Expando Planet Theory more likely than Nirubu/Planet X...and happening NOW?!!!!

Let's not forget that the bulk of the volume of the Earth is mantle and not crust. Pressures are high. There are no pore spaces. The density of mantle rocks is much higher than either basalt or granite.

The density is between 4.3g/cm³ and 5.4g/cm³.

The Mantle

Nie article

It mentions that a "devastating" magnetic pole shift will happen in 2012. What will cause this? I first heard that Nibiru will, but the existence of that planet is becoming more and more unlikely by the day

reply to post by stereologist


You really should do some research before you post comments that are easily proven wrong.

Granite is porous.

www.stonecaretechniques.com...

The formation process of these stones under high pressure and temperature allows very little open pore space. However, the quartz grains contract more than half their volume during the cooling process, and extensive cracking develops across and around the quartz grains. The grain size of granite and granite-type stones range from small to large and a particular variety may be composed of two grain sizes, this increases its porosity. It can be said that granite has more of a fracture system than a pore system.

You actually prove my point in this statement.

Let's not forget that the bulk of the volume of the Earth is mantle and not crust. Pressures are high. There are no pore spaces. The density of mantle rocks is much higher than either basalt or granite.

Exactly, which is why escaping mantle expands in volume on the surface when it transforms to basalt and granite, and the many other types of rocks, and other materials that escape from the mantle.

Then, the newly formed granite gets broken down, ground into dust, by erosion. Thus you see a change in volume. The Earth expands.

When meteorite hit the Earths atmosphere and explode, they aren't transformed into pure energy, the energy of the friction of the atmosphere causes them to break apart, and vaporize. When things vaporize, they are chemically changed, not converted to energy.

There are no concrete numbers on how much material falls into the Earth's gravity well from space, but lets go with your 26g per square kilometer. Multiply that by a million years, and you have 26,000 kilograms of material, which gives you 26kgs per square meter, or 57 lbs of dirt. That is quite a bit of dirt. Think of a 20lb bag of dirt. You are looking at about 6 inches of powder. Then multiply that by 20, for 20 million years. 1,140 pounds of dirt per square meter. In a hundred million years, 5,700 pounds of dirt per sq meter.

Then consider that when the Earth and our solar system was much younger, there was probably a lot more material floating around in space near Earth's orbit, so the Earth was probably absorbing a whole lot more material 20 million years ago, and even more material 100 million years ago. A smaller planet would mean much more material per sq meter.

The question isn't whether or not the Earth is growing, undoubtedly it is, the question is, at what rate.

Looking at the picture with the age of the ocean floor, my rough guess is that Earth has grown about 30-40% in the last 30 million years. Nothing else explains why the floor of the Ocean is so new.

reply to post by poet1b

You really should do some research before you post comments that are easily proven wrong.

Granite is porous.

So you pick the rock with the smallest possible pore space. It is in fact not a porous rock. These measurements show that granite is extremely low in pore space. The pore space is really due to cracks formed during CONTRACTION of the rock during cooling.

You posted a clear contradiction to the STUPID expando earth claims.

Exactly, which is why escaping mantle expands in volume on the surface when it transforms to basalt and granite, and the many other types of rocks, and other materials that escape from the mantle.

Which is exactly the opposite of what you linked to. It states quite clearly that the pore space is due to CONTRACTION when the rock cools.

Thus there is no increase in volume as you claim.

There are no concrete numbers on how much material falls into the Earth's gravity well from space, but lets go with your 26g per square kilometer. Multiply that by a million years, and you have 26,000 kilograms of material, which gives you 26kgs per square meter, or 57 lbs of dirt. That is quite a bit of dirt. Think of a 20lb bag of dirt. You are looking at about 6 inches of powder. Then multiply that by 20, for 20 million years. 1,140 pounds of dirt per square meter. In a hundred million years, 5,700 pounds of dirt per sq meter.

We know that is completely wrong since we can see from the surface of the moon that over billions of years the influx amounts to very little.

The question isn't whether or not the Earth is growing, undoubtedly it is, the question is, at what rate.

The question is why anyone would think that the Earth is expanding when it obviously isn't.

Looking at the picture with the age of the ocean floor, my rough guess is that Earth has grown about 30-40% in the last 30 million years. Nothing else explains why the floor of the Ocean is so new.

Looking at all of the available data we can see that the Earth has not changed much in size, maybe 2 to 6cm in several billion years.

reply to post by PsychedelicSam


There is no record of any magnetic reversal being devastating.

