphere. See above.

The matter in the Earth, in such a case, would gravitate more strongly than it did in the past. The Earth's overall density would therefore be expected to increase. For constant mass, the Earth's diameter would then decrease.

Only if you assume a constant size Earth which is what you're doing.

McElhinney, M. W., Taylor, S. R., and Stevenson, D. J. (1978), "Limits to the expansion of Earth, Moon, Mars, and Mercury and to changes in the gravitational constant", Nature 271: 316-321

Stewart, A. D. 1983. Quantitative limits to the palaeoradius of the Earth. pp. 305-319 in Carey, S. W. (ed). 1983. The expanding Earth (A Symposium, 1981, University of Sydney, Australia). University of Tasmania, Tasmania.

Thank you. Now I can learn something from this debate.

Summary of argument so far

The onus on OIM is to provide positive evidence that the Earth is expanding. So far, he has presented none, as far as I can tell.

Therefore, I have had practically nothing to refute in this debate so far.

I hope that OIM presents some evidence for the expansion of the Earth in his next post, or this debate could be rather boring from this point onwards.

Refute this:

 

[James R]

It appears that OIM has clarified what his argument is for an expanding Earth. Let me first summarise the information presented. OIM's main argument, in a nutshell, boils down to this:

I argue that in the past 200 million years (since the Triassic) the Earth's diameter has approximately doubled in size. See zircon dating of the oceanic lithosphere which shows this conclusively.

In support of this, he has provided us (twice!) with a map by Muller et al. which shows that that, based on radioactive dating, the age of the ocean floor is nowhere greater than 200 million years.

Quite how this is supposed to establish that the Earth has doubled in size in the last 200 million years remains a mystery. It seems to me that OIM's implicit argument is that all of the oceans have been created in the past 200 million years, where there were no oceans before. Thus, sea floor is constantly being created by some unspecified process that has to do with a general creation of matter out of nothing.

In contrast, the plate tectonic explanation of the age of the ocean floor is that the ocean floor is continually being "recycled", with no creation of new matter at all. This is in accordance with known physics, and in particular the law of conservation of energy. OIM's expanding Earth theory, on the face of it, breaks this fundamental law of physics.

In the plate tectonic explanation, the recycling process involves the appearance of sea floor from the mantle at the mid-ocean ridges and its disappearance at other plate boundaries by processes such as subduction. This is entirely consistent with the data presented on OIM's favorite map. He challenged me in reference to that map to "refute this". I do not need to. I agree with the data presented on the map.

It is important to note that while a disproof of subduction, if such could be given, might disprove at least part of the theory of plate tectonics, it would go no way at all to proving the creation of matter out of nothing, as is required by OIM's expanding earth theory.

OIM's proposed mechanism for the creation of all the new mass required for an expanding Earth is now:

It's fission AND fusion in the center of the Earth and matter/mass are indeed being created in the core causing excess mass stress tectonics.

For this proposition, he references Stavros T Tassos, here.

This paper does not seem to have been peer-reviewed by geophysicists or physicists in general. In a short space, it makes huge leaps of logic, based on dubious assumptions.

It is unlikely that nuclear fusion processes are happening at the core-mantle boundary, as Stavros proposes, since far higher temperatures would be required for fission to occur than exist at that location inside the Earth. But, as I noted in an earlier post, even if fusion/fission processes do occur as Stavros suggests, these could not, by themselves, account for OIM's doubling of the Earth's diameter over a period of 200 million years. In fact, their major effect would be to further heat the interior of the Earth, possibly leading to a much more volcanic Earth than the one we actually live on.

Worried that Stavros may not be enough by himself, OIM gives us this:

But the real issue is not fission or fusion or cold fusion. The real issue is that in a quantized material infinite continuum as space is, the processes of fusion (multiplication-addition) and fission (division-subtraction) coexist, we have multiplication-addition by division-subtraction, and vice-versa, so that a/b=c. In both processes the daugther elements have higher binding energies than the mother elements, and both converge to iron (Fe), the element with the higher nuclear binding energy of ~8.8 MeV per nucleon. So if the fundamental quantity-quantum is the 1, only in a quantized continuum the multiplicative (1x1) = 1, that refers to the continuum, is equivalent and coexists with the additive (1+1) = 2, that refers to the quantum. Thus, and against mainstream theorizations, nature spontaneously runs against entropy, and this is not theory; it is hard core observation.

Perhaps this is OIM's original work; no reference for it is cited.

