Opinions on the Expanding Earth Hypothesis

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on the Expanding Earth Hypothesis, with participants expressing skepticism about its validity due to its failure to adequately explain geological phenomena like subduction. Some argue that the hypothesis dismisses subduction entirely, which contradicts observable evidence such as volcanic activity and tectonic movements. Concerns are raised about the implications of Earth's increasing mass on its orbital mechanics and gravitational forces, questioning the feasibility of the hypothesis. Critics highlight that empirical evidence, including fossil records and geological formations, contradicts the notion of a significantly smaller Earth in the past. Overall, the consensus leans towards skepticism regarding the Expanding Earth Hypothesis, emphasizing the need for robust explanations for established geological processes.
Hydr0matic
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What is your opinion on this hypothesis ?

http://www.wincom.net/earthexp/n/navback.htm

http://users.indigo.net.au/don/ee/nav.html

http://www.expanding-earth.org/

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Campus/2730/

http://www.es.usyd.edu.au/geology/people/staff/dietmar/Agegrid/Images/crustageposter.gif

I first came across this hypothesis when I was studdying the digital agegrid of the ocean floor. But knowing what I know, I dismissed it immediately. It wasn't until yesterday I realized I wasn't the only one to have reached this conclusion.

If I were to have a completely openminded position on this and just focus on the geological data, I'd definitely think expansion was a more likely explanation.

But the implications of this hypothesis being correct is so absurd, I dare not consider it a serious alternative.
 
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Biology news on Phys.org
There is a lot of material to go through, there. I've not read all of it yet, but I've scanned over the titles of the chapters I've not read, and I see nothing to address the phenonminon of subduction. Is it talked about in any of the sites? Unless some other explanation for subduction can be found, I don't think I could take the expansion idea seriously.
 
Haven't had a chance to review all that...just peeked at one link. I didn't see anything that considered the implications of the Earth's orbit around the sun (or the Earth-Moon interaction) if the Earth's mass/size is really increasing by huge amounts. I think that would be a good test of the idea.
 
Originally posted by LURCH
There is a lot of material to go through, there. I've not read all of it yet, but I've scanned over the titles of the chapters I've not read, and I see nothing to address the phenonminon of subduction. Is it talked about in any of the sites? Unless some other explanation for subduction can be found, I don't think I could take the expansion idea seriously.
http://www.expanding-earth.org/page_2.htm

http://www.expanding-earth.org/page_4.htm

Actually, subduction is the main problem with the tectonicstheory. The expansiontheory does not offer an alternative explanation for subduction, but argues there ain't no subduction going on at all. I haven't read the whole text at the above links either, but I believe it covers all objections against the subduction hypothesis.

Originally posted by Phobos
Haven't had a chance to review all that...just peeked at one link. I didn't see anything that considered the implications of the Earth's orbit around the sun (or the Earth-Moon interaction) if the Earth's mass/size is really increasing by huge amounts. I think that would be a good test of the idea.
I haven't found any extensive material on this either, but I found this searching google: http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword14d.htm

I also believe there are some things suggesting gravity wasn't as strong before as it is now, e.g. the size of the dinos. Not sure about that one though . [ edit: found a site -> http://www.dinox.freeserve.co.uk/english/ ]
 
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Originally posted by Hydr0matic


Actually, subduction is the main problem with the tectonicstheory. The expansiontheory does not offer an alternative explanation for subduction, but argues there ain't no subduction going on at all. I haven't read the whole text at the above links either, but I believe it covers all objections against the subduction hypothesis.

Yea, that's what I was afraid of. "...it covers all objections against the subduction hypothesis" in exactly the way you say, it argues there is no subduction. Subduction zones exist, like the west coast of the US. The ocean floor is pushed down, mountain ranges are pushed up, volcanic activity is frequent and mostly pyroclastic rather than magmatic. All these things are evidence that subduction is taking place.

Also, one of the linked sites makes reference to sattelite measurements taken using VLBI, which show that Asia, Australia, and North America are moving towards each other. The site claims that

Use of satellite measurements (VLBI, LAGEO, GPS) should be avoided because the global grid system of latitude and longitude has itself changed.

How this change of latitudinal and longitudinal gridlines effects the the interferometric patterns of radio waves is not discussed.
 
Originally posted by Hydr0matic
I haven't found any extensive material on this either, but I found this searching google: http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword14d.htm

Interesting, but not much to go on there for orbital mechanics with respect to the moon & especially the sun.

I also believe there are some things suggesting gravity wasn't as strong before as it is now, e.g. the size of the dinos. Not sure about that one though . [ edit: found a site -> http://www.dinox.freeserve.co.uk/english/ ]

My crackpot detector is ringing!
(especially from here...http://www.dinox.freeserve.co.uk/english/sizecomp.htm)
If this is link is typical of the kind of thinking for the expanding Earth folks, then we need look no further into their ideas.
(We can go over this link in detail if you want, but I think the problems should be obvious.)

Also, how ironic that a site which thinks dinosaurs were too big to function under 1 G cites Robert Bakker's book "The Dinosaur Heresies" as recommended reading (Bakker's book explains how even the big dinos were quite agile...and lower gravity was not mentioned in his book as far as I recall*).
* - read it a few years ago
 
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From the third link... (http://www.expanding-earth.org/)

The evidence is empirical and the conclusions obvious—the Earth ~200 million years ago was a single planetary landmass ~40% smaller than it is today, and at that moment in geologic time there were NO OCEANS!

Nonsense. There is ample fossil evidence of marine life that pre-dates 200 million years ago.


More nonsense re: grand canyon...
But, more importantly, think of the BOTTOM layer. When that bottom layer accreted onto Earth’s surface it was the TOP layer and exposed to the sun. All layers now above it were laid down, one by one, in subsequent years. Where could all this material have come from except outer space?

The layers were sedimentary (underwater at one time in the past). Then the massive water body went away. Then the Colorado River cut down through & exposed the existing layers.

The planet is slowly accreting new mass consisting of at least TWO types of matter from outer space—meteorites and meteor dust, plus solar energy captured by photosynthesis in living organisms—which could happen only after water appeared on the planet’s surface to support organic growth.

Meteorites falling to Earth, large and small, have been known for centuries, but more recent scientific measurements discovered that an even greater volume of dust and micrometeorites (hundreds of tons) accretes onto Earth's surface every day!

The estimates vary widely (wildly?)—from ~274 to ~55,000 tons per day [Newkirk in Meteor Orbits and Dust, NASA, 1967], but one can imagine the potential volume of accreting extraterrestrial material from the very large number of meteor streams (10 major and 374 minor, of which 154 are the most authentic) reported by Terentjeva [ibid.] She reported “Generally, the existence is accepted of several hundred minor meteor showers with a duration of not less than 3 to 7 days and an average rate not exceeding 2 meteors per hour.”

quick calc...
Let's use his cited highest figure of 55,000 tons/day...
I'll assume 2 tons/cubic yard (much heavier than typical dirt/gravel mixes)...
I'll use his numbers that the EArth was 40% smaller 200 million years ago...

55,000 tons/day for 200 million years is 4.02e15 tons
which is 2.01e15 cubic yards (or 5.4e16 cubic feet or 3.7e5 cubic miles) of material

The current radius of the Earth is 3960 miles which gives a surface area of 1.97e8 square miles. He says the EArth was 40% smaller...2,380 mi...surface area of 7.1e7 sq mi.

So, spread out evenly over the surface of the Earth, that's an additional 27 ft of material. Not quite 1,500 miles is it? (3960 mi - 2380 mi)

I'll stick with my crackpot detector readings.
 
Originally posted by Phobos
From the third link... (http://www.expanding-earth.org/)



Nonsense. There is ample fossil evidence of marine life that pre-dates 200 million years ago.


More nonsense re: grand canyon...


The layers were sedimentary (underwater at one time in the past). Then the massive water body went away. Then the Colorado River cut down through & exposed the existing layers.



quick calc...
Let's use his cited highest figure of 55,000 tons/day...
I'll assume 2 tons/cubic yard (much heavier than typical dirt/gravel mixes)...
I'll use his numbers that the EArth was 40% smaller 200 million years ago...

55,000 tons/day for 200 million years is 4.02e15 tons
which is 2.01e15 cubic yards (or 5.4e16 cubic feet or 3.7e5 cubic miles) of material

The current radius of the Earth is 3960 miles which gives a surface area of 1.97e8 square miles. He says the EArth was 40% smaller...2,380 mi...surface area of 7.1e7 sq mi.

So, spread out evenly over the surface of the Earth, that's an additional 27 ft of material. Not quite 1,500 miles is it? (3960 mi - 2380 mi)

I'll stick with my crackpot detector readings.

Also note that the new material is said to be sifting down through the atmosphere from space, yet the expansion is occurring as magma surfacing at the mid-Atlantic rift, NOT as sedimenary layering on the surface.

Additionally, the artical states that the expansion of the Atlantic basin has been measured accurately (by the same sattelites who's measurements we should not trust, I believe), but the expansion of the Earth, which would consist of the sum total of the Atlantic, AntArctic, and all other expansion zones, has gone unnoticed because it is too gradual to measure.
 
  • #10
I haven't been able to respond this past week due to extensive relaxing on my vacation :smile:

Originally posted by LURCH
Yea, that's what I was afraid of. "...it covers all objections against the subduction hypothesis" in exactly the way you say, it argues there is no subduction. Subduction zones exist, like the west coast of the US. The ocean floor is pushed down, mountain ranges are pushed up, volcanic activity is frequent and mostly pyroclastic rather than magmatic. All these things are evidence that subduction is taking place.
They're indications that subduction is taking place, but other explanations are available. I've studied ocean floor relief maps for a while now and I definitely do not believe subduction can account for the data. For example:

* Have a look at http://hydr0matic.insector.se/geology/antarctica.jpg .. I've tried to illustrate the continental drift since the breakup.
Antarctica constituted the southern part of Pangea, so along this coastal line there should have been some very old (>200Ma) ocean floor. The question is, where did this ocean floor go ? If I have understood correctly, the only way for the old floor to disappear is by going down a subduction zone. And if my sourses are correct, there's practically no indication of a subduction zone around Antarctica ... -> http://core2.gsfc.nasa.gov/dtam/images/global.gif

* Study these maps a few minutes while thinking about this: Our planet is scarred. There are stretchmarks from head to toe beginning at the North pole. They go down through the Atlantic and around Africa, continue from the Indian ocean down under Australia and all the way around Antarctica. Now these stretchmarks are undeniably the result of continents moving away from each other... So _Why_On_Earth_ should this not be the case in the Pacific ?? Why this absurd inconsistency ?

And another thing: compare the eastern subduction zone around the ring of fire with the western one; yet another inconsistency appears. In the east, huge mountain ranges are pushed up and cover almost half the US. In the west on the other hand, the opposite occur - the zones are actually pulling away land from the coast creating new ocean floor in between. How is this possible if Asia is moving towards the Pacific ?

And I guess it's just a coincidence that the oldest ocean floor in the pacific is the same age as the ocean floor at Pangea breakup locations ? ... and yet another coincidence that during the last 200Ma, the subduction process has removed all ocean floor older than 200Ma ...

More images >> here <<. Bring up 180°E (centered on 45°N)... Just to further illustrate the difference between the subduction zones.

http://hydr0matic.insector.se/geology/oceanfloor.jpg

Originally posted by LURCH
How this change of latitudinal and longitudinal gridlines effects the the interferometric patterns of radio waves is not discussed.
Yes, that stinks. Although I don't know anything about these systems, I'm sure the people handling the measurements know what they're doing.

Originally posted by Phobos
My crackpot detector is ringing!
(especially from here...http://www.dinox.freeserve.co.uk/english/sizecomp.htm)
If this is link is typical of the kind of thinking for the expanding Earth folks, then we need look no further into their ideas.
(We can go over this link in detail if you want, but I think the problems should be obvious.)
Hmm... Not knowing very much about animal dynamics, their statements sound pretty reasonable to me :smile:. So I'm sorry but, I think you'll have to point out those obvious problems ... if you don't mind.

Originally posted by Phobos
Nonsense. There is ample fossil evidence of marine life that pre-dates 200 million years ago.
I'm sure he didn't mean that there wasn't any water on earth. With "oceans" (plural) he is referring to the large bodies of water into which _The_ ocean is divided. So in a sense there were no oceans, just _an_ ocean.

Originally posted by Phobos
More nonsense re: grand canyon...
Yes, I agree... His "Accretion of mass from space" idea as a mechanism for expansion is nonsense too. That kind of speculation discredits the expansion theory and his entire site... too bad.

Originally posted by Phobos
quick calc...
He says the EArth was 40% smaller...2,380 mi...
I don't think "40% smaller" was referring to the radius. Try volume instead...

Originally posted by LURCH
Also note that the new material is said to be sifting down through the atmosphere from space, yet the expansion is occurring as magma surfacing at the mid-Atlantic rift, NOT as sedimenary layering on the surface.
Again, this is clearly nonsense... He hasn't got it all figured out yet...

Originally posted by LURCH
Additionally, the artical states that the expansion of the Atlantic basin has been measured accurately (by the same sattelites who's measurements we should not trust, I believe), but the expansion of the Earth, which would consist of the sum total of the Atlantic, AntArctic, and all other expansion zones, has gone unnoticed because it is too gradual to measure.
I agree, his arguments against the accuracy of the sattelite measurements are unfounded and discredits the rest of his arguments.


Just so we are clear on this - these expansion sites does not represent my personal beliefs.
 
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  • #11
hang on, Hydr0matic, I do plan to respond...(busy week for me)
 
  • #12
here's one quick tidbit...

that link says the following:
The African Elephant for instance is so heavy that the maximum speed it can reach is a fast walk.

This is way off. They can run up to 25 mph (faster than most people).
http://www.thebigzoo.com/Animals/African_Elephant.asp

Their walking speed is about 5 mph (a fast walk).
http://wonderclub.com/Wildlife/mammals/AfricanElephant.htm

That whole expanding-Earth link is based on the premise that animals cannot get much bigger under existing gravity because they would be too immobilized. Seems to be incorrect.
 
  • #13
I have only skimmed, but does anyone have a good way to discredit the lop-sided crust argument? As for the size of animals, I think the size of reptiles and mammals is a bad example. But, I have heard that the reason you never see giant bugs is because their exoskeletons limit their size, however, it is know that there were 15 inch dragonflies in the time of the dinos. So why did they die out? I've knew heard an argument to explain this. If Earth's gravity is continually increasing, then their flight abilities would be continually decreased, there by favoring any genetic oddities, ie midgits, like we see to today. I their defence, the only people who would devote a fair amount of their time to studing something science says is wrong will tend to be nutty, and won't be able to have anyone take them seriously. So it'd be hard for them to realize even the most obvious problems with their theories without outside input. From this, I think that just because some of his arugments are obviously wrong, doesn't mean there is no merit to the theory. And again, what about the giant ferns of old? I used to live in the Pacific Northwest, and the ferns are never more than hip high, and aren't very strong. If their biochem is similar to the old ones, how did the old ones get so big?
 
  • #14
Originally posted by Jonathan
I have only skimmed, but does anyone have a good way to discredit the lop-sided crust argument?

I've always had reservations about the current theory as to the origin of the Earth-Moon system. This theiry states that the system was formed when two protoplanets collided. The smaller one was absorbed into the larger, for the most part. That which wasn't absorbed became a thick ring system, which eventually congeeled into the Moon.

Like I said, I am somewhat sceptical of this model, but it would answer the question at hand. The larger protoplanet, which went on to become the Earth, is the result of a collission of two bodies. The Moon, on the other hand, formed out of a more homogenous disk of debris, and so came together as a more ballanced body.
 
  • #15
You misunderstand

When the 'Earth' and 'Moon' collided, they were both soupy magma balls. They were that way afterwards for millions of years. My point is how would a liquid planet solidify in a way that has half the planet farther from the center. It should have been very spherical and then get increasingly deformed by geologic processes.
 
  • #16
The Earth Expands

Far reaching theoretical considerations in favor of the expanding Earth can be found also in Eugene Savov's Theory of Interaction.
 
  • #17
New Paper on Expanding Earth in mainstream journal...

This may be interesting to this group:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2003.00929.x/abs/;jsessionid=cB5zNhB-2Vid

It concludes the Earth has expanded since the late Triassic. Abstract is below.
(Note; The commment that there were "no oceans" pre-Jurassic does not imply no large marine environments. Large marine seas still existed on continents -- and this is why *all* pre-Jurassic marine fossils are found on continents (not in oceans.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journal of Biogeography
Volume 30 Issue 10 Page 1545 - October 2003
doi:10.1046/j.1365-2699.2003.00929.x


The trans-Pacific zipper effect: disjunct sister taxa and matching geological outlines that link the Pacific margins
Dennis McCarthy*
Abstract

AimTo combine analyses of trans-Pacific sister taxa with geological evidence in order to test the hypothesis of the existence of a Panthalassa superocean.

Location The study is concerned with taxa, both fossil and extant, from East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South America and North America.

