© Lloyd[2] Mechanics of Continental Drift
--- Tidal Crustal Uplift
http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~
--- Tectonic Ratcheting --- Continental Drift
http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~
--- No Subduction --- Shock Dynamics Continental Drift --- Sliding Rocks
http://thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&am~--- Tidal Crustal Uplift
Postby CharlesChandler» Sat Nov 10, 2012 7:25 pm
- Lloyd wrote: So what do you think, Charles, does Tassos seem to have it right, or do you think your additional ideas may improve his theory?
- Very interesting article! I wasn't able to get all of the way through it before becoming completely over-saturated, and I can't honestly say that I fully understood all of it.
- But it certainly sounds like he has clearly identified the problems with the existing models.
- His points about the heavily fractured crust not being able to build up the elastic pressure necessary for earthquakes sounded pretty convincing to me.
- But the whole "iron expansion" thing was underdeveloped.
- I guess he was basically saying that the Universe is expanding, so the Earth is expanding, and therefore, iron from inside the Earth expands outward, and the electrons shoot ahead into micro-fractures, and resonate, creating the EM pressure for earthquakes.
- Without pretending to understand that, I can offer up some conjecture on where the two ideas might overlap.
- I did a quick search and found a number of references to earthquakes being statistically related to lunar cycles, where quakes are more likely when the Moon is closest to the Earth, and even more likely when the Moon and the Sun are in line, so their gravitational forces combine.
- So the triggering mechanism is an uplift.
- My idea was that the uplift would reduce the compressive ionization, allowing charge recombination, and thus the release of heat.
- Tassos is talking about electrons flowing through micro-fractures.
- Put the two ideas together, and you get a tidal uplift allowing charge recombination, where the electrons flow easily through micro-fractures, but as they do, they'll generate heat, turning the micro-fractures into plasma discharge channels.
- On a large enough scale, the combined hydrostatic pressure from all of these discharges could be the source of the energy released in the quake.
- But then why would this be an episodic thing?
- Tassos' proposed mechanism (i.e., an expanding Earth) is running at a steady rate all of the time.
- Mine kicks in twice a day.
- So what makes earthquakes so rare?
- Perhaps Tassos was too quick [in] dismissing plate tectonics.
- Perhaps he was right, that a fractured crust doesn't have the elasticity for a catastrophic energy release.
- But perhaps plate tectonics creates the fracturing that creates the micro-channels that provide the pathways for electric currents (due to compressive ionization and charge recombination).
- So perhaps it's a combination of factors.
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
Postby CharlesChandler» Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:36 pm
- Tectonic Ratcheting - I'd like to elaborate on something that I mentioned briefly in my previous post.
- I agreed with Lloyd that mid-ocean ridges are not under high pressure, but rather, low pressure.
- On his suggestion I took a look at Mike Fischer's "Shock Dynamics" site (http://newgeology.us/), which states that the continents were blasted apart by an impact event, and still with the inertia from that, they continue to move apart, and they're sucking magma up through the mid-ocean ridges to fill the void between them.
- While I think that "shock dynamics" has a lot going for it, I am still brewing ideas on subduction, with interesting implications, and which are not mutually exclusive with shock dynamics.
- What if the impact event initiated plate motion, but then, the plate collisions themselves perpetuated the motion? How could this happen?
- With an initial convergence of two plates, pressure builds up at the "subduction" zone. This causes the crust to buckle.
- The buckling induces piezo-electricity, which rapidly heats the plates.
- The rapid expansion overwhelms the traction, and the plates slip (i.e., there is an earthquake).
- The plates slip until the pressure is fully relieved at the higher temperature.
- Then the quake stops, and the plates fuse back together again, re-establishing traction between them.
- But as the rock cools, the plates come under a tensile force.
- So they're actually being stretched, and a mid-ocean fissure opens up, where the low pressure pulls magma upward to fill the void.
- This relaxes the tensile force, enabling the plates to move toward each other.
- As they do, they develop convergent momentum.
- Eventually, the momentum overshoots the pressure equilibrium, and the plates are once again "colliding".
- If the hole process was fully elastic, the plates would simply rebound off of each other.
- But once again, the pressure at the subduction zone causes buckling, which induces piezo-electricity, which heats the crust, causing the rupture of the fault, which continues until all of the pressure has been relieved at the higher temperature.