Whatever its source, it is pure gibberish, most likely put forward in an attempt to bamboozle readers who may be intimidated by words like "quantum". It doesn't take a scientific genius to see that that the above doesn't actually say anything meaningful. As an attempted argument, it's a total non-starter.

As a first fall-back position, OIM alludes to the contention that mass accretion from meteors etc. may be enough to give the doubling of size of the Earth in the last 200 million years. This idea is nonsense, pure and simple. If he really wishes to rely on this in his next post, then I will provide a detailed refutation of the claim in my final post of the debate.

As a final fall-back position, we get this:

However the processes in the Earth's core are not yet fully understood. Or do you think man is omniscient?

So, to summarise, OIM's contention is that the Earth is expanding because new material is being created in the Earth's core (or is it at the core-mantle boundary?) by nuclear fusion (or is it fission, or both fission and fusion?), or, failing that, that lots of meteors are landing which increase the Earth's size significantly, or, failing that, because some other as-yet-unknown process is at work.

This is a weak argument which lacks proof of the basic facts necessary even to get it started. No fusion or fission has been verified in the core. The rate of meteor impacts is far too low. And there's no need for new mystery-physics, since there's no apparent change in size of the Earth (as evidenced by actual data) that needs explaining.

An unfortunate slip

It is simply a matter of fact that aquatic and marine fossils are found in continental environments, indeed older than 200 my they can ONLY be found in a continental environment because 200 my ago there were no oceans.

Unintentionally, OIM has made himself a laughing stock with this statement. Let's break it down.

He claims that there were no oceans prior to 200 million years ago. However, in the same sentence, he admits to the existence of aquatic and marine fossils on continents older than 200 million years.

I pose the obvious question: how does OIM propose that those ocean-dwelling creatures lived on land, back when there was no ocean?

Moving beyond this, I note that all terrestrial life on Earth evolved from sea life. Without oceans existing prior to 200 million years ago, life as we know it would not exist. This is amply proved by fossil evidence and evidence from molecular biology.

I noted in my first post that the expanding Earth theory is nowadays associated with, among other movements, biblical Creationism. OIM dismissed the suggestion that he is a Creationist out of hand in his second post. Is he now going to dispute the well-establish course of evolution, and rely on that to support his expanding earth theory? I wonder.

OIM's other statements

The above forms the main content of OIM's argument in his third post. In addition, he claims:

And there is no known mechanism supporting plate tectonics or constant size Earth. You have already conceded that the Earth accretes mass and is therefore growing.

I have already briefly dealt with his fall-back claim regarding accretion above. Therefore, I will say a little bit about plate tectonics.

Very briefly, the mechanism suggested for the movement of tectonic plates involves a circulation of material in the mantle. There are hypothesized "convection cells", characteristic of the convection of fluid in a heated liquid (the mantle is fluid, though not liquid). This convection is thought to be caused by heat flow from the hot core of the Earth, which has not cooled completely since the Earth was formed. The Earth's crust floats on the mantle. Convection carries crustal plates along.

OIM's claim that "there is no known mechanism" for plate tectonics is thus exposed as either a naive lack of knowledge or a lie. Let us hope it is the former.

Subduction and all that

A basic introduction to plate tectonics in book form, suitable for OIM and anybody else unfamiliar with the theory, can be found here:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html

This is published by the US Geological Survey and can be downloaded in .pdf form. One of its authors, Robert I. Tilling, has a PhD in geology from Yale University.

On pages 37-43, you can find a useful section on "Convergent boundaries", which explains the process of subduction and evidence for it. Subduction is mentioned elsewhere in the book, too.

Some evidences that subduction occurs include the existence of ocean trenches (e.g. the Peru-Chile trench, where the Nazca plate is being subducted under the South American plate, and the Marianas Trench, where the Pacific Plate is converging with the Philippine plate), and the existence of volcanos along the lines of subduction zones.

In addition (see wikipedia), we have the following evidence for subduction:

1. The existence of Wadati-Benioff zones, elongated regions of high seismic activity within the crust and mantle that are explained as huge shear zones. These zones are located beneath oceanic trenches and seem to indicate a slice of crustal material is moving downward through the mantle. They form one of the best arguments for subduction.

2. 3D models of the mantle made with seismic tomography show cold zones of sinking material exactly in the regions where plate tectonics predicts slabs of crust are subducting into the mantle.

