[GB: Readers have been asking us to review
the Expanding Earth Theory. Although that is a bit removed from our usual focus
on regressive physics and cosmogony, PSI member Bill Howell, a professional
geologist, has consented to do the job. His review consists of three parts.]
Bill Howell
Evaluation of the Expanding Earth and Plate Tectonic Models
4) Evaluation of Dr. Maxlow’s Expanding Earth
Theory
The last
blog identified two expanding Earth models proposed by Dr. Maxlow. They are the Increasing Earth Radius and the
Partial Increase in Earth Radius models.
The Increasing Earth Radius model does not accept that significant
subduction of crustal material into the mantle of the Earth has occurred. According to this model, the continents moved
and the ocean basins formed as a direct result of the Earth’s radius expanding
during the past 200 million years.
Accordingly, definitive evidence of subduction would not just
invalidate, but would falsify the Increasing Earth Radius model. It would not, however, falsify Maxlow’s
Partial Increase in Earth Radius model which does accept a limited form of
subduction based on the physical principle of isostasy.
[Side
bar: Isostasy is a geophysical concept that describes the buoyancy of a mass
that is immersed or embedded within another substance of higher density. Common examples are a floating cork and an
ice cube in a glass of water.
Continental crustal material is less dense than oceanic crustal
material, and both materials are less dense than the material composing the
mantle. A table of data on the webpage
at http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Geophys/earthstruct.html supports
the theory of Isostasy. This table lists
the average densities and depths for different layers of the Earth and also
indicates that these densities increase with depth. The continental crust averages 2.2 g/cm3, the
oceanic crust averages 2.9 g/cm3, the upper mantle ranges from 3.4-4.4 g/cm3,
the lower mantle ranges from 4.4-5.6 g/cm3, the outer core ranges from 9.9-12.2
g/cm3, and the inner core ranges from 12.8-13.1 g/cm3. End Side bar]
According
to Isostasy theory, crustal material (called the Lithosphere) essentially floats
upon a layer of denser material that it is embedded in. The Wikipedia entry at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy describes three models of isostasy, one
of which is the Vening Meinesz or flexural isostasy model. In the Meinesz model, the Lithosphere acts
like an elastic plate and its rigidity distributes the local topographic loads
over a broad region by flexing. The
Wikipedia article also states that when continents collide, crustal material
can thicken at the edges of the collision and be forced downwards by
obduction. Obduction is a geologic
process in which rock material is thrust over and also under other crustal
material by the compression that results from collision.
If
surface crustal material is pushed down into the subsurface (termed
underplating), it is no longer in isostatic equilibrium because it is less
dense and therefore more buoyant. This
is analogous to pushing an ice cube into a glass of water. Like the ice cube, the crustal material will
subsequently ‘float’ upwards to reestablish equilibrium. The phenomenon called isostatic post-glacial
rebound is an example of isostasy that explains why measurements of land that
had been buried under ice sheets until about 10,000 years ago is now
rising.
In Dr.
Maxlow’s models, mountains can be formed as a result of plate collisions
pushing (obducting) material into the subsurface, followed by uplift via
isostatic rebound as the density of the subsurface material reacquires
equilibrium. Because of the physics of
density and buoyancy, crustal material can not be pushed (obducted) to any
significant degree very much beyond the base of the continental crust. In contrast, the PTT model states that while
obduction can and does occur, oceanic material, being denser than crustal
material is subducted into the mantle and often drags crustal material with
it. This distinction provides a test for
the EET and PTT models.
The
thickness of the earth’s crust varies from about 10 to 70 kilometers (km) and
averages about 40 km. The USGS webpage at
(https://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/crust/) states that continental crust
exceeding 50 km thick is exceedingly rare and accounts for less than 10% of all
crustal material. Therefore, in
accordance with the isostatic rebound aspect of Maxlow’s model, earthquakes
much below a depth of 70 km should not occur.
Figure 2
shows the distribution of earthquake foci with depth below Japan. Deep earthquake foci have occurred at depths
of about 700 km below the surface, which is 10 times deeper than Dr. Maxlow’s
model predicts can be obducted into the Earth at continental/oceanic
margins. A Google search provides other
examples of deep earthquake foci at continental-oceanic boundaries around the
world.
The
evidence from deep earthquake foci supports the PTT model that crustal material
is subducted into the mantle and invalidates the Increasing Earth model. It does not necessarily invalidate the
Partial Increase in Earth Radius model however, because Dr. Maxlow counters
that this evidence of deep earthquake foci could be an indication that the
Earth’s expansion during the past 200 million years has been so rapid that
crustal material is still in the process of attaining isostatic equilibrium.
Dr. Maxlow’s
claim could be difficult to definitively refute were it not for the relatively
new science of seismic tomography.
Figure 3 is an image created from seismic tomographic data. It reveals that the Farallon Plate has been
subducted into the mantle to depths of more than 2,400 km. This evidence from seismic tomography of
crustal material subducted deep into the mantle does invalidate the Partial
Increase in Earth Radius model. I don’t
know how Dr. Maxlow counters this evidence because the term ‘seismic tomography’
does not appear in his book.
Figure 3
But there
are additional issues that Dr. Maxlow would need to address before his
extraordinary claims could be accepted.
