Catastrophic Plate Tectonics - Fact or Fiction?

The fact that there is no evidence to support them is NOT my problem. Yes, I know about this. The problem is that there should be no horizontal compression if the force driving CPT is actually simple gravitational pull-down. Think about it. 'Could' and 'did' are quite separate concepts. I doubt the first and totally reject the second, based on evidence. Really? So how does Baumgardner assume that the 'instability' will be propagated in the third dimension? Isn't this a rather large assumption? Certainly, but the difference is between brittle and ductile strain. When we are talking about folding, we generally think of it as ductile deformation. So, you admit to being vague on the subject. Must have? Why? What is the evidence that it must have occurred? Then maybe you should explain again. This is all getting very muddled. You have a bunch of mechanisms that you don't think were connected, but must have occurred. Or maybe not... Your thinking is becoming more and more muddled. We have subduction occurring today. So, where is the CPT? More to the point, where is the flood?

Then you should make an attempt to refute actualism and not imply that we do not believe in catastrophes. Maybe you should explain then. I fail to see why your lack of evidence constitutes a contradiction on my part.

But if we had thousands of times more hydrated oceaninc crust and overlying sediments being subducted, wouldn't that result in at least a little bit more volcanism? And if not, wouldn't you be chilling the asthenosphere to the point where its viscosity would rise so as to choke of CPT? Wow. So ALL of the island arcs, magmatic provinces and the entire oceanic crust of the world being formed in one year would look no different than what we see today. Unbelievable....Try thinking about this for just a minute, Chris, and remember that rigid stubbornness does not necessarily indicate genius.

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The fact that there is no evidence to support them is NOT my problem.

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What? Not only was the runaway instability hundreds of kilometers under the earth, but it is long gone..

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Yes, I know about this. The problem is that there should be no horizontal compression if the force driving CPT is actually simple gravitational pull-down. Think about it.

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It isn't just 'gravitational pull-down'. There needs to be a force to first bend the rigid lithosphere down into the mantle. The oceanic lithosphere coliding with continental lithosphere is that deflecting force.

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'Could' and 'did' are quite separate concepts. I doubt the first and totally reject the second, based on evidence.

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"could" is inherent to computer simulations and numerical modeling. And yet we still appraise them as highly useful tools.

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Really? So how does Baumgardner assume that the 'instability' will be propagated in the third dimension? Isn't this a rather large assumption?

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No.

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Certainly, but the difference is between brittle and ductile strain. When we are talking about folding, we generally think of it as ductile deformation.

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Yes, but whether brittle or ductile behavior is exhibited in rock is a question of whether the increasing strain does not relax and continues to build towards the rocks brittle failure strength with little or generally no plastic deformation and fractures (brittle deformation) or is relaxes through creep processes (ductile behavior). Of course, rocks can exhibit both brittle and ductile deformation (eg. a ductile material deforming plastically and then fracturing).I think that the distribution of heat in, saturation, and the structure of the compressed crust are far larger factors leading to whether the rock will deform with brittle or ductile behavior and ultimately result in folding or fracture and faulting. If the confining pressure of rock under question is near the brittle strength of the rock deformation will transition from brittle to ductile behavior.Folded morphology usually occurs in sedimentary as well as in metamorphic rocks. Folding occurs because there are layers of differential elastic strength. A limestone would have greater elastic strength than sandstone at equivalent levels of saturation. The weaker layer may even behave as a Newtonian fluid. When the the bending stress in the elastic member exceeds the rock layer's yield strength it will either fracture or yield plastically. Again whether the bending stresses propogating throughout the layered rocks results in brittle fracture or ductile transformation is going to be understood less if at all by the rate of compressional strain but by the characteristics and structure of the rock layers.Folding in sedimentary rocks is probably better explained in CPT beause of partial lithification from incomplete dessication, allowing for pressure solution creep. In fact we know this is probably the case because minerals of high solubility like quartz are redistributed throughout the folded rock matrix from regions of high stress to regions of low stress. Folding of crustal rock is largely a mystery without pressure solution creep and unless there is data indicating otherwise, I think it is an outlandish assumption to think that old lithified rock with a large surface overburden have much significant saturation. However this incomplete lithification due to incomplete dessication in the early diagenesis of the rock will result in less resistance to ductility.Therefore in the old earth framework, most cases of folding should occur either to saturated unlithified surface rocks, saturated subsurface rocks, and rocks with a significant overburden. Lithified surface rocks will not fold without fracture and unsaturated subsurface rocks without significant vertical compression will not fold without fracture.I think that CPT explains folding quite well.

