Plate
Tectonics is Expansion Tectonics
The Tectonics
of
Karl
W. Luckert
Professor
emeritus at SMSU
Presentation
at the Conference on “Erdexpansion—eine Theorie auf dem
Prüfstand“—
Mining and
Convened by Prof. Dr.-Ing.
Karl-Heinz Jacob,
Technische Universität
Berlin
Bold print
identifies the VideoScript. Normal print
indicates
materials of similar
importance for which no place was found in the video.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Abstract: A
number of conclusions at which popular Plate Tectonics has arrived shall be
accepted at the outset as being basic. The crust of our planet appears divided
into several fragments or “plates.” With the continuous addition of rising
magma, the plates are growing along the fissures and rifts that contour them.
Cooled by ocean water, the rising magma cushions harden and thereby add new
stripes of crust.
At
this point of theoretical visualization the various tectonic theories divide to
continue along different paths. The majority of subscribers to Plate Tectonics
believe that the Earth has maintained her size, and that for each fresh stripe
of ocean floor that is being added a corresponding width is being subducted along continental coastlines or elsewhere in the
great ocean. In order to better visualize the difficult wide-angled process of
ocean floor subduction, along continental coast-lines, these scientists have postulated a process of subduction that is being kept in motion by currents of magma
in the mantle.
Nevertheless,
the presence of tectonic plates and spreading rifts, as well as the widening of
ocean floors, are more easily explained with the help of a general theory of
Earth-expansion. The oceans widen, the distances between the continents are
getting larger, and the Planet grows. My presentation therefore follows a path
of plate-tectonics that accepts the possibility of
Earth-expansion.
Arguments
for Earth-expansion do sort themselves into a variety of foci as well. First,
there is a group of arguments that have been developed on the basis of physical
theories. With their help one hopes to find an explanation for the suspected
increases regarding the mass and volume of the Planet. Such arguments would
enable us to explain Earth-expansion materially, but not necessarily
tectonically. I personally consider the demand, that a credible theory of
Earth-expansion must first explain the physical core of expanding matter, merely
as a burdensome overload, which is demanded of Earth-expansionists but ignored
by those who demand it when it comes to explaining their own convection currents
or magma in the mantle. In my opinion, this demand only serves as a distraction
from tectonic questions. I therefore limit myself intentionally to tectonic
phenomena that offer themselves superficially as structures and which can be
grasped as such. As the pioneering astronomy of Nicolas Copernicus has been
purely structural or “tectonic” astronomy—which never really touched upon the
substance of the universe—so it should be possible, to begin with and still
today, to approach the problem of Earth-expansion
tectonically.
Among tectonically oriented theories of Earth-expansion, one can find
again several hypothetical placement patterns for the primeval continents. These
differences pertain mostly to the continents of
With this present-day “almost established“
solution I do not agree. First, the round of
The Earth-expansion theory which is offered here seeks to derive
As
far as the large mountain ranges along continental margins are concerned, the
popular field of Plate-tectonics has always tried to explain their uplift on
hand of a postulated subduction of ocean-floors.
However, utilizing a clump of painter’s putty, and a rubber balloon, I shall
demonstrate analogously the tectonic origin of mountain ranges along the
continental peripheries—having recourse only to spherical expansion, and making
do without a process of subduction.
Part
One
Past the Popular Plate
Tectonics, to the Uplift of Mountain Ranges
The events about which I am
reporting here may surpass in scope all stories that we have read in past
decades—about meteorite impacts or about other natural catastrophes on our
planet, during early epochs. The opening of the oceans between the continents,
the rising of mountain ranges, and the breaking of the global belt of
continents, during the Eocene, are creative events which can be traced in the
widening cracks of the Planet’s crust. And all of this can be explained, without
having recourse to the risky “subduction” hypothesis
of popular Plate Tectonics, with its “convection” currents of magma in the
mantle.
