New study shows the Earth is staying the same size

Or, .. Earth expansion gets a free kick
( Blog for website at http://users.indigo.net.au/don/ )

"..Since Charles Darwin's time, scientists have speculated that the solid Earth might be expanding or contracting. That was the prevailing belief, until scientists developed the theory of plate tectonics, which explained the large-scale motions of Earth's lithosphere, or outermostshell." http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110816.html

This article, published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, is rather interesting, not least for the tacit and calculated admission by Nasa that Earth expansion exists as something warranting speculation (much less that it is alive and well), but also for the opportunity to stress the essential difference between Earth expansion and Plate Tectonics, .. which is that (within the logical principles of structural and stratigraphic superposition on which geology is based) Earth expansion is tantamount to fact, where Plate Tectonics is merely its poor cousin - theory.

The difference between the two is apparent from the different approaches used to develop their respective positions - Plate Tectonics using geo-physics after the experimental / theoretical ways of the laboratory, and Earth expansion from geo-logic.

It would be nice to be able to say that Plate Tectonics is logical too, but it isn't, .. it's full of contradictions due to the way that it has developed according to the "American way" of doing science (Naomi Oreskes, 1999,  The rejection of Continental Drift - Theory and Method in American Earth Science, Oxford University Press.).   Oreskes' analysis of this, which appears to have been stimulated by her immediate post-graduate experience (quote1 here), is pretty good, but in weighing the various sociological factors underpinning the 'way', seems to me to carry an element of nationalistic apologia, stressing the historical emergence of democracy from the American crucible over the later emergence of naked economic power, .. implying that  'The American Way' is deeply rooted in the psyche of the American  pioneering  spirit where Jack is every bit as good as his Master, and that what he has to say is legitimised, .. forged even, ..on the anvil of the Principle of Multiple Working Hypotheses.  It seems a genuflection, rather than a dog-leg that might better be regarded as a diversion.

This principle says that provided the data are kept in mind all conjecture and speculation is relevant, and one idea (Jack's) is as good as another (his Master's). It doesn't matter if ideas are contradictory, the point is legitimacy, and since both ideas are 'of the data' then by definition they both have equal currency.  This Orwellian doublethink, where flights of outlandishly nutty and contradictory ideas can exist happily (and legitimately) side-by-side with ideas that might be judged to have more respectable sobriety is apparently characteristic of the democratic "American Way".  Well, .. why not?  Anybody can have an idea after all, and the more the better.  And who, after all is to say which one is better?  The duality here is reinforced by the implication that whilst the data is the anchor, by giving legitimacy to the *plethora* of ideas that may be tied to it, the very connection to the data is effectively severed, or at the very least severely weakened.  The ideas come to stand as representative of the data; the ideas *become* the data.

Earth expansion on the other hand stays refreshingly and wholly within the facts themselves.  Guided by the proper application of the dual principles of stratigraphic and structural superposition it brooks no contradictions.  It merely structures the data according to scale and time, and lets the data speak for itself.  It makes no theories, no speculations, no hypotheses.  It is axiomatically as tantamount-to-fact as geo-logic dictates it must be. It *is* the data from the beginning.  No 'becoming' needed.  It is as tantamount-to-factual as is the existence of the oceans, .. as is the difference in length between the spreading ridges and their initial lengths of breakthrough,  .. as are mountains carved by erosion from a peneplained surface, ..as is the gravitational collapse of fold belts and their riding out over the ocean floors .. as is the plethora of Earthquakes on the continents (and their paucity on the ocean floors), and as are the many more facts relating to the Earth's continental (and oceanic) surface. It is in need of no theory.  It is described simply by the proper layout of the facts in space and time.  It *is* the facts.

Why Plate Tectonics and Earth expansion are so much at odds can be substantially understood with reference to their sources of funding.  Geology remains essentially a university enterprise, funded by whatever instruments make it their business to be concerned with science education.  Geophysics on the other hand grew out of the massive military spending during the last war and later during the cold war and more recently the space race.   Its concern with education is no more than a publicity stunt, a "sop to the barking public dog".  If it were otherwise, it would explore the obvious option of Earth expansion advanced by the logic of the above-said geo-principles, rather than trying to debunk it and shore up what is obviously a derelict, sinking ship. But it won't (explore).  Securing funds for the 'American Way' is the pre-eminent purpose, not addressing the contention between the two, .. and the above-linked article is a PR stunt to that end.