3. Petrologic research of rocks from mountain belts has yielded countless pressure-temperature-time paths. Paths for the axial zones of mountain belts (the metamorphic core) show many mountain chains went through a period of "deep burial". This is explained by plate tectonics (subduction followed by obduction). The existence of eclogite in many mountainbelts indicates material was "pushed" to depths far into the mantle (depths up to over 200 km are found). In plate tectonics this is explained by the slab pull force which occurs at mid-ocean ridges.

4. The existence of major geologic shearzones (sutures) in most mountain belts. Paleomagnetic and mineralogic studies show the rocks that are now lying next to each other were originally thousands of kilometers apart. In other words: a piece of the crust is missing. Structural geology has shown these missing pieces of crust are not located directly underneath the shearzones or laterally. Instead, they seem to have moved along the sutures into the mantle (this is supported by shear indicators in the shear zones). This is again strong evidence that subduction took place and mountains form by the "continental collision" of tectonic plates.

5. Rare earth isotope compositions of volcanic rocks that formed above subduction zones are similar to those of sediments on top of the subducting plate. If there are lateral differences in the isotope composition of sediments on subducting plates, these lateral differences are also found back in the composition of the magma that rose from the deeper part of the subduction zone.

---

I should be clear, however, that this debate is NOT on the topic "That subduction does not occur" or "That the theory of plate tectonics is implausible/wrong". The debate topic is "That Earth is expanding".

Again, I end by noting that no evidence has been provided by OIM to prove that the Earth is, in fact, expanding. In fact, most of his scatter-gun effort so far has gone into arguing that subduction does not occur, as if by proving that he will prove an increase in diameter of the Earth over the past 200 million years. In the process, he has posted some nonsense, some straight-out incorrect statements, and a whole lot of superfluous information that is totally uncontested by me in this debate.

Let's hope that in his final post a coherent argument will finally emerge.

 

[OilIsMastery]

It appears that OIM has clarified what his argument is for an expanding Earth. Let me first summarise the information presented. OIM's main argument, in a nutshell, boils down to this:

In support of this, he has provided us (twice!) with a map by Muller et al. which shows that that, based on radioactive dating, the age of the ocean floor is nowhere greater than 200 million years.

If you had looked at it or considered it the first time I wouldn't have posted it twice.

Quite how this is supposed to establish that the Earth has doubled in size in the last 200 million years remains a mystery.

It's only a mystery to you my friend. It's no mystery to anyone who has ever entertained Expanding Earth Theory.

I find it extremely ironic that you have the following quote in your sig:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle.

What conclusion are we to draw from the fact that you aren't willing to entertain Expanding Earth Theory?

It seems to me that OIM's implicit argument is that all of the oceans have been created in the past 200 million years, where there were no oceans before.

Correct.

Thus, sea floor is constantly being created by some unspecified process that has to do with a general creation of matter out of nothing.

Straw man fallacy. No one is saying something comes from nothing (except maybe atheists who say the Big Bang had no cause). The last time I checked the Earth's core is in fact something. What we are saying is that energy can be converted into mass.

In contrast, the plate tectonic explanation of the age of the ocean floor is that the ocean floor is continually being "recycled", with no creation of new matter at all. This is in accordance with known physics, and in particular the law of conservation of energy.

"To date however, there is no direct unambiguous evidence that mantle convection and/or mantle circulation actually takes place; in fact, there is some evidence to the contrary. Moreover, there is no evidence that oceanic basalt can be repeatedly recycled through the mantle without being substantially and irreversibly changed. Yet, mantle convection/circulation and basalt recycling are fundamental necessities for the validity of plate tectonics. Furthermore, plate tectonics theory does not provide an energy source for geodynamic activity." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2005

"Subduction is not only illogical, it is not supported by geological or physical evidence, and violates fundamental laws of physics." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

OIM's expanding Earth theory, on the face of it, breaks this fundamental law of physics.

Wrong. Straw man fallacy for the reasons listed above.

In the plate tectonic explanation, the recycling process involves the appearance of sea floor from the mantle at the mid-ocean ridges and its disappearance at other plate boundaries by processes such as subduction. This is entirely consistent with the data presented on OIM's favorite map.

No. There is no subduction anywhere in any ocean or on any planet or moon in the known universe.

He challenged me in reference to that map to "refute this". I do not need to. I agree with the data presented on the map.

If you agree with the data on the map, then you agree that the Earth is expanding.