When in 1979 a
Pangaea-oriented paleontologist provoked me into making my first paleo-globe, I had never heard of Alfred Wegener, and I also was oblivious to the fact that several
people before me have been making evolutionary Earth models. Paleo-models of Planet Earth were constructed primarily to
explore the possibility of matching continental contours beyond the obvious
display in the
The parallel
contours of the
Paleo-globes are not the only means by which to argue for our planet’s expansion. In every argument some of the issues are being defined by the opposition. Those in opposition believe that tectonic plates do exist. I do too—and moreover, I utilize empirical data that Plate Tectonics people have collected. These people also believe that there are rifts running along the ocean floors and that along these the floors are spreading. I do too—even though I also am convinced that the oceans could be better understood if their floors were being perceived positively, not as gaps, but as the “growing edges” of continents. Most people who belong to the opposition would love to live upon a planet that proves to be eternally solid. I would prefer this as well. But unfortunately, such a wish is not in my power to fulfill. The Earth is doing whatever the Earth is doing. Plate Tectonics people are laboring under the shadow of Alfred Wegener, and Wegener labored under a shadow that neither he nor his followers have contemplated sufficiently.
The Continents
according to Alfred Wegener
In 1915 Alfred Wegener published Die
Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane, in
which he showed how the continents were separating from an assembly of
continents that he named Pangaea. There was general opposition to his ideas, but
over time the possibility was accepted that continents may be
adrift.
When after World War II the
American initiative to explore the world oceans led to startling discoveries,
the sea-faring Earth-scientists reached back to Wegener’s theories. They combined his notion of “wandering
continents” with their new discoveries of tectonic plates, the global mid-ocean
rift, symmetric magnetic striping, and chronology. They synthesized this combination by
adding “ocean floor subduction” and “convection
currents in the mantle.” Caught up in euphoria about the new oceanic
discoveries, under the aegis of the natural sciences, it was generally not
noticed that Wegener, as well as his latter-day
followers, were all along laboring under an ancient cloud of mythology.
Of course, this
fact alone does not prove that they are wrong. Surely, ancient mythology had
some things right. But this happenstance should be an incentive for careful
historical introspection and examination of the subject matter.
There are two
mythical notions that still haunt those who study tectonic plates in the shadow
of Alfred Wegener. First there is the “central land,”
surrounded by a world-ocean, and second there is the “sea in the middle.”
Wegener
was under the spell of both.
Ancient
Mesopotamian land dwellers envisioned their all-land to be centrally located. It
was watered by rivers and surrounded by the boundless and mostly unknown
world-ocean. For merchants who subsequently crisscrossed the
When Alfred Wegener contemplated the matching shorelines of the
Today the notion
of pagaea-centered ocean-spreading is being
demonstrated, in Plate Tectonics theory, still mostly on hand of the easily
matched shorelines of the
Of course, this
exemption from a supposed natural law does not withstand even a first spark of
reason. According to the new magnetic ocean-floor chronology, the Indian and
Pacific oceans do feature similar quantities of epochal stripes and patches
along their floors, which have accumulated since Jurassic times. In order to
avoid fair comparison, the Indic and Pacific oceans are being dissolved in the
mythic Panthalassa with all its fog and glory. An
all-surrounding world ocean that is kept close to the Wegenerian ancestry—supported by the central presence of
Pangaea—surely can devour any amount of ocean floor. Why should an
all-surrounding world ocean be unable to do this?
The function
ascribed to deep-sea trenches, as places of subduction, has no place in an empirical science. The
conjecture merely rests on the blind assertion that deep-sea trenches cannot be
simple jarring-features. All the while, the deep-sea explorers were dumbfounded
from the outset, that the sediment in these suspected “subduction trenches” appears undisturbed and of the same age
as the surrounding sea. There was no scrape debris to be found anywhere. Instead
there are occasional cracks—running lengthwise—as obvious signs of small
movement in the “wrong” direction. The equivalent of two thirds of the planet’s
lithosphere would have had to disappear through these imaginary subduction zones without leaving a trace “somewhere” in the
Greater Panthalassa—within less than 200 million
years.
It is of course
understandable, that someone who believes in a process of subduction will search the suspected subduction zones for every possible trace of evidence.
