Heat release from tectonic friction

I'm looking for some assistance (read as please do the calculations for me and tell me the answer) in determining the heat effects of all of earth's tectonic activity, or as much of it as is known, being crammed into 4000 years. I have a sneaking suspicion that it would have melted the crust.What factors would need to be taken into account and what would be the effects of the other forms of energy released?

Hi Trixie,Would it be possible to make the focus a specific creationist scenario?

The scenario in question is that the earth was relatively flat prior to the flood and that all of the major continental separations and crashing together have all occurred since the flood. All the mountains rose during or after the flood and all of this on a 6000 year old planet.If we cram all the tectonics that we know about into the time between the start of the flood and the birth of Christ, what would be the amount of heat generated and the consequences of this heat.

Thread copied here from the Heat release from tectonic friction thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

If you forced the plates into their current positions from where they were at the middle of the jurassic when pangea split apart, you would have the mass of all the current ocean floors created in 4000 years. Imagine all of that lava pouring into the ocean in a very short period of time. The ocean would boil off.

Don't you have to give some evidence for this? Have you figured out exactly the volume of water being heated, and exactly how much lava welled up to create the ocean floors and at what rate and how much heat that would have generated so that you could give an actual figure to your claim that "the oceans would boil off?"I once calculated according to my own YEC assumptions that if the plates started splitting about the time of the Flood 4300 years ago and continued moving but slowing down increment by increment until they are now moving at the estimated speed of 2-4 inches per year, which I gather is the official measurement, that their initial speed would have been 20 feet per day. That's lava spreading about ten feet per day on either side of the mid Atlantic ridge, and probably something comparable wherever else on the planet the same sort of phenomenon was occurring to move the continents. That's the fastest it would have been spreading and over the last 4300 years it would have slowed bit by bit to its present couple of inches per year.So, how about giving us the calculations to show just how much water would be heated to what temperature in what amount of time by that amount of lava rising up to form the ocean floor? Plus whatever you want to add for friction and the volcanic activity going on at the same time and all that. I assume you need to know not just the volume of water but its initial temperature and also the temperature of the lava.I also understand that you have to take into account the fact that the evaporation of water, which would be increased by any increase in temperature, would exert a cooling effect on the atmosphere. Something like this is how the ice age has been explained by creationists if I got that right. The point being that you wouldn't have ONLY a heating effect going on but also a cooling effect.I have a pretty homely way of thinking about all this, by imagining a large pot of cold water on the stove and realizing that it takes a LONG time to get just that much water boiling even with the flame full blast. And you've got an enormous volume of cold water in the oceans in relation to what is really a relatively small heating unit, it seems to me, so that your idea it would boil the water is quite exaggerated.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You're asking the same question as the OP. I don't ahve a good answer. Why don't you post your calculations?

I didn't attempt to calculate anything other than the speed of the separation between Europe and North America, but all the continental plates were in motion at the same time and probably at different rates.I figured the distance between Europe and North America to be currently roughly 3000 miles, and for that distance to have been traveled in a rough 4500 years would mean moving at an average rate of 1000 miles in 1500 years, or 10 miles in 15 years or 3/4 mile in one year, or 3960 feet or 47,520 inches, or 11 feet per day. I put that number at the midpoint of the time between the Flood and today, or roughly around 100 BC or so. I figure that's the speed at which the continents would have been separating in 100 BC. Before that they were separating at a faster rate that increases back to the beginning, and since then at a slower rate that decreases to the present rate of 2-4 inches per year.What I arrived at was that at the time of the Flood the speed of separation, assuming maximum speed at that time though it probably hadn't yet attained that, was one and a half miles per year, or 7920 feet per year, or 600 feet per month or 20 feet per day.That's ten feet of separation on either side of the mid-Atlantic ridge being generated daily or less than 6 inches hourly, and that was when the originating volcanic action was at its peak.I have no idea how to calculate the heat factor in relation to the volume of water factor but again even with all the places the ocean floor would have been spreading from the uprising of lava, or magma, it doesn't look to me like proportionally it's anywhere near the amount of heat it would take to boil a large pot (say two gallons) of cold water on the stove in half an hour, not to mention the cooling effect from the evaporation.Clearly that magma is still rising and spreading as the plates are still moving. How long does it take it to cool as it becomes ocean floor? That has to be taken into account as well.ABE: Trixie's question included heat generated by the raising of mountains too, which presumably would have occurred at some rate commensurate with the rate of sea floor spreading. Any idea how to calculate that?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Ok. But have you thought about what this rate of plate motion means?The San Andreas fault is measured to move at 1.5 inches per year. Here is a link that lists 206 earthquakes from the years 1769 to 1989 (220 years) with a magnitude of 6 or greater. This is an average of .93 earthquakes per year with the plate movement at a rate of 1.5 inches per year.Using your average estimate of 10 feet per day this would be 44,000 inches per year. {10*12*365=43,800}At this rate of movement, earthquakes would occur 29,000 times more frequently than they currently are. {44,000/1.5=29,333} which would produce 3 earthquakes with M >6 per hour {.93*29,000/365/24}3 earthquakes per hour on average over the last 4300 years on a 1000 mile fault line!!??And there are maybe 40,000 miles or so of fault lines throughout the world.But wait there's more ...

