THE CONTINENTAL ACCRETION AND FOLDING OF AUSTRALIA BY PACIFIC SEA FLOOR UNDERSPREADING

1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
A.C.M. Laing

The theory of continental drift is criticised for being based on a number of fallacies.The fallacies discussed include polar wandering and Permian glaciation in Australia. Both are regarded as nonexistent. Data are presented to indicate firstly that Australia has grown by continental accretion and secondly that this growth has taken place under a horizontal stress directed outwards from the Pacific Basin. It is postulated that this horizontal stress is caused by a gradually intensifying bump in the liquid core of the earth, which is believed to have formed in the condensation and accretion stage of the solar system, mainly from two lumps of different composition and properties, one now constituting the Pacific Basin, the other the remainder of the Earth.A corollary to this hypothesis is that the structural equivalents of the petroliferous basins of North America lie under the Tasman, Coral, and Timor seas.

I have been asked to make a written contribution to the discussion, but have nothing new to say. My views will be found in the 1961 version of The Earth and in my lecture to the Royal Astronomical Society last October, which will be published in their Quarterly Journal. My main points are that the only type of imperfection of elasticity considered in convection and drift theories is the elastico-viscous law, which has been found to lead to numerous contradictions when confronted with actual evidence. Different phenomena led to values of the effective viscosity differing by factors of millions. On the other hand, a modified law, chosen to fit two quantitative data and applied far beyond the range of periods related to those data, has steered its way nicely among the other evidence for some sort of imperfection of elasticity, without giving any contradiction. But it does forbid convection and continental drift. I should be disposed to agree that inability to explain an alleged phenomenon is not necessarily a disproof of that phenomenon; but it does require a higher standard of scrutiny of the evidence for that phenomenon. The standard actually applied to evidence for continental drift seems to be considerably lower than is usual for a new phenomenon, and is not associated with any alternative explanations of things that can be explained.


1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Williams

By The Standards of The Solar System, Where are found the only comparable bodies of whose existence we have certain knowledge, the earth is not a large planet. For most of recorded history, on the other hand, it has certainly seemed so to its inhabitants, and only in recent decades has a different perception come to prevail, as instanced, for example, by the much-remarked Ward-Dubos book of 1972, Only One Earth — The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. In 1872 Phileas Fogg needed almost eighty days to go around the world, in 1961 Yuri Gagarin managed the feat in little more than eighty minutes, and nowadays less intrepid travellers than these think nothing of accomplishing the task using commercial aircraft in comfortably less than eighty hours. Photographic images and, in general, data of unlimited complexity meanwhile circle the globe virtually instantaneously. The technologies here are those of transport and communications but in most other areas of human activity too the twentieth century has seen similar technological strides.


2014 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Hoffman

Tuzo Wilson’s well-known pre-1961 opposition to continental drift stemmed from his early experience as a geologist in the Appalachians and the Canadian Shield, which convinced him that orogenesis did not change drastically over geologic time. Conversely, Taylor (in 1910) and Wegener (in 1912) hypothesized that continental drift began in Cenozoic or Mesozoic time. Between 1949 and 1960, Tuzo Wilson with Adrian Scheidegger developed a quasi-uniformitarian model of progressive continental accretion around fixed Archean nuclei. Tuzo abruptly jettisoned this model in 1961 when, under pressure from paleomagnetic evidence for continental drift and a nascent concept of sea-floor spreading, he finally entertained the possibility of pre-Mesozoic as well as younger continental drift. He immediately found it a superior fit to Appalachian and Shield geology, while his uniformitarian conviction remained intact. Tuzo had blinded himself to the evidence for continental drift so long as he confined it to Taylor or Wegener’s conception. In continental drift operating continuously over geologic time, he found a theory he could eagerly accept.


Author(s):  
John F. Caddy

An experimental dowsing of the planetary and lunar bodies of the solar system suggests that all planetary and lunar names evoke some degree of energetic excitation reflecting that of the bodies themselves. The highest values of pranic energy were found for Jupiter and the other large distant planets, and for moons close to their planet which are subject to gravitational forces and show volcanic activity. The Earth, Venus and Mars show similar moderate-high levels of pranic energy, but the low-moderate scores for pranic energy shown by Mercury and the Sun seem to verify that subtle energy production is incompatible with high production or high levels of conventional photonic radiation. A short discussion of the implications of these observations follows.


1965 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. E. Scheidegger

Abstract The best P and T axes as well as the best normals to the null directions were calculated for groups of earthquake fault plane solutions belonging to 29 areas of the Pacific Basin and vicinity. The method employed was one developed in an earlier paper of the writer; it is based on a calculation of the eigenvectors of a quadratic form. It is shown that the principal horizontal stress (PHS) directions obtained in this fashion are in excellent agreement with those obtained from other evidence. In the Western Pacific Basin and vicinity the calculations were sufficiently dense to determine PHS trajectories; the latter are shown and yield a consistent picture of the area in question.


1985 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth Nelson

According to Croizat's global synthesis, the main biogeographic patterns include trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific, trans-Indoceanic, Boreal, and Austral. Geological and geophysical theories vary, but agree that sea-floor spreading in the Pacific is different in its effect from that in other ocean basins. The difference allows for radial expansion of the basin and not merely east-west displacement of continental areas. Biogeographic data suggest that bipolar (boreal + austral) distributions are to be reckoned among the results of sea-floor spreading in the Pacific. Data from one group of inshore fishes (family Engraulidae) exemplify this notion and add, as terminal parts of the differentiation of the Pacific Basin, trans-Panama marine vicariance and a collateral occurrence in freshwater of tropical South America. These findings corroborate Croizat's synthesis. They suggest that the critical evaluation of that synthesis will be the main task of biogeography over the next decade. They indicate that within the area of systematics, evaluation will require a cladistic approach and the elimination of paraphyletic groups from classification.


The Red Sea Discussion Meeting originated in the desire of the other organizers to bring together as many as possible of the earth scientists who have been working recently in that area to examine the latest evidence and ideas on its structure and origin, to see how they accord with modern continental and sea-floor spreading concepts. The Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Afar crustal depressions, now known to be continuous with the extension of the world ocean rift system, have been claimed as a manifestation of crustal separation, but some Earth scientists still consider that the evidence can be explained by less drastic crustal rifting. Definite solutions to the many outstanding problems were not expected but discussions would clearly assist further researches.


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