We are at the dawn of a new era, if only...
I stumbled across something quite amazing recently. On YouTube. Not the normal skiing down escalators or imploding crabs, but a whole new scientific theory. Expanding Earth.
Well, I say new, it's not: S. Warren Carey came up with the idea in the 1960s to explain the expansion zones in the Atlantic and across the Earth. However, people generally didn't really like it and instead plumped for Plate Tectonics. The idea that the continents are on fixed plates that sort of swim and shuffle around, with land bridges forming and being destroyed. Like Einstein's "greatest ever mistake", I can't help but feel that Plate Tectonics is a bit of a 'G'. While I went with this plate idea at university, in geology lectures and never really questioned it, now I can see holes. What is the mechanism for subduction, where are all the subduction zones that allow the spreading to be countered? Why is none of the sea floor older than 200 million years?
This expanding Earth idea says that the Earth used to be substantially smaller. The continents are actually the original surface of the planet. It's compelling animation, but more than that it is backed up with biodiversity data - similar trees across contintinents, similar fossils across the world. The fact that all the world used to be covered by shallow sea instead of huge oceans... not only does that better explain fish fossils than periods of orogeny, but aren't shallow seas likely to be better breeding grounds for nascent life?
I am trying to resist the urge to follow a cult and sign my mind away to a freak idea, but I can't see any reason why this theory is any less true than Plate Tectonics, and I can see plenty of reasons why it is a better fit. The main objection seems to be that an expanding earth requires greater mass. Is that really so? Why can't it just become more sponge-like with 'pockets of air' trapped within its body?
Anyway, I'm working on gathering more information, there could well be an article in this if not a thesis. And here I was thinking everything was fine...
Well, I say new, it's not: S. Warren Carey came up with the idea in the 1960s to explain the expansion zones in the Atlantic and across the Earth. However, people generally didn't really like it and instead plumped for Plate Tectonics. The idea that the continents are on fixed plates that sort of swim and shuffle around, with land bridges forming and being destroyed. Like Einstein's "greatest ever mistake", I can't help but feel that Plate Tectonics is a bit of a 'G'. While I went with this plate idea at university, in geology lectures and never really questioned it, now I can see holes. What is the mechanism for subduction, where are all the subduction zones that allow the spreading to be countered? Why is none of the sea floor older than 200 million years?
This expanding Earth idea says that the Earth used to be substantially smaller. The continents are actually the original surface of the planet. It's compelling animation, but more than that it is backed up with biodiversity data - similar trees across contintinents, similar fossils across the world. The fact that all the world used to be covered by shallow sea instead of huge oceans... not only does that better explain fish fossils than periods of orogeny, but aren't shallow seas likely to be better breeding grounds for nascent life?
I am trying to resist the urge to follow a cult and sign my mind away to a freak idea, but I can't see any reason why this theory is any less true than Plate Tectonics, and I can see plenty of reasons why it is a better fit. The main objection seems to be that an expanding earth requires greater mass. Is that really so? Why can't it just become more sponge-like with 'pockets of air' trapped within its body?
Anyway, I'm working on gathering more information, there could well be an article in this if not a thesis. And here I was thinking everything was fine...