- In other words, there is a positive feedback loop in the earthquake.
- The plate collision creates pressure.
- The pressure buckles the crust.
- In the buckles, piezo-electric currents heat the crust.
- The heat causes the rock to expand.
- The expansion increases the pressure.
- As a consequence of this positive feedback loop, the high-pressure phase doesn't last very long, and traction between the plates is lost (i.e., there is an earthquake).
- But the cooling phase doesn't have a positive feedback loop, so there isn't any runaway cooling going on, and the traction holds.
- If the traction holds over the longer period when the plates are being pulled together, but not in the shorter period when they are under pressure, the net force on the plates is tensile, not pressure.
- This drags the plates toward the "subduction" zones.
- Note that this isn't a "perpetual motion" machine.
- Only with the injection of that other energy (i.e., the piezo-electricity) is this ratchet going to work.
- To look at it another way, it's actually the electric current that is driving the tectonic motions, but it does it in a back-handed way.
- The current causes the rock to expand, and then the cooling is what drags the plates across the mantle.
- When that's done, piezo-electricity pumps some more energy into it.
- While the rock is being heated, the ratchet slips, but as it cools, the ratchet holds.
- Thus the prime mover is ohmic heating from an electric current.
- As I said, this and "shock dynamics" are not mutually exclusive.
- An impact event could have initiated the process.
- Thereafter, the way the plates pull each other together at the subduction zones perpetuates the motion.
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
Postby CharlesChandler» Sat Nov 24, 2012 10:10 pm
- CC: After the event, the rock cools, and is subjected to a tensile force.
- At this point, the plates are actually being pulled together.
- LK: It's hard to visualize two plates being "pulled" together, except by a vacuum.
- How does the pulling work? Does the shrinking of cooling rock exert the pull? About how much overall movement would that produce?
- CC: Yes, the rock shrinks as it cools, and if traction at the fault holds, the continental plates try to recede, pulling the oceanic plates with them.
- In the case of the Pacific plate, it's one integral unit, so the continents are pulled forward.
- CC: In other words, the plates are not being pushed together by pressure at mid-ocean ridges.
- Rather, they are being pulled together by a ratchet effect in the subduction zones.
- LK: As usual, your ideas make lots of cents.
- I mean sense.
- The west coast is overriding the Pacific ridge, so is the ratchet pulling the plates apart there?
- I guess there are actually 3 plates there, the Pacific-west, the Pacific-east and the N American, setting on top of the two on the west coast.
- Would the ratchet at the subduction zone in the western Pacific near Asia be able to pull the Pacific plates apart in the location under N America, or would they pull all of the N American plate too, extending all the way to the mid-Atlantic ridge?
- CC: Well, there's a mid-Atlantic ridge, but there isn't a mid-Pacific ridge.
- So I'm thinking that the Eurasian & Australian plates are ratching eastward, and the Americas are ratcheting westward.
- This leaves a void in the Atlantic that is filled by upwelling magma, and the continents are creeping toward Hawaii, consuming the Pacific plate as they go. [-------]
- CC: Perhaps the reduced pressure allowed charge recombination deeper in the magma chamber, and the secondary eruption was caused by all of the additional heat from the current flowing into the magma.
- LK: Can magma be CI material?
- CC: The working hypothesis is that all matter can be ionized by pressure, including solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, and supercritical fluids.
- I'm currently studying the Moho data you found. Thanks!
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
Postby CharlesChandler» Mon Nov 26, 2012 1:25 am
- Lloyd wrote: The author of the message is said to be Brian Robitaille.
- Pierre-Marie Robitaille is the guy I've been quoting on a variety of topics.
- I don't know if Brian is any relation.
- Ratcheting Plates - Here's a set of diagrams that I did, to further explore this idea.
- Pressure is equalized, but plates are converging.
- This shows colliding continental & oceanic plates.
- In the "tectonic ratcheting" model, something else had to initiate the collision.
- I'm going with Fischer's Shock Dynamics.
- Then, given an existing momentum, the ratcheting effect then kicks in, as illustrated in the successive panes.
- Note that I'm showing the "subduction" as a ramp-like fault, where the one plate rides over-top of the other one, and they stay more or less parallel to each other.
