...Transform faults - The Third Boundary of Plate Tectonics

Fig.1.   The Third Boundary of Plate tectonics - the Transform fault.   ( Plate tectonics redefines 'Move Past'.)    (Transform faults = the short white lines on the Atlantic Spreading Ridge).  .... So, what's going on?  Are the African and South American Plates diverging about the Atlantic ridge?  Or are they moving past each other on transforms?   Which transform fault on the ridge is the 'third' boundary?  All of them?   How many 'boundaries' then do both plates have?   What is the boundary drawn between the South American and North American  Plates?  Where did the African Plate come from, if it is "moving past" the North American, South American, Antarctic, Australian, Indian and Arabian Plates - all at the same time?  Or is it that all the other plates are 'moving past' Africa?
 

Fig.2.  The imaginary boundary drawn in Fig.1 between the South American and North American  Plates.  What is it?   Where is it?   ( Note that 'transform fault' only applies to the short sector between the ridges.  Otherwise (which is virtually their entire length) they are classed as 'fractures'.)

It is not possible to enquire into, or write about the mechanism of transform faults without using the wordstring - <"How transform faults form"> or <"how transform faults develop">, and yet if you try to discover information on the web along these lines you get zero, or very close to zero entries.

Well ok then, ..five.  Two of them are me, one's a High School, and the other one's giving notice of a meeting advertising "a superb opportunity to evaluate how transform faults form", and is repeated. Not exactly informative for anyone looking for an answer.   Except for the school.  I like the school.  At least they're having a go at the question, which is more than can be said for the institutionalised at all the uni.edu's in the world.  (The ones posting on the net anyway.)  School.   A demo of naivety, and for that they get a bonus - approaching the world with child-like wonder, unpolluted by the politics of consensus.

Ah, ..dear, ...and yet there are nearly three thousand sites on the web talking about transform faults.  (<"Plate tectonics" "transform faults" = 2,900>).  How is it possible there can be so many sites dealing with plate tectonics (151,000 at the time of writing), and yet none of them are addressing the question how transform faults form?  (If they were, then we'd score better with the wordstring, wouldn't we?)

None of them?  Ok, I don't exactly know about them all, but I've had  a fair look.  Check them out.  Prove me wrong.

The answer is because that's the nature of plate tectonics consensus.  You do *NOT*  think for yourself.   You be one of us. You ask your teacher.  You ask a 'higher authority' who will tell you to go and read a book.  But what do you do when the higher authority and the books, all of them,  fail you?  Well then you'd better look out. 'coz you're in uncharted waters, and every 'authority' around the place would sink you if they only could.   It's the way the battleship of consensus is, ...the way it's fitted out.   It's the job it and its crew are designed and trained to do.

But nevertheless you still want to know what plate tectonics says about transform faults?  Well, google around.  All you're going to find out in plate tectonics about transform faults no matter whether you read books or ask your teacher or google it up, ...is that "transform faults are the third boundary of plates and the mechanism/ means/ way/ etc that plates slide/ grind/ or move/ etc past each other".

And ... that's *IT*.   Two lines.  In a worldful of 'researchers' and nearly three thousand sites, that's all you're going to get  - that's useful.

 
No, ..the point is that plate tectonics can provide no good reason whatsoever why transform faults should develop at all - no reason why every so often ridges should stop 'ridging', and develop 'transforms' instead, ...knife-edge boundaries - on which movement may be one way or the other.   The more honest sites will admit this, like the fellow writing for 'Nature' above.   The others (by far the majority) dodge the issue.

Plate tectonics hardly tries to provide any reason.  It's as if with so many transforms in existence they take over the scenery and the very bulk of their presence is statement enough to brook no query or contradiction.  It's as if people think they need no explanation beyond the statement above.    In fifty years there have been few attempts to address this problem, and those that do, do so from within the model of convection, paying no attention to the geology itself.  Wax experiments with two big metal plates stuck in the 'ocean floors' (= solid wax) pulling the 'ridges' apart to simulate convection ('slab-pull' analogue) are thus far the best you're going to get,  but are far from convincing.  If they did (pay attention to the geology) they would see that transform faults are not faults at all, but fractures, ...brittle growth fractures in a growing brittle mantle,  with virtually no movement on them except a bit of 'adjustment normal faulting' .  Like one jostling side of a growing 'brick'.  Which is why they are so damned straight!!  All the time (just about).  They are not a third 'plate boundary' at all, but are just a corollary expression of RIDGE GROWTH.   A boundary?  Yes, ...but not a PT-type plate boundary with all its connotations of 'movement' and 'moving past'.   Just a boundary of GROWTH.  Got it?   (Dammit!  they got 'fracture' right (*sort of*)  for more than 90% of the length of the things.  Why do they screw up the remaining less than 10%?)

Ah, yes, ...for the model, ...for the model... Right.. Some model!

Platies are dumb.  Straight from the jungle.  They must be.  With no sense.  Well, maybe one.  Or two, since they are forever putting in their two-worth wherever they can.   They should stop and think, instead of dishing up others'  regurgitations, and calling the stuff  "knowledge".  Even a London cabby does better.  At least he knows where he's going (most of the time), and doesn't get stuck in a blind alley.

 
* No marks really, for calling a fault that is no longer active, a 'fracture'  (What a squad) - but at least they recognise  there is no movement on it - for more than 90% of its length  (Wunderbar!) though how strike-slip is supposed to stop on a dime, right at the end of the active sectors is anybody's guess. It is certainly not explained in Plate Tectonics.

 

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