It is important to note that while a disproof of subduction, if such could be given, might disprove at least part of the theory of plate tectonics, it would go no way at all to proving the creation of matter out of nothing, as is required by OIM's expanding earth theory.

LOL. Straw man fallacy for the reasons listed above. Expanding Earth does not and has never required that matter be created out of nothing.

OIM's proposed mechanism for the creation of all the new mass required for an expanding Earth is now:

For this proposition, he references Stavros T Tassos, here.

This paper does not seem to have been peer-reviewed by geophysicists or physicists in general. In a short space, it makes huge leaps of logic, based on dubious assumptions.

LOL. The most illogical and dubious papers I've ever read in my life were peer reviewed.

"School textbooks rarely present competing ideas or discuss what might be wrong with the monolithic viewpoint they present. For example, plate tectonics is presented as theory, but rarely, if ever, is any mention given to competitive theories or to what might be wrong with plate tectonics. Too often young people are being taught "science facts" that may not be facts at all, instead of being taught to find what is wrong with current ideas and to think about formulating new and better ideas. Questioning and challenging prevailing, popular theories is what science is all about. Remember this: Popularity only measures popularity, not scientific correctness; science is a logical process not a democratic process. In science, concensus is nonsense." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2008

It is unlikely that nuclear fusion processes are happening at the core-mantle boundary, as Stavros proposes, since far higher temperatures would be required for fission to occur than exist at that location inside the Earth.

Why is that? It's a scientific fact that there is both fission and fusion in the Earth.

Fission

Herndon 1993
Herndon 1994
Herndon 1996
Herndon 2001
Herndon 2002

Confirmed by
Raghavan 2002
Rao 2002

Herndon 2003
Herndon 2005
Grata and Suzuki 2005

Also see here

Fusion

I refer you to the article you ignored posted above.

But, as I noted in an earlier post, even if fusion/fission processes do occur as Stavros suggests, these could not, by themselves, account for OIM's doubling of the Earth's diameter over a period of 200 million years.

Why is that?

In fact, their major effect would be to further heat the interior of the Earth, possibly leading to a much more volcanic Earth than the one we actually live on.

I concede anything is possible however that is not a logical or scientific rebuttal.

Worried that Stavros may not be enough by himself, OIM gives us this:

Perhaps this is OIM's original work; no reference for it is cited.

For the record I have no original work because there is nothing new under the sun. All of my ideas I've learned from people smarter than me. Those particular facts I learned from Tassos.

Whatever its source, it is pure gibberish, most likely put forward in an attempt to bamboozle readers who may be intimidated by words like "quantum". It doesn't take a scientific genius to see that that the above doesn't actually say anything meaningful. As an attempted argument, it's a total non-starter.

In other words, you have no logical or scientific rebuttal.

As a first fall-back position, OIM alludes to the contention that mass accretion from meteors etc. may be enough to give the doubling of size of the Earth in the last 200 million years. This idea is nonsense, pure and simple. If he really wishes to rely on this in his next post, then I will provide a detailed refutation of the claim in my final post of the debate.

You have already admitted that you concede mass accretion from meteors takes place. What happens to that mass? Do you believe conservation of mass is violated now?

But that is not the mechanism I propose because it doesn't explain why the iron-rich rocks, like basalt and gabbro, are on the bottom and the iron-poor rocks, like granites, are on the top, when it is well known that the iron-rich rocks were the last to form.

As a final fall-back position, we get this:

So, to summarise, OIM's contention is that the Earth is expanding because new material is being created in the Earth's core (or is it at the core-mantle boundary?)

Correct.

by nuclear fusion (or is it fission, or both fission and fusion?)

Correct.

, or, failing that, that lots of meteors are landing which increase the Earth's size significantly

Not the mechanism I propose.

, or, failing that, because some other as-yet-unknown process is at work.

That would be a logical conclusion.

This is a weak argument which lacks proof of the basic facts necessary even to get it started. No fusion or fission has been verified in the core.

Pardon me for doing so but...:roflmao:

See above.

The rate of meteor impacts is far too low.

Meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere on a daily basis. Do you believe in conservation of matter?

And there's no need for new mystery-physics, since there's no apparent change in size of the Earth (as evidenced by actual data) that needs explaining.

LOL. I guess physicists can just go home now since we already know everything about the universe.

An unfortunate slip

Unintentionally, OIM has made himself a laughing stock with this statement. Let's break it down.

He claims that there were no oceans prior to 200 million years ago.

Correct.

