....Plate Movement - the Myth of Plate Tectonics
                  ("...It is facile nonsense to represent this growth as 'movement'...")

Fig.1.  Plate map of the world.     Present day distribution of so-called 'plates', showing ridge-centred growth  represented in plate tectonics as 'movement'.

 

Active spreading ridges (that we can see), active subduction zones (that we can't see), and transform faults that for about 90% of their extent are not active at all - this is the triumvirate of structures whereby plate tectonics is supposedly articulated - by which 'plates' are supposed to "move independently" about, pulling apart here and colliding there, and 'grinding/ sliding/ moving' past each other on the way.   Got it?  - some bits of boundary you see (spreading ridges and transform faults), some you don't (subduction zones), and others that are hardly there at all anyway, see them or not ("diffuse boundaries")..

..Semantic bagatelle, because in any case plates are not moving.   They're growing.

You wouldn't say:- "Oh, he's six years old, and outmoving his clothes at such a terrific rate",  or, "Look how the grass has moved since the rain."   ...or, .."Count the movement rings on this tree."  - now would you?   Even though in each case a marker of the leading edge or tip could be said to have moved from 'A' to 'B',  it would be grossly illegitimate to represent the process itself as 'movement'.  Yet somehow, plate tectonics feels it is quite legitimate to make this bald substitution.  In the summation of elements of ocean floor defined by magnetic striping and transform trace, plate tectonics is quite at ease talking about the growth of the ocean floors, but when relating to its model, plate tectonics conveniently represents this growth as 'movement'.

But growth is not movement.   And it's facile nonsense to represent the two as the same thing.  They are different, and every effort should be made to discriminate the two to avoid confusion.  But, ...that's the spin plate tectonics needs (and uses) to put on what is actually growth, to substantiate its model.  Given the transparency of such legerdemain, it would be considerable relief to think that it was 'spin', but the worst of it is that plate tectonicists don't even seem to notice their own blooper.   It's dismaying to realise that they are just to this extent, ...seemingly, ..and to a man,  ...dumb - if scientifically 'aware'.

Spelling it out:- So, what's the real import of this difference in terminology, as it applies to the ocean floors?  The real import lies in the accent placed on the dynamics - whether is should be placed at the leading 'A'-to-'B' 'moving tip' (down subduction zones -  which always were and still are in any case merely a convenient assumption) or whether it should be placed at where the growth is actually taking place, namely at the ridges.   That is, whether it should be placed with what we can see evidence for (namely the entire ocean floors), or what we can't (namely the subducting plate - the stuff  disappearing down subduction zones).  The dynamics driving so-called 'movement' are at the ridge, and nowhere else.    The plates are growing at the ridge, and leaving a residual trace evident as the ocean floors.   They are not moving across the ocean floors in the sense meant by plate tectonics - to pull apart, grind past, and cause collision to crumple the crust and throw up mountains.   Certainly to the extent that a semantic argument for movement could be mounted along the lines  that the boy is 'moving' out of his clothes, or the grass is 'moving' upwards, or that the rings of the tree have 'moved' outwards, a certain latitude may be granted in the interest of ease of communication,  but to represent such as scientific fact is at best gross obfuscation, and at worst unparallelled ignorance.

And upwards growth without real lateral movement can logically only be interpreted meaning enlargement.  (!)

The plates are growing at the spreading ridges  -  both across the way and along the way.  Along-ridge growth is axiomatic in Earth expansion, but poses considerable dynamical problems for plate tectonics since the difference in length between spreading ridges and their original continental equivalent raises problems regarding the increasing rate of supposed subduction necessary to maintain a constant sized Earth.  Since subduction zones only take up half of the ridge-length of the world, and since they are (roughly) half a world away from the ridges (and therefore the ocean floor takes time to get there),  ridge- growth must approximate four times the rate of subduction (!)  Which entirely negates any premise of the Earth remaining a constant size before we even start this discussion.   This logical point is entirely ignored in the moribund neuronics of plate tectonicists, where  'plate movement' is designed to accommodate a totally unfounded assumption of subduction - at the same rate as across-ridge growth.   (Most of them today, having been taught this -even many teachers have been taught this to their detriment - don't even seem to know their supposed foundation is merely convenient assumption anyway, ..but since we know their education has scuttled any capacity they may once have had to think for themselves, we can only commiserate with them.)
 

"New sea floor is constantly being created along spreading centers. Obviously somewhere else old sea floor must be going away. This occurs in trenches, also called subduction zones."   http://webspinners.com/dlblanc/tectonic/ptbasics.html

"Obviously"... (!)?    Really?   But this is the accepted 'logic' plate tectonics hides behind.  Read it on any of the thousands of websites on plate tectonics.  It is entirely the support offered for its position.   But it is not obvious to me, when to say so creates so many geological and conceptual conundrums, and when the alternative 'obvious' of Earth growth solves them.

Growth?  Movement? ... Splitting hairs?   Not at all.   I can think of nothing else where the notions of movement and growth might be confused, yet plate tectonics embraces this equivalence without even drawing breath, thus creating the entire confusion which lies at the root of so many of its dichotomies - the schism between its conceptual model and the geological reality that is the source for its many calls for "more research needed".   The entire ocean floors show us nothing of 'movement' in any way similar to what we see in the continental crust.  They simply  represent the summation of growth of the spreading ridges - as is perfectly obvious if we drop the convenient assumption of plate tectonics - subduction.
 

Plate 'movement'
"...Good enough for schools and colleges..".
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