MethodsPhylogenetic and distributional analyses of trans-Pacific biota were integrated with geological evidence from the Pacific and circum-Pacific regions.

ResultsA series of recent biogeographical analyses delineates a zipper-like system of sister areas running up both margins of the Pacific, with each section of western North and South America corresponding to a particular section from East Asia/Australia/New Zealand. These sister areas coincide neatly with a jigsaw-like fit provided by the matching Mesozoic coastlines that bracket the Pacific.

Main conclusionsThe young age (<200 Myr) of oceanic crust, the matching Mesozoic circum-Pacific outlines, and a corresponding system of interlocking biogeographical sister areas provide three independent avenues of support for a closed Pacific in the Upper Triassic-Lower Jurassic. The hypothesis of the existence and subsequent subduction of the pre-Pacific superocean Panthalassa is not only unnecessary, it conflicts with this evidence. Panthalassa-based paleomaps necessitate the invention of dozens of additional hypotheses of species-dependent, trans-oceanic dispersal events, often involving narrow-range taxa of notoriously limited vagility, in order to explain repeated examples of the same biogeographical pattern. Removing the vanished-superocean hypothesis reunites both the matching geological outlines and all the disjunct sister taxa. In brief, what appears to be a multi-era tangle of convoluted, trans-oceanic distributions on Panthalassa-based paleomaps is actually a relatively simple biogeographical pattern that is explainable by a single vicariant event: the opening and expansion of the Pacific.
 
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  • #18
It concludes the Earth has expanded since the late Triassic.
I must have missed it; where is this conclusion stated?
 
  • #19
The conclusion is stated in the paper. But if there is no Panthalassa, then the Earth must have been smaller. The hypothesis of a now vanished superocean, Panthalassa, is required in order to maintain constant radius.
Excerpts from the paper (D. McCarthy, Journal of Biogeography):

"In a book dedicated to Alfred Wegener, Otto Hilgenberg (1933) theorized that all continents had united to form a single crust that encompassed a much smaller globe pre-Jurassic (Hilgenberg, 1933; also discussed in Carey, 1988). Previously, Roberto Mantovani (1909) had put forth the same argument, suggesting that the oceans had been created as the result of crustal fracturing and sea-floor spreading between continents (Scalera, 1997). This view entails that all of the world's ocean crust is less than 200 million years old (i.e. less than the age of the vast majority of continental crust), a prediction that, in the first half of the twentieth century, clearly differentiated expanding Earth theory from both Wegener's view of continental drift and the mainstream stabilist theory.
"In the 1950's and 1960's, advances in oceanographic analyses and the discovery of seafloor spreading confirmed that all oceanic crust had been created within the last 200 my at mid-oceanic ridges, and the majority of it had formed during the Cenozoic (Fig. 1). The verification of this particular consequence of expanding Earth theory surprised mainstream geologists. The hypothesis that the ancient Panthalassa superocean and its Tethyan embayment had been completely subducted and replaced by the modern oceans (e.g. Oliver and Isacks, 1967; Isacks et al., 1968) then had to be developed in order to reconcile the assumption of a fixed global radius with the expansive consequences of seafloor spreading..."
 
  • #20
The utter absurdity of this "theory" (not a theory) makes me wonder how - and more importantly WHY it persists. Since the main thrust of the theory isn't supporing itself (it has one heluva big, ugly, fat flaw that is ignored by its proponents), its attacking continental drift (and therefore proving x, y, z - as if that's how science worked), there must be something about continental drift that they don't like for reasons that are not scientific.

Can anyone tell me what non-scientific objection to plate techtonics/continental drift is at work here?

If I had to hazard a guess, I'm thinking its religious (isn't it always?). Specifically, the geological evidence it provides to evolution.
 
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  • #21
Russ Watters: "The utter absurdity of this "theory" (not a theory) makes me wonder how - and more importantly WHY it persists. Since the main thrust of the theory isn't supporing itself (it has one heluva big, ugly, fat flaw that is ignored by its proponents),

DJM: Which is?

Russ: its attacking continental drift (and therefore proving x, y, z - as if that's how science worked),

Dennis: Expanding Earth and plate tectonics disagree about the hypothesis of a superocean (Panthalassa). Plate tectonics claims this ocean existed and has since vanished (every square centimeter of all 200 million square km of this oceanic crust) , expanding Earth theory claims that it never existed. Geological, biogeographical, and paleomagnetic evidence suggesting the existence or non-existence of this ocean is of course germane to the validity of the theories. Such tests are a part of science.

Russ: there must be something about continental drift that they don't like for reasons that are not scientific.

Can anyone tell me what non-scientific objection to plate techtonics/continental drift is at work here?

If I had to hazard a guess, I'm thinking its religious (isn't it always?). Specifically, the geological evidence it provides to evolution.

Dennis: LOL. You should read the paper above -- as you would discover that biogeographic arguments for a closed Pacific (just like biogeographic arguments for a closed Atlantic and closed Indian) are based on evolutionary theory. Specifically, according to the theory of evolution, you can't have a host of closely-related, poor dispersing taxa suddenly appearing on opposite sides of an ocean -- when it is highly improbable for any of the ancestral taxa to cross oceans. So according to the referenced paper above, unless plate tectonic theorists want to rely on divine intervention, a slew of creation stories or a myriad of impossible trans-oceanic crossings of terrestrial taxa, their paleomaps are wrong. Panthalassa could not have existed between all of the hundred plus referenced taxa, which is to say, it didn't exist...
 
  • #22
tides? Moon?

Have the proponents of the expanding Earth idea calculated what their idea would mean in the Earth-Moon system? In particular, what the length of day, mean orbital distance to the Moon, and size of the tides would be in times of old? (and how their predictions match the observed data)
 
  • #23
So did NASA detect any growing of the Earth lately? or perhaps the geophysisists who monitor Earth movements on the millimetre with GPS?

The hypothesis is testable and should have tested already.
 
  • #24
Originally posted by djmenck
DJM: Which is?
MASS.
Dennis: LOL. You should read the paper above -- as you would discover that biogeographic arguments for a closed Pacific (just like biogeographic arguments for a closed Atlantic and closed Indian) are based on evolutionary theory...when it is highly improbable for any of the ancestral taxa to cross oceans.
Not quite. The most reasonable explanation is simply that they walked, just like our ancestors did. As late as a hundred thousand years ago, it was possible to walk across the Bearing Strait.
Geological, biogeographical, and paleomagnetic evidence suggesting the existence or non-existence of this ocean is of course germane to the validity of the theories.
Since evidence does suggest subduction, it does help invalidate expanding earth. But we're getting ahead of ourselves - before we start testing a theory with new evidence, you have to construct it in such a way as to explain known data. Thats how the scientific method works. Even if it makes a hundred valid future predictions, its structural flaws still make it wrong. The BUFF makes the very concept so fatally flawed it will never pass the "hypothesis" stage of the scientific method.
Originally posted by Andre
The hypothesis is testable and should have tested already.

So did NASA detect any growing of the Earth lately? or perhaps the geophysisists who monitor Earth movements on the millimetre with GPS?
Hehe, that's on the first page of this thread. Yes, it has been tested via satellite observation. The incontrovertible results are ignored.

Ignoring incontrovertible evidence a symptom, not the root cause. But the inevitable conclusion must be that the evidence is ignored because of some ulterior motive for espousing this theory. The usual reason for ignoring/misusing science is religion, but there are others.

djmenck said its not a religious objection, but he didn't say what the objection is. So I'll repost:
Can anyone tell me what non-scientific objection to plate techtonics/continental drift is at work here?
 
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  • #25
Originally posted by russ_watters
But we're getting ahead of ourselves - before we start testing a theory with new evidence, you have to construct it in such a way as to explain known data
I'm curious, do you think continental drift passes this criteria ? Is any explanation acceptable, or does it actually have to make sense ?

Originally posted by russ_watters
Can anyone tell me what non-scientific objection to plate techtonics/continental drift is at work here?
There is none. They are all based on reason.

What I can't figure out is why you don't understand our objections ? It seems like you know something we don't... as if the answers to our questions are so obvious that you don't even bother to provide them ..

