More nonsense of plate tectonics.
(...Plates are 'ziplocked'... - ....clunk! )
More nonsense of plate tectonics.
(...Plates are 'ziplocked'...
- ....clunk! )
| Empirical observation shows 'plates' are dependent entities, 'ziplocked' together across the ridge, not as plate tectonics would have it, "jostling independently about". This dependence of plates across ridges precludes any connection with independent convective cells. |
Fig.1. Simple zip analogue for transforms; gravity map of the Indian Ocean Ridge (India in the top right corner) - and a zip (inset); transforms are the 'teeth'.
| Another perspective on the
nonsense of plate tectonics is provided by the architecture of the spreading
ridges themselves, which show a symmetry both across the ridges and along
them which is like that of a zip, i.e. both sides of the ridge are, in
a sense, 'tied' to each other. They are 'zipped', with the transforms
being the teeth. There is no independence, no autonomy, as plate
tectonics' concept of "plates jostling with each other" would have us believe.
If one plate is so fixed across the ridge, then, as the ridges are traced
around the Earth, globally they are all tied and there is only effectively
one plate being broken and pulling apart. And this is precisely what
the emergent GPS data shows.
If, however, like an unzipped zip, both sides of the ridge might detach and become independent, then plate tectonic's notion of independent plates would have some validity, but there is no ridge that shows any axial detachment and independence of movement of opposite sides of the ridge. In fact the whole of ridge dynamics acts to prevent this - each time the ridge (zip) opens it is again clamped by the teeth (transforms). Transforms act to keep the 'plates' tightly 'zippered', with the plates on each side of the ridge wholly dependent entities. This stands in direct opposition to the notion of convective overturn, where cells on both sides of the ridge must indeed be independent entities, with cooling cycles entirely dependent on the irregularities in their path. Therefore, whilst there is certainly uplift and spreading of ridges, the analogy of convection to account for it, is conclusively false. |
The inadequacy of convection
as a model is highlighted by the presence of 'hot spots' or 'mantle plumes'
such as Hawaii, where the line of islands shows successively younger magmatism
to the south. The idea that an anomalous heat source in the
mantle may remain spatially fixed whilst the crust moves over the top of
it is extrapolated to account for the massive outpourings of lavas on submarine
plateaus such as Ontong - Java..
However a local heat source would develop a radial pattern of convective
rise and resulting magmatism, yet Hawaiin magmatism is distinctly linear.
If there is any 'convection' related to the 'hotspot' its impression is
insignificant in relation to that attributed to the ridge of the East Pacific
Rise. Further, if hot spots are fixed sources, why aren't the fields
of 'hotspot lava outpourings'
ridge-related, as results of
the biggest mantle rupture of all, instead of (as would appear to be the
case) being transform-related (Ontong-Java link above )? Also
what is the nature of linearity of the heat source in the lower mantle
that every sector of it along its length is as uniformly active as the
next? The question is particularly relevant when considered in relation
to the spherical curvature of the Earth and natural dissipation of
mantle rise. Plate tectonics offers no answer to either question.
Depletion in any sector would lead to a relative, apparent increased activity
in the next, and a tendency towards polar diapiric rise but there is none,
not even a hint. The ridge remains a ridge,...and tightly 'zippered'.
|
Convection as a mechanism for ridge growth? I don't think so. In Earth expansion the ridge is related to the aggregate spirality of transforms and dynamics of twist/ torsion of the differently layered shells of the Earth as it rotates, which we can see, and not to any imagined convection (which we can't). In relation to the generation and growth of transforms (zip), twist rules (!).
( Plate tectonics? Ridgie-didge nonsense.)