Slanted earthquake zones dipping under the coastlines—so-called Benioff Zones—have been mentioned as such evidence. But
expansion-friction can account more easily for these zones. The difference in
thickness that exists between continental and oceanic crust implies that all
along the boundary, between land and the deep sea, there must exist not only a
downward shelf-slope overhead, but also a corresponding mantle-slope that rises
below the crust, seaward as well.
Inasmuch as our postulated “expansion-friction” (also named
“expansion-flow”) would then necessarily have to rumple upward along that
bottom-slope of the lithosphere, all earthquakes along the so-called Benioff zones are explained.
There is an
additional effect of the expansion process that will produce earthquakes along
Benioff Zones. Expansion-friction, between the mantle
and the crust, tends to roll the edges of the plates upward (a process which
earlier I have characterized as “flanging”). This tendency of “upward rolling”
increases the gradient of the mantle slope until, eventually, the differential
between the continental and oceanic crusts—along the half anticline—has been
evened out with intrusive transported materials.
Accretionary prisms also have
been mentioned as remnants of subduction. In 1998 I
wandered, in the company of a bus-load of international geo-scientists, along
the shores of
The idea of a
Pangaea and the surrounding world-ocean was conceived on behalf of a Flat Earth
view of the world. For that reason it enables now the modern Pangaea dwellers to
arrange their geography quite easily on a flat world map.
This predilection enables them
to neglect the backside of the sphere. The convenience of a two-dimensional
geo-science is preferred by many students. On the other hand, fully developed
three-dimensional thinking, which also is well anchored in the fourth dimension
of time-awareness, cannot just choose any one ocean as being central. And it
cannot just push all the difficult area-problems out into a surrounding Panthalassa. While Wegener’s theory can be animated with a single view, by
showing a flat world map, my own theory requires several perspectives of
hemispheres.
Meanwhile, even
people who espouse an Earth Expansion theory have been susceptible to ancient
mythology. For instance, the goddess Tethys, revered
along the shores of
Formation and
Uplift of Mountain Ranges
Whenever in a debate I reject
the subduction hypothesis, for lack of empirical
support, I am given as evidence only a protest question: “How else can one
explain the uplift and presence of mountain ranges on our
continents?”
Indeed, I will explain the
uplift and presence of mountain ranges in a few short minutes. But first I like
to give recognition to the honest perspective of a pioneer of the Plate
Tectonics revolution.
During May of
2002 the international “New Concepts in Global Tectonics (NCGT) Conference” was held in La Junta,
Among the
magnificent mountains of
Surprised that we were in
agreement I continued asking: “Why nothing?” He answered “There is no ocean
nearby for subduction to
work.”
Clear and simple,
Plate Tectonics theory cannot explain the formation of inland mountain ranges.
Personally I would add that—apart from theoretical diagrams, it also cannot show
convection currents in the mantle and the subduction
of ocean floors. It also cannot explain to my satisfaction the volcanoes of the
A Slab of Putty versus the Miter
Joint
Approximately a decade
ago I watched for the first time a teaching movie that illustrated subduction-oriented Plate Tectonics theory. There are two
images from this exposure that over the years have continued to rummage through
my mind. I clearly remember the ocean rift that once upon a time was supposed to
have divided Eurasia along the
Ural Mountains mobile belt. And I remember the wide-angled
miter-joined board that was supposed to illustrate the direction of ocean floor
subduction. I will pick up this gauntlet, now at last,
and will square up the carpenter’s miter joint with a lump of painter’s putty.
Already in 1979 I
simulated continents in the form of slabs of putty upon the flattening surface
of an expanding balloon. Back then I argued for Earth expansion, and noticed
tensile folding, flanging, and relative expansion flow. I referred to cracks
that were forming in the lithosphere under “Precambrian geosynclines,” and I
wrote about magma intrusions from below. But because my aforementioned concepts
could not be found in official geology texts, no-one dared to understand what I
meant—or to take it seriously.
For this video lecture I have
devised a method of showing the underside of my continental slab of putty. I
patted down a clump of putty and pumped up a balloon. A
balance between brittleness, cohesion, and adhesion, was required.