However, in the same sentence, he admits to the existence of aquatic and marine fossils on continents older than 200 million years.

Correct.

I pose the obvious question: how does OIM propose that those ocean-dwelling creatures lived on land, back when there was no ocean?

I propose the obvious answer. Pre-Jurassic shallow seas are not modern oceans.

Moving beyond this, I note that all terrestrial life on Earth evolved from sea life. Without oceans existing prior to 200 million years ago, life as we know it would not exist. This is amply proved by fossil evidence and evidence from molecular biology.

Oceans are not seas.

I noted in my first post that the expanding Earth theory is nowadays associated with, among other movements, biblical Creationism. OIM dismissed the suggestion that he is a Creationist out of hand in his second post. Is he now going to dispute the well-establish course of evolution, and rely on that to support his expanding earth theory? I wonder.

Red herring that has nothing to do with Earth Expansion. If I had no logical or scientific refuation of reality I would focus the debate on creationism as well.

OIM's other statements

The above forms the main content of OIM's argument in his third post. In addition, he claims:

I have already briefly dealt with his fall-back claim regarding accretion above. Therefore, I will say a little bit about plate tectonics.

Very briefly, the mechanism suggested for the movement of tectonic plates involves a circulation of material in the mantle. There are hypothesized "convection cells", characteristic of the convection of fluid in a heated liquid (the mantle is fluid, though not liquid). This convection is thought to be caused by heat flow from the hot core of the Earth, which has not cooled completely since the Earth was formed. The Earth's crust floats on the mantle. Convection carries crustal plates along.

OIM's claim that "there is no known mechanism" for plate tectonics is thus exposed as either a naive lack of knowledge or a lie. Let us hope it is the former.

Unfortunately for you it is not my claim.

It is J. Marvin Herndon's claim, it is no lie, and it is you who are being naive.

"To date however, there is no direct unambiguous evidence that mantle convection and/or mantle circulation actually takes place; in fact, there is some evidence to the contrary. Moreover, there is no evidence that oceanic basalt can be repeatedly recycled through the mantle without being substantially and irreversibly changed. Yet, mantle convection/circulation and basalt recycling are fundamental necessities for the validity of plate tectonics. Furthermore, plate tectonics theory does not provide an energy source for geodynamic activity." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2005

Subduction and all that

A basic introduction to plate tectonics in book form, suitable for OIM and anybody else unfamiliar with the theory, can be found here:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html

This is published by the US Geological Survey and can be downloaded in .pdf form. One of its authors, Robert I. Tilling, has a PhD in geology from Yale University.

On pages 37-43, you can find a useful section on "Convergent boundaries", which explains the process of subduction and evidence for it. Subduction is mentioned elsewhere in the book, too.

Some evidences that subduction occurs include the existence of ocean trenches (e.g. the Peru-Chile trench, where the Nazca plate is being subducted under the South American plate, and the Marianas Trench, where the Pacific Plate is converging with the Philippine plate), and the existence of volcanos along the lines of subduction zones.

In addition (see wikipedia), we have the following evidence for subduction:



---

I should be clear, however, that this debate is NOT on the topic "That subduction does not occur" or "That the theory of plate tectonics is implausible/wrong". The debate topic is "That Earth is expanding".

I addressed and refuted subduction mythology in my opening post and I have nothing more to add.

Again, I end by noting that no evidence has been provided by OIM to prove that the Earth is, in fact, expanding. In fact, most of his scatter-gun effort so far has gone into arguing that subduction does not occur, as if by proving that he will prove an increase in diameter of the Earth over the past 200 million years. In the process, he has posted some nonsense, some straight-out incorrect statements, and a whole lot of superfluous information that is totally uncontested by me in this debate.

Let's hope that in his final post a coherent argument will finally emerge.

That is not a logical or scientific argument and I have nothing more to add.

 

[James R]

OIM's method of Argument by Derision

OIM has (disappointingly) attempted little more than "argument by derision" in his third post. He also doesn't appear to be thinking straight. For example:

If you agree with the data on the map, then you agree that the Earth is expanding.

In my third post, I stated unequivocally that I agree with the data on the map, but also that I disagree that the Earth is expanding. Moreover, I gave clear reasons for my disagreement. Foremost among them, of course, was my contention that OIM's map in no way proves the expanding Earth theory, and in fact is consistent with the theory of plate tectonics, which seems to be the target of an almost irrational and single-minded hatred by OIM.

