I still like my "theory" best. That the Earth's gravity is losing oomph and the water is evaporating into space. It's scientifically as valid a "theory " as what beaver proposes.
Earths Expansion and Declining Seas
- Thread starter darkbeaver
- Start date
The earth is not just breathing. Isotope analysis confirms that the carbon dioxide comes from burning stored carbon, aka fossil fuels.
Observe, we can also see the sources with satellites:
YouTube - 'Revolutionary' CO2 maps zoom in on greenhouse gas sources
Feed algae. Which species of algae, not sure. If I was, I wouldn't be working for someone else!Actually if we can't quite cut back 80% of our emