Plate tectonics and continental drift have been taught to me from a very early age.
I frequently found myself staring at geological formations, wondering how on earth, they were formed.
It sort of made sense, and what I didn't understand, I figured that it had all been studied, and some expert had already figured it all out, and there was no point in exploring the subject any further.
Now, I have recently discovered that there were other theories floating around:

http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/lau...98/EARTHEXP.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Warren_Carey

Now there are stories, of the Earth being only 6000 years old,
and a huge flood that covered the world, and predictions of a firery future...
However, I find little, outside a few human scribbles,
to support these stories.

But, I do see a grain of truth in the demonstration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJzic3kk4_g

Proof that the Earth has become larger.
...and that's about all.

imo, lunk

I don't know. There's just too much crap to think about. Even if another theory is devised, it, too, is just another theory.

Everything in the universe is moving. Our galaxy is a part of the expanding 'sphere' of space-time -- which contains the physical universe.

Science tells us that 'atoms' are made up of sub-atomic particles but the vast majority of an atom is 'empty' space. Could it be that as matter travels further and further away from the cosmic source it 'expands' in some sense? But then, if everything 'expanded' at the same rate, then nothing, compared to anything else, would get any larger. Relative sizes would remain the same. So, how could the volume of the earth as a mass increase while the land masses that make up its crust NOT expand?

Besides, if Earth was once half the size it is today, where did all the water come from? Is it the water that is expanding??

I note that, unlike most substances, water (at least in my freezer) expands when it freezes where, so I'm told, must other materials contract.

Ugg. I don't know nothing. I'm tired of knowing sh*t. Just give me a warn sandy beach with the southing sound of surf and the rustle of palm trees, a hammock and a blow job*.

*
Ingredients:

1.5 oz Amaretto
Whipping cream

Directions:

Pour Amaretto into shot glass, top with whip cream.
Drink with hands behind back in one smooth motion

The Earth is getting bigger,
all the pieces fit- go figure.

OK, we have determine this...
now, the question becomes, "how?"

If I was to somehow dig a hole, all the way through the Earth,
then jumped into it, I would fall almost all the way through to the other side... then, like a pendulum, I would fall back to this side, back and forth, until I ended up in the center, where I would be pulled from all sides equally.
If the center of the Earth is being pulled in all directions towards the surface, due to gravity...
this could mean that the Earth is hollow.

That's enough to nibble on for now.

cheers, lunk

I don't understand exactly how it's growing,
but this is the only way to explain almost all
historical happenings;

dinosaurs were bigger than land animals today.

the "splitting up" of the continents coincides with the extinction of the dinosaurs as they could no longer migrate across widening oceans.

There is nothing much older than 70 million years under the oceans, yet parts of the continents are up to 5000 million years old.

Take away the oceans and everything fits together, perfectly...
on a smaller globe.

(The continents DON'T fit together well on the same size globe, as in Pangaea)

Fossil records match across oceans.


The Earth grew.

And the majority of the creatures on earth before their period were smaller.

Some human races are taller than they were just 500 years ago. Viewing old English houses demonstrates this from the sizes of the beds and the height of the timbers supporting upper floors.

BTW gravity tends to pull all earth matter towards the centre.

Sure the earth has become bigger, it has after all absorbed a number of meteorites over time (and to a lesser mass extent many, many meteorites have disintegrated in the upper atmosphere to add their small contributions although there are thousands a day that come our way - I have seen estimates of a million or so), but not enough to make that much difference in size. Large ones though would have had a significant effect on plate techtonics.

Now the welling up of mantle to expand and form fresh crust, some at the sea bed, would increase the volume slightly but against this one has to offset that crust going back down into the mantle at subduction zones. The overal effect on size, i.e. volume, not being of great import.

The increase in the Earth's diameter that has lately been observed likely results from a redistribution of mass: not an overall increase.

The Earth is not a perfect sphere but is slightly oblate - flattened at the poles. The equatorial diameter is about 40 km greater than the polar diameter. This fact is thought to result from the force of the Earth's rotation and the fact that the vast majority of the Earth's mass is fluid rock. Except for a few areas, most of the crust is remarkably thin: only 30-40 km thick in most continents and less than 10 km (6 miles) in much of the ocean basins. At this moment you are likely closer to a gigantic ocean of red hot liquid magma than you are to a town a half-hour's drive away.

What this means is that the crust is remarkably sensitive to the gravitational effects of external bodies like the Sun and to any other galactic gravitational forces that may exist. It also means it will move in response to any changes in the poorly-understood dynamics of core and magmatic motion within the Earth. And apparently, in 1998, something about those inner dynamics did change.

Satellite-based laser range-finders had been showing for two decades that there was a steady redistribution of mass within the Earth from the equatorial to the polar regions: Mother Earth was becoming thinner and taller. In late 1998, that trend abruptly reversed and since that time the opposite has been happening: the equatorial diameter has been increasing and the polar diameter decreasing. This news was reported by scientists Christopher Cox and Benjamin Chao, in the August 2, 2002 issue of Science magazine. If you want to find info on this try searching "dynamic oblateness" but most of the information is on pay sites.

There is no consensus regarding WHY this change occurred. Most scientists believed the slimming trend resulted from melting of the polar ice caps and called their theory "postglacial rebound". I'm not sure how they explain the abrupt change in 1998: while in a few areas increased ice mass has been observed, in other areas fairly dramatic melting continues to occur.

I believe the change in 1998 to be connected to changes in the Earth's magnetic field. I have quite a lot of information about this and Painter has been bugging me for some time to share it with you. I will do so one of these days when I have the energy: it's a LOT of information. The short version is that there is a magnetic pole shift underway in the Earth and the Earth's magnetic field has very much more physical effects in the Earth than is generally understood.

I agree with that but the increase is not of a sufficient magnitude to account for the gaps between earth’s land masses as some here seem to be trying to suggest.



As a child, quite a few moons ago now, I understood the term to be 'oblate spheroid'


This is my take on it too, with the earth's magnetic field currently becoming weaker which is thought to be the pre-cursor.

However how long we have before the flip, if indeed it is a sudden flip or more of a weakening to nothing and then a gaining in strength reversed is uncertain, AFAIK.

Interesting experiments have been done by spinning globes full of molten sodium and monitoring the magnetic flux produced.

The rate of the Earths' growth is very slow, when looked at over centuries. It must be looked at from the point of view of tens of thousands of centuries, or in terms of millions of years.

Yes, there do seem to be some rather large tears in the crust - more than can be accounted for by a few km movement here or there. The rip running down the middle of the Atlantic Basin for instance. However I just have a hard time believing the Earth could have grown in mass enough to cause that rend: I tend instead to believe the Earth is a much more dynamic place than we realize.

Look at the alternating layers of red and yellow sandstone in the Grand Canyon, for example: red laid down when the area was under water, yellow when above. The crust there has risen and sunk countless times over the past several hundred millions of years. Look at topo maps of Pennsylvania, southern New York state and Connecticut and you see signs of lateral compression of the crust into parallel wrinkles of ridges and valleys. I live in such an area and the local geology is EXTREMELY youthful: the surface was obviously violently changed very recently: no more than a few tens of thousands of years ago. The crust recently sank all along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard: the coast of the former continent can now be seen under water 50 to 100 miles out from the current coastline, and the former bed of the lower Hudson river can be seen along the sea floor before it drops off the former edge of the continent. Most geologists seem to claim that as evidence of an increase in sea level, but where would all the extra water have come from? I think it's much more likely that instead of the sea rising, the crust sank. At least in that spot. It rose in others, as in southern California, Nevada and Utah deserts, for example, which are covered in salt flats where land-locked sea water evaporated.


As a child you were running around spouting terms like 'oblate spheroid'? Sheesh!


I think the weakening may be in average field strength and may reflect a loss in coherence of the poloidal field, rather than a weakening of magnetic activity in general. There may be as much magnetic energy as ever but it's all discombobulated with stray loops popping out all willy-nilly. And causing some locally spectacular weather effects, by the way.

North America had the weight of kilometers of thick ice sheets on top, during the last ice age. That would sink the continent down a little, I should imagine.

How pure is that salt? If it is from the evaporation of sea water there should be lots of organic impurities in it, is there?