One that is also related to subduction involves the Geological Map of
the World (Figure 4 below). The bands of
different colors indicate the relative ages of oceanic crust that was deposited
on either side of mid-oceanic ridges where new crustal material forms. Dating of sediments from the ocean floor
reveals that the age of the oceanic crust in these bands increases with
distance away from their mid-oceanic ridge.
This Figure of the age-banding of oceanic crust is a key feature that
Dr. Maxlow cites in his book.
Figure 4. From
Tectonics: The Road Not Taken, Figure 1.1 Geological Map of the World.
In the
center of Figure 4 is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
It provides a great example of an interpretation that oceanic crust has
filled in the gap created by the separation of the American and
African-Eurasian continents. Lighter and
darker shades of green are shown along the margins of both the continental
landmasses. This symmetry, however, is
not seen in the banding from the Pacific Ocean basin. Although the western portion of the
green-shaded banding extends across the entire Pacific Ocean basin, its
symmetrical compliment to the right of the mid-oceanic rise along the west
coasts of the American continent is completely missing. This lack of symmetry is most clearly
illustrated by the lack of any green (and dark-brown) shading along Peru and
Chile. These color bands do not appear
on the eastern side of South America and seem to have simply disappeared
somewhere.
Dr.
Maxlow could argue that this missing oceanic crust has been obducted beneath
the continents, and this argument is supported by the illustration at
https://go.glennborchardt.com/EET-F4b which depicts obducted crustal
material underplating under Chili.
However, seismic data reveals that beneath the Andes mountains there is
a very steeply dipping Wadati-Benioff zone similar to what is shown in Figure 2
above. The Wikipedia article at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-focus_earthquake#Andes states that deep
earthquakes occur beneath the Andes mountains at depths of up to 670 km. This is well below the depths that could
occur from isostatic equilibrium. PTT
contends that obduction can occur, but that most crustal material is
subducted. In contrast, EET contends
that such deep subduction can not occur.
Another
issue Dr. Maxlow needs to address is the existence of the San Andreas Fault in
California. The San Andreas is a type of
transform fault that results from the relative motion between the North
American and Pacific tectonic plate boundaries.
It is a northwest-southeast trending strike-slip fault that runs almost
the entire length of California. South
of San Jose, California, and adjacent to the San Andreas Fault zone, is the
Pinnacles National Monument. Pinnacles
N.M. is a volcanic remnant whose stratigraphy has been correlated with the
Neenach Formation located near Lancaster, California, 300 km to the south. The correlation of these two formations is an
historic event in the history of geologic science because it established that
large scale strike-slip displacement has, occurred along the San Andreas Fault
during the past 23 million years. The
PTT model can easily account for this motion, but the EET model apparently
cannot since the term ‘San Andreas’ does not appear even once in Dr. Maxlow’s
book.
Still
another issue for EET to address is the evidence of marine fossils that lived
during the Paleozoic Era 350 to 250 million years ago. Marine fossils from this era existed long
before the Jurassic Period when Dr. Maxlow’s model predicts that ocean basins
began to form. Accordingly, marine
fossils from the Paleozoic would appear to contradict his model. They don’t, however, because Dr. Maxlow
states that inland (epicontinental) seas covered the continental landmasses
prior to the formation of ocean basins and so these fossils could represent
animals that lived in seas rather than oceans.
How one goes about differentiating a marine fossil that lived in an
inland sea from one that lived in an ocean is a rabbit hole I’m not going
down.
Yet
another issue for Dr. Maxlow to address is that if the Earth has doubled its
radius during the past 200 million years, then there should be observational
geodetic and gravimetric data to support this claim. Amazingly enough, there is such data, but it
indicates that the radius of the Earth over the past few decades has only
increased by an average of 0.2 millimeters/year [6]. As Dr. Maxlow acknowledges, this rate of
increase is 100 times smaller than the 22 millimeters/year he calculates are
required to support an expanding Earth model.
A final
issue Dr. Maxlow needs to explain is what I call ‘Another Missing Mass Problem’
(in reference to the astrophysical problem that resulted in our current
paradigm about Dark Matter). If the
Earth has doubled in size during the past 200 million years, where did this
additional mass come from? Dr. Maxlow
speculates that electrons in the solar plasma are captured by the Earth’s
magnetic field and converted into matter within the interior of the Earth.
I don’t
know whether or not it is possible for solar plasma to enter into the Earth and
be transformed into matter, but the concept seems to be another ad hoc
speculation required by his model in order to explain how the Earth’s radius
could have doubled during the past 200 million years. Dr. Maxlow acknowledges that this solar
plasma solution is speculative, but that only makes it yet another
extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. And with no evidence (much less any
extraordinary evidence), I don’t know how anyone can evaluate such an
idea. It feels like going down yet
another rabbit hole. After a while,
chasing down so many ‘alternative interpretation’ rabbit-holes begins to feel
like a game of Whack-a-Mole.
End of
Part 2
In the
third and final part of this essay, I describe a possible synthesis of both the
EET and PTT models which could resolve the controversy for those who are
attracted to the theory of an expanding Earth.
Bill
Howell, 2020 howellb004@gmail.com
References
[6] Shen,
Sun, Chen, Zhang, LI, HAN, & Ding. Evidences of Earth Expansion from
Space-Geodetic and Gravimetric Observations. Ettore Majorana Foundation and
Centre for Scientific Culture, 37th Interdisciplinary Workshop of the
International School of Geophysics, Erice, Sicily, 4-9 October 2011, 131-134
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