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Breakthrough Achieved in Explaining Why Tectonic Plates Move the Way They Do
Scripps Institution of Oceanography ^
| July 15, 2010
| Unknown
Posted on 07/16/2010 7:42:12 AM PDT by decimon
Researchers at Monash University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography identify movements of plate and plate boundaries; could substantially improve models of tectonic motion
Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego
A team of researchers including Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego geophysicist Dave Stegman has developed a new theory to explain the global motions of tectonic plates on the earth's surface.
The new theory extends the theory of plate tectonics - a kinematic description of plate motion without reference to the forces behind it - with a dynamical theory that provides a physical explanation for both the motions of tectonic plates as well as motion of plate boundaries. The new findings have implications for how scientists understand the geological evolution of Earth, and in particular, the tectonic evolution of western North America, in the past 50 million years.
(Excerpt) Read more at scrippsnews.ucsd.edu ...
TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; continentaldrift; crustaldisplacement; gps; magneticfield; magneticpole; magnetism; platetectonics; poleshift; sciencefrontiers; williamcorliss
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To: UCANSEE2
DEEP OCEAN RIDGES, you can see the growth lines on the seafloor. kinda like this?
21
posted on
07/16/2010 8:36:24 AM PDT
by
Upstate NY Guy
(Gen 15:16 The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.)
To: Upstate NY Guy
Admit it. You hate us all!
Aggh my eyes.
22
posted on
07/16/2010 8:38:13 AM PDT
by
agere_contra
(Obama did more damage to the Gulf economy in one day than Pemex/Ixtoc did in nine months)
To: cripplecreek
//we know for a fact that the moon is moving away from the earth//
And if everything was old as they say it is, it would already be gone. Not that I adhere to any specific age of the solar system etc.
23
posted on
07/16/2010 8:39:23 AM PDT
by
valkyry1
To: cripplecreek
As I see it from a brief skim, the point isn’t the explanation—it’s the improvement of the model.
24
posted on
07/16/2010 8:39:32 AM PDT
by
Gondring
(Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
To: Sacajaweau
A theory based on past history as opposed to theory based on supposition. Not the same thing. These guys have actually taken known facts and observations and plugged them into the computers to come up with their theory. The GW crowd goes the opposite direction. They have the answer, i.e. the computer models and now are trying to find proof.
25
posted on
07/16/2010 8:43:59 AM PDT
by
redangus
To: cripplecreek
Theory and hard science are too often confused. Theories are part of hard science.
26
posted on
07/16/2010 8:45:07 AM PDT
by
Gondring
(Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
To: valkyry1
And if everything was old as they say it is, it would already be gone.
At a couple of centimeters per year it will be around for a very long time.
27
posted on
07/16/2010 8:45:07 AM PDT
by
cripplecreek
(Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
To: centurion316
Subterranean hampster ping!
28
posted on
07/16/2010 8:49:04 AM PDT
by
Beowulf9
To: agere_contra
Admit it. You hate us all! Aggh my eyes. LOL. Hey, I could have done Helen Thomas!
29
posted on
07/16/2010 8:49:25 AM PDT
by
Upstate NY Guy
(Gen 15:16 The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.)
To: UCANSEE2
The new mantle being produced at the mid ocean ridges is recycled at the subduction zone in the deep ocean trenches. It works somewhat like the conveyor belt at your local grocery store. It bubbles up at the ridge, solidifies, rides across the molten magma and then dives back under the adjoining plate at the subduction zone and is re-melted only to be pushed back up at the ridge(or as volcanic magma).
30
posted on
07/16/2010 8:51:30 AM PDT
by
redangus
To: agere_contra
The Geosyncline hypothesis is an obsolete concept[1] involving vertical crustal movement that has been replaced by plate tectonics to explain crustal movement and geologic features. Geosyncline is a term still occasionally used for a subsiding linear trough that was caused by the accumulation of sedimentary rock strata deposited in a basin and subsequently compressed, deformed, and uplifted into a mountain range, with attendant volcanism and plutonism. The filling of a geosyncline with tons of sediment is accompanied in the late stages of deposition by folding, crumpling, and faulting of the deposits. Intrusion of crystalline igneous rock and regional uplift along the axis of the trough generally complete the history of a particular geosyncline. It is then transformed into a belt of folded mountains. Thick volcanic sequences, together with graywackes (sandstones rich in rock fragments with a muddy matrix), cherts, and various sediments reflecting deepwater deposition or processes, are deposited in eugeosynclines, the outer deepwater segment of geosynclines. Wikipedia Graywackes and eugeosynclines? Hmmmm...
31
posted on
07/16/2010 8:53:13 AM PDT
by
GOPJ
(Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous - Einstein.)
To: decimon
Monash University is in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. They also have campuses in Malaysia and South Africa.
32
posted on
07/16/2010 10:08:46 AM PDT
by
El Gato
("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
To: Sacajaweau
THEORY..... As is everything in science. The thing is, this one postulates a cause or mechanism, rather than just being description. It apparently does a better job of explaining the observations than the "bottoms up" theory.
E=MC^2 is "just a theory" too. But don't stand too close to the devices that exhibit the "theory".
33
posted on
07/16/2010 10:11:52 AM PDT
by
El Gato
("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
To: redangus
These guys have actually taken known facts and observations and plugged them into the computers to come up with their theory. The GW crowd goes the opposite direction. No, that's not what they did. They took their observations, probably more in a qualitative sense, came up with a model. Then they built a computer code using that model, and generated "predictions". Their predictions match reality better than those of the previously most accepted model.
The GW models are of dubious origin, in the sense that they use dubious assumptions and ignore significant factors. Increasingly they diverge from reality. IOW, they are bad models.
34
posted on
07/16/2010 10:18:00 AM PDT
by
El Gato
("The second amendment is the reset button of the US constitution"-Doug McKay)
To: decimon
To: redangus
These guys have actually taken known facts and observations and plugged them into the computers to come up with their theory. Exactly. All they're doing is refining what is already known and observed about plate tectonics. If the computer models hold up, I think this is the important element of the scientists' work:
"The computer models demonstrate that the subducted portion of a tectonic plate pulls on the portion of the plate that remains on the earth's surface. This pull results in either the motion of the plate, or the motion of the plate boundary, with the size of the subduction zone determining how much of each."
"In some ways, plate tectonics is the surface expression of dynamics in the earth's interior but now we understand the plates themselves are controlling the process more than the mantle underneath. It means Earth is really more of a top-down system than the predominantly held view that plate motion is being driven from the bottom-up."
36
posted on
07/16/2010 10:52:54 AM PDT
by
Bernard Marx
(I donÂ’t trust the reasoning of anyone who writes then when they mean than.)
To: decimon; gleeaikin; hellbender; 75thOVI; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; ...
Thanks decimon. Somehow I'd missed this one, maybe others. :'0
37
posted on
07/17/2010 7:02:07 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
To: SunkenCiv
38
posted on
07/17/2010 7:40:33 AM PDT
by
decimon
To: Upstate NY Guy
*shudder*
(There goes my breakfast.)
39
posted on
07/17/2010 8:30:05 AM PDT
by
Monkey Face
(Welcome home to my awesome army grandson!! Prayers and yellow ribbons for Anoreth of CG fame!)
To: Andrewksu
40
posted on
07/18/2010 9:36:11 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
("Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others." -- Otto von Bismarck)
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