Another example of OIM's attempt at dismissing an argument by deriding it:

LOL. ... Expanding Earth does not and has never required that matter be created out of nothing.

This is disingenous, given the rest of OIM's argument. His expanding earth theory clearly requires that the Earth's radius doubles in 200 million years. Since he has not advocated a change in the mean density of the Earth over that time, the required radial increase must be accomplished by the addition of mass to the Earth. That required "extra" mass must come from somewhere, unless the expanding Earth theory requires a breach of the fundamental physical law of conservation of energy, as noted in my previous post. OIM has suggested nuclear fusion and fission as the mechanism for creation of new mass "out of energy". These mechanisms could not create the mass required. More on this below.

Since no other possible mechanism has been proposed by OIM, I need only to disprove his nuclear theory and I will have shown convincingly that OIM has failed to make his case for an expanding Earth. This is not to say that another person might not be able to suggest a different mechanism. But I am not debating another person; I am debating OIM. Indeed, I was challenged by him to debate him. With such a weak argument, I hope he will revise his assumptions following our debate.

It is, however, worth making one more comment on how OIM views scholarly discourse and evidence:

LOL. The most illogical and dubious papers I've ever read in my life were peer reviewed.

On the one hand, OIM has practically deluged me with sources in this debate, and I know that some of them are peer-reviewed. He seeks to rely on those sources as authorities to "prove" his case here. But, at the same time, he dismisses the process of peer review as allowing through "illogical and dubious papers". What are we to make of this?

Could it be that the very "authorities" that OIM has cited are, if peer reviewed, inherently untrustworthy, because they have made it through the invalid and untrustworthy process of review by accredited scientists from the "establishment"? Or would OIM say that only the non-peer-reviewed authorities cited are trustworthy, logical and not "dubious"? Or perhaps all authorities that OIM agrees with are fine, upstanding examples of the successes of science and peer review, while those he disagrees with are illogical and dubious.

I note that most of OIM's first post is copied almost verbatim from OIM's internet blog. That blog itself consists mainly of appeals to authorities, with an entire list of OIM-approved quotes from expanding-Earthers and tectonics-skeptics on the front page. Yet, OIM would have us believe that peer review is an "illogical and dubious" process.

One quote is reproduced by OIM in his third post, from one of the sources he relies on heavily to "prove" his nuclear fusion/fission contention:

School textbooks rarely present competing ideas or discuss what might be wrong with the monolithic viewpoint they present. For example, plate tectonics is presented as theory, but rarely, if ever, is any mention given to competitive theories or to what might be wrong with plate tectonics. Too often young people are being taught "science facts" that may not be facts at all, instead of being taught to find what is wrong with current ideas and to think about formulating new and better ideas. Questioning and challenging prevailing, popular theories is what science is all about. Remember this: Popularity only measures popularity, not scientific correctness; science is a logical process not a democratic process. In science, concensus is nonsense.

Here, Herndon is talking about what is taught in schools. What is taught in schools is, of necessity, consensus science. It is simply not possible or practical to "teach the controversy" in every instance. In fact, most school curricula leave out controversial topics in science precisely because they are the subject of expert disagreement.

While Herndon has a point, the danger is that people with an axe to grind, like OIM, will drive this point too far, to claim that all teaching of science is a process of indoctrination and brain-washing into the "accepted paradigms".

Would the average school child equipped to argue against OIM's website of scientific nonsense, or his plethora of misdirection and misunderstanding evident in this debate alone? I don't think so.

In summary, OIM wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to rely on the authority of experts he agrees with, while at the same time discounting all opposing opinions through a process of applied ridicule, all the while pretending that laughing at something is equivalent to making an argument against it.

Enough said on that topic.

Nuclear fusion and fission in the Earth's core - scientific fact?

OIM has confirmed that his contention is that the Earth's radius has doubled in the last 200 million years or so. He claims that it has done this by having new matter created from energy in the Earth's core.

No one is saying something comes from nothing ... The last time I checked the Earth's core is in fact something. What we are saying is that energy can be converted into mass.

OIM cites the following articles:

It's a scientific fact that there is both fission and fusion in the Earth.

Fission

Herndon 1993
Herndon 1994
Herndon 1996
Herndon 2001
Herndon 2002

Confirmed by
Raghavan 2002
Rao 2002

Herndon 2003
Herndon 2005
Grata and Suzuki 2005

Also see here

Fusion

I refer you to the article you ignored posted above.