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So, you admit to being vague on the subject.

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inevitably.

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Must have? Why? What is the evidence that it must have occurred?

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What other mechanism is there to produce the isotopic signatures observed that give the impression of increasing age throughout the geologic record?

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Then maybe you should explain again. This is all getting very muddled. You have a bunch of mechanisms that you don't think were connected, but must have occurred. Or maybe not...

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Well I think ultimately it is currently unknown whether accelerated radioisotopic decay is required for CPT and runaway subduction, but I don't think so. Nevertheless it clearly occured if CPT is accurate. I am not proposing Accelerated decay as a required mechanism, only a possible one, and its only contribution would have been the initiation of CPT. As I have discussed before there are other mechanisms to initiate CPT so it is theoretically therefore not required.

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Your thinking is becoming more and more muddled. We have subduction occurring today. So, where is the CPT? More to the point, where is the flood?

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Subduction is not confirmation (in an "actual" context) of CPT, it is merely evidence. Furthermore, subduction of the current oceanic lithosphere is theoretically a result of CPT (thus evidence for it), therefore it is nonsense to assert that for it to be evidence for it, it must still be occuring.-Chris Grose

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"...research [is] a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education. Simultaneously, we shall wonder whether research could proceed without such boxes, whatever the element of arbitrariness in their historic origins and, occasionally, in their subsequent development." Kuhn, T. S.; The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp. 5, 1996.

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Then you should make an attempt to refute actualism and not imply that we do not believe in catastrophes.

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Where in the world did I ever say that you did not "believe in catastrophes"?? I never said such a thing.

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But if we had thousands of times more hydrated oceaninc crust and overlying sediments being subducted, wouldn't that result in at least a little bit more volcanism? And if not, wouldn't you be chilling the asthenosphere to the point where its viscosity would rise so as to choke of CPT?

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Your considering two opposite possibilities--either the volatiles introduced into the mantle wedge produce too much melting, or the cold lithosphere acts as a heat sink and causes no volcanism. I would argue that they would balance each other out.

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Wow. So ALL of the island arcs, magmatic provinces and the entire oceanic crust of the world being formed in one year would look no different than what we see today. Unbelievable....

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isn't it? If you haven't noticed yet, I am trying to get you to point to various observations and explain why they could not form as is as would be required by CPT.This message has been edited by TrueCreation, 07-04-2005 03:52 AM

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"...research [is] a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education. Simultaneously, we shall wonder whether research could proceed without such boxes, whatever the element of arbitrariness in their historic origins and, occasionally, in their subsequent development." Kuhn, T. S.; The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, pp. 5, 1996.

Well, it would certainly have an interesting effect on the atmosphere which should certainly show up.It would also be difficult to form the paleosol horizons often found between lava flows (even within flood basalts).

Then you have a problem. I am sorry, but claims such as CPT require evidence. What you need to do is predict what effects CPT would have on the geological record, that would be unlikely to have been produced by normal PT, and then look for those effects. That would be evidence. So, what is that force. Baumgardner relies upon only gravity as far as I know. I agree. However, it would be good to use this tool to make some predictions and then find corroborating evidence. Up to now CPT is only a model and, as far as I'm concerned, it could tell us that the plates floated on petroleum and came from the moon. I'm glad that we have your opinion. However, most rock mechanics people would suggest that lower strain rates favor ductile behavior. Well, how about normal radioactive decay and old ages? Chris, do you really think that mainstream geologists have not thought about this? Do you think they would not have noticed radionuclides could not be explained by normal geological processes? You don't seem to give much credit to your predecessors. This is all very good for mental gymnastics, but that is all that you are doing right now. You need evidence to go one way or the other. Maybe you can wait a career or a lifetime to know everything, but in the meantime, people like me have to go out and use some kind of model or technology to function in the real world. You have major problem here and that is that the evidence you give is also evidence for mainstream PT, which is currently OBSERVED and explains the geological record more than adequately. You need to give us something concrete and diagnostic of CPT if you want to be taken seriously.I'm beginning to think that you are simply a dyed-in-the-wool YEC. They seem to have the same problem understanding what evidence is. It's like saying that the little gulley in my back yard is evidence of a flood. To YECs this makes sense, but to scientists it's a head-shaking piece of illogic. I've said it before and probably will again, Chris, you are way to smart to take this seriously.