How was the lopsided crust formed ?
Where is the subductionzone along Antactica ? - If there isn't any, where is the old (>200ma) ocean crust ? http://hydr0matic.insector.se/geology/antarctica.jpg
Originally posted by Hydr0matic
..compare the eastern subduction zone around the ring of fire with the western one; yet another inconsistency appears. In the east, huge mountain ranges are pushed up and cover almost half the US. In the west on the other hand, the opposite occur - the zones are actually pulling away land from the coast creating new ocean floor in between. How is this possible if Asia is moving towards the Pacific ?
Now, my objections against plate tectonics has nothing to do with me favorizing the expansion hypothesis. I had these objections long before I ever laid eyes on a crustageposter and concluded Earth had expanded. I say "had" because my own idea about expansion does not preclude the possibility that Earth isn't expanding right now. On the contrary, it might be contracting. Contraction seems to be the only reasonable explanation for mountain ranges raised around our earth, specifically those in Africa, Europe, the mideast and Asia. "The amazing journey of India" does not qualify as a reasonable explanation for the Himalayas.

Our Earth might have expanded and contracted many times in the past, and the result we see today are strechmarks and wrinkles.

Originally posted by russ_watters
MASS.
The mechanism controlling the expansion/contraction isn't necessarily an increase/decrease in mass, it might be an increase/decrease in density. A process perhaps very similar to that which goes on inside the sun making it expand and contract.
Even if an increase/decrease in mass could be the only mechanism I still wouldn't consider that a "big, ugly, fat flaw". Perhaps geologists have something to teach physicists about how our world was created.
 
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  • #26
Originally posted by Hydr0matic
I'm curious, do you think continental drift passes this criteria ? Is any explanation acceptable, or does it actually have to make sense ?
It most certainly does pass the criteria of real science and it does make sense.
What I can't figure out is why you don't understand our objections ? It seems like you know something we don't.
It is obvious and I'm not the only one who knows something you don't. What I don't understand is why you don't see the obvious flaws in your objections... wait, we're doing it again, we're not arguing FOR expanding earth, we're arguing AGAINST plate techtonics. I must admit I sometimes fall into the trap and join the arguement. Back to the point: expanding Earth has obvious and unsurmountable flaws.
Our Earth might have expanded and contracted many times in the past, and the result we see today are strechmarks and wrinkles.
I'm trying very hard not to laugh.
The mechanism controlling the expansion/contraction isn't necessarily an increase/decrease in mass, it might be an increase/decrease in density.
Still trying.
A process perhaps very similar to that which goes on inside the sun making it expand and contract.
Phew, ok finally a real arguemnt I can sink my teeth into: The sun isn't a solid, plastic, or incompressible liquid. The analogy is fatally flawed as is the theory.
Perhaps geologists have something to teach physicists about how our world was created.
I'm an engineer, not a physicist or geologist. Either way, both geologists and physicists follow the same rules. You can't call something a "theory" if its based on a concept (or data) that is fundamentally flawed. Thats against the rules.
 
  • #27
It is obvious and I'm not the only one who knows something you don't. What I don't understand is why you don't see the obvious flaws in your objections...
So you think I don't know enough, and yet you don't understand why I don't see the obvious flaws ? .. well then... I don't understand why you don't understand why I don't understand. [zz)]

wait, we're doing it again, we're not arguing FOR expanding earth, we're arguing AGAINST plate techtonics.
Well, that was my intention. Since I don't understand why you think plate techtonics passes the criteria stated above I was hoping you could explain a few things that, at least to a few of us in here, isn't that obvious.

I'm trying very hard not to laugh.
Don't hurt yourself.

Phew, ok finally a real arguemnt I can sink my teeth into: The sun isn't a solid, plastic, or incompressible liquid.
Which is why the sun's cycle is a couple of years and our Earth's millions (.. perhaps.. just brainstorming here). I don't know so I'm just asking... Is there absolutely no chance of Earth increasing or decreasing in size as a result of relatively high changes in temperature occurring over a period of millions of years ? (meaning a general change from the crust to the innermost parts of our globe).

I'm an engineer, not a physicist or geologist. Either way, both geologists and physicists follow the same rules. You can't call something a "theory" if its based on a concept (or data) that is fundamentally flawed. Thats against the rules.
I totally agree. I'm pretty sure I've used the word "hypothesis" most of the time.

It most certainly does pass the criteria of real science and it does make sense.
Ok, I'm going to be as strait forward as I can now so there might be a chance of you actually answering a question for once.

How and why did Earth solidify with a lopsided crust ?

... and just in case you wonder - No, it is not obvious to me.
 
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  • #28
Is there absolutely no chance of Earth increasing or decreasing in size as a result of relatively high changes in temperature occurring over a period of millions of years ?
Yes. Unless of course everything we know about geology and materials science is wrong - but I doubt it because my golf clubs work fine. The thermal and mechanical properties of materials are equisitely well understood.

And beyond that of course, there have been no large changes in temperature - we have evidence that the global climate has been relatively stable for a billion years or so.
How and why did Earth solidify with a lopsided crust ?
The fact that the crust was lopsided doesn't really mean anything. The mass distribution of the Earth itself was even. Thats how buoyancy works. Further, buoyancy and surface tension makes solids floating on top of liquids "clump up." It would have been surprising if the first land had NOT been together in one clump.

For other examples, there is a thread somewhere around here where someone asked why a cork always clings to the edge of a glass its floating in. Same reason.
 
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  • #29
My two cents

I see that
http://www.expanding-earth.org/

However, far more significant is the trench system encompassing the right-angled Vityaz-Tonga-Kermadec Trench, New Zealand, and Macquarie Ridge that ends in a distinct eastward curvature (white rectangle). This fishhook-shaped configuration clearly matches the western coast of South America from the notch at 20° South Latitude to the tip at 60° South Latitude, where it curves perfectly around Cape Horn. (This Australian trench is even more remarkable because it replicates the shape of the eastern coast of South America that was once attached to Africa as part of Wegener’s Pangaea (1912). The only difference is that the Australian trenches are now under water.)

is the main evidence of expanding Earth. Now I could not find it back at the moment but there was a picture of the South Pole with the Antarctic plate. Check the chain of islands from the south of Argentina curving to the east (the hockey stick) and then curving back to the south and west to West Antarctica.This behavior is repeated at the New Zealad trench. Puzzling?

Not really; imagine that the Antarctic plate may have rotated slightly in all those million years, causing these simultaneous curves. Since the Earth is rotating causing al kind of forces it should not be unusual that coninental plates also rotate a little.
 
  • #30
The notion everything just "walked" across Pangea.

Dennis: LOL. You should read the paper above -- as you would discover that biogeographic arguments for a closed Pacific (just like biogeographic arguments for a closed Atlantic and closed Indian) are based on evolutionary theory. Specifically, according to the theory of evolution, you can't have a host of closely-related, poor dispersing taxa suddenly appearing on opposite sides of an ocean -- when it is highly improbable for any of the ancestral taxa to cross oceans...

Russ:
Not quite. The most reasonable explanation is simply that they walked, just like our ancestors did. As late as a hundred thousand years ago, it was possible to walk across the Bearing Strait.

Dennis: I don't think the actual point of the paper has been successfully communicated, but I will try to be less clumsy in my effort. (But please note: If the resolution were really something as simple as that, the paper wouldn't have passed peer review.)
1) Many of the taxa are plants, freshwater fish, and shallow-water benthic taxa. They can't just "walk" from one side of the globe to the other. The notion that they experienced slow range expansion from one side of Pangea to the other (from say the western Americas to East Asia or eastern Australia) may be dismissed as very improbable as there is no fossil evidence for these taxa anywhere else.
2) The importance of distributions of fossil taxa in determining past locations of continents is well known. The exact same biogeographic argument has also been used to argue for a closed Atlantic and a closed Pacific. The name"Gondwana" is based on a region in India where Glossopteris was found -- and Glossopteris found in India, Madagascar, South Africa, South America and Australia suggested the Indian and Atlantic oceans were closed. The reason: They can't cross oceans. Ironically, geologists who were defending the mainstream view of continental fixism actually adopted the argument put forth by Russ: They simply "walked" or spread from one location to the other. They accepted this argument despite the biogeographic evidence because they felt it impossible for continents to move. But of course we now know that it was rather silly to assume that Glossopteris migrated to each of the southern continents via northern routes -- and then all fossil records of them disappeared in the northern regions. This argument is pretty basic and well known -- and is shown here:
http://www.es.usyd.edu.au/geology/people/staff/dietmar/restrict/GEOL2001_PlateTec/PlateTec_Lec1.pdf

This exact same argument is used in the paper regarding trans-Pacific biotic links (except it involves a much wider array of poor dispersing taxa.

quote:

"Geological, biogeographical, and paleomagnetic evidence suggesting the existence or non-existence of this ocean is of course germane to the validity of the theories. "

Russ: Since evidence does suggest subduction, it does help invalidate expanding earth.

Dennis: What evidence suggests subduction in general and that all 200 million sq km. of Panthalassa has been subducted in particular?
 
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  • #31
VLBI, SLR, GPS data

Andre:
The hypothesis is testable and should have tested already.