(See OIM's post above for links)

Note OIM's first statement quoted here: "It is a scientific fact that there is both fission and fusion in the Earth."

Do any of the above references actually establish the "scientific fact" of fission and fusion in the Earth? The answer is "yes" and "no".

Fission in the Earth is a well-established scientific fact. Fission of heavy elements is thought to be a significant source of heating within the Earth. However, the types of fission and fusion processes discussed in the articles quoted by OIM are not the usual ones. They are speculative processes, for which no evidence currently exists, as far as I can tell.

What is more, the authors of these articles admit that their suggested process are not "scientific fact".

For example, read the conclusion to Herndon's article (2001, cited by OIM) here:

http://understandearth.com/pnas-2001.pdf

Just part of that conclusion states:

In a reactor deep inside the Earth, one would expect fission products, having an average density about 60% that of actinides, to diffuse radially outward as the fuel reconcentrates radially inward because of gravity. Variable and or intermittent reactor operation would be the natural and expected consequence. Nuclear fission reactor variability, we suggest, is evidenced by the observed reversals of geo-reactor simulation of the occurrence of fission and the removal of fission direction and changes in intensity of the geomagnetic field. Preliminary results suggest that, after the formation of the Earth, geomagnetic reversals might have been less prevalent than in recent times. Clearly, further investigations, both nuclear and paleomagnetic, are necessary for a more precise characterization.

Does this sound like "scientific fact", or a new theory couched in the usual carefully-qualified language of peer-reviewed scientific discourse? I ask readers to judge for themselves.

OIM says that this "scientific fact" is "confirmed by" Rao and Raghavan (cited).

In fact, Rao provides no confirmation of Herndon's theory. At best, he provides a piece of supporting evidence. He notes:

How does one verify that such a reactor is actually at work? It is in this con-
text that Hollenbach and Herndon note that "an independent verification of the presence of fission deep inside the Earth would be the detection of fission and decay products from sources deep inside the Earth... . Helium would be the most likely of these elements to be detected at the surface"

...

"Hollenbach and Herndon have calculated the cumulative He 3 / He 4 ratio as a function of time of the geo-reactor simulation .... These values closely match the observed He 3/He 4 ratio on the surface of the Earth, to which we have referred to earlier."

Raghavan (cited) similarly provides no confirmation of Herndon's theory. His article merely suggests how it might be tested. From his abstract:

A natural nuclear fission reactor ... at the center of the earth has been proposed as the energy source of the earth’ magnetic field. The proposal can be directly tested by a massive liquid scintillation detector that can detect the signature spectrum of
antineutrinos from the geo-reactor as well as the direction of the antineutrino source. Such
detectors are now in operation or under construction in Japan/Europe. However, the clarity of both types of measurements may be limited by background from antineutrinos from surface power reactors. Future U.S. detectors, relatively more remote from power reactors, may be more suitable for achieving unambiguous spectral and directional evidence for a 3TW geo-reactor

Again, I ask readers to judge whether, as OIM claims, evidence currently exists that proves Herndon's theory to be "scientific fact". I assert that such evidence does not exist, or at least that OIM has not cited any.

Fission and fusion in the core does not establish an expanding Earth!

My discussion of Herndon's articles above is, in fact, only relevant in showing that OIM either lacks understanding of the science involved in this debate, or (worse) that he is deliberately trying to deceive his readers.

In fact, OIM's citation of Herndon's articles is irrelevant to the topic of the debate itself. I draw readers' attention to the fact that nowhere in any of the articles cited by OIM in the preceding post is there a single mention of an expanding earth!

Personally, I would expect a person arguing that the Earth is expanding to present articles showing that the Earth is expanding. And yet, all of the articles presented by OIM in his previous post show, at best, that the common explanation of the heat source driving convection in the Earth's mantle may be incorrect. Instead of a cooling core, maybe there are nuclear reactions happening, although this remains to be verified.

But does this get us anywhere at all with verifying the Earth's expansion? Not at all. For expansion requires the addition of mass to the Earth, and the proposed nuclear reactions do not create new mass. In fact, the mass of the products in the nuclear reactions proposed by Herndon et al. is always less than that of the reactants. Both fission and fusion release energy; mass is converted to energy in the reactions. What OIM needs for his expanding Earth is precisely the opposite: reactions that convert energy to mass, or in fact any other process that creates mass.

In summary, as a mechanism for the creation of new mass, OIM's argument in reliance upon Herndon et al. is dead in the water.