- You had mentioned this, and the data support it, so I drew it this way.
- As such, it "seems" that the upper plate gets worn down by the friction, as does the lower plate, and then the lower plate melts if it is forced into the mantle.
- So the dramatic folding in the typical diagram of a subduction zone doesn't seem to be realistic, and this "seems" to be more accurate.
- High pressure causes rock to buckle, enabling charge recombination below.
- With existing momentum, pressure builds up in the plates.
- The part most likely to buckle will be where the top plate starts to thin out.
- The buckling greatly reduces the pressure underneath, as the fold eliminates the weight that was bearing down on the rock below.
- If it was ionized by the pressure (CI), it will now be de-ionized (shown in yellow).
- In other words, electrons will rush in to recombine with ions.
- Ohmic heating causes expansion, increasing buckle, and decreasing traction.
- The buckling, which enables an electric current, which generates heat, which causes the rock to expand, and thus exaggerating the bubble, constitutes a positive feedback loop.
- So a runaway expansion occurs.
- Also note that the buckle reduces the size of the mating surfaces between the two plates.
- Thus the traction is reduced, increasing the chance of a rupture of the fault.
- Fault ruptures and pressure is equalized at the higher temperature.
- When the pressure overwhelms the traction, an earthquake occurs, relieving all of the stress.
- Now the top plate lays back down across the bottom plate.
- Note that the top plate is hotter, and it has expanded, so it extends further up the bottom plate.
- As rock cools, it shrinks, and if traction holds, plates are pulled together.
- With the two plates fused back together, traction between them is re-established.
- But note that this occurs at the higher temperature.
- As the top plate cools, it contracts, and thus shrinks.
- If the traction holds, the shrinkage pulls the rest of the top plate toward the fault.
- Note that the cooling process will take a lot longer than the heating process (which happened fast, because of a positive feedback loop).
- As a consequence, the plates are subjected to a tensile force much longer than they are under collisional pressure.
- Once they come under pressure, the buckling of the crust causes the traction to fail.
- So friction at the fault doesn't slow the plates down, while the tensile force during the bulk of the cycle constitutes a net inward force on the two plates.
- Hence plates are not being pushed together by pressure in the mid-ocean ridges, but rather, are being pulled together by ratcheting in the subduction zones.
- Pressure is equalized, but plates are converging.
- And the process repeats.
--- Tectonic Ratcheting Continental Drift
Postby CharlesChandler» Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:23am
- Lloyd wrote: Do you have good evidence that, while two plates are overlapping, they don't weld together, or they only form weak bonds?
- I think that the only "evidence" is just that the same subduction fault appears to get re-used over and over again through successive ruptures.
- At least I haven't seen any evidence that the next quake forms a new fault.
- So this would mean that when the plates fuse back together after the rupture, the bond is weaker than the rest of the rock, and the next quake will re-use the old fault.
- Lloyd wrote: Did you initially have diagrams of microfractures?
- If not, I'm probably remembering Tassos or Robitaille, whoever showed those.
- I don't remember seeing any diagrams, but Tassos said that a fracture only 1 nm wide allows the passage of electrons.
- I guess I could try to find a molecular diagram of a granite molecule, and see how big a 1 nm crack would be in the crystal lattice.
- Lloyd wrote: Toward the end where you discuss earthquake lights briefly, you mention those associated with ridges and mountain tops.
- Would the rainbow colors seen in the sky before an earthquake as in China or Japan in recent years be the same effect?
- Earthquake lights are glow discharges from pointy objects.
- The rainbow colors up in the sky are different.
- My guess is that the enhanced fair weather field just before the quake encouraged the condensation of water vapor, and then also polarized the water molecules.
- The result was a prism effect that isn't impossible under normal conditions, but the effect was greatly enhanced by the electric field.
- Lloyd wrote: And do you think continental drift would be possible without plates overlapping?
- Interesting question.
- This "tectonic ratcheting" model only addresses subduction.
- I "think" that this is only one type of tectonic motion.
- Lloyd wrote: Are you planning eventually to cover ideas on how continental drift began in the first place?
- i added a reference to Shock Dynamics at the end.
- Lloyd wrote: I'd like to see if you can also determine how fast the continents moved apart initially.
- Do you mean during the initial shock?
- I think Fischer has the whole thing happening in 26 hours.
