Is the earth expanding?

Well, we must assume that laws of conservations are valid. So there must be something accumulating inside Earth that fuels the growth. Call it dark matter or dark energy or whatever. What is certain is that this thing is very weakly interacting with normal matter, and must have mass/energy and thus responds to the gravity field.
That's a bit short to build a physical mechanism, isn't it?
That's why I think it is more important to focus on the evidence of the growth as a first step.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Same answer than to Origin.
Tidalites can't provide evidence for or against a growth of the Earth, because it assumes that Earth's orbit remained stable and the gained matter has zero momentum.

Flow tectonics is dominant in a growing earth. The WBZ is the front of a running crustal/mantle flow. A WBZ forms as the mantle overrun the lithosphere found on its path, and push it down.

Science is based on observations. Observations allow to infer that Earth grows in mass and size. But there is no clues for a mechanism, so no science to do for that part of the theory.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It is a scientific theory (based on scientific data, makes verified predictions).
It does not attract exclusively cranks (Sam Carey was certainly not a crank).
It does attract a lot of cranks because it is spectacular and has a lot of profound implications.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Hello Guys,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Many different sciences are used to learn about the earth, however, the four basic areas of Earth science study are: geology, meteorology, oceanography and astronomy.

 

The earth is expanding, but only in the sense that the entire universe is undergoing an expansion. While many people thing the expansion of the universe just means objects getting increasingly distant, it is the very fabric of the cosmos expanding. A time will come, very very far down the road, where space will have stretched to the point where even star formation will be impossible.

Reality can be trippy.

 

Really?? Please show us this "scientific data" and any of the "verified predictions."

Indeed, Carey was not a crank but that did not prevent him from falling for a crank idea. He managed to get only a VERY small number of scientists to work with him on that crackpot idea while the rest shunned him harshly. He certainly did a lot of early work on continental drift, and later, on plate tectonics. But he failed in his mission to establish his idea of "expanding Earth" because he did not accept plate subduction - which has now long been accepted as fact and IS based on scientific measurements and hard data.

 

I'm sure that you are familiar with James Maxlow's work.

Actually, he was the first one to propose a balance between lithosphere accretion and destruction. But he later moved to a diapiric interpretation of WBZ, i.e. the WBZ is the interface between a spreading diapir and encountered lithosphere.
And this interpretation is clearly supported by all data. For example in anatolia where a mantle upwelling in anatolia initiated a flow motion, with slab rollback of encountered lithosphere as a consequence at the front of the flow. See the following quote:

 

Because you don't use the correct referential for this case. Relatively to the Pacific lithosphere, i.e. the lithosphere that get subducted, the Okhotsk lithosphere is moving to the South-East, i.e., not parallel to the trench. How does look the mantle anisotropy along the WBZ there? How are the beachballs along the megathrust?

If there is no doming, then the rising material is too dense. If the material is too dense, it spreads before doming. That's all about isostatic equilibrium.

Use a better terminology that "crust closest to a trench" please. Are you referring to the slab shielding the geothermal flux?

 

This referential frame is as arbitrary as the others. A more "universal' reference frame would be that based on the global easterly mantle flow (1).

(1) Crespi, M., Cuffaro, M., Doglioni, C., Giannone, F., and Riguzzi, F. (2007). Space geodesy validation of the global lithospheric flow. Geophysical Journal International 168.

?? This is a megathrust, so the pacific lithosphere must be the preferred reference frame because this is evidently the lithosphere that is subducted. And in this reference frame the Okhotsk lithosphere is moving to the South-East toward the pacific lithosphere as logically expected. Reciprocally, if the Okhotsk lithosphere is the referential frame, then the pacific lithosphere will logically appear to move toward the Otkhotsk lithosphere, as expected for a megathrust.
You're apparently very confused with GPS measurements.

Besides you did not answer to my questions, Please do so:
How does look the mantle anisotropy along the WBZ there? How are the beachballs along the megathrust?

Both elements give additional clues.

Do you see doming in the back-arc under which the diapir head is located?
If there is no doming, then it means that the diapir is denser than the lithosphere it is piercing through and not pushed from below by material lighter than the surrounding mantle. In this case the diapir will stop rising before reaching the surface and will spread laterally and there will be no doming. Again, this is just a matter of isostatic equilibrium.