Since I had neither control over slippage on
the balloon surface, nor a way of simulating gravity from within the balloon, I
could only experimentally adjust the stickiness of the putty by trial and error.
There was some flanging along
the edges, and when a significant rupture appeared at the surface I assumed that
the cracks that formed at the underside of the slab would be greater. It had to
be that way, because the surface of an expanding balloon flattens out. I mixed a
batch of plaster to cast a mold. By means of this cast the putty slab could then
be lifted from the balloon surface untouched.
In real-Earth processes, by
Relative Expansion Flow, all the dents and cavities at the underside of the
lithosphere would have been filled by magma and metamorphosed rocks—and been
filled at the same speed as they were being torn open.
I poured Plaster of Paris into
the mold. At the upper right on the cast one can see formations of tensile
folding. These represent the initial form of all parallel mountain ranges. In
areas of greater stress, deep cracks have been torn open. They all run parallel
to the perimeter of the slab. Most mountain ranges upon the continents of our
planet are aligned in this manner. The challenge of popular Plate-tectonics,
with its stiff-angled subduction of ocean floors, is
with the help of this simple putty-and-balloon experiment effectively bypassed.
On this
experimental model I obtained only a single row of cracks. This was a limitation
of the experiment. In real-world geological history these crevice molds would
have gotten filled with hot materials at the same time as they were torn open.
Gradually they would have cooled and toughened. This means that parallel rows of
cracks would have been torn open and filled next to
them.
A marginal detail
of my experiment deserves to be mentioned. I have put forth every effort to lay
down an even putty surface onto the experimental balloon. Only at one place did
I allow a thin fold to form underneath, intentionally, running ninety degrees
against the direction along which I expected flanging to occur. I wanted to see
how such an adverse wrinkle would behave.
No crack was torn
across this test fold. But small perpendicular fissures have begun to form.
These fissures are not spaced at crossings, exactly opposite one another;
rather, the crust at either side of the test fold simply tore wherever tension
from expansion friction exceeded the putty’s cohesion factor. We have here a
clear case of offset faults, such as have been discovered along rifts and cracks
in the oceans. Such offset transform faults are being created because the
lithosphere is being stretched in all directions at once—by all-around Earth
expansion. All the while, cracks break open at random, wherever and whenever
tension is sufficient. Because the oceanic lithosphere is thinner, rifts and
transform faults are breaking through the surface more easily than on
continents.
Another
experiment has yielded unexpected results. My quantity of putty was too dry, and
it sat and slid upon the rubber surface as though expansion-friction
(Relative Expansion Flow) did not matter. The
experiment seemed unworthy of a plaster cast. But scientific habit prevailed,
and behold! I got a continent covered with low granite domes. I recognized this
landscape immediately, because I have seen it in
From Baby Mountains to
Grand-old Peaks
Evidence for a rebuttal of subduction-oriented
Plate-tectonics stared me right in the face on several occasions during that
same field trip in
Alongside the
Sediments are
being carried eastward by rivers, and they contribute to weighing down the
Central Plains just a little more. The cycle exerts a little more pressure
westward, deep under
Nevertheless, the
primary engine for mountain formation and uplift is not climatic erosion.
Earth expansion is that engine. The energy and material for mountain
formation, and for uplift, comes from beneath the lithosphere.
There the
mountains are preformed. Because the Planet expands, continental surfaces
necessarily must flatten. This means that the mid-regions of continents must sag
and adjust to the new curvature. And by
so settling they produce large central plains that some geologists call
“cratons.”
Underneath, where mantle and
lithosphere share a viscous semi-liquid cushion between themselves, surplus
magma is being squeezed sideways and outward from under the middle of the
continental crust. Creeping outward from under the flattening continental
shield, magma pressure can cause outlying plains to bulge upward and become
“high plains.” Then along that bulge, the brittle lithosphere may fail to
contain the increasing pressure from underneath. Anciently pre-molded, jagged
mountain ridges gradually break forth and rise. They are being uplifted
hydraulically from below, pushed by their own youthfully hot, sluggishly
creeping posterity.
The processes of
magma injection from beneath, and uplift for exposure to erosion, are displayed
well in
After having seen
the lowest
So, before we
allow Alpine reality to overwhelm us, we should bear in mind that the age
sequences in sedimentary and igneous strata generally are different. Sedimentary
layers, at the surface of the lithosphere, are deposited on top of one another.
Unless they get overturned by severe tectonic upheaval, bottom layers are oldest
and top layers are youngest. In addition, they are unevenly distributed on the
surface of the Planet.
At the underside of the
lithosphere, “erosion” and “deposition” do happen upside down. Hot igneous
strata are pasted to the bottom of the lithosphere, and are cooled from top
downward as the crust thickens. Younger magmas carry with themselves sedimentary
and metamorphosed scrapings from the lithosphere overhead as well as from the
mantle below. Together these materials may end up either intruded into fresh
crevices, or layered underneath older rock which they help uplift hydraulically.
Hydraulic fluid and molten rock, in this case, are the same
substance.
Many
Earth-science texts give the impression as though Alpine mountains have risen,
and then been given all their characteristic shapes by climate and erosion. Most
of the high Alpine mountains are covered nowadays with snow and ice. On that
account, glaciers are given most of the credit for having fashioned them. And
indeed, the contributions of glaciers to Alpine cosmetics are extensive. But
seriously! Did these long mountain ranges get their crests, or did the
It
looks as though many Alpine peaks in the world have been molded during the late
Precambrian and early Cambrian periods. Here is a map that sketches Precambrian
mobile belts (It is based on a projection by Professor Harold Levin The Earth Through Time, 1988). Accordingly, expansion must have been
underway already 500 million years ago—thus long before the first oceans began
to crack open. These jagged high peaks were uplifted to pierce forth at many
places on the Planet—such as in the
Since Jurassic times, the continents have
extended their crusts by way of adding stripes of ocean floor. Along the oceanic
spreading rifts we therefore find another generation of mobile mountain belts,
generated and uplifted by the same processes of Tensile Folding, Flanging, and
relative Expansion Friction.
Relative Expansion-friction, or
Expansion-flow, is caused by expansion movement in the mantle. Relative to the
continental crust that lies overhead, Expansion-flow increases its speed outward
from the middle of a continent. It grows a half-ocean along the continental
edge. The outer edge of the young surrounding crust rolls upward as a
half-anticline. In this manner the puckered “lips” of tectonic plates touch
lightly, uplifted by hot magma. Their light “kiss” surrounds the whole
Earth.
If a crack from
down below is torn all the way up through the lithosphere, the intrusive magma
may erupt and a lava flow may result at the surface. Examples of such massive
flows are the Deccan Traps in
Strong
earthquakes are rare in the middle of sagging continental shields or “cratons.” But they do happen when a brittle section of the
continental dome collapses to adjust to the expanding and flattening mantle
curvature. Such inland earthquakes, when they are contained in a craton, frequently create over- and under-thrusts that in
time may extend to tens of kilometers. Petroleum engineers in the American
Midwest frequently find themselves drilling through the same stratum twice.
Expansion tectonics can explain such duplicate stratification rather easily.
In my 1999
booklet, Planet Earth Expanding and the
Eocene Tectonic Event, I have explained the 1964 earthquake in
Part One of this presentation can now be summed up in form of a small riddle: In their first manifestation during tectonic evolution, how could a mountain range and an ocean be distinguished from one another? The Answer is: They could in the beginning not be distinguished from one another, because both originated as similar cracks along the underside of the Earth-crust. Their later differences must be explained in terms of differential expansion rates in the mantle, and in relation to regional physical characteristics inherent in the crust.
Part
Two
Spreading Oceans and Growing
Continents
Makers of paleo-globes usually have, for the sake of simplicity, preferred to work with a “budget of available areas.” However, I personally have come to the conclusion that a “budget of continually adjusting tensions” is of equal importance. I therefore like to begin the second half of my presentation, concerning the oceans and continents, with an emphasis placed on asthenospheric and continental cohesion. After an overview on directional tensions has been provided—illustrated in the shape of three straps that during the Eocene were reduced to a simple belt—the “budget of available areas” will display itself.
