Continental plate cracking up under Indian Ocean - Evidence vast Indo-Australian plate is breaking!

Just here to correct a few misconceptions I’ve noticed in this thread…

Originally posted by tauristercus

In my opinion, this is mind-boggling news to digest as I've always thought of the individual continental plates as being relatively stable over millions of years........

We are not talking about continental plates here. This is part of an Oceanic Plate which is on average less than 5 miles thick. Continental plates can be up to 40 miles thick and are very stable.Oceanic plates crack, break apart and get subducted all the time.

Originally posted by tauristercus

Originally posted by CaptainBeno
reply to post by tauristercus

 

Anyway, I'm not looking forward to the "Movement" part.

I'm just wondering if the breakup would be a slow and gradual one, releasing stress and energy over a long period of time or whether it could reach a critical point whereby the break apart is more "instantaneous" i.e. over a much smaller time frame and releasing all the energy at once.
I would tend to think that "instantaneous" wouldn't be the best case scenario for the planet

Probably both. As we have seen with the earthquakes smaller fracturing can be sudden and sometimes have devasting consequences but the process of becoming a proper plate boundary will take millions of years

Originally posted by LightAssassin
reply to post by loam

 

Expanding Earth theory?

The expanding Earth Theory is complete rubbish and is not supported by either physical or fossil evidence. If the Earth had expanded like the theorists are proposing then it would be more or less completely flat and relatively featureless. It is plate subduction which has caused most of the mountain ranges and volcanoes which we see around us today.

Originally posted by DaesDaemar

This is very interesting indeed! If this free's up the eastern part of the plate, allowing it's movement speed to increase, would that then put more stress at the fracture point, allowing the it to fracture faster as the eastern plate moves away quicker and quicker?

Could this be an event that can happen quickly, any experts in here?

Not really considering most plates move only in the order of a few inches each year.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
reply to post by winofiend

 

i dont think this is all related to pressure, i get the feeling there's forces underneath the plates pushing them in a direction, if the pressure builds up or not, these forces underneath seem to unleash in bursts.

No one’s 100% sure of the mechanism but the leading theory is that the subducted portions of the plates are actually sucked down pulling the plates together or apart as opposed to being pushed apart at divergent boundaries. There are forces under the plates but these tend to cause island chains such as Hawaii

Originally posted by pravdaseeker

The recent quakes, ( much smaller), in the state of Victoria were interesting to note.. hmm?

Even very stable continents such as Australia will have minor quakes. This is due to the continental plate having a minor ‘rumple’, but it will be nothing like those experienced by peeps living on major plate boundaries such as NZ

Originally posted by Kastogere

Yep, just from the way I understand it, the core of the earth is heating up....then you have extra energy being redistributed to the surface causing a amplified reaction in the way of volcanism and earthquakes. As far as the plates go, they always move anyway...they were never truly stable. With the increase of energy heaping up from the core you could expect some plate issues to take place such as the one OP is refering to.

Link…?

Originally posted by St Udio


the other significant thing is most likely the convection currents in the Earth's mantle is causing this plate breakup...

recall that many formally dormant volcanos are suddenly active again, also think about the new ocean that's forming along the North African red-sea-coast, as the land rift splits apart in the area around Ethiopia and Eritera


there are thousands of new thermal vents and underwater 'smokers' all over the oceans of the planet


the Earth's core and mantle is in a time of disturbance which then affects the surface,
but mainstream science is being mum on the topic

edit on 27-9-2012 by St Udio because: (no reason given)

Look at the shape of the Indo Australian plate. It is very large and awkwardly shaped. An eventual breakup would be inevitable. Why on Earth would anyone in the scientific field want to ‘hushup’ these facts yet on the other hand they speak up about Monsanto and Global warming.

Originally posted by Saneeto
I'm no geologist, but does this pose a threat to us? I mean, I'm from India..

If you live near the southern coastline you would be in danger of tsunamis if another major quake were to happen but the Indian Continent itself will be fine.

