It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Expansion with constant mass During the second voyage of HMS Beagle, in 1834–1835 Charles Darwin hypothesized that an expanding earth could explain the elevation of the landmass of South America as shown by mountain building in the Andes and stepped plains featuring raised beaches in Patagonia. Later in 1835 he abandoned this idea, and proposed that as mountains rose, the ocean floor subsided.[2] In 1889 and 1909 Roberto Mantovani published a hypothesis of earth expansion and continental drift. He assumed that a closed continent covered the entire surface of a smaller earth. Thermal expansion led to volcanic activity, which broke the land mass into smaller continents. These continents drifted away from each other because of further expansion at the rip-zones, where oceans currently lie.[3][4] Although Alfred Wegener noticed some similarities to his own hypothesis of continental drift, he did not mention earth expansion as the cause of drift in Mantovani's hypothesis.[5] A compromise between earth-expansion and earth-contraction is the "theory of thermal cycles" by Irish physicist John Joly. He assumed that heat flow from radioactive decay inside the Earth surpasses the cooling of the Earth's exterior. Together with British geologist Arthur Holmes, Joly proposed a hypothesis in which the Earth loses its heat by cyclic periods of expansion. In their hypothesis, expansion led to cracks and joints in the Earth's interior, that could fill with magma. This was followed by a cooling phase, where the magma would freeze and become solid rock again, causing the Earth to shrink.[6]
Originally posted by nobody you know
Another interesting fact is that not only does the Earth ring like a bell, but after a very large earthquake (over 8.3) it can actually ring for a whole month!