Three Straps and a
Belt
When the crust of
our planet began to tear open seriously during the Jurassic, there appeared
cracks that later widened to become the Pacific,
Large hemispheres showing present continental cohesion in the north and
separation in the south.
Smaller Jurassic hemispheres showing the beginnings of our deep
oceans.
When our oceans
were still young and existing by themselves—that is, during Jurassic times
before Africa, South-America and Australia were severed from each other—the
cracked-open crust of our expanding planet still consisted of three bands or
„straps“ that remained fastened together in the north and in the south. All
three continental bands were significantly stretched apart, already during
Jurassic times. Large stretch-zones came into being along the
Because the continental straps broke first in the south, and because
their breaking has reduced expansion stress in other areas, there was no
immediate need for them to also tear apart in the north. The tip of
During the
Cretaceous the “
The remaining two straps—that is, the two
It is noteworthy that the rupture between
Obviously, the talk about a “crack,” in this context, pertains only to a
“superficial” surface perspective. The deeply torn gash can also be valued
positively, as locally amplified growth in the mantle, caused by
Earth-expansion. In addition, this entire torn area became a new home to the
firstborn continent of the Planet—round
While
in earlier days we constructed our paleo-globes in
hope of improving our continental outlines with better continental shelf
estimates, we now have vastly improved topographical maps of all the ocean
floors. Since 1988 we also have the UNESCO Geological World Atlas, with ocean
floor maps based on magnetically embedded stripes and reversals. While not
everything on these maps is perfect and free of risky projections, some of the
stripes have been drilled into, dredged, and dated. We now have sequential
isochrons—a series of steps extending from a zero-ocean globe in the Jurassic,
some 180 million years ago, to the size of the present oceans. This situation is
a scientific illustrator’s dream that has become
reality.
With the help of
isochron maps it is now possible, theoretically, to take any ocean and reduce it
to its Jurassic size. This method works fine all across the
The Eocene Event in the
After some
hesitation, in 1979, I have concluded that the
The
The
rifts of severance that ran along both sides of
Obviously, in
this discussion all references to the directions—east, west, north, or south—are
to be understood in relation to the present globe. I do
not wish to say much about the location of the poles or the equator during the
earlier epochs.
The Paleocene and
Eocene floors in the Indic show that the entire continental mass of Austral-Asia
was bent eastward and away from the Ninety-East Ridge. The Eocene triangle, in
the northeastern corner of the Indic, leaves no room for another explanation.
According to tephro-chronology, this eastward bending
might have happened some 42.7 million years ago. This date of 42.7
million years ago has been assigned by tephro-chronology to a huge tectonic upheaval along the
Ninety-East Ridge (see Jonathan Dehn, http://www.aist.go.jp/GSJ/~jdehn/research/diss.htm).
The continental edge that left
the Ninety-East-Ridge scar—the longest straight line on the globe—could
initially only have been pulled straight by a north-south tension. Then, while
the Austral-Asian continental unit was bent eastward, the west/east Paleocene
spreading rift provided the soft edge along which all the older southern floors,
up to the Paleocene, could slide east and northward together. On a sketch-map we
can return some of these to their former
places.
The angular slabs
from the Cretaceous appear to be broken and pushed into one another—too much to
be completely sorted out at this very moment. We shall keep this condition in
mind and simply return
The round Pacific
was expanded over the course of time, to such a degree that the belt that
consisted of four continents—
This flat map is
ill suited to illustrate the dynamic of an expanding sphere. While we now turn
to an approximate Paleocene globe, we are enabled to observe the Eocene event
from the perspective of the
While I now display the evolution of the Indic, in the time-span of one minute, I will only name the epochs: Jurassic, Lower Cretaceous, Upper Cretaceous, Paleocene, Eocene, and Oligocene onward to the present globe.
The Eocene Event
along East Asia’s Marginal Seas
Now we bring our
camera into the northern Pacific and look westward—to obtain a wide-angle view
of the marginal seas of
The
The great retreat
of the Asian mainland was triggered by the break in the global belt of four
continents. When