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Seismologists have observed that for every magnitude 6 earthquake there are 10 of magnitude 5, 100 of magnitude 4, 1,000 of magnitude 3, and so forth as the events get smaller and smaller. This sounds like a lot of small earthquakes, but there are never enough small ones to eliminate the occasional large event. It would take 32 magnitude 5′s, 1000 magnitude 4′s, 32,000 magnitude 3′s to equal the energy of one magnitude 6 event.

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SourceThe world would be in constant earthquake shake. Not to mention Tsunamis etc...A bit silly, huh?The idea of plate tectonics just needs to be abandoned if you are going to propose a flood model. It just can't happen at the rate required of it.HBD

Hi Trixie ... I am no expert in geology or earthquakes but here is some numbers I came up with.I figured there would be 3 earthquakes per day of magnitude 6 or greater for every 1000 mile of fault. See Message 9 for how I arrived at this number.According to Richter magnitude scale a magnitude 6.8 earthquake releases 1.0PJ of energy. If even half of that is converted to heat (which actually more like 80% should be) that will result in 1.5PJ per hour of heat energy for every 1000 miles of fault line.If there is about 40,000 miles of faults across the globe (which is a is a rough guess) that would mean world wide about 60PJ per hour of heat would be released.I found this that says that it takes 5.6 x 10^24 Joules to raise the temperature of the hydrosphere 1 deg K.This would translate to 1.1 x 10^(-8) deg K per hour {60 x 10^15 / 5.6 x 10^24). In 4300 years that would equal less that 1 deg K.I don't know, maybe I am doing something wrong here, I am not sure what though?? Of course this is only calculating energy input from earthquakes not from lava flow into the ocean or thermal vents.Another point though is that most of the heat generated by an earthquake would be trapped underground and may not have a chance to heat the oceans.But there are more problems than this anyway. Three magnitude 6.0 or greater quakes every day for every 1000 miles of fault line?Also the plates are moved by convection currents under the crust. Convection currents are caused by differential in temperature; the hot magma rises and the cool magma sinks back to the core. What would the temperature differential need to be in order to move the plates 29,000 times faster than they are moving today? The whole idea is just crazy.HBD

I would imagine there were many earthquakes while all this was going on, much of it begun even before the Flood waters had abated and certainly before Noah's clan had enough time to multiply and move far from their docking area somewhere in the Middle East. Probably some really gigantic earthquakes. There was nothing like the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles to be terribly shook up by them in those days.So no, I don't think it's all that silly.But I would like to get SOME feeling for the heat situation, which I'm sure has been exaggerated beyond all possibility.

Because of a gut feeling?
Show your calculations.Why are you even posting in a science forum?

Seems to me my input has been scientific so far. But I can leave since you say so.

You want to be scientific ? Try this.According to your model, how fast would the plates be moving 2,000 years ago ? How about 3000 years ago ?What effect would that have on major earthquakes ? Does the historical and archaeological data support it ?

I gave enough numbers to figure that out. 11 feet a day about 100 BC or so. You can fill in the rest and do the calculations, which I did not promise to do beyond figuring the rate of separation between North America and Europe from the Flood until now. Let's hear from you in understandable English how it works out please. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.