The international “New
Concepts in Global Tectonics Conference” was held in May of 2002 in La Junta,
First, presenting
an essay and obtaining sincere feed-back certainly does count as one of these
peak encounters. At this NCGT Conference it actually happened that some scientists
asked me to explain my theory in detail. Thoughts shared during such intensive
discussions tend to circulate beyond the confines of a single mind.
Left to right:
Jacob, Luckert, Gottfried
While explaining my theory,
it occurred to me that I could do better if I had suitable illustrations of the
worldwide coherence pattern of the
continents. In spite of “continental drift,” this pattern has persisted on
our planet to this day. Such illustrations enable us to make inferences about
past horizontal tensions in the Planet’s crust. They also indicate how
continents tore apart or how some weak areas between them were being stretched
(as has been the case in Middle America, Austral-Asia, the Arctic area, and the
Mediterranean). Expansion pressure from the interior of the Planet translates
into horizontal tension in the crust. I am therefore inserting, below, the
images of five hemispheres that show the coherence pattern of the continents
and their shelves.
Second, a renowned
contributor and co-founder of the Plate Tectonics theory assured me,
personally, that Plate Tectonics theory has nothing to say about the formation
of the eastern Rocky Mountains where we were. These mountains are being
uplifted far away from any ocean where “subduction” might occur. Inasmuch as
these words were spoken in the course of informal conversation, I think I
should not mention his name before I have obtained his consent, or, before I
have found similar statements in his writings. But then, proof by appealing to
an academic authority is of no use in basic science. Let us rather get into the
habit of contemplating the data ourselves.
Third, on our
field trip to the mountains I saw for the first time something that, in line
with my theory of expansion tectonics and mountain formation, I always supposed
it exists. I have earlier explained how the process of Earth expansion produces
continental flanging. Because the Planet’s surface does flatten, continental
mid-regions must sag and settle down as plains, thereby squeezing extra
materials and magma sideways, underneath—thus from underneath the Great Plains
toward the higher bulging plains to the west. To the extent that the crust is
being cracked and mended from underneath, it also is hydraulically uplifted.
Its brittle upper lithosphere is being deformed and faulted, and eroded from
above. Igneous mountain ranges are uplifted by such processes, and washed bare.
For years I have been
suspecting igneous new mountain ranges underneath the eastern
“Earth Expansion and the Eocene Tectonic
Event”
Karl W. Luckert—NCGT Conference 2002—summary of presentation revised
for this website
An improvised
preface to fit the occasion: Now that
we have heard from Christian Smoot about how he sees the ocean floors, and
about his doubts regarding magnetic stripes and ocean floor dating, we can no
longer be sure whether we do or do not have a dependable ocean floor
chronology. I must therefore alert you to the following proviso regarding my
essay. If the magnetic ocean-floor stripes cannot be dated, I will simply “bracket”
all my dates. My account regarding Earth expansion can be presented quite well
without the benefit of an absolute chronology—as long as some kind of sequence
of the magnetic stripes remains probable. I proceed under the assumption that
this is still the case. Moreover, in 1979 I came to similar conclusions about
Earth Expansion having had only continental contours and some topography to
work with.
*
* *
At the Tsukuba conference,
Then I showed a twenty-minute video animation,
excerpted from my “Expansion Tectonics.” I looked at the audience and saw no
evidence that I convinced anyone. Afterward James and I talked among ourselves,
and it became obvious that neither of us was able to convince the other.
After returning from Tsukuba I wrote the booklet, Planet Earth Expanding and the Eocene
Tectonic Event, which, in 1999, I placed on my website www.triplehood.com .
There are, of course, some general basic agreements
between the two of us. (1) Both begin with the hypothesis, based on the new
ocean floor chronology, that over the past 200 million years Planet Earth has
expanded roughly by the size of its deep oceans. (2) Both agree that magnetic
stripes on ocean floors are important data that supplement what we know about
topography, continental contours, and data from ocean floor drilling. And (3)
both agree on the simple sequence in which the Atlantic Ocean appears to have
spread. These three points of agreement between Maxlow and Luckert are
completely coincidental, inasmuch as neither of us was aware yet of the other’s
existence when independently we concluded them.
In our present confrontation with the overly popular
“steady-size-Earth version of Plate-Tectonics” theory, the third point is
almost mute. Even some proponents of the steady-size-Earth version do see the
Atlantic as having spread, amidst Pangaea, without the benefit of ocean floor
subduction or convection currents in the mantle. These people have learned to
live with a miraculous one-ocean exception to the uniformity of nature!
James Maxlow and I disagree on the Jurassic
positioning of Australia and Antarctica. As most Earth-expansionists have done
so far, he places Australia in the north of the Pacific space, and he attaches
Antarctica just south of it. By contrast, I return the round Antarctica smack
into the Pacific and let Earth expansion account for the extra space. I return
the Bight of Australia to the tip of South America.