So did NASA detect any growing of the Earth lately? or perhaps the geophysisists who monitor Earth movements on the millimetre with GPS?

Russ:
Hehe, that's on the first page of this thread. Yes, it has been tested via satellite observation. The incontrovertible results are ignored.

Dennis: I'm sorry I must have missed that post. But here's actual references to peer reviewed papers discussing the VLBI data, SLR data, GPS data, etc.

Here is a quote from one of those papers (Shields, 1997):

"The Pacific would have to contract fairly rapidly to maintain a constant
Earth diameter since the Atlantic is widening and Antarctic plate is also growing in size...
Instead, the SLR geodesic data in the South American frame of reference show
Pacific Basin perimeter expansion, more pronounced in the South Pacific than the North Pacific, despite
concurrent geodesic convergence at Pacific trenches. This is startling since convergence rates at the Tonga Trench are the world's fastest (Bevis et al., 1995)"

Sheilds, O. (1997) "Geodetic Proof of Earth Expansion?" New Concepts in Global
Tectonics. Sept. 1997, pp 17-18.

Another example from "Monitoring the Earth":

http://www.rjpc.demon.co.uk/mtesampler.pdf

"On the whole, the notion of an expanding Earth is not in favour, but the topic may be revived by global geodesy, witness the recent claim that SLR to LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite: see Frontispiece) and VLBI data for stable continental regions indicate an increase of 4.15 +/- .27 mm/yr in terrestrial radius since the techniques came into operation (Scalera 2000)."

Unfortunately, this .pdf does not contain the actual Scalera reference, but I know Scalera (if it is indeed Giancarlo), an Italian geophysicist -- and I have written him about this citation. He thinks the date is wrong -- and he provided
three other references regarding geodetic data:

Scalera, G., 2001: The Global paleogeographical
reconstruction of the Triassic
in the Earth’s dilatation framework and
the paleoposition of India. Annali di
Geofisica, 44 (1), 13-32.

Scalera, G., 2002: Possible relations among
expanding Earth, TPW and Polar Motion.
In: Maslov, L. (ed.): Proceedings International
Symposium on New Concepts in
Global Tectonics, held in May 2002 in La
Junta, Colorado, Otero Junior College
Press, La Junta, 37-50.

Scalera, G., 2003: The expanding Earth: a sound idea for the new millennium.
In: Scalera, G. and Jacob, K.-H. (eds.), 2003:
Why Expanding Earth? A book in Honour
of Ott Christoph Hilgenberg.
Proceedings of the 3rd Lautenthaler Montanistisches Colloquium,
Mining Industry Museum, Lautenthal (Germany)
May 26, 2001, INGV, Rome, 181-232.


Perhaps the most careful study of VLBI data and Earth radius was conducted by James Maxlow in his Ph.D thesis:

"Quantification of an Archaean to Recent Earth Expansion Process Using Global Geological and Geophysical Data Sets"

http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20020117.145715/

Here's a quote:

(Emphasis added:) "Calculations of a potentional increase in Earth radius based on published GSFC VLBI baseline vectors (Ma & Ryan, 1998) now indicate a mean global increase in radius of 4.1 +/- 3 mm/yr.
"In contrast when Robaudo & Harrison (1993) combined SLR solution UT/LLA9101 (including all data from 1976 to the beginning of 1991) and VLBI solution GBL66- (containing data up to the end of 1990) data sets to derive observation station horizontal motions for plate motion studies, they allowed all stations to have three independent motion velocities. These calculations, based on a global observational network, gave
"A ROOT MEAN SQUARED (RMS) VALUE OF UP-DOWN [INCREASE IN EARTH RADIUS] MOTIONS OF OVER 18 MM/YR" (ROBAUDO & HARRISON, 1993, PG. 53.) This value was considered by Robaudo and Harrison (1993) to be extremely high when compared to expected deglaciation rates, estimated at les than 10 mm/yr (Argus, 1996). "It is significant to note that Robaudo & Harrison (1993) 'expected that most VLBI stations will have up-dwon [radial] motions of only a few mm/yr' and RECOMMENTDED THAT THE VERTICAL MOTION BE 'RESTRICTED TO ZERO, BECAUSE THIS IS CLOSER TO THE TRUE SITUATION THAN AN AVERAGE MOTION OF 18 MM/YR" (ROBAUDO AND HARRSION, 1993, PG. 54)...' "As recommended by Robaudo & Harrison (1993) the EXCESSES IN VERTICAL MEASUREMENT ARE GLOBALLY ZEROED, RESULTING IN A STATIC EARTH RADIUS PREMISE BEING IMPOSED ON SPACE GEODETIC OBSERVATIONAL DATA."


There's another point that is also of interest to this subject. According to Scalera's quote above Maxlow's, Scalera confined himself to terrestrial locations at "stable continental regions"-- and these locations, in my opinion, are the least likely place for expansion processes to be noticeable by definition. In EE theory, spreading is the result of magmatic extrusions and uplift -- which is occurring predominantly in and around the oceans (seafloor spreading) (not on the on the most stable part of the continents.) Places that are in obvious uplift (mountains, calderas, volcanoes, islands that are being built etc.) are always ignored in these situations; new material extruded onto the surface via volcanic processes are also ignored, places experiencing uplift due to "super plume uplift" or "post glacial rebound" are also carefully ignored. I think it is reaching to assume, given the complicated structure of the Earth, that at all times every part of the globe rises at the same rate simultaneously. The most reasonable expectation for expansion is that at anyone time, different parts of the globe experience more uplift and volcanic related extrusions and riftings than others.
For example, 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans -- and as shown in the reference here:

http://www.csr.utexas.edu/gmsl/tptemporal.html.


, this is rising skyward at an average rate of 3.1 mm/yr.
Even if we assume that all the continents are perfectly stable, this necessarily means that the geoid is expanding outward and the circumference is increasing.
However, even neglecting the papers by Shields and Scalera, we know the continents are not completely stable.
All of the high latitude regions are also known to be rising. This is accepted and explained, perhaps plausibly, by the post hoc hypothesis of post glacial rebound. Lots of free parameters are allowed (particularly regarding the inner viscosity of the Earth) in order to explain away this increase. Here are some quotes:


According to Milne et al. (2001), PGR is affecting all of Fennoscandia: "The Fennoscandian region is in active uplift, with a maximum uplift rate of 11.2 +/- 0.2 mm/year for the site of Umea."
(Milne at al. (2001) "Space-Geodetic Constraints on Glacial Isostatic Adjustment in Fennoscandia." Science. Vol. 291, pp 2381 -2385) 2)

According to Donnellan and Luyendyk, 2001, PGR is also occurring in Antarctica: "The network also suggests a dome of uplift centered near the Rockefeller Mountains, with the maximum rate being in the Rockefeller Mountains of 12 +/- 8 mm/yr. This is consistent with proposed post-glacial rebound for the region." (Donnellan, Andrea, and Bruce P. Luyendyk, GPS Measurement of Tectonic Deformation and Isostatic Rebound in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica, Eos Trans. AGU, Fall Meet. Suppl., Vol. 82, no. 42, F801, 2001.) 3)

According to Argus (1999) and Pagiatakis and Salib, (2002) PGR is also pushing up Canada: (Argus et al. (1999) JGR v. 104, p. 29077-93, 1999.) In fact, Argus wrote in a personal communicaton: "Canada is still rising," and "that gps observations shows that postglacial rebound is undoubtedly still occurring in Canada and Scandinavia.

Now, what exact data are you referring to?

Russ:
Ignoring incontrovertible evidence a symptom, not the root cause. But the inevitable conclusion must be that the evidence is ignored because of some ulterior motive for espousing this theory. The usual reason for ignoring/misusing science is religion, but there are others.

djmenck said its not a religious objection, but he didn't say what the objection is. So I'll repost:
quote:

Can anyone tell me what non-scientific objection to plate techtonics/continental drift is at work here?

Dennis; The above are all scientific objections and analyses obviously. That you are unaware of the significance and rationale behind biogeographic arguments -- or what thorough analyses of geodetic data reveal does not mean that they are "unscientific" or that you can quickly label those with whom you disagree.

Originally posted by djmenck
DJM: Which is?

Russ: MASS.

Dennis: Well, one assumes you don't believe the Earth popped into existence at its present mass, right?
Simply because something increases in mass does not suggest mass conservation is violated. The most reasonable mechanism for planetary expansion, in my opinion, involves fluid-sink views of gravity which involves the collection (not the spontaneous generation) of ultra-mundane matter at the cores of astronomical bodies.
 
