CompuServe Messages

Hi, Kamron– >>For the enormous plates to move in a direction at all would take a coordinated tremendous amount of work. Blow on a mega-ton iceberg for a few megayears where there are no other winds or currents, and you may be surprised at how much work you did when you measure its progress afterwards (assuming you did not melt it). As for "coordinated", if three people blow in one direction while four people blow in the other, the result will be the same as one person blowing alone. >> The earth would have a consistent crust. Can you prove there would be no magmatic differentiation, no convection in the magma, etc.? Let us _assume_ this and see where it goes… >> How would you propose this initial [plate] motion could occur considering there is nowhere for the crust to move. Then add to it the additional effort required to force the crust to subduct. The crust material is the scum and lighter than the material below and would need to be forced down… We are talking about before the continents formed. At this point (before continent formation), having already assumed no magmatic differentiation, there were no substantial lighter fractions – mantle and crust would be of the same elemental composition. The crust would cool faster, and thus become denser than the topmost mantle. There is plenty of force to be harnessed. The situation is somewhat the same today; the oceanic crust is basalt, similar to the mantle in composition, and the bulk of the plates, the lithosphere, _is_ mantle rock. All that has been added are the continents of lighter rock floating on top. The plates are just itching for a place to sink, at least until they get to the 400-km depth where olivine converts to a spinel structure. >> it is possible the granite that fell back into the molten basalt and due to its lower melting point, melted If something "saved" the Pacific Jurassic sediments from melting in your theory, why did it not save us even more granite and pre-Jurassics in the Pacific? This tooth fairy seems a lot like a Maxwell demon in its choosiness… >> Unless my simulations are out of date the Present Plate Tectonic Theory has a much different motion showing North America separating and moving away 135 Meg ago…. then 35 meg later South America splits from Africa….. Then 45 Meg ago South america moves up to meet N America. This set of motions would end up with an entirely different ocean basin markings. I do not have enough info to respond. When I get a _globe_ with ocean floor detail and a more precise reading on theorized movements, I might be able to detect a difference between the expected results. –Doug