Unfortunately, James Maxlow cannot be here with us
today, and so it would be somewhat unfair of me to expect you to accept my
theory in his absence. Inasmuch as he and I have not been able to convince each
other, perhaps we both can enlist your help and ask for your involvement. You
can tell me what I might be doing wrong. And you will also be able to tip off
Maxlow about what it will take to convince me.
WHENCE
AUSTRALIA?
Maxlow pulls out Austral-Asia from the hide of
Jurassic East Asia. You should be able to find his animations at his website
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/6520/
But for me the problem is larger than the Pacific. I
must begin in the eastern Indian Ocean.
The Paleocene and Eocene floors there suggest that Austral-Asia was bent in the
opposite direction than Maxlow proposes, away for the Ninety-east Ridge. The
Eocene triangle in the northeastern corner of the Indian Ocean leaves no
alternative. Austral-Asia was bent north-eastward. Jonathan Dehn has
established, tephro-chronologically, that a major tectonic event has occurred
along the Ninety-East Ridge, approximately 42.7 million years ago.
In the Philippine
Sea a Paleocene stretch was split into two halves by Eocene rifting. The
Marianas oval was squeezed from the south—while the rest of East Asia
experienced circumferential slippage. The East
Asian marginal seas are Eocene as well. They were pulled open mostly by that
same Eocene event of “continental slippage” (more about this “slippage” can be
found in my antecedent 1999 booklet, at this website).
Then, South
America is longer than it needs to be in order to match Africa. The two continents separated
during the Lower Cretaceous. Since the time of that separation
Continents are not somehow born apart to drift freely;
they are torn from the original planet’s shell. And to achieve a tearing, two
obstinate sides were needed. There is not only a budget of lithosphere areas to be concerned about, but there also
is a budget of global tensions that
must have been present for severing the continents. I postulate the presence of
a circumferential belt of continents—including
the Americas, Asia, and Australia—that spanned the globe until the Eocene. The
tip of South America was lodged in the Bight of Australia. Thus, until the
Middle Eocene it was global
circumferential tension, caused by Earth expansion, which stretched open
Middle America, the Arctic area, Austral-Asia, and which elongated South
America. Then an event of global circumferential slippage occurred.
While we do have the problem of intercontinental
tearing and tensions already on our minds, lets us digress for a moment to the
most popular Expansionist proposition—of having Jurassic Australia located
north of
Then, Jurassic
ocean floors alongside
WHENCE
ANTARCTICA?
With the exception of
With the exception of
Where could a round continent on
Planet Earth have come from—in a manner that satisfies all the requirements for
a Jurassic area budget as well as for subsequent severance-tension budgets?
Indeed, we do have a round cavity
shaped like the 9 of Antarctica, right next to this loose continent.
Moreover, my expanding balloon experiments have shown that it is quite natural,
initially, for a round patch of crust to be broken out of a spherical shell as
a result of expansion pressure that is being converted into horizontal surface
tension. Then, let us look at the “Ring of Fire” and at magnetic stripes in the
Pacific. They continue to give us the 9-shape of
Antarctica, expanding all the way up
to our present day. And the Ring of
Fire, though considerably expanded over time, still outlines the initial scar
from along which
While at the north of this planet all the continents
still are together, they have broken open in the south like the blossom of a
flower. So, during the Eocene a major tectonic jolt set off the birth pangs by
which the Antarctic Plate began to slip from the Pacific womb. How was this
possible in relation to everything else?
First, Australia snapped away from the tip of South America and created
there a soft bottom. Eventually it widened to become the
A CLOSING
THOUGHT
I have been told that my theory could not be valid
because back in 1979, already, I have placed the tip of South America into the
Bight of Australia—based at the time merely on estimating continental contours.
Yes, indeed, I did not consult magnetic stripes until after the California
earthquake of 1994. But so what! One cannot disprove a contemporary theory by
the incomplete data and hypotheses that lie in its prehistory. The arrangements
achieved by others—including those that have Australia in the North
Pacific—also were at their inception mere projections based on continental
contours—lubricated here and there by a scientist’s creative imagination.
Surely, all scientific theories, including mine,
suffer from a variety of growing pains and contain a variety of weaknesses.
Some of these I already know, and I continue weighing them against those that
so far have rendered alternate theories unacceptable. And if there are
weaknesses that I do not yet know about, I hope I will know these soon. Perhaps
with your help I can be converted to a “majority” Expansionist view. It is no
fun to stand alone as a minority of one—upon this ever-expanding planet. A
human being craves company and should be able to enjoy dialogue, now and then.
Life is short.
Back to “Expansion Tectonics”—Hood
Two of the Triplehood Institute