The continental crust is hard, and as the Earth grew, the surface needs to re-curve, or flatten.
As a result the surface buckles up, forming mountains.
If this is the case, then one would expect to find the tallest mountains on the largest continent, as this continent would need to do the most buckling, because it covers the greatest percentage of the globe.

Asia = largest continent.
Mt. Everest = tallest mountain.

Look at your hand when you unmake your fist, it wrinkles where it flattens the most, at the knuckles.
On a global scale these would be mountains.

It must be growing from the inside.
I don't fully understand how.

One explanation is that a natural atomic reaction is happening within the Earth and the daughter elements formed are adding to the volume of the Earth.

I don't think this is the correct explanation though.

But there is no point in discussing how it grew until
we have confirmed that it has grown.

That's what I'm trying to do, first.

Ah! I am glad you mentioned that Lunk and what I am about to write would more properly belong in a climate change thread.

The reduction of overlaying masses of ice through melt brought on by climate change has a bearing on some perceptions of sea level rise. The resultant glacial isostatic adjustment can mask a real mean sea level (MSL) rise along coasts where tide gauges are used to measure MSL. This can be one reason why some think that sea level has fallen.

An international team studying this in the Gulf of Bothnia using GPS data and a computer model to track the vertical change in both land and sea found that a rebound of 10 mm per year was five times greater than the increase in MSL over the same period.

As the magma flows through the mantle and carbon is subsumed at subduction zones [1] the carbon content increases. Now if this carbon took on the carbon polymorphism (or allotrope) of (Buckminster) fullerene where even a small molecule version of 60 carbon atoms which forms a spheroid shape, hollow by definition, then carbon can take up an increasing amount of space. A fullerene can be composed of between 20 and 600 atoms of carbon. That latter demonstrating how much more volume a given number of carbon atoms could take up if in this form. Is there an issue with logic here I wonder?

Polymorphs, allotropes, of elements can have interesting properties with often unexpected and disastrous consequences.

One of the allotropes of tin is ‘white tin’, the familiar variety, which is stable above 13 deg’ C. As the temperature drops a polymorphic change can take place. Organ pipes in St Petersburg collapsed into grey dust as the organist played. Also the fate of Peter Scott’s Antarctic expedition was linked to the loss of fuel which leaked out of the soldered containers when the joints failed.

[1] Consider the huge quantities of carbonate material locked up in the remains of foraminifera that have died and drifted to the oceans floors and form a veritable carpet.

Here is the official government theory of plate tectonics:



Notice the direction of the arrows?

(Why am I thinking of flight paths...)

This makes no sense to me.

The continental plates end at their continental shelves.
They stay exactly in the same place on the globe,
while more land is being created at the mid ocean rifts,
that are found between nearly every continent on Earth.

Does the bark of a tree float around?
No. It stays exactly where it was
and new bark is formed underneath,
as the tree grows.

There is no subduction.

If there was subduction, then all the continents
would not fit perfectly together on a smaller Earth,
there would be chunks missing, if that were the case.

I know this is hard to grasp,
but the evidence is there.

(edit) what an as I am

Oh! Please! A moments thought demonstrates the fallacy of such statements.

The growth of a tree trunk and the processes of the earth have nothing in common.

A tree grows by using solar energy to process compounds extracted from its environment. The tree as such is not a closed system as far as input of matter is concerned whereas the earth too a large extent is.

Well somebody is being subduced if they believe that.

What do you suggest is raising the Andes and driving the fault-lines along the Calofornia coastline?

A much smaller earth is not much of a possiblity.

Hard to grasp because such ideas have no substance.

You're barking up the wrong tree with this one Lunk.

The Earth is a sphere,
A tree is a column, this is a difference
that must be kept in mind.

Both grow in diameter.

The Earth has 2 outer layers of crust a lighter granite (last years bark)
and a denser basalt (this years new growth) , underneath.

If the comparison between the bark of a growing tree and the crust of a growing Earth, is true...
Then there should be similarities between the patterns in the bark of a tree
and geological formations on the Earth.

If the Earths' growth is happening on a large scale
it must also be happening at a more local level as well.

Google satellite picture of snow covered mountain tops and valleys,
and a few bark shaped islands separating from past Earth expansion:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=56....amp;t=k&z=7

The high lands are snow covered showing the (relatively) new growth of the valleys, between.