Originally posted by jaws1975
Continental plate cracking up, record glacial melting, sinkholes on every other block, arguably more volcanic and earthquake activity....yep nothing to see here, just a string of coincidences on just another year!

Because in nature everything is so regular… Glacial melting is mainly caused by man, everything else is just part of a natural cycle.

Originally posted by reeferman
reply to post by tauristercus

 

well..

the earth is growing..

Originally posted by Silcone Synapse
This has me wondering-maybe an event similar to this occured in the distant past and resulted in the "great flood"we read about in so many ancient cultures.
It would take something that massive to say,fill the medditerranean,which did happen approx 8-10 thousand years back.

The mess we seem to be making of our world almost makes me think we deserve a great flood.
I bet the snapping of an entire tectonic plate deep under the ocean could result in such a flood.

It would be ironic if it happened on dec 21st would it not?

Maybe time to build an ark...

Nothing could cause such a flood as there is not enough water on the planet

Originally posted by Soloro
reply to post by tauristercus

 

This is the part of geologic activity that I think many people and academics have ignored. The dynamism of plate tectonics, and the effects.

Yet New Scientist is breaking the story…

Originally posted by violet
Thanks for posting this star and flag

If the earthquakes have increased since the event then it can't be good. It's rather concerning the Himilayas are impeding the plate moving. Will this push them upwards and cause catastrophic events?

The Himalyas aren’t impeding plate movement, Eurasia is. The Himalayas are the result.

Originally posted by Elienne
So if the Indian/Australian tectonic plate is splitting into two separate plates, how , or would, this affect the great ocean currents? Would the great ocean conveyor belts be affected? Just a thought.

Probably won’t affect things too much as there is not enough physical relief around diverging plate boundaries to affect the currents

reply to post by tauristercus

You are not the only one stating this : see this link : fukushima-diary.com...

Originally posted by DaesDaemar
reply to post by Dustytoad

 

I have no clue what this would actually do. Does it put extra pressure against the plate to the north and to the east? Also could it mean new islands or a new rift with new magma coming up?

This is very interesting indeed! If this free's up the eastern part of the plate, allowing it's movement speed to increase, would that then put more stress at the fracture point, allowing the it to fracture faster as the eastern plate moves away quicker and quicker?

Could this be an event that can happen quickly, any experts in here?

I'm no expert but I do know what will happen. The Sunda plate is sinking. It's a separate entity from the Indo/Aust plate. When it goes down Australia moves north and the Indo/Aust plate tilts at India and Pakistan and Australia loses two thirds of it's land mass. Our government hates refugees so one wonders how our own 'refugees' will be treated.

reply to post by 1littlewolf


I got that himalyan part from a story about this.
Can't find where I read it now, thought it was in the op link

love your avatar

Originally posted by LightAssassin
reply to post by loam

 

Expanding Earth theory?

What an interesting thought my friend. This put a smile on my face.

so a couple big earthquakes means the plates are splitting???

reply to post by 1littlewolf


This is the only post needed in this thread! Case closed.

reply to post by Indigo17viking


Basically, yes. Though I think this has long been suspected anyway due to observation of how the big Indo-australian plate has been moving.

The African plate is also breaking up

Such things happen all the time. But very, very, very, very slowly. All it means is that projections on how the world may look in 10 million years time may have to be adjusted slightly

reply to post by Dbriefed

:19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.

This is talking about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is sitting on 3 faults, one of which runs all the way down through the middle of Ethiopia and Ethiopia is splitting apart too.

The thing about prophesy, is it's not always literal. Sometimes it's allegorical. Sometimes in prophetical language earthquakes refers to civil and social upheaval, which we are seeing all over the M.E. right now but in particular Israel as there are 3 camps. Zionists, nonzionist religious jews and muslim. Social upheavels tearing the city into 3 camps.

reply to post by tauristercus

I never understood how mountain ranges could grow to such heights if, as they say, they grow about the same rate as fingernails, yet wind and rain erosion should counter that resulting in a zero gain, right? Also notice the ubrupt changes in the geologic strata; gives a whole new meaning to catastrophism.

