Pangaea - how weird is that?

Tectonics are a weird phenomenon to understand. But very liberating when you do.
It is not a violation of creation or some suedo science.
It is purely physics and it is happening before your eyes It is a circle. Start anywhere you want.
Up , down or in the middle. Lets's start down under your feet.
Everything there will eventually be washed into the ocean and make it's way to the deepest parts. It will be pushed down by millions of tons of water, This squeezes on the magma below. The displaced magma looks for a weak spot and may protrude through the ocean floor creating things like the Hawaii Islands or the Canary's, Zipper like faults occur allowing the magma to spread the ocean floor into the path of least resistance. Most of the movement is as slow as a finger nails growth.
The majority of this movement is never seen as it is under water and occurs under the continents where it is returned to the magma. Where this collision occurs between the continent and the oceanic plate, it creates the mountain ranges. As the mountains rise above your feet and reach altitudes of 20 and 30 thousand feet, wind and rain pulverize them to bits an you soon see them heading back to sea under your feet.
What is up comes down. What is down comes up.

There are few places where the ocean floor slides up over the continent. You can see this happening near Barstow California and it is amazing.

Originally posted by president
The mass of a single giant continent would have been larger than the mass of water on the opposite side of the planet.

The rotation would have been out of balance and cause massive shaking.

The turbulence would have been enough to tear the planet apart.

If there were indeed a unified landmass, It would have had to of been on either the north or south pole in order to keep the weight properly distributed.

The center of the continent would have been covered with ice.

And the water on the opposite pole would have looked quite amazing.



[edit on 1-3-2010 by president]

You have some things correct and some not so correct.
Tear the planet apart--some think this is where the moon came from.

There was no water at this point and therefore no ice,
It took a long while for the gasses to settle out and atoms to combine and produce water.

And yes I think it was located in the Southern Hemisphere. A big part of it still is. Antarctica.

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
reply to post by Blogbuster

 

Please stop misusing "theory." it has an actual scientific definition, and does not mean "guess" or "hunch" like you think it does.

A scientific theory is a hypothesis that has so much supporting evidence that it is regarded as true fact. The theory of gravity. Cell theory. Circuit theory. Evolutionary theory. All these things are fact.

The expanding earth is, at best, a hypothesis that has yet to gather any evidence... and that's being very charitable. Perhaps if it tried to gather evidence, rather than playing off a hokey salesman's assurances to his audience that every scientist on the face of the earth is engaged in a massive, totally perfect conspiracy to tell you that crustal plates move...

I don't know how you can say this fox because you are completely and totally incorrect when you say a "Theory is a FACT" ESPECIALLY when you have an infectious ideology using the media as its broadcast base insisting on protecting the dogmas of science as if it were a religion. If you want to call it a fact and not a "scientific fact" then you don't know much about keeping science, scientific and are part of the problem we have in science today where I am seeing more political and ideological opinions clouding the objectivity of scientists moreover an almost cult like following of atheism that has a knee jerk reaction calling any and I do mean ANY argument against the current dogmatism, religious nut jobs.

Their are so many silly ideas given in on these boards by unqualified members who speak on behalf of infallible science as if they are all professors in authority when the fact is they are just another science buff with an axe to grind thinking when someone says just a theory, YOU, not they but YOU are the one that hears the words "guess" or "estimate",

The FACT is fox, a theory IS JUST A THEORY and that can be said as mundane as saying it is hot outside when the FACT is, it is only 68 degrees.

Facts don't really matter until we say that the person shouldn't be hot, they should feel cold. That is the difference between TRUTH and FACT.

The truth to the person saying they are hot when it is only 68 degrees is a FACT because to them it also happens to be the truth. Saying that isn't true because something all the scientists say "but the facts don't show that it is hot, is why scientific facts are what consensus science has done when it ridicules challenging dissenting opinion all these years.

You get peer reviewed papers that comply with the lies so prevalent in Science today. You get arguments using comments like "The debate is over" blah blah blah is TRUE when you don't allow what science used to do to keep science accurate and objective and that was for its peers to question the theory always doubt always pick it apart and test it and never stop testing it, repeating tests over and over.

What we have now is the bubba effect in the peer review process and people like neil degrasse tyson, or richard dawkins using science to advance his atheist political quest for a utopian socialist materialist world effectively black balling republican scientists or those who also have faith in a creator figure.

reply to post by fumanchu


I something similar on ATS. The theory was that the earth has a stronger gravitational field than it did in the Jurassic period. Whoever wrote the article said that dinosaurs such as the T-rex would be unable to move well in our gravity and that it would snap its own neck when it would turn quickly. I'll try to find the link.

Hello. From what I have seen on various TV programs, the moon keeps the earth's spin fairly stable, and there isn't enough water to completely cover all the Earth's land masses.
One TV program showed how rock formations on one land masses coast matched, exactly, formations on another land mass coast, I think it was South Africa and South America ( too much time on my hands, too many TV shows)

reply to post by m0r1arty


I've heard a few apparently knowledgeable people state that water does in fact come from space. Never really seemed important enough to my life to research it. Anyone else know more about this?

Comets are made of frozen liquids, and are theorized to potentially contain liquid water while near a star. They are also theorized to contain the basic building blocks of life, and are potentially planet seeders.