This is a tree:

(edit) replace picture of tree.



The older bark is higher up and ripped apart by the new growth of the tree.

The reason that these pictures look similar is because the same forces are at work.
The differences in the pictures are because one is a growing oblate spheroid
and the other is a growing column.

If either of these shapes had solid crusts and were to "grow"
these are the patterns you would expect to see.

U shaped valleys and V shaped valleys,
formed by glaciers and rivers?

The glaciers went over the harder rock and chewed away at the softer rock, leaving wide U shaped valleys. Rivers cut paths in a V shape, through mountains that were pushed up by massive subducting plates.

That's what I was taught about the origination of valleys.

Using the same logic, one could conclude that water shaped the glass you are drinking from, or the ice trays in your freezer were formed by the ice.

Water is a liquid and will flow to the lowest point. Glaciers behave like rivers and flow downhill, too. Pour water into a dry valley, and you will get a river at the lowest point of that valley.

Here is a new way of looking at valleys.

As the Earth grows, the upper crust must re-curve, this causes the older crust to "wrinkle" in places. This causes mountains and V shaped valleys at the same time, the Earth is getting bigger, so even these wrinkled areas stretch apart in places, forming U shaped valleys, flattened at the base. U shaped valleys are tectonic spread areas (rift valleys), relatively new crustal growth. Water or snow accumulate at the lowest point and erode and round off the rough ledges at the edges of these spreads.
Where there are spreads with little erosion; the edges of these valleys tend to be stepped, like stairs. A good example of this is the Grand Canyon. This is a tectonic spread area, where the Earths' growth has pulled apart the upper crust. As there has been no glaciation there, the edges of the Grand Canyon take on the appearance of stairs. If glaciation had been present there, after the rift had spread, we would see a classic U shaped valley.

That's right, the Grand Canyon was not formed by water,
it is a rifting of the Earth, a tectonic spread area.
The water just flows to the lowest point, and rounds out the rough edges that are left when solid rock is ripped apart.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=U...mp;t=p&z=10

(edit) punctuation!

Atkins diet maybe? JK- carry on.

EDIT: Lunk has got my ear- and I've seen my share of U-valleys, V-valleys, L-valleys, buttes, mesas, the Grand Canyon, and much more wonderful scenery/geology in the Western US. I don't know if I will reach a definitive conclusion either way in my lifetime on this one, however. As some might guess, I do have a fundamental issue with "dogmatic" mainstream science for its own "traditionalist" sake. "Professor Nutbutter taught me that his professor taught him that 'all the experts' came to the conclusion in 1928 that... "

The box is small, and science (or is it more properly "history" in this case?) is broken, after all...

[Not so "deliberately dumbed down" anymore...]

I know it's amazing.
Once you see global growth on a large scale, like the continents all fitting perfectly together, on a smaller, earlier Earth, you start to realize that this must have been going on, even previous, to the continental breakup.
The same growth processeses can be seen on the continents.

The same growth is happening on, or in, all planets and moons, and probably stars.
Everything is growing...
logarithmically.

The bigger an object is the faster it grows.

I do not know if this is expansion, (like a balloon) or growth like a crystal, (solid).
I think both.
So mass is not increasing quite at the rate of volume increase.
Or, as things get bigger they decrease in their density,
but there is still an incremental gain in their weight.
Thus, things are growing, not just expanding.

Now, we just got to figure out how.

imo, lunk

This is our moon:



The lower dark smoother areas are newer growth regions.
The higher lands are older and have more craters.

This our Earth:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UT....150391&z=6

The lower lighter (in this case) smoother areas are newer growth regions.
The higher lands are older and are more mountainous.
Notice how there always seems to be mountains between the lower flatter growth areas?
Almost as if the new growth areas are pushing the mountains up.

If this is the case, then there will be new rock pushing against old rock and one would expect to see earthquakes and volcanoes around these spreading areas.
Where is the largest spreading area of Earth?
The Pacific ocean.

Ever heard of the ring of fire?



Same facts, better reasons.

imo, lunk

Tectonic spreading on Mars:

http://geology.com/nasa/mars-plate-tectonics.shtml

"To see this characteristic magnetic imprint on Mars indicates that it, too, had regions where new crust came up from the mantle and spread out across the surface. And when you have new crust coming up, you need old crust plunging back down, ­the exact mechanism for plate tectonics."

Unless of course it's growing,
I would add.

There is no subduction on Mars.
It's growing too.

imo, lunk

http://geology.com/nasa/mars-plate-tectonics.shtml

The entire article is based on the assumption of subduction.

They clearly point out points of expansion,
yet, it assumes that there must be subduction,
and fails in pointing out these places of subduction.

This is what happens, when our fundamental understanding
of geological history is based on incorrect theories.

Mars grew.



imo, lunk

"Valles Marineris, a large canyon six times as long as the Grand Canyon and eight times as deep, looks just like a rift formed on Earth by a plate being pulled apart. Even more, it is oriented just as one would expect from plate motions implied by the magnetic map."
I figure that the rifts are being pushed apart.
As this runs contrary to what they stated earlier in this article,
"Stripes form whenever two plates are being pushed apart by molten rock coming up from the mantle, such as along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge."

Don't you think it curious
that they (inadvertently) compared
the Grand Canyon
to a tectonic spread?

imo, lunk



(edit) for even more, and more, greater clarification.

I'm not making this up.

Imo, lunk

What do crystals do from solution? They don't appear to have much respect for that vaunted 2nd "Law" of Thermodynamics either.

On the subduction thing- if the "plates" subduct down into that magma "sea" that I remember reading about, what happens to the plate(s)? Ever squeeze a toothpaste or medicine tube too hard, or step on a packet of catsup?

Something(s) to ponder-

just ask lunk

Basalt is almost twice as dense as granite.
How could the latter subduct under the denser?

The bark of a tree does not subduct.
...though a nail (hammered into it) will appear to,
over time.

from experience, lunk

...Actually it was my laundry line,
the bark, and then the tree eventually, encapsulated it.

I've seen springtime winds and solar heating crack, ramp, pile, and subduct ice sheets often with considerable force and energy. Of course wind or ?? might not get as much lateral force on say a continental [crustal?] "plate" as on a floating sheet of relatively thin ice. Then of course the density of ice and ice are the same, so...

What is the "OT" for the source of the subducting lateral forces in MSG (mainstream geology)? [Only knows that MSG makes Chinese food taste yummy.]

[Geologist not listed on my resume: d]

It appears that when planets are small,
growth looks like meteor strikes.
The edges push against the surrounding older crust.
As the planet increases in size, its' growth accelerates,
causing the upper crust to break apart and rift, in bigger chunks.
The re curving of the solid upper crust causes it to compress at the surface, in places, forming mountains and V shaped valleys, that are in turn pushed apart in places, forming flattened U shaped valleys, if glaciers, water, landslides and erosion have smoothed the edges.
Otherwise the sides of these rifting areas have a stepped appearance.

Parts are being stretched
parts are being compressed
parts are being ripped apart
as the entire planet grows.

imo, lunk

OK, you're still not convinced that the Earth is growing.
Suspend disbelief for a moment, and let's say that it is.

Now, keep that in mind,
and try watching this:




What seemed, a perfectly reasonable learned explanation, now seems, absolutely ridiculous.

There are parts of the Earth that are descending but this is minor, I think, this is mainly due to the solid crust crumpling and the stretching out at the surface...

as it grows.

imo, lunk

Here is a challenge:

Trace and cut out a picture of Pangea, (without the water)
and see if you can connect the edges and create a ball.

It shouldn't if there was subduction and the continents are just "floating" around.
But it will, if the Earth grew.

Ever notice how every picture of Pangea is a little different?

I can make a "pangea" where the East coast of South America and the West coast of Africa were the outer coastlines of my "pangea."
And every thing will still fit,
sort of,
but not quite.

That's because all the continents were together,
on a smaller planet.

Next, I'll show you how to make a triangle with 270 degrees in it.
(pilots should know this one)

cheers, lunk

The sum of the inside angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees.

Start on the equator and follow it a quarter of the way around the globe,
make a right angle turn and go North to the pole, Now go back to where you first started on the equator.
to complete the triangle with three inside angles of 90 degrees.
3*90=270

Notice how the rules for a shape change, when brought into 3 dimensions.

Most creatures think in 3D. But most people seem to think only in 2D...
...except pilots, but most other people see
everything as a 2 dimensional road map.

So it is difficult for most people to visualize 3 dimensional growth in their head.

The mid ocean rifts all connect,
like stretch marks,
or the newer underlaying growth of bark on a tree.

Earth grows.

imo, lunk

If the Earth was the size of an apple,
the skin of the apple would be much
thicker than the Earths' crust.

Well I guess you would say that
the crust of the Earth is not the skin of an apple...
...and definitely not the skin of a human.

If the rate of growth of a body is greater than the stretching ability of its' covering than you will get "stretch marks," in that covering:



These stretch marks have been caused by the rifting of the surface membrane due to rapid growth of the body.

There is no "subduction"...

Well, OK, the belly-button might get a little deeper.

They seem to resemble mountain valleys.

imo, lunk

Here is another "stretch mark,"
notice it's widest at the equator...:



What would you expect to see
on a growing oblate spheroid, anyway?

Stretch marks,
on our sister planet?

That's fairly convincing so far lunk, but the stretch-mark photo won't be a crowd-pleaser IMHO.

My immediate question is what are the implications for Earth's mass and Solar System gravitiational dynamics? Newton and Kepler might not be too happy with such an idea, but they wouldn't have liked QM either, I suspect.

Sorry about the photo, but I was trying to get away from the tree bark analogy, and find something more spherical.

I think our present understanding of physics just needs to be added to, not necessarily changed.

They say that the moon is moving away from Earth
at about an inch a year.
Could this be because it is getting heavier?

The Earth is getting heavier too,
presumably at a faster rate then the moon,
What would happen if an orbiting body gets heavier?

The density of the planets seem to decrease with size.
Could this mean they are hollow?
If they are, what happens to gravity, in the center of a planet?

And are there any studies on the tensile strength of different types of rock?

Then, the big question is,
if we know that it is, for sure, growing...

What is causing it to grow?

From:

http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/nester1/sandreas.htm

"The San Andreas fault is one of only a few examples of a transform boundary between two tectonic plates that is exposed on a continent. Some other continental transforms are the Alpine fault in New Zealand and the Dead Sea Transform fault system in the Middle East. The San Andreas fault zone includes the main fault trace and many other major and minor fault strands. The width of the fault zone varies from a few meters to a few kilometers. The relative rate of motion between the North American plate and the Pacific plate is approximately 3.5 to 4.6 cm per year, most of which (2.0 to 3.5 cm per year) is accounted for by horizontal displacement along the San Andreas fault zone. The remainder is expressed by displacement along other, subparallel faults such as the Imperial and the San Jacinto fault zones in southern California."

From:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/understanding.html

"Perhaps the best known of the divergent boundaries is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This submerged mountain range, which extends from the Arctic Ocean to beyond the southern tip of Africa, is but one segment of the global mid-ocean ridge system that encircles the Earth. The rate of spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge averages about 2.5 centimeters per year (cm/yr), or 25 km in a million years. This rate may seem slow by human standards, but because this process has been going on for millions of years, it has resulted in plate movement of thousands of kilometers. Seafloor spreading over the past 100 to 200 million years has caused the Atlantic Ocean to grow from a tiny inlet of water between the continents of Europe, Africa, and the Americas into the vast ocean that exists today."

From:

http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/preli...l/185strat.html

"The crust subducting into the Mariana Trench includes Jurassic seafloor of the East Mariana and Pigafetta Basins (Fig. 5). Based on magnetic anomaly lineations, this region was thought to contain the Earth's oldest in situ oceanic crust formed at ultra fast spreading rates (160 km/m.y. at Site 801)."

OK- to summarize:
Atlantic Ocean- spreading
San Andreas Fault- spreading
Pacific Ocean/Marianas Trench- spreading

Hmmm.... but
[Geologist not listed on my resume: d]

Hey, speaking of San Andreas Fault:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M49NxSsdQcw

65 million yeas ago the not much of the ocean floor existed, the continents would have been just splitting apart, so, the Earth would have been much smaller and lighter, and pterosaurs (not airplanes) flew through the air.

"The largest of the pterosaurs was Quetzalcoatlus northropi, which lived in what is now Texas, USA about 65 million years ago. Partial remains found in Big Bend National Park, West Texas in 1971 were of a creature with a wingspan of 11 - 12m (36 - 39 feet) and weighing an estimated 86kg (190lb). Its wingspan-to-weight ratio was therefore 0.13. Pterosaur trackways discovered recently in Mexico suggest some had wingspans of 18m (60ft) — the size of a fighter aircraft such as the General Dynamics F-111— while fossils from Romania and Brazil are from creatures that reached 13 or 14m (42-45ft) across."

The Earth is much larger now, so, I was wondering if an aviation expert could figure out if it even possible for these very large creatures to fly, if they were around today?

Let alone hold their wings extended, without having them drag along on the ground!

Think about it.

(edit) forgot to link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A16537205

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all


"The pterosaurs eventually went into a decline that lasted several million years, according to Dr. Wann Langston Jr. of the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin, and then died out about the same time as their reptile cousins, the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. There is little agreement as to why."

They went extinct because the continents were breaking up, at this time, and they could no longer migrate, across the whole surface of the Earth, as they always had been able to, in the past.

This is the main reason why the dinosaurs went extinct.

imo, lunk

(edit) added

http://www.hmnh.org/archives/2005/09/10/giant-pterosaurs/

"the crested pterodactyl Pteranodon was believed to be the largest creature that ever flew, with unfurled wings stretching 25 feet from tip to tip. Then, the Texan pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus topped the charts with a wingspan of 40 feet or more.

Now, pterosaur tracks from Mexico point to a Mesozoic aerialist with a wingspan of 60 feet"

Ever tried to lift an extended 24 foot aluminum ladder by one end?

These creatures could fly, and did fly, but it would be impossible for the largest of them to fly, today, because now, the Earth is much bigger and there is more gravity, so their wings would be too heavy.

imo, lunk

If only they knew then, what we know now:

http://dinosaurtheory.com/big_dinosaur.html

"Using wings that give only half as much lift while attempting to lift twice the weight, the Quetzalcoatlus has only two percent of the minimum power required for flight. Thus, among educated scientists this issue should not even be considered controversial; the Quetzalcoatlus could not have flown in today’s atmospheric environment.

There is no point in continuing to try to explain away the problems presented by the exceptionally large dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Clearly there was something different about the Mesozoic world that allowed these vertebrates to grow significantly larger that what is possible today. But finding what that difference is has always been the problem. For at least a couple of centuries, if not longer, researchers have had little if any success in their attempts to solve this problem. But now, there is a solution to the big dinosaur paradox."



What did I say?


ROFL!, lunk

What do you think;
did the Earth grow,
or was there just a way more atmosphere?:

http://dinosaurtheory.com/solution.html

"However, it is difficult to imagine how either the universal gravitational constant G, the mass of the Earth M-E, or the radius of the Earth R-E could have changed significantly between the Mesozoic era and the present."

Yes, it is difficult to imagine,
but the Earth grew...
that fast, too.

imo, lunk

"Geologic periods

Following the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic extended roughly 180 million years: from 251 million years ago (Mya) to when the Cenozoic era began 65 Mya. This time frame is separated into three geologic periods. From oldest to youngest:

* Triassic (251.0 Mya to 199.6 Mya)
* Jurassic (199.6 Mya to 145.5 Mya)
* Cretaceous (145.5 Mya to 65.5 Mya)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesozoic

According to this map:



Most of the ocean floor wasn't there 65 million years ago.
and I don't think that the gravitational constant changed.

The Earth must have gotten bigger...
quite a bit bigger.
accelerating in it's growth, to where we are now.

imo, lunk

Honestly I think the earth was spinning much faster way back when and the centrifugal forces made everything lighter.

It would seem to me that the tides which the moon generates, acts as a massive "brake" and is continually slowing the spin of the earth ever so slightly.

Of course I accept the fact that I may be full of crap with that idea.

I think that they found that the days were shorter going back in time,
so Earth must have been spinning faster...
because it was smaller?

When you pull yourself in to the center of a merry-go-round you go faster,
and when you move your weight back to the outside you slow down.

There is a slight difference in the weight of things between the equator and poles.
I don't know if it's because of the centrifugal force or that the Earth is an oblate spheroid and there is more mass and therefore more gravity at the equator.

I think more the latter.

I think it is exactly the opposite.... When it was spinning faster it was larger... As it slows it is getting more compacted at the core.

Remember the tsunami ? If I remember correctly the earth sped up a fraction when that happened, and that was what, a 60 mile long section the width of a 4 lane highway which "folded upon itself" ?
So that tells me it "shrunk" by that area.... and the tides continue to slow the spinning even after that brief increase.

It also seems as if NIST is updating their clocks much more often today than before the 80's.

I don't know, does this make sense to you ?

Islands moved, the ocean floor sprung up, causing big waves.
If something grows, doesn't it get bigger?

"The Indian plate's jarring slide released the Burma microplate from its tension, causing it to spring violently upwards, the report said."

http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/dec/30map.htm

If everything on the surface moves "out",
that must mean the Earth is growing:

http://danger.mongabay.com/earthquake/2004/Simeulue.html

"Quake movement 'shifted islands' Dec 28, 2004
A tsunami spawned by the 9.0-magnitude quake off the northern tip of Sumatra ... off the northern tip of Sumatra moved the Nicobar Islands and Simeulue Island out ... The Australian,"

There is no subduction on a grand scale, there can't be.

imo, lunk

The spin factor.

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041229/ful...ws041229-6.html

They have been adjusting their atomic clocks lots.

So what happens to the weight of something at the pole if the Earth increases its' spin?

Did the really big dinosaurs live only near the Equator?

My guess would be yes... + or - probably 45 degrees.... of wherever the equater happened to be at that point in time.

"Good news for overachievers: Earth's days are getting longer!
Researchers examining ancient corals noted that annual growth patterns suggested there were more days in a year in Earth's distant past. Fossil corals, 380 million years old, from the Devonian Period recorded 400 daily cycles. About 290 million years ago in the Pennsylvanian Period, there appear to have been 390 daily cycles each year. Assuming that Earth's revolution around our Sun has not changed dramatically, this means that the number of hours per day has been increasing and that Earth's rotation has been slowing. Today's day length is 24 hours. During the Pennsylvanian Period a day was ~22.4 hours long. In the Devonian Period, a day was ~21.8 hours long. Earth's rotation appears to be slowing approximately 2 seconds every 100,000 years. Why are Earth's days getting longer? Some scientists suggest that tidal cycles create a “drag” on Earth, causing it to slow down."

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytelle...ght/about.shtml

I think you need much more spin on this idea to make your theory on big dinosaurs only existing between the 45 degree parallels because of centrifugal force.

You got to find more spin then that
to make your quetzalcoatlus fly.

imo, lunk

Ummm, would that not mean the spin rate is slowing ?

Also in my first post in this thread I did say

Yes, the Earth has been slowing down as it has grown.
Maybe not entirely because of it's growth.

Even at this, somewhat, faster rate of spin, on a prehistoric Earth, the fact that mega giant creatures existed can only be explained by there being less gravity then.

So far in this thread, I hope to have shown that
all the continents fitted perfectly together on a smaller, earlier Earth;
dinosaurs were bigger then, than possible today, because there was less gravity
and (thanks JFK) the smaller Earth was spinning faster.

The Earth grew and the same is true for most other heavenly bodies.

I also gave a more reasonable explanation for the formation of mountain ranges, valleys, plains, volcanoes and their locations then explained by the present, demonstrably wrong, theory of plate tectonics.

imo, lunk

Hi JFK,

In order to satisfy Conservation of Angular Momentum, the larger radius requires slower angular speed. This should be true for Earth or nearly any other physical object for that matter. Now as to whether the mass/density of Earth has remained "constant" as mainstream science claims, I don't think Lunk has gotten into that yet. I think it's in the works though.

Spinning ice skaters is the classic example in physics:

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/solarsys/angmom.html

http://uw.physics.wisc.edu/%7Ewonders/IceSkater.html

An example that might be familiar to you is an "over-square" short-stroke Formula One race car or motorcylce engine spinning at near 20,000 RPM vs. a high-torque industrial or marine diesel topping out near 2500 RPM. FWIW, I do know a fuel injector from a harmonic dampener. Just be sure to torque those muffler bearings.

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...13103620AA9jJcJ