Let's not forget that the crust represents less than 1% of the volume of the Earth. Again this shows that changes to the crust have little effect on the size of the Earth.

reply to post by stereologist

So you pick the rock with the smallest possible pore space.

Still makes it porous.

The final result of mantle to rock is expansion. Of course there is contraction when it cools, but the end result is still not as dense as the beginning, and so there is expansion.

reply to post by stereologist


Nice point, now you are starting to think. The Expanding Earth theory is that most of the expansion occurs in the outer core and the inner mantle. As the Earth accretes material from space, it increases the pressure on the Earth's interior. Pressure creates heat, which causes the outer core and the inner mantle to liquefy, which causes these two largest zones of Earths mass to expand.

Th expanding Earth isn't exactly a completely worked out theory, but it does make a lot more sense than the idea of one crustal plate being forced down under another, piercing into the much more dense mantle. See this link provided earlier by Rhebefree on "Subduction's Fatal Flaw".

www.expanding-earth.org...

Note that, as the continents are pushed around the planet under pressure of an ever-widening Atlantic Ocean, a fixed, unchanging diameter would result in subduction eventually swallowing the entire Pacific Ocean basin—IN SPITE OF continuous propagation of new ocean seafloor at the rate of ~80-160 mm/yr (~3-1/4 to ~6-1/2 in/yr) along the hyperactive East Pacific Rise (EPR) west of South America (the most active volcanic area on the planet) right in the middle of the supposed subduction area. (This is also a volatile heat source directly beneath the area where El Niños are spawned by heated Pacific waters.)

If Plate Tectonics theory is so complete, please explain this problem. How is the Pacific ocean being shrunk, when all evidence points to the Pacific Ocean expanding?

www.expanding-earth.org...

Further evidence of expansion is provided by the +65.3 mm/yr rate of increasing width in the trans-Pacific distance between Yaragadee, Australia, and Arequipa, Peru, measured by Smith, et al [1993]. This study, and others like it, was published as evidence of subduction, but the addition of width contradicts the principle of Pacific basin width reduction required by subduction on a fixed-diameter Earth; e.g., any increase in width is an increase in surface area of the Pacific basin and Earth's total surface area, circumference, and diameter-- with or without subduction.

Here are some other facts you should take into consideration. This is some interesting reading.

www.expanding-earth.org...

External accretion of extraterrestrial mass is irrefutable. Everyone knows about meteors and meteor showers that regularly enhance the night skies at certain times each year. Meteorites, the solid remnants of meteors that land on Earth, are also known to almost everyone, even though few may have actually seen one.

The theory still needs development, but already it is more complete than the concept of tectonic plate drift.

www.expanding-earth.org...

Equally important, the more fundamental causative mechanism of gravitational pressure on the core that generates heat to melt core magma must be considered. For that, scientists must look at the much larger, and far more complex, process of gravitationally-driven compressive heating that melts the central core. This is the process that powers expansion tectonics--continuous and inexorable expansion of the planet--as an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of the Earth increasing in mass and diameter from incessant accretion of ~1,000-50,000 tons of meteor dust and meteorites every day. (Perhaps NASA can refine these estimates using their experiences after three decades in space.)

Having read the article I say it seems like a half baked idea. It leaves important parts out such as what the gravity would be like after the expansion event is completed and how this would effect humans. Would we be smaller or taller?
Also I note that he mentions Geryl many times through out the page. Why is this?

I'm not taking the EE side but the GPS argument used relies upon a steady rate of growth which is implausible and a stretch. If the engine rate of growth is constant then the observable growth will decrease as size increases and the idea that GPS would identify that for us in 20 years is a bit like saying that red light cameras should be giving us evidence of macro evolution. The earth could be expanding and it not be observable over 20 years.

reply to post by poet1b


AND, right here is the major flaw:

As the Earth accretes material from space....

THAT is what shows this "theory" to be utter nonsense, from the outset. I think people become so enamored of the "potential" to get in on the ground floor of some "new discovery", and get a rush off of that....an inflated ego, and sense of self-importance.

It ruins their objectivity, and they will latch onto (and ignore the copious lack of logic) these fringe things....


The question, now....is "How much material from space ACTUALLY falls to Earth, and will accrete?"