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  • #32
Very interesting. I'll try to do some simple calculations on the back of an envellope with those data. Is the Earth expanding or is the equatorial bulge pulsating. The mass of the Earth can only increase with the accumulating cosmic debris. The radius of the Earth is a function of many parameters, including heat. Would it be an idea if the interior of the Earth is heating up, causing the expansion?
 
  • #33
Andre:
Very interesting. I'll try to do some simple calculations on the back of an envellope with those data. Is the Earth expanding or is the equatorial bulge pulsating. The mass of the Earth can only increase with the accumulating cosmic debris.


Dennis: Well, with "accumulating matter" of some sort. Recently, various physicists have begun inspecting ether views of gravity (and ether views of electromagnetism has a very old and classic tradition). Most don't advocate an expanding Earth -- because they are unaware of the evidence -- but a background, superfine universal ocean of particles that served as the medium for light and gravity would allow such an accumulation of mass at the cores of astronomical bodies. Indeed, the drift of these particles toward the cores would be the cause of gravity. This is speculative of course -- but so is the notion that all matter, all space, and all time exploded from a singularity in a colossal creation event called the "
Big Bang."
 
  • #34
GRACE

After GRACE has been gathering data for a couple of years, I expect this expanding Earth idea will have some very hard data to chew on.
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

BTW, I didn't see any response from djmenck to my question regarding the celestial mechanics, Earth-Moon system implications of this expanding Earth idea. AFAIK, anything as radical as a ~100 km change in the Earth's radius per 100 million years will surely show up in the Moon's orbit!
djmenck Recently, various physicists have begun inspecting ether views of gravity
IIRC, nothing new here; (a)ether alternatives to SR and GR have been around for a long time; unfortunately, they all fail to account for at least one of the major sets of experimental/observational data; SR and GR have passed them all, with flying colours
djmenck This is speculative of course -- but so is the notion that all matter, all space, and all time exploded from a singularity in a colossal creation event called the "Big Bang"
Er, no, the Big Bang has some pretty solid observational support, so it's moved a long way from being 'speculative':
- Hubble flow (aka expansion of the universe)
- primordial nuclide abundances
- cosmic microwave background (CMB)
 
  • #35
Neried:
After GRACE has been gathering data for a couple of years, I expect this expanding Earth idea will have some very hard data to chew on.
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/


Dennis: Actually, no one is really denying that the geoid and Earth's surface is expanding.
There's 3.1 mm of sealevel rise every year (which covers 71% of the Earth's surface), post glacial rebound dominates high latitude regions, and VLBI, GPS data of mid to lower latitude regions also show some increase. This is all explained away, not denied.
Also, Grace, unfortunately, is not an absolute gravitational test, it just details local differentiations in the gravitational field by measuring the difference in way the field attects the pair of orbiting detectors.

Nereid,
BTW, I didn't see any response from djmenck to my question regarding the celestial mechanics, Earth-Moon system implications of this expanding Earth idea. AFAIK, anything as radical as a ~100 km change in the Earth's radius per 100 million years will surely show up in the Moon's orbit!


Dennis: A lot of people are asking for a lot of information, and I'm typing as fast as I can. (BTW, I haven't seen a serious response to the biogeographic paper -- and matching geological outlines.) Anyway, yes, of course, an increase in oceans and mass will increase both the gravitational force and tidal forces -- forcing the moon to speed up and expand its orbit. Currently, the moon is moving away from the Earth at such a great rate, that if you extapolate back in time -- the moon would have been so close to the Earth 1.4 billion years ago that it would have been torn apart by tidal forces (Slichter, 1963). This was a mystery for decades that surprised mainstream planetary scientists. It is now explained away by assuming that tidal forces were not as great during the Mesozoic as they are today.
"Slichter, L. B. Secular Effects of Tidal Friction upon the Earth's Rotation. Journal of Geophysical Research 68(14), July 15, 1963"


quote:
djmenck Recently, various physicists have begun inspecting ether views of gravity

Nereid:
IIRC, nothing new here; (a)ether alternatives to SR and GR have been around for a long time; unfortunately, they all fail to account for at least one of the major sets of experimental/observational data; SR and GR have passed them all, with flying colours

Dennis: 1) While, as I wrote, ether descriptions of EM have a classic tradition, recent fluid (ether) analogues describing gravity are currently emerging as an entire, new physics field:

Matt Visser, "Acoustic black holes: horizons, ergospheres, and Hawking radiation" Journal-ref: Class.Quant.Grav. 15 (1998) 1767-1791
G. E. Volovik, "Induced Gravity in Superfluid 3He" cond-mat/9806010
Barcelo, S. Liberati, and M. Visser, "Analogue gravity from Bose-Einstein condensates", Classical and Quantum Gravity, 18, 1130-1156 (2001).
Or Barcelo, Liberati, and Visser, "Analogue Models Of and For Gravity," which can be found here: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0111111

Volovik's theory is an ether view of gravity -- though not an ether sink view. The description by Visser is essentially an ether sink.

2) There are a variety of problematic phenomena not explained or explained away with post hoc hypotheses involving relativity -- including:
a) The Information Paradox
b) The Pioneer Effect
c) Indeed, GR does not correctly predict the rotation curves (velocity profile) of any of the billions of galaxies -- and requires the post hoc invention of dark matter, a substance that has eluded detection for seven decades, in order to reconcile the motion of galaxies with GR predictions.
d) Many, if not all, of the successful predictions of GR -- and necessarily all the successful predictions of SR -- are reproducible with ether theory. Etc...

quote:

djmenck This is speculative of course -- but so is the notion that all matter, all space, and all time exploded from a singularity in a colossal creation event called the "Big Bang"

Nereid:
Er, no, the Big Bang has some pretty solid observational support, so it's moved a long way from being 'speculative':
- Hubble flow (aka expansion of the universe)
- primordial nuclide abundances
- cosmic microwave background (CMB)

Dennis: All have other and less fantastic explanations -- particularly red shift. Moreover, the theory continues to be tweaked and transformed in order to match data. Inflation, dark energy, cosmo constant are all post hoc notions invented -- or reintroduced -- to save the Big Bang interpretation from troublesome observations. Moreover, none of what you describe remotely suggests the extraordinary notion that *time* and *space* exploded from a dimensionless point. This is based on many different assumptions.
 
  • #36
Dennis,

Is this all connected? In other words, is it more appropriate to start a thread in Theory Development on alternatives to the 'mainstream' physics that underlies celestial mechanics, astrophysics, geophysics, and cosmology? Or perhaps just a more restricted view (still in Theory Development), e.g. alternatives to GR?

Being a newbie, I rely on Mentors to make a call about "Other Sciences -> Archives". Personally, I'd welcome the chance to discuss cosmology (the Big Bang and alternatives) and astrophysics. I'd be a keen follower of discussions on nuclear and particle physics, as well as SR and GR.

If we're just discussing an idea or two about the Earth and whether its radius and/or mass has changed, and still is changing, significantly, could we have some specific hypotheses to get stuck into please?

BTW, GRACE + GPS + VLBI = pretty stringent tests of any expanding Earth hypothesis, esp as it allows for estimation of the systematic biases you referred to (e.g. location of radio telescopes), and seems to be exactly what one of the people you quoted is looking for ("On the whole, the notion of an expanding Earth is not in favour, but the topic may be revived by global geodesy").
 
  • #37
Originally posted by Nereid
Dennis,

Is this all connected? In other words, is it more appropriate to start a thread in Theory Development on alternatives to the 'mainstream' physics that underlies celestial mechanics, astrophysics, geophysics, and cosmology? Or perhaps just a more restricted view (still in Theory Development), e.g. alternatives to GR?

Being a newbie, I rely on Mentors to make a call about "Other Sciences -> Archives". Personally, I'd welcome the chance to discuss cosmology (the Big Bang and alternatives) and astrophysics. I'd be a keen follower of discussions on nuclear and particle physics, as well as SR and GR.

If we're just discussing an idea or two about the Earth and whether its radius and/or mass has changed, and still is changing, significantly, could we have some specific hypotheses to get stuck into please?

I'm not sure what you mean -- but let me try to be specific:
Earth's radius was 55 -60% of its current radius in the Upper Triassic (200 mya.) Thus, the size of the Earth at that time was on the order of Mars.
It has recently been noted that Ganymede and probably Europa have experienced some post-formation expansion:

Consider for example the following:

Kerr, R. A. 2001 "Jupiter's Two-Faced Moon, Ganymede, Falling Into Line."
Science, 291, 22-23

And the following paper documents one effort to explain the expansion of Ganymede.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1695.pdf

The reason the discussion veered toward physics is because any questions regarding mechanism suggest a relook at solar system formation theories, which are not chiseled in marble and have some problems. Current theory of gravity (GR) is very successful -- and many of its equations and principles are undoubtedly accurate -- but minor differences in the conceptual interpretation of general relativity (ether sink analogues) do allow for a convenient mechanism for expansion (as well as new theories of planetary formation).
But I do think we should look at what the evidence demands before we start analyzing pros and cons of possible mechanisms.
 