So let's look at this PR stunt :-

Two decades of black-box observations asserting that the Earth is not getting bigger is pitched against two to three hundred million years of geological evidence that says it is.  This assertion-against-evidence is based on the unstated assumption that geological process is uniformly continuous when it isn't; history tells us that geological processes are far from linear and continuous.  On this ground alone the value of 'measurement' is negated.  Why would anyone with a smidgin of geological nouce seriously suggest that two decades of measurements mean anything against two-to-three hundred million years of geological evidence to the contrary?  Even if measurements did show the Earth to be getting bigger, how long, say, would anyone suggest we wait to be sure things are not going to go into reverse?  One look at erosion profiles is enough to tell us of the long periods of quiescence (and the rapid resumption - and reversals) of land movements.  It's what crustal adjusment to geological process is all about.

Also the crust skates on the mantle, evidenced by the commonly discordant structural relations between the two (Plate Tectonics says that the continents are fixed to the mantle but the reality is otherwise.)  On this ground too, measurement is invalidated.  The pattern of movement in the time - series data is certainly interesting support for changes in orientation of the crust with respect to Earth's rotation, but this is a different thing from growth, and far more detail would be required anyway before such a conclusion could legitimately be drawn. ( The Earth's rotation is simply ignored in Plate Tectonics, despite it being responsible for the first-order deformation of the planet - its oblateness.)

That's as regards 'measurement'.  Here are some geological aspects that 'measurement' ignores (which it shouldn't).

1. "Sea-floor spreading" (*is* Earth expansion by another word).
2. "Subduction" (is overriding, which marks the 'curvature correction of the continental crust, seen in the circumglobal fold belt as gravitational collapse all the way from the Alps to the Pacific.)
3.  Geology tells us that earthquakes belong to the continental side of the subduction zone, .. the oceanic side is by comparison seismically dead, .. and compared to the continents probably always has been.)  In other words, moving sea floors is just bosh.  As the plethora of earthquakes tell us, it's the continental crust that's doing the moving, not the ocean floors.
4. "Transform faults" are characterised by very large vertical displacements and commonly graben structures defining the ridge offsets, .. and as well, physically deform the ridges.  They are categorically *NOT* structures that existed prior to continental separation as necessitated by Plate Tectonics.
5.  "Spreading ridges" are longer than their initial extents of breakthrough, which can only happen as the ridges move up.  (a global-scale, two-hundred million year geological measurement so obvious that all black box contradiction can be chucked down the nearest subduction zone, .. and which is, of course, indicative of expansion.)
6.  Mountains built by crustal crumpling due to plate collision (a central plank of Plate Tectonics) is simply inadmissible since it ignores the peneplanation that precedes incision.

The Chinese authorship (Xiaoping Wu) is interesting, given that Earth expansion is alive and well on the other side of the Great Wall.  It does seem odd that Nasa would go to the bother of refuting Earth expansion this side of the wall, since popular consensus considers it dead anyway, so possibly the article is intended for Chinese consumption, given Google's excursion in that direction.  Let's see what happens when China puts up some gravity-measuring ballistics satellites of its own, instead of our
lot, which we're told are so that we know when to hang the washing out (since we're talking about wool-pulling over the eyes of the barking public looking for value for money). 

".. So why should we care if Mother Nature is growing? < ... > Scientists care because, to put movements of Earth's crust into proper context, they need a frame of reference to evaluate them against. Any significant change in Earth's radius will alter our understanding of our planet's physical processes and is fundamental to the branch of science called geodesy, which seeks to measure Earth's shape and gravity field, and how they change over time.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110817120527.htm

But if Nasa is considering some sort of resurrection of Earth expansion to justify Plate Tectonics, then refutation by two decades of arithmetic is no way to dispute the geological facts of more than twenty or thirty million of them, especially in the face of the geological deficits cited above.

Sorry guys.  Won't wash.  Far from putting to rest any speculation of Earth expansion, by mentioning it, you have simply given it legitimacy.  Thanks. 

Big Hand for NASA please (capital enterprise).  But seriously.  Earth exapansion speaks for a potential forward leap in physics that's probably the biggest yet, and most are afraid to face.  But the geological support is there.   In its understanding of energy conversion physics has already gone half-way. But only half way.  Let's see it go the other half. 

The evidence?  (You're standing on it, and washing with it, building your houses with it, and eating your weeties with it.)    What's hard about it?

Come on, ..  get a move on!

[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]