Originally posted by bottleslingguy
I never understood how mountain ranges could grow to such heights if, as they say, they grow about the same rate as fingernails, yet wind and rain erosion should counter that resulting in a zero gain, right? Also notice the ubrupt changes in the geologic strata; gives a whole new meaning to catastrophism.

The mountain ranges which are growing (e.g the Alps, Himalyas etc) do so at around on average 1mm or so each year though much faster speeds have been recorded (up to 1.5 inches/year). Even if rain and wind erosion removed 75% of that (which is unlikely – consider how old many stone buildings are) that really adds up over 5 – 10 million years.

Also as global warming continues to melt glaciers at an ever increasing rate many mountain ranges have started growing at speed never before seen through a process known as’ isostatic rebound’ whereas the land mass itself rises purely due to having far less weight sitting on top of it.

No one knows how this may affect the tectonic stability of the land itself. Global warming is not just about wild weather and Arctic sea ice….

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by Dbriefed

 

:19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.

This is talking about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is sitting on 3 faults, one of which runs all the way down through the middle of Ethiopia and Ethiopia is splitting apart too.

The thing about prophesy, is it's not always literal. Sometimes it's allegorical. Sometimes in prophetical language earthquakes refers to civil and social upheaval, which we are seeing all over the M.E. right now but in particular Israel as there are 3 camps. Zionists, nonzionist religious jews and muslim. Social upheavels tearing the city into 3 camps.

That is interesting, I didn't know Jerusalem is on 3 faults. We do now know that one quake can trigger a quake in a remote part of the world.

I think it's interesting to see how visions are described, since they often reference technology that ancient man had no way of describing in human terms of the day, and visions seem to be fuzzy metaphors. One vision in Revelations describes military helicopters in animal terms; bodies like scorpions, hair like women, faces like men, spitting fire.

On the expanding Earth theory-there may be some truth to it,as our planet is bombarded with cosmic particles which weigh many tonnes when reduced to carbon during their burn up in the atmosphere.
Some of that carbon does fall to Earth,which does add mass to our world.

However,we do lose particles through the atmosphere as well.
Question is do we gain more mass than we lose?
If so,we have an expanding planet IMO.

Originally posted by Dbriefed

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by Dbriefed

 

:19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath.

This is talking about Jerusalem. Jerusalem is sitting on 3 faults, one of which runs all the way down through the middle of Ethiopia and Ethiopia is splitting apart too.

The thing about prophesy, is it's not always literal. Sometimes it's allegorical. Sometimes in prophetical language earthquakes refers to civil and social upheaval, which we are seeing all over the M.E. right now but in particular Israel as there are 3 camps. Zionists, nonzionist religious jews and muslim. Social upheavels tearing the city into 3 camps.

That is interesting, I didn't know Jerusalem is on 3 faults. We do now know that one quake can trigger a quake in a remote part of the world.

I think it's interesting to see how visions are described, since they often reference technology that ancient man had no way of describing in human terms of the day, and visions seem to be fuzzy metaphors. One vision in Revelations describes military helicopters in animal terms; bodies like scorpions, hair like women, faces like men, spitting fire.

Its possible. Prophets didn't always understand what they were seeing from the future so they described things by the knowledge of their times.

Originally posted by XPLodER

Sumatra quake was part of crustal plate breakup: Study shows huge jolt measured 8.7, ripped at least 4 faults

Read more at: phys.org...

Seismologists have known for years that the Indo-Australian plate of Earth's crust is slowly breaking apart, but they saw it in action last April when at least four faults broke in a magnitude-8.7 earthquake that may be the largest of its type ever recorded. The great Indian Ocean quake of April 11, 2012 previously was reported as 8.6 magnitude, and the new estimate means the quake was 40 percent larger than had been believed, scientists from the University of Utah and University of California, Santa Cruz, report in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature.