  • #38
Intrueging isn't it. Just playing with thoughts.

There has been a very long discussion here somewhere about gravity being related to the density of the universe. With the universe expanding the density would be decreasing and the gravity constant would be increasing. Hence gravity would have been lower in the past, also the reason of the gigantic dinasaur creatures of the past. However this would mean that the Earth was to be contracting with gravity increasing. This would be measurable too.

A smaller Earth with the same density would have had a much higher gravity. Big problem for the dinasaurs. Again, just toying thoughts.
 
  • #39
Originally posted by Andre
Intrueging isn't it. Just playing with thoughts.

There has been a very long discussion here somewhere about gravity being related to the density of the universe. With the universe expanding the density would be decreasing and the gravity constant would be increasing. Hence gravity would have been lower in the past, also the reason of the gigantic dinasaur creatures of the past. However this would mean that the Earth was to be contracting with gravity increasing. This would be measurable too.

A smaller Earth with the same density would have had a much higher gravity. Big problem for the dinasaurs. Again, just toying thoughts.

Hi Andre,

Actually a smaller Earth with the same density would have a lower surface gravity. Running the tape backward in time, the volume assuming constant density) and mass of a shrinking sphere reduces in proportion to the cube of the radius -- while the force only would increase inversely proportional to the square of the radius.
Smaller planets and moons of similar density have lower surface gravity.
The website below discusses expanding Earth in the context of lower surface gravity and massive dinosaurs:

http://www.dinox.freeserve.co.uk/english/

--D
 
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  • #40
djmenck: ... let me try to be specific:
Earth's radius was 55 -60% of its current radius in the Upper Triassic (200 mya.)
Two data points then; any others?

Also, what was its mass 200 mya?
 
  • #41
Originally posted by djmenck
...Recently, various physicists have begun inspecting ether views of gravity...
So in other words, the Big, Ugly, Fat Flaw can only be explained by completely trashing and rewriting most of what we know about physics. Good to know - and maybe this points to the real motivation behind this idea? Plain ordinary distaste for "established" science. Dissapointingly mundane.

Incidentally, evolution is mentioned as evidence for EE, but what about all the fishes in the seas for the past 4 billion years? If there were no oceans, where did they go? And don't tell me they were camping in New Mexico and got caught in the mud and that's where the fossils came from.
 
  • #42
Russ: So in other words, the Big, Ugly, Fat Flaw can only be explained by completely trashing and rewriting most of what we know about physics.

Dennis: 1) You claim rather vaguely the "big, ugly, fat, flaw" is "mass" -- yet all known theories require steady increase of planetary mass at some point. Planets didn't just pop into existence at their present mass. Moreover, Big Bang assumes all mass (and space and time) spontaneously generated out of a singularity. So even though such a violation of conservation of mass is not part of EE, you don't think it much of a flaw anyway.
2) The analogue models of gravity, for which I provided four references in mainstream journals, are based on standard fluid dynamics. No new physics at all.
3) Russ's complaints are precisely the same as mainstream geologists of the first half of the twentieth century who were claiming Pangaea and the motion of continents were a "physical impossibility" and would "rewrite the laws of physics." They too ignored the most obvious of biogeographic data as well as the matching geological outlines, claiming that the matching outlines were a coincidence and that all the trans-oceanic biotic links simply crossed the ocean or spread from one region to the other and then conveniently disappeared (just like Panthalassa) from the interim regions.

Russ:
Good to know - and maybe this points to the real motivation behind this idea? Plain ordinary distaste for "established" science. Dissapointingly mundane.

Dennis: Well, it's actually you who is denying established biogeography -- which is based on evolution -- and in fact you are ignoring a myriad of biogeographic facts in order to maintain certain fashionable assumptions.

Russ:
Incidentally, evolution is mentioned as evidence for EE, but what about all the fishes in the seas for the past 4 billion years? If there were no oceans, where did they go?

Dennis: Glad you asked: All marine fossils from 200 million years ago or earlier are found exclusively on continental locations -- just as expanding Earth theory predicts. That's because all large marine environments pre-Jurassic were epicontinental seas -- not oceans. Incredibly, if we deny expanding Earth theory, all the pre-Jurassic oceanic marine fossils must have vanished, along with all pre-Jurassic oceanic crust, as well as all of the fossils of all the trans-Pacific taxa that simply "walked" from one location to the other. Hmmm. Even your mainstream fixist geologist counterparts of the first half of the twentieth century didn't have to accept that many miracles.
So it's not really about "established" vs. "dissident" science; it's about what part of planetary science are you willing to reject: 1) the fashionable assumptions of geology or 2) a plethora of biogeographic and geological facts?
 
  • #43
djmenck: Earth's radius was 55 -60% of its current radius in the Upper Triassic (200 mya.) Thus, the size of the Earth at that time was on the order of Mars.
Where's my old envelope, ah, here it is ... let's see now, formula for volume, g, density, ah, OK:
If the mass of the Earth remained constant, 200 mya it's average density would have been ~28,000 kgm-3 (more dense than iridium, the densest element), and the surface gravity would have been ~30 ms-2.
If the density remained constant, 200 mya g would have been ~5.6 ms-2, probably low enough for oxygen to have escaped the same way hydrogen did much earlier.

As there're only two data points, we can fit any curve we like, so I'll choose a straight line - mass or volume change per unit of time is constant. Let's see now, ... got it! The Earth sprang into existence ~246 mya (before then it had negative volume, or mass).

Got a third data point Dennis? Or maybe a bigger envelope?
 
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  • #44
DJ
Actually a smaller Earth with the same density would have a lower surface gravity

True, but that's not what I was thinking about. I just assumed the gravitational constant not to be constant but increasing in time due to the idea that the density of the universe is decreasing. Just very hypothetical of course. This would mean a contraction of the Earth while maintaining a constant mass. This would decrease the radius and hence increase gravity.

Working backwards, the radius of the Earth would have been bigger in the history and also due to the increased radius Earth gravitation force would have been less, facilitating the giant dinosaurs and the assisting the first flying animals of course.

But great thinking outside the box here. I Love it. Did I mention that the ice ages did not exist? After finishing laughing I'm happy to proof it.
 
  • #45
Originally posted by Nereid
Where's my old envelope, ah, here it is ... let's see now, formula for volume, g, density, ah, OK:
If the mass of the Earth remained constant, 200 mya it's average density would have been ~28,000 kgm-3 (more dense than iridium, the densest element), and the surface gravity would have been ~30 ms-2.
If the density remained constant, 200 mya g would have been ~5.6 ms-2, probably low enough for oxygen to have escaped the same way hydrogen did much earlier.

As there're only two data points, we can fit any curve we like, so I'll choose a straight line - mass or volume change per unit of time is constant. Let's see now, ... got it! The Earth sprang into existence ~246 mya (before then it had negative volume, or mass).

Got a third data point Dennis? Or maybe a bigger envelope?

Yes, I got a much bigger envelope. Here's Maxlow's Ph.D thesis on volume of Earth from the Archaen to the Recent:

http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20020117.145715/

which suggests a paleoradius of 1700 km during the Mesoproterozoic

You write: "If the density remained constant, 200 mya g would have been ~5.6 ms-2, probably low enough for oxygen to have escaped the same way hydrogen did much earlier."

These are just shoot from the hip efforts to dismiss quickly a rather well tested and rich theory that has been the subject of 100+ peer reviewed papers and many books. It's obviously not that simple.
Mars, which is smaller than Triassic Earth and has less surface gravity than your guesstimate above, has a thin atmosphere -- despite lacking the relatively extreme Triassic Earth volcanism (and plants) that would continuously replenish it.
 
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  • #46
Originally posted by djmenck
Yes, I got a much bigger envelope. Here's Maxlow's Ph.D thesis on volume of Earth from the Archaen to the Recent:

http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20020117.145715/

which suggests a paleoradius of 1700 km during the Mesoproterozoic

You write: "If the density remained constant, 200 mya g would have been ~5.6 ms-2, probably low enough for oxygen to have escaped the same way hydrogen did much earlier."