Additional mass by meteor accretion?

In response to my previous post, OIM states that he does not rely on the accretion of mass by meteor impacts as a mechanism for increasing the size of the Earth:

Not the mechanism I propose.

But then, later, he seems to rely on it again, after all:

The rate of meteor impacts is far too low.

Meteors enter the Earth's atmosphere on a daily basis. Do you believe in conservation of matter?

The answer, OIM, is "yes". I do believe in conservation of matter, which is precisely why I do not believe that the Earth is expanding.

To put this argument to rest, I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation myself.

Suppose that, as OIM claims, 200 million years ago the Earth had a radius of approximately 3000 km (about half its current radius). Assuming constant average density, its mass at that time would have been approximately:

$$M = 6.27 \times 10^{23)$$ kg.

Taking a best-case estimate for OIM's argument, meteors and space dust might add a mass as large as 10 billion kg to the Earth every year. Over a 200 million year period, therefore, perhaps 2,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg of matter has been added to the Earth by meteors.

Sounds large, doesn't it? But how much would that addition of mass have increased the Earth's radius from its initial 3000 km? Answer: about three meters, taking the Earth's radius to 3000.003 km. This is obviously nowhere near the doubling of the radius required by OIM's theory.

Tying up loose ends

OIM has relied on speculative nuclear processes within the Earth to prove the expansion of the Earth. In reply, I have shown that (a) the evidence that such processes occur is not conclusive; and (b) that even if such processes do occur they do not produce extra mass, as is required for expansion of the Earth.

To be safe, I have also debunked OIM's alternative contention that mass is added to the Earth by meteor impacts.

I have thus disproved the only mechanisms relied on by OIM in this debate to account for his hypothesised expansion of the Earth. I am sure that, following this debate, OIM will probably complain that I have not addressed other possible "explanations" that have been put forward by expansionists, such as the proposed variation in the gravitational constant G that OIM briefly alluded to in his first post. In reply, I note that this debate was never intended to be a comprehensive debunking of all possible claims regarding the expansion of the Earth. I assume OIM has put the best possible case he had to prove his contention, and I have settled for disproving that.

One last word on plate tectonics, Herndon and other "authorities" relied on by OIM. As part of this debate, I have now been forced to read a number of articles by Herndon and others cited by OIM. Although irrelevant to OIM's contention in the debate, some of these articles are interesting and scholarly in their own right. They challenge accepted wisdom concerning plate tectonics and propose speculative alternative theories.

As a matter of fact, I am not professionally qualified to criticise Herndon and others who have challenged accepted geophysics. Unlike OIM, I am willing to trust the peer-review process, even with its flaws, to sort out the scientific truth in the end. I have not checked to see if there have been substantial replies to Herndon et al. from the geophysical community. I am confident, however, that the truth will out, one way or another. The scientific method may not be perfect, but it has served us well over the centuries.

OIM has included a couple of other dubious statements in his last post:

There is no subduction anywhere in any ocean or on any planet or moon in the known universe.

The "known universe", as it concerns planetary interiors, is largely confined to the Earth at present. It is in fact speculated that the planet Venus and Ganymede (a moon ofJupiter) may both have tectonic activity, though more investigation is needed. Definitive statements that subduction does not exist on any other planet or moon are premature and naive.

"Subduction is not only illogical, it is not supported by geological or physical evidence, and violates fundamental laws of physics." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

This is wrong on many levels. Clearly subduction is not illogical, since many highly-qualified geophysicists believe it occurs. It is, in fact, an accepted geophysical theory. The statement that it is not supported by geological or physical evidence is also false. Refer to the quoted material from wikipedia in my third post of the debate. One can only question whether the quote from Myers is out of context, or whether Myers himself has an agenda similar to OIM's.

I have difficulty believing that Stavros Tassos produced the "quantum" gibberish in OIM's third post, but perhaps he did. If so, if reflects poorly on his credibility.

Conclusion

LOL. I guess physicists can just go home now since we already know everything about the universe.

OIM perhaps likes to think that he knows everything about the universe, contrary to those peer-reviewed, despicable physicists he likes to quote when it is convenient.

I trust that readers will conclude from this debate that perhaps OIM doesn't quite know everything about the universe, or indeed the Earth. In particular, his contention that the Earth is expanding, while provocative and daring, is simple nonsense at heart.

I conclude by thanking OIM for suggesting this debate and participating in it.