So, research it....you will likely be disappointed with the results. The majority of planetary accretion was finished, several billion years ago. Possibly, even within the initial few hundred million years of the Solar System formation.....once that "big rush" was past, any incremental increase in mass is insignificant......

reply to post by weedwhacker


One estimate,
As measured by NASA aircraft and other sources, is 40 tons per day. I think that takes in seminal cosmic dust and all the lumpy stuff. What the Earth loses in mass is much less, so there is overall constant gain in mass. Whether or not the Earths increased mass could make a gravitational difference in relation to the other planetary bodies which will also have accretion, is most likely an open question, since everything is in flux.

reply to post by smurfy


40 wimpy tons? Even per day (if accurate) is 14,600 tons/year.

Let's further (just for fun) assume it is constant at that rate. Just using about 100,000 years for the existences of "modern" Humans = 1,460,000,000 tons over that time-span. Theoretically....

Total "weight" of the planet?

5.972 sextillion (1,000 trillion) metric tons. That's 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
ecology.com...

Let's find that 100K years accumulation as a percentage of the total Earth mass: We can drop two sets of three zeroes from each figure, and still get the same result:

1,460 divided by 5,972,000,000,000,000 = 2.4447 X 10 (exp)-13 % That would be the added "weight" (or, more correctly, mass) for those 100,000 years, at that "constant" rate.

So, to write that out, we move that decimal point thirteen spaces to the left....:

0.00000000000024447 %

That is rather TINY number, in percentage, I would tend to argue. And covers more than the course of recorded Human history....(I don't recall seeing where we had writing invented yet, 100,000 years ago)....

(Thanks to our handy decimal system of numbers, you can adjust basic % figure by factors of 10, if you wish to count into the millions and billions of years......).

Originally posted by poet1b
reply to post by stereologist

 

So you pick the rock with the smallest possible pore space.

Still makes it porous.

Not really. Granite isn't one of the types of rock that make up aquifers. The pore space is too small for water to travel through it and penetrate deeply into it.

The final result of mantle to rock is expansion. Of course there is contraction when it cools, but the end result is still not as dense as the beginning, and so there is expansion.

You can easily disprove this for yourself. Get a candle, melt it, and then cool the wax and measure it. It's the same density as it was at first (you can fluff it with air and make it more voluminous, but the fluffing is obvious.)

And the "expanding earth" really can't deal with things like "Why do we have thick layers of dirt on top of big sheets of limestone (formed in the ocean) that are on top of shale (a different kind of stone) which are on top of a set of clays that have a lot of evidence of volcanos in them, on top of MORE limestone, on top of rubble-type rock (marls) on top of sand on top of more limestone"?

Because we have that here in Dallas-Ft. Worth where the rock bedding planes are slanted and the rock layers have the oldest ones on the west side of Ft. Worth and the youngest on the east side of Dallas.
en.wikipedia.org...:Cretaceous_Formations_of_the_DFW_Metroplex.JPG

Plate tectonics can explain all this rather easily. I'd like to know how you explain the rocks here and elsewhere with the "expanding earth."

reply to post by weedwhacker


Do you have any evidence to back up your claims. It is rather late to be a part of the discoverers, the band wagon of the expanding Earth movement left long ago.

The Earth is only 4.5 billion years old. There is plenty of evidence of large meteor strikes. Why don't you try reading the links provided, the evidence is there in the link I provided and quoted. Looking through the layers of the Earths surface, the amount of material accreted can be seen. This link certainly doesn't claim a constant rate of acccreation.

reply to post by poet1b


"evidence"? "claims"?

Do you have any evidence to back up your claims.

My post, above, merely took the figure graciously provided by smurfy of "40 tons per day" (approximately) material deposited on the Earth ("added" to its mass) from space...no, I didn't double-check, I used that figure as an example, based on it being provided by someone else.

I imagine that, at first blush, "40 tons/day" would strike most people as "a lot" of material....seems like a huge amount, yes? So, before anyone were to say "Ah, hah!! There's the 'expanding earth' proof!', I thought to run the math first. For a sense of perspective.....

Did I make any math mistakes??

... the band wagon of the expanding Earth movement left long ago.

??? Rode off into the sunset, did they?? Good. Maybe they fell off a cliff, too...

The Earth is only 4.5 billion years old.

OK, yeah, that's about right....but, "only"?

There is plenty of evidence of large meteor strikes.