These are just shoot from the hip efforts to dismiss quickly a rather well tested and rich theory that has been the subject of 100+ peer reviewed papers and many books. It's obviously not that simple.
Mars, which is smaller than Triassic Earth and has less surface gravity than your guesstimate above, has a thin atmosphere -- despite lacking the relatively extreme Triassic Earth volcanism (and plants) that would continuously replenish it.
Thanks for the link Dennis. From Maxlow's Conclusions:
Maxlow: While the extensive spherical model studies presented in this thesis empirically demonstrate that the concept of an expanding Earth is a viable global tectonic process, the problem of where the excess mass comes from remains a very real enigma. These conclusions, therefore, are simply based on the observations made from the published global geological and geophysical data.
In Chapter 6 he says:
Maxlow gain: Mathematical modelling of oceanic and continental surface area data demonstrates that the Earth is undergoing an exponential increase in palaeoradius commencing from a primordial Earth of approximately 1700 kilometres radius during the Early Proterozoic.
IIRC, 1700 km is about the radius of the Moon, and the Early Proterozoic was ~1600 Mya. Maxlow's thesis is silent on the question of the Proterozoic atmosphere.

Using Maxlow's figure, and assuming a constant density, my envelope says g would have been ~2.6 ms-2 in the Early Proterozoic, and that methane, ammonia, nitrogen, oxygen, ... but maybe not CO2 ... would all have escaped between the period of late heavy bombardment and 1600 Mya.

Of course, as Russ said, and as Maxlow implied, an exponential increase in the Earth's mass, from ~1600 Mya to now, does rather upset a few applecarts. Speculating wildly for a moment, if the effect were not limited to just the Earth, the whole of astrophysics would need to be re-written, as well as (most likely) much of nuclear and particle physics. Seems I'm going to need more envelopes.:wink:
 
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  • #47
Unfortunately, there has been no serious discussion of the referenced biogeographic facts, the matching coastlines, the juvenile age of seafloor, and the geodetic data. These uncontroversial and problematic facts are all ignored while quick and faulty objections, based on naive assumptions, continue to be flung outward -- perhaps in the hope that something sticks.

Nereid:
"Thanks for the link Dennis. From Maxlow's Conclusions:"

Maxlow, like many EE'ers, is accepting what the geological and geodetic data state -- despite being unaware of the possible mechanism for planetary expansion. I, however, provided a possible mechanism -- as well as references for it.

Nereid: In Chapter 6 he says: IIRC, 1700 km is about the radius of the Moon, and the Early Proterozoic was ~1600 Mya. Maxlow's thesis is silent on the question of the Proterozoic atmosphere.

Using Maxlow's figure, and assuming a constant density, my envelope says g would have been ~2.6 ms-2 in the Early Proterozoic, and that methane, ammonia, nitrogen, oxygen, ... but maybe not CO2 ... would all have escaped between the period of late heavy bombardment and 1600 Mya.

Dennis: You naively equate surface gravity with atmosphere -- while ignoring the fact that atmospheres can and are replenished (as predicted in EE theories.) Titan has a radius perhaps 40% that of Earth -- yet has an atmosphere 10 times thicker and atmospheric pressure 1.5 times as great as Earth. This atmosphere even includes non-negligible amounts of hydrogen -- something that would not be consistent with your back of the envelope calculations.


Nereid: Of course, as Russ said, and as Maxlow implied, an exponential increase in the Earth's mass, from ~1600 Mya to now, does rather upset a few applecarts.

Dennis: 1) Well, actually and again, current theory demands a much more rapid rate of mass increase for the Earth -- essentially all the increase occurring in 500 my (as opposed to the comparatively slower increase over 4.5 by suggested by EE.)
2) Again, you sound like the mainstream geologists who argued for fixed continents (and fixed radius). They all said it was physically impossible for continents to move. Despite vehement denials and the fact that Wegener died unknown, their applecart was overturned.


Nereid: Speculating wildly for a moment, if the effect were not limited to just the Earth,

Dennis: You mean like it may also occur on, say, Ganymende or Europa? Well, we don't have to speculate. It's already accepted that Ganymede (and possibly Europa) has experienced post-formation expansion.
Check for example:

Kerr, R. A. 2001 "Jupiter's Two-Faced Moon, Ganymede, Falling Into Line."
Science, 291, 22-23

And the following paper documents one effort to explain the expansion of Ganymede.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/LPSC99/pdf/1695.pdf

So I don't have to overturn that particular applecart. Galileo photographs have already done it for me. :wink:

--Dennis

PS. But I suspect the expansion of Ganymede will be ignored here -- just as the hundreds of trans-Pacific biotic links, the matching outlines, the juvenile oceanic crust, the geodetic data are ignored.

PPS. Also, and I repeat, the mechanism for expanding planets and moons is based on pure fluid dynamics. The equations and principles of particle physics, nuclear physics, etc. will remain unscathed.
 
  • #48
Maxlow sais:
...the problem of where the excess mass comes from remains a very real enigma...

but nevertheless DJ says:

Also, and I repeat, the mechanism for expanding planets and moons is based on pure fluid dynamics. The equations and principles of particle physics, nuclear physics, etc. will remain unscathed.

My two cents: an hypothesis that requires the production of mass out of nothing seems to be defeating physical laws. This is not doing much good to the credibility of his hypothesis. Exceptional claims require exceptional substantiation. I guess Maxlow should try and have a solid explanation first for this magic trick before proposing such an idea.
 
  • #49
Maxlow: While the extensive spherical model studies presented in this thesis empirically demonstrate that the concept of an expanding Earth is a viable global tectonic process, the problem of where the excess mass comes from remains a very real enigma. These conclusions, therefore, are simply based on the observations made from the published global geological and geophysical data.
Well, I got to give the guy credit - at least he recognizes the B.U.F.F. even if he makes no attempt to explain the phenomenon. He essentially puts it outside the scope of his thesis, but in doing so makes EE a tough pill to swallow.

Also, the article about Ganymede is talking about expansion and contraction on the order of 1%. The mechanism required for that is far different from what we are talking about here: no one is disputing that its possible for a planet to expand or contract by 1% or so. The Earth's current expansion (that you cited) is explainable by the ice caps melting for exmple (note however, since its ICE melting that makes the ocean rise, the total volume of the Earth is going DOWN even as the oceans rise).

Also, arguing that science is dogmatic doesn't help prove your point - it only strengthens our perception of your non-scientific objection. You cannot win a scientific argument by attacking the scientific process - you just end up cutting yourself off at the knee.

EE cannot ever become a theory unless it can adequately deal with the B.U.F.F (and Maxlow acknowledges that). It can't just be left dangling or chalked up to the standard model of physics being vastly wrong.
 
  • #50
djmenck: Unfortunately, there has been no serious discussion of the referenced biogeographic facts, the matching coastlines, the juvenile age of seafloor, and the geodetic data. These uncontroversial and problematic facts are all ignored while quick and faulty objections, based on naive assumptions, continue to be flung outward -- perhaps in the hope that something sticks.
So let me be clear then, my primary interest is in drawing attention to the amount of 'unexplaining' that would need to be done if the Earth is expanding, to the extent that, and at a speed which, the authors of the papers you cite propose. My principal means of doing this will be, as far as possible, quantatitive, drawing upon 'lab physics' and high school math. An example is a 'back of the envelope' calculation which shows that the Earth would have had an average density greater than that of iridium (and much greater than that of lead) if it had a radius ~3,700 km and the same mass as it does today.

I'm now looking up the links in this thread, and have got up to the Lawrence S. Myers website. He states that:
Myers: WHAT’S CAUSING RAPID GROWTH AND EXPANSION? ANSWER: TWO concurrent basic mechanisms reinforcing each other: ACCRETION OF MATTER FROM SPACE GRADUALLY INCREASING EARTH’S MASS, GRAVITY, SURFACE AREA AND DIAMETER INTERNAL CORE EXPANSION BY TECTONIC FORCE OF EXPANDING MAGMA MELTED BY GRAVITY-GENERATED COMPRESSIVE HEAT
Looking only at the first of these, Myers goes on to say:
Myers again: The planet is slowly accreting new mass consisting of at least TWO types of matter from outer space—meteorites and meteor dust, plus solar energy captured by photosynthesis in living organisms
Lab physics: solar energy captured by photosynthesis in living organisms does not produce new mass.
Question for Dennis: Are you willing to start a thread, in Theory Development, on how "solar energy captured by photosynthesis in living organisms produces new mass"?

High school math: If the Earth had the same density 200 Mya as it does today, a radius then of ~3,700 km, and a fixed rate of growth in mass, the other source cited by Myers (meteorites and meteor dust) would amount to ~60 billion tonnes per day (cf the highest observed rate, quoted by Myers, of 55,000 tons/day).
 
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