- But that doesn't explain the magnetic striping at the mid-ocean ridges, which would seem to have taken a lot longer to form.
- Unless of course the Earth's magnetic field was going bonkers as the continents spread out rapidly, and the magnetic stripes formed all in the first 26 hours.
- I personally think that the major mountain building (Rockies, Andes, Himalayas, etc.) could have happened in 26 hours.
- But the plates are still moving, so it's not like they shifted to their current positions and then just stopped.
- So I think that the impact event shifted everything, and built the mountains, and set up the subduction zones, which then started ratcheting, keeping the plates moving.
- In other cases, maybe the plates are still moving just from the momentum of the impact event?
--- No Subduction --- Shock Dynamics --- Sliding Rocks
Postby CharlesChandler» Thu Nov 15, 2012 9:46 pm
- Lloyd wrote: You mention subduction a bit, but I don't think there is actual subduction into the mantle.
- Instead, plates move over each other, so the front edges look like "subduction", but aren't really going down into the mantle.
- Here's my impression. The American plates are overriding the Pacific plate, so it looks like the Pacific plate is subducting, but it's only sliding under the American plates and remaining horizontal under them.
- I'm starting to agree with this. The first high-res info that I have found on "subduction" is this site.
- The image clearly shows the Pacific plate sliding under the Asian plate, but then running parallel to it.
- So the whole idea of huge folds in the Earth's crust, with the underlying plate getting shoved straight down into the mantle, seems grossly inaccurate.
- The crust does buckle before an earthquake, so I've still got that under consideration as an important piece, where the buckle alters the pressure beneath, and the mechanical forces induce an piezo-electric current.
- But "subduction" isn't looking like just one huge buckle, as the lay literature presents it, and as I was describing it.
- Lloyd wrote: And magma under the ocean ridges is not under pressure from below and being forced upward into the ridges.
- Instead, the plates are pulling apart at the ridges and lower pressure there causes normal pressure magma below to fill in the gap...
- I'm starting to agree with this too.
- I got there by a different road, by acknowledging that after a quake, the fault is actually under tensile force, pulling the plates together.
- This could create an aftershock at the same fault, or open up a fissure elsewhere.
- This at least gives a hat-tip to the obvious anomalies in the existing tectonic framework.
- And then... Lloyd wrote: ...as diagrammed at http://newgeology.us.
- As it explains, an impact east of Africa seems to have split the supercontinent into pieces and to have pushed the pieces apart a few thousand years ago.
- The movements now seem to be just the fading momentum from the former impact.
- If you find otherwise, I'll be interested in your findings.
- This looks really interesting!!! I'm totally not qualified to give this a crtical review, as I am new to all of this.
- But clearly, this guy doesn't have just a hunch — he's looking at all of the data, and seeing the big picture.
- This deserves a closer look. Has Web reviewed it?
- Lloyd wrote: Does your model allow for the possibility of electric discharges powerful enough between planets to produce huge craters, or canyons, or remove much of the surface of a planet like Mars?
- I truly have no idea — I'm too new at this to comment. ;)
- webolife wrote: A close-by supporting evidence for this is Lake Chelan [...] a veritable trench in the middle of a mountain range.
- Or how about Death Valley, 85 miles from Mt. Whitney?
- I love it when the lay literature talks about the enormous pressures that produced the mountains, and then, sans segue, they talk about how the mountains are being pulled apart, creating this massive fissure in the Earth. :)
- Speaking of Death Valley, you might get a kick out my EM explanation of the "sliding rocks" there. (See Racetrack Playa Rocks!.)
- I'm basically saying that fast-moving winds in the valley are positively charged, which induces a negative charge in the Earth.
- The rocks sitting in the middle of a perfectly flat playa concentrate the electric field on themselves, generating an electric force that helps them slide in the high winds.
- webolife wrote: I think if we keep the thread together, it might serve to change the title to "Compression Ionization — A Unifying EU Perspective?" or some such, so that we can go at it from multiple perspectives.
- Indeed, this thing is starting to look like it has legs.
- I'm interested to see how this bears out in the assimilation of more data.
- I'm currently looking for good elevation views of actual subduction zones, and where the quakes occur relative to the "subduction".
- But to a large extent, I'm really just getting familiarized with the literature. So far so good... :)