I thought you were implying that we are all blinded by a 'uniformitarian mindset'. If not I apologize. I assure you that most geologists these days are, in a way, very catastrophist in outlook.

But your model for producing magma is by adding water to the lower crust and mantle. So, how do you want it? Cooling the mantle and outer core by rapdily subducting cold oceanic lithosphere along with water-loaded sediments will quence the very heat instability that Baumgardner needs. If we take 4000 kilometers of oceanic crustal and supracrustal materials and send them to the CMB, what happens to the thermal instability?At the same time you HAVE to dewater the huge crustal load somewhat; and you HAVE to produce virtually all of the volcanic rocks in a year, more or less. And this wouldn't be any different from the volcanism in quantity and composition that we see today? I think you are sweeping a major problem under the rug here, Chris, by simply ignoring it. But just think what evidence this would be, if you could find it! Oh, they probably could, because CPT is nothing but a numerical model. The point is that you need evidence FOR CPT that is also evidence refuting, or at least unexplainable by PT.You also have another fallacy here in that it is not up to me to find evidence or reasoning for CPT. That is your job, if you want to promote the model.

Flood basalts?!!!! So there! More evidence for a flood!

Oh no! The secret is out Please don't tell my viva committee...

I promised you geomagnetic data? Are you sure? That doesn't sound familiar at all, I don't know where I'd even find geomagnetic data, and making statemnts first with promises of data later is not the kind of thing I tend to do. In fact, it's the kind of thing I do my darndest to discourage. Let me check my posts in this thread...Nope, I don't see where I promised you any geomagnetic data. If you're sure of this then you're going to have to remind me what you're talking about. Chris, do you remember a few years ago when people were telling you to walk before you run, in other words, to start with introductory texts and work your way up instead of starting with technical papers? That was good advice. Your error in thinking that modern geology characterizes itself as uniformitarian derives from accepting the characterizations of Creationist sources (there is no other source of this particular piece of misinformation) and from having to correct information because you started with the complicated instead of the basic. It explains the huge gaps in your geological knowledge. It's why you view geology as a bunch of disconnected facts instead of a unified whole where each set of facts reinforces and confirms many other sets of facts. If you get yourself an introductory text on geology, you'll find uniformitarianism near the beginning in the section outlining the history of geology. You will not find it explained as a principle of modern geology.If after doing your research you somehow manage to conclude that you are not "erroring" then God help you. Of course they're not accurate. They weren't intended to be accurate. The exercise was to find a lower bound on the smallest amount of required energy, because if this lower bound was sufficient to melt the earth's surface, then more accurate calculations that included all the continents (instead of just North America) and that included all the processes (instead of just the initial acceleration) could only be worse. But the lower bound proved to require very little energy with respect to the entire ocean, let alone with respect to the entire earth. Please, Chris, don't be ridiculous. You have no way of knowing. You must at least provide a coefficient of friction, a calculation of the surface area of contact, provide an estimated speed, and then perform a rough calculation to give us a ballpark figure.This raises a further question. If the base of the continental crust experiences friction with the underlying lithosphere, then it can't be mantle currents providing the impetus for tectonic plate motion. What is your proposed mechanism for plate motion? Are the plates being pushed by the magma from the oceanic ridges? And how is this 10²⁸ joules figure calculated? It seems like a lot of heat, and if measured against the ocean it actually is. It's enough heat to raise the temperature of the entire ocean by 19,000 ^oC.But measured against the mantle it isn't very much. The specific heat of granite is 800 joules/g^oC (much, much higher than water), and it's density is 2600 kg/m³. In a rough approximation, it's enough heat to raise the temperature of the top 10 miles of the earth (1.11x10²¹m³ or 2.89x10²⁷ grams of granite) by about 10^oC, which doesn't sound like much of a temperature increase, but in order to spread throughout the mantle as you claim there has first to be a hell of a temperature gradient beginning at the heat's source, which you haven't revealed in any more detail except to say the "runaway process itself".I'd like to hear how the 10²⁸ joules figure was calculated, and I'd like to hear a description of the runaway process itself that causes the heat.--Percy

I asked for evidence that supported CPT, too, a few pages back.I'd like to see some real world evidence that is better explained by CPT rather than PT.

Evidence? We don't need evidence, we've got a model!