CompuServe Messages

Hey Doug >> The crystal structure does not disappear during these solid-state deformations, only a few bonds break and reform, not all of them at once. << This is tough, the structure is so interlocking. The crystals have faces and these are all packed together like a 3 d puzzle. How can they rearrange without some melting going on. On a large area it is easier to allow this happening but looking close at the structure there isn't alot of space for these toothy crystals to rearrange themselves in a slow process without melting going on. And melting would not occur at the temperatures at the water crust interface. >>The mid-oceanic ridge strikes me as a problem for your theory – it is missing in too many places where it should be.<< The only place there is no ridge is in the area between S. America and the Antarctica and here we have a very unique formation unlike any other in the basins because of the motions that occurred there. The ridge formed perpendicular to the sum of the force/direction of the flows. The central part of the ridge formed while the continents were still in close proximity. Also there is the wider faster motion at the bottom of the atlantic split and the southward motion of S. America. >>Put model continent shapes into a thick liquid and try to generate anything wave patterns remotely resembling the existing ridge, taking pictures at any point in time you like; I am confident you will not be able to.<< I have been planning it….the material needs to be magma like…like cooling fudge but needs to be more brittle as it skins over like wax. I think it will create the same features if the materials used have the right properties. >>In plate tectonics the shape of the ridge in the internal (new) oceans (the Atlantic and Indian) is easily derived from the simple first principles of the theory. Find the pairs of points at the continental shelf edges that were together in the supercontinent of Pangaea, connect each pair and find the midpoint; the collection of midpoints is a rather good approximation of the ridge (I assume it will look better on a globe than on flat maps).<< true for both theories >> That this works as well as it does is a preposterous coincidence from the viewpoint of your theory; that your theory needs lots of surprising crosscurrents and extra assumptions to come close to explaining the precise shape of the ridge makes it a weakness for your theory relative to plate tectonics.<< There is not a lot of difference in the connection points between the two theories. They both have to deal with what is and work backwards. The unbroken continuity of the ridge and the similarity of its components makes it's creation in a single event almost obvious. You mentioned waves again. If I started the wave idea it wasn't quite how I see it. Its more like a tide motion. I see the central ridges forming in succession as the continents moved in a slow back and forth motion as they moved apart. After a while the back and forth motion subsided causing the ridges to become smaller and smaller and then finally there was just smooth motion in the final stages. It is puzzling how the ridge runs into North America almost as if the continent over ran the ridge after it formed. Kamron