Certainly. In fact, that is consistent with the accepted theory of planetary formation....an star system is thought to be very, very "messy" early on...lots of material to accrue, and get "swept up" as the planets orbit, and the bits keep impacting with them, and with each other. It is also (surprisingly) being suggested to be a relatively short process, for the most part....on the order of a few hundred million years. This gives the Earth, for example, a solid ~4 Billion years relatively unmolested, with only very minor additions to mass, for all that time.

The kicker is the Moon....the Apollo samples show its age is equivalent to Earth's...so, the prevailing theory of ITS formation (the large impact, between proto-earth, and another large, but smaller body) occurred very, very early in the process of planetary accretion.

In fact.....IF we could see the two proto-planets before impact, their combined masses would be just about the same as the combined Earth-Moon mass.....the proto-earth was smaller than our current Earth, prior to impact. It gained a lot, from the "other"....the remainder became the Moon.

Since that time, will be near impossible to calculate (so, guess all you want, but stay within acceptable science) to determine just how much additional mass has attached itself to the Earth....but, again....if "40 tons" is a reasonable average to assume....well, it certainly [cannot even come close to fitting in to the "expanding earth" concept (i won't even call that an 'hypothesis', it is so implausible....).

Looking through the layers of the Earths surface, the amount of material accreted can be seen.

I think a great deal of very solid geological science (and was nicely pointed out by Byrd, above) shows otherwise. Really, IF this "ee" concept is proposing such a thing...."layers" added from external sources?? Like, what? Coats of paint from space??

If so, then it is even more unbelievable.....might as well argue that the earth is really a pyramid shape, riding on the back of a giant sea turtle, swimming through space; has about as much credibility.....

Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by smurfy

 

40 wimpy tons? Even per day (if accurate) is 14,600 tons/year.

Let's further (just for fun) assume it is constant at that rate. Just using about 100,000 years for the existences of "modern" Humans = 1,460,000,000 tons over that time-span. Theoretically....

Total "weight" of the planet?

5.972 sextillion (1,000 trillion) metric tons. That's 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
ecology.com...

Let's find that 100K years accumulation as a percentage of the total Earth mass: We can drop two sets of three zeroes from each figure, and still get the same result:

1,460 divided by 5,972,000,000,000,000 = 2.4447 X 10 (exp)-13 % That would be the added "weight" (or, more correctly, mass) for those 100,000 years, at that "constant" rate.

So, to write that out, we move that decimal point thirteen spaces to the left....:

0.00000000000024447 %

That is rather TINY number, in percentage, I would tend to argue. And covers more than the course of recorded Human history....(I don't recall seeing where we had writing invented yet, 100,000 years ago)....

(Thanks to our handy decimal system of numbers, you can adjust basic % figure by factors of 10, if you wish to count into the millions and billions of years......).

edit on 11 March 2011 by weedwhacker because: (no reason given)

Correct, and true, and requires no philosophical arguement. the figures are of course arbitrary, but realistic enough to understand that Earth's mass is increasing since it is able to hold on to a much smaller mass that it accretes. Enough then to know that Earth's mass is not static, and that other planets with lesser atmosphere may be nearer static in mass.

reply to post by poet1b


Another mistake. Mantle rocks at the surface are relatively easy to identify by their density. Often this is expressed as their specific gravity. Very little mantle material is observed at the surface.

The rock does not expand. It shrinks. The thermal expansion issue is one of the main reasons that the ocean depth increases away from ocean spreading ridges.

reply to post by poet1b


The accretion of material from space is on the order of a centimeter a billion years. It is ludicrous to claim this increases the pressure in the interior of the Earth. The interior heat of the Earth is not due to the accumulation of materials from space. Also, the mantle is not liquid. There simply is no evidence for expansion.

Th expanding Earth isn't exactly a completely worked out theory, but it does make a lot more sense than the idea of one crustal plate being forced down under another, piercing into the much more dense mantle.

Not a worked out theory? It is one of the STUPIDEST ideas proposed yet. Nothing about it makes sense. Here you are claiming that the accretion causes expansion when that is obviously nonsense. The accumulation is marginal. Please show us how the increased mass would provide enough energy for thermal expansion. Obviously it cannot.

If Plate Tectonics theory is so complete, please explain this problem. How is the Pacific ocean being shrunk, when all evidence points to the Pacific Ocean expanding?

Measurements show it is not increasing.

The theory still needs development, but already it is more complete than the concept of tectonic plate drift.

The idea was trashed a long time ago, but it keeps coming up like flat earth, and 2012. It is simply a failed idea.

reply to post by smurfy


Watch the astronauts on the moon to see how much accumulates in billions of years.