Read more at: phys.org...

phys.org...

while the plate may be cracking,
i dont think it happens in a short time span

The new study concludes that the magnitude-8.7 quake and an 8.2 quake two hours later were part of the breakup of the Indian and Australian subplates along a yet-unclear boundary beneath the Indian Ocean west of Sumatra and southeast of India – a process that started roughly 50 million years ago and that will continue for millions more.

Read more at: phys.org...

xploder

edit on 27-9-2012 by XPLodER because: (no reason given)

Couple things I find interesting here -

1) The Indo_Australian plate moving enmasse in the same northeasterly direction. But because of the Eurasian landmass the indian section is slowing down while the Australan portion is speeding up. Who would have thought it would have broken this way? You'd think that a plate would "tear" and move in different directions.

2) Been told Australia moves north at the rate of 1 metre per year......by releasing the "anchor" holding it back surely it must mean Australia will now move faster northwards?

3) This in turn would mean Papua New Gunea rising up higher as it gets pushed against the Philliping and Pacific Plates. I beleive longer term this would cause Australia and New Guinea to join up once again as the northern part of Australia rises up out of the sea due to the collision of plates in this area.

4) Might it cause the Western part of Australia to dip lower? i.e. down under the sea? Pretty sure Edgar Cace mentioned this?

Originally posted by Melbourne_Militia

Couple things I find interesting here -

1) The Indo_Australian plate moving enmasse in the same northeasterly direction. But because of the Eurasian landmass the indian section is slowing down while the Australan portion is speeding up. Who would have thought it would have broken this way? You'd think that a plate would "tear" and move in different directions.

Essesentially yes this is pretty much exactly what is happening but as the oceanic crust is rigid it isn't so much a tearing but more a cracking.

2) Been told Australia moves north at the rate of 1 metre per year......by releasing the "anchor" holding it back surely it must mean Australia will now move faster northwards?

Try 5.6cm a year. The reason it is cracking is because the Australian end is already moving faster than the Indian end (3.5cm/year) so it probably won't change the speed too significantly

3) This in turn would mean Papua New Gunea rising up higher as it gets pushed against the Philliping and Pacific Plates. I beleive longer term this would cause Australia and New Guinea to join up once again as the northern part of Australia rises up out of the sea due to the collision of plates in this area.

PNG is already being pushed up so this won't change. Australia and PNG are already joined by continental crust which is fairly thick and stable so essentially they're already joined its just we don't except in times of sea level lows

4) Might it cause the Western part of Australia to dip lower? i.e. down under the sea? Pretty sure Edgar Cace mentioned this?

Not likely

The Himalayan mountains are the result of the Indian plate subducting under the Eurasian plate at approximately 2 in per year. If this continues, 50M years from now India will no longer exist as it will have been completely subducted. Since that part of the plate is moving much more slowly than the portion on which Australia resides, it makes sense that it would eventually break apart. What I find interesting is that, to my knowledge, there isn't really much volcanic activity in the Himalayans like there is in most mountain ranges created by plate subduction. This is probably due to the fact that, unlike most subduction zones, the subducting plate is not oceanic and thus not saturated with seawater. The heating of the seawater in a subducted plate as it go deeper into the Earth is a key component of magma creation which would be absent in this case.

reply to post by AlphaHawk


I would not be too surprised. I figure that the Earth probably breaks and shakes quite often. But I doubt this would lead to any near future catastrophes. Of course Earthquakes and Tsunamis do happen, but I don't think we will get any more than we normally would have anyways.

Forces at work are numerous. Some that come to my mind are

1) Our Solar System moves in the Universe constantly hence being in a different "place" may have an effect on the "egg shells".

2) Melting of glaciers and Polar ice (Greenland they say is the most worrying) will change the stress dynamics on the surface of the Earth

3) Oil/Gas/Water production from below the Earth will change how layers shift and transmit forces.

4) Mining activity, as per 3)

So a lot is going on and we have little clue how to explain it all.