Originally posted by m0r1arty
reply to post by LordBucket

 

You ever seen a planet with one large landmass surrounded by water?

That's what's weird about it.

-m0r

The Earth is one of the most dynamic planets in our solar system (as far as we know). It makes total sense that a super continent whas not there just one time. How do you account for certain species that exist around the world? I don't think they built a row boat...

reply to post by arbiture


It makes perfect sense the way to me the same way numbers go on forever.

I can digest the concept, but actually visualising an Earth from space with only 1 huge landmass...well it's pretty trippy (to my mind at least).

-m0r

Originally posted by m0r1arty
reply to post by Blogbuster

 

Thanks for that!

His argument doesn't hold water though - literally.

-m0r

Water could very well be created on the Moon and brought to Earth by Earth's gravitational force in the form of particles. Add millions upon millions of years to that and you would get bigger oceans.

This theory makes way more sense than continents moving along a sphere of a fixed size.

I'm totally buying it.

But to get a true answer to this whole thing we would need to have a better idea of how thing really work in this universe. Starting from Earth's core which is still a mystery if you don't easily accept a bunch of unproven theories.

Originally posted by arbiture

Originally posted by m0r1arty
reply to post by LordBucket

 

You ever seen a planet with one large landmass surrounded by water?

That's what's weird about it.

-m0r

The Earth is one of the most dynamic planets in our solar system (as far as we know). It makes total sense that a super continent whas not there just one time. How do you account for certain species that exist around the world? I don't think they built a row boat...

Exactly. This theory won't be easily accepted though. Most likely because it would a whole bunch of other theories in check.

Probably even the the Human Evolution one.

Originally posted by thomas_

Originally posted by m0r1arty
reply to post by Blogbuster

 

Thanks for that!

His argument doesn't hold water though - literally.

-m0r

Water could very well be created on the Moon and brought to Earth by Earth's gravitational force in the form of particles. Add millions upon millions of years to that and you would get bigger oceans.

This theory makes way more sense than continents moving along a sphere of a fixed size.

I'm totally buying it.

But to get a true answer to this whole thing we would need to have a better idea of how thing really work in this universe. Starting from Earth's core which is still a mystery if you don't easily accept a bunch of unproven theories.

You can't be serious about that!

About this thread, well I'm pleased to see that the discussion is going well with some arguments, thanks for those who maid the effort to search before posting.

The Growing Earth theories have a big problem, which is : were does the matter come from if it's expanding? Last time I read on this subject, they were thinking about neutrinos interacting with the core, thus making matter...Well...good luck on that man.

Well, for peoples who read the same kind of subjects, you must have read some of my contributions, or not.
Just to make it clear, I'm a geologist, working in Europe and English is not my first language, but I have a solid background and thus, may be helpful.

I'm willing to make a series of threads, looking like lessons about Geology in general, Petroleum systems, Plate Tectonics and maybe some more. I think it'll be very interesting for a lot of people here, helping getting a clear idea of what geology is and correcting a lot of wrong ideas like I read on ATS.

So this is a call for fellow Geologist wanting to give an hand or to some wanting to correct my grammatical mistake for this project.
Feel free to U2U me !

reply to post by m0r1arty


Hey M0r -theres a mighty fine link here dealing with plate tectonics and its got some pretty marvellous pics and info:

Clicky

Cheers.

Originally posted by m0r1arty
reply to post by arbiture

 

It makes perfect sense the way to me the same way numbers go on forever.

I can digest the concept, but actually visualising an Earth from space with only 1 huge landmass...well it's pretty trippy (to my mind at least).

-m0r

\

I see no problem with one landmass slamming into each other. The greater altitudes such as the American rockies have yielded many sea organisms. I mean fish. The same applies to the mountains of Europe and Asia. At some point the great continant pangea broke off to start a massive sub continant in the southern hemisphere called gondrona. At several land falls it really looks like there were continants that started to became one who came together. I think it's more likely the first scenario is correct.

One of my students asked if your right why are the rockies so far from the coast? I took him there are likely two options, and told him to come to his own views. I said I will give you two options. Mayby three. (1:The thrust vault actions of two or more continants caused the creation of the mountains all over the Earth. (2: At some point in the distant past these mountains were under water. So how did they become mountains? Some would suggest it was volcanic. And yet the mountains themselves are not made of volcanic material. There made of granite andf dolomite. Thats the two hardest rocks we know of. It had even been suggested much to my amusement, that if you have a plume of magna that does not quite make it to the surface, the preasure of the Earth around it will cause what we call a phase change.

We know that concept is quite correct. Thats how diamonds are made. But its very , very rare. And option (3: ? The last option was supernatural. He knew better that take me on in this case.

Originally posted by KiliRae
reply to post by pavil

 

That is the first time I have heard that Iceland was formed from a asteroid strike. Where did you find that info? Please

Also for the expanding earth hypothesis, comets and the like can and did bring water to Earth but I don't see how they would bring the quantities needed for all the oceans and ice caps, and the snowball earth, to have formed.

Hmmm, can't seem to find the reference.....I wouldn't have made that up. I remember hearing that on a science TV show, maybe it was a proposed theory. Kinda weird, cause I remember physically hearing it on a program. I thought it made sense, given the relatively youngness of Iceland.