You're terminology was clearly not accurate
So the answer to your question: the slab is shielding the geothermal flux.
Do you disagree?

Are you responsible for moving this thread to Pseudoscience?
Who failed basic scientific tests? Could you detail the tests that got failed please?
Besides, are you really qualified to judge if the expanding theory is a pseudoscience? For example, how much scientific literature did you read about it? Or did you only watch some crackpotery?

 

I understand that the 20 posts limit for including link is for spammer?

 

Sorry to post yet another meanless post to reach that limit.

 

and last post to reach the limit.

 

Trippy. I appreciate a good scientific discussion, but only if the people involved in the discussion understand what they are talking about. And you don't.

Your claim that "the Okhotsk plate moves in almost the same direction as the pacific plate" is clearly unsupported by the link to the figure you provided:

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

As anyone can see in this figure, the velocity vector of the Pacific plate and Okhotsk are perpendicular to each others. Is that what you call "moves in almost the same direction"?
Moreover, the sum of the vector components perpendicular to the Okhotsk/pacific Boundary, ie the components of interest to determine if the two blocks are converging or not, is not null at all (!). Actually, the Okhotsk vector being parallel to the boundary and the Pacific vector being perpendicular to the boundary, it is easy to estimate that the convergence rate is about 92 mm/y, quite impressive.

In conclusion, you're clearly wrong. But will you admit it?

Evidently because when one want to show a convergence between to blocks, it is more convenient to choose one of the two blocks as the referential frame. It is just good old logic.

It is not according to a theory, but according to simple logic. And it does tell me that you are devoid of logic.

Well, if you believe that I'm wrong about the convergence of Pacific and Okhotsk (I remind you that the boundary is a megathrust!), you have a serious problem of cognitive dissonance.

Please don't use rhetoric and simply answer my question. Is there any doming in the back-arcs? yes or not?

The terminology used in your question was not accurate enough to provide an accurate answer. So you must rephrase it.

Except that it was your claim. So basically you move this thread to pseudoscience because you made pseudoscientific claims. Bravo! Do you have any ethics at all?

A geologist that can't interpret geodetic measurements or do not know that a megathrust is a convergent boundary? And you're a moderator of the Earth Science sub forum? hum.
Anyway, even the most brilliant geologists must read the literature on a particular subject to understand it. So how much scientific literature did you read about the expanding earth theory? Or did you only watch some crackpotery which would put you at that same crackpot level?

PS:I suggest you to abandon your condescending tone, because you're absolutly not in position to adopt such tone, moderator or not.

 

A typo? Really? Let me remind you what you wrote.
About the Kuril trench (boundary between Okhotsk/Pacific), on 06-02-11 06:54 PM, you wrote:

Here you clearly states that the WBZ is parallel to the plate motion of Okhotsk. If the boundary was parallel to the plate motion then the boundary would be transform fault, not a megathrust (!)

Here you clearly states again that the Okhotsk plate moves parallely to the boundary, to the southwest, and not to the southeast toward the Pacific. But you splendily ignore the fact that the Pacific is moving toward the Okhotsk plate (!)

Then on 06-06-11 06:08 PM, you wrote.

Suggesting again that both the pacific plate and Okhotsk plate move in the same direction.

Who could believe that 3 times the same mistake is just a typo. Give me a break. you're backpeddling and denying the facts.

Thanks but no thanks. If I provided this reference, it is evidently because I have the pdf and read it.

Incredible, you persist in your error! Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum!
If it appears sub parallel, it is simply because the velocity of the global mantle flow is larger than the norm of both the Okhotsk and Pacific velocity vector. In other words, if the norm of two vectors u and v is smaller than 1, and if we add a vector w of norm 10 to u and v, then u+w and v+w will appear sub parallel. Very very basic math.

You confirm that you really don't understand what you're talking about and that you have serious issues with the comprehension of relative motion.

This is becoming ludicrous. I insist, to clearly show that two blocks are converging, one must choose one block or the other as a referential. Any other referential will provide a less appropriate representation of the convergence.

So according to you, it is poor logic to choose as the referential one of the two blocks that we want to show to converge? Because it leads to misleading impressions? There is no more doubt. You're in denial.

This is a special effort for you. And deniers like you deserve it.