Expanding Earth - Where does the extra mass come from?

Question.  First question, ..so where does the extra mass come from?
Answer.  Ah, yes, ..it always is, isn't it?  The 'no-mechanism' question.  It's the first question everybody asks.  It's what they asked of Newton, when he proposed his formula for gravitational attraction: "How does it work?"  He told them they were missing the point.  They still do.  Like your question misses it.  You know of course that Plate Tectonics doesn't have a proper mechanism, but that doesn't stop it being accepted, or promoted.

Question.  Maybe, ..but we're not talking about Plate Tectonics.  Answer the question please.
Answer.  Look, ..mass or extra mass, I don't know.  Frankly, I don't properly know what mass is.  And I don't think anybody properly really does either, much less how it comes into being, though we've had some really good examples of energy-mass equivalence of late.  I don't think anybody really knows what electricity is either if it comes to that, ...the stuff that supposedly binds the elemental parts of it together at the quantum scale, though we can do a lot with it - work lifts, ...light up cities, virtually everything we touch has electricity involved in its manufacture.   Mass?  I think at last count there there were some seventy-odd particles hypothesised to describe it, though we're told at that scale it flickers in and out of existence.  It supposedly exists anyway mainly as mathematical equations.  Does it?  I don't know.  But as far as its creation in a bang lasting a couple of seconds at two-o'clock on a Wednesday (or was it Thursday?) goes, ..well, ..I don't know about you, but that's always struck me as a bit iffy.  I mean, 'counterintuitive' can be taken a bit far.  So there we have three aspects of mass:-  its creation, ...what it is, .. and what it does, ..both at the quantum scale and when it is organised into big lumps and manages to exert force at a distance, and we don't really know that much about any of them, though we can use the stuff to make candy floss or slingshot satellites around the solar system.  I think it's stupid for geology and geologists to be speculating about where mass or  'extra mass' comes from.  That's a job for physics, once it gets its house in order and realises there's a question to be addressed here that bears very closely on the history of the planet.  Geology's job is to consolidate the fact of enlargement and delineate a bit better the process-dynamics in a strictly geological context, not take a sidestep into quantum mechanics.   Anyway, what you're actually implying there by asking the question, is that there is already tacit acceptance that the Earth *is* getting bigger, and that the job of geology is done.  What you *should* be asking is the geological questions, .. *how* is it getting bigger, and how do all those hows relate to each other in an Earth-expansion sort of a way, ...addressing every aspect that relates to the geology of the planet.  Then we'll see what sort of a question there is to be asked.  Whether or not somebody can come up with a credible mechanism for it will make no difference whatsoever to the empirical fact. The Earth needs to be looked at as part of the universe, not as soup in a pot.
 

Question.  So how does it get bigger then, in geological terms?
Answer.   Everything we see of the planet documents it.  Nothing isexcluded.  That's the challenge, to reconfigure Plate Tectonics' Heath-Robinson, flung-about, spidery contraption as a gleaming stretch limo.  Whatever is the process it appears to be making a whole lot of mantle, and a whole lot of water - and whatever other stuff comes out of volcanoes. And it seems also to be related to the Earth's rotation.  Magnetic reversals are implicated in the creation of the ocean floors.  That surely has something to do with mass creation, if creation is an issue.   If we do the job right there will be pointers that should make that question of size increase easier for somebody somewhere to answer. But right now that theoretical speculation is a sideshow that detracts from the fact, moreover, one that if indulged in, would torpedo the whole thing.  We should take a lesson from Newton and just document the facts. He described the force of gravitational attraction with an equation, but describing the magnitude of the force is not the same as describing its mechanism.  We still don't know how masses manage to attract each other over vast distances. Maybe in solving that one there might be some solution to your question, but that is well outside the scope of geology.  And don't forget the whole idea of collision with a Mars-sized object that supposedly gave the moon.  That's quite respectably accepted, and would be an addition of mass that was virtually instantaneous, geological speaking.  The problem with that one though is that the equilibrating terrestrial response to any impact has occurred over such a long time.  It's difficult getting your head around that one, and besides, the chronology probably reaches back into the Archaean.

Question.  So, ...what then? .. You just want to just say that's it, the Earth is getting bigger, and leave it at that?
Answer.  At this stage, ... yes. The fact of enlargement does not depend on mechanism.  It's nice to have an explanation, and even better one that stands up.  but the absence of one does not detract one iota from the fact. The two shouldn't be linked the way Plate Tectonics tries to do.  Plate Tectonics is wholly about mechanism, and geophysicists have tried to reconstruct geology in mechanistic terms to the extent they're representing theory as fact.  Worse than that, when you boil it down, *that* theory is wholly an assumption, and that is Junk Science of the highest order. Geologists shouldn't go outside their area of competence.  That's just asking to be discredited, and by association whatever good observations might be made will be discredited too.  It's silly, and asking for trouble.  Geologists should leave the hypotheses and speculation to physicists and others who feel themselves competent, and not be derailed on this score.

Question.  Wegener wasn't a geologist.  Wasn't he outside his comfort zone?
Answer.  Wegener talked facts, not theory.  He pointed out equivalences and asked the question which was largely rhetorical because the facts spoke for themselves.  To a large extent others tried to hang dead dogs on him by putting words in his mouth.  Skerl translates Wegener's word "vershiebung" as 'displacement'.  His detractors used the term 'drift', and it stuck.  There were more of them you see, so the word got used more.   It's others have drawn the picture of stately galleons ploughing through the oceans.

Question.  What about Carey then, ..didn't he speculate about mechanism.?
Answer.  Yes he did, and let me just tell you exactly what he said, because it's in his book.  He says, "I must, of course, attempt to explain the accelerating expansion I have described.  However if the explanation I offer should turn out to be invalid, that explanation should be rejected, not the reality of expansion."  Now that's up-front, is it not?  Not at all in the vein of belligerent hubris that geophysicists use to portray Plate Tectonics, or their determined refusal to address any problems that might arise.  Bill Erickson and Stephen Hurrell have speculated on the implications of the size of the dinosaurs as regards a lesser gravity field.  If that happens to be wrong it doesn't detract from the fact of huge dinosaur size.  Dinosaur size alone raises big questions, and certainly supports the notion of reduced gravity, but does not in itself prove the Earth is getting bigger, and I think they would be the first to agree.

Question.  Is there anything else you want to say on this?
Answer.  Not much, ..  Just to reiterate that mechanism shouldn't be an area for speculation.  By geologists at any rate.  The main thing is documentation of the fact that the Earth is getting larger.  And there, you see, ..I have fallen in my own trap. I should say "has got larger", because we can't tell if it still is, or will in the future.  The evidence for enlargement comes over time on a scale of the geological record of the past, not from the present., and satellite measurements won't do on the scale of our lifetime.  How long would anyone suggest we measure, for example, to confirm expansion is not going to stop, or go into reverse even?  The evidence is on the scale of geological time.  I'm not sure even if the scale of human existence on the planet would do.  It's an infantile pitfall to think that measuring will give us a conclusive answer on this one.  The latitudinal and longitudinal changes we're seeing in the time series data may well be, probably are, surficial movements caused by detachments related to the Earth's rotation.  Don't forget the planet goes around once a day.  That's a hell of a rate in terms of geological time.  There's a continuity to all the aspects of that, that denies the independence of plate movement.

Question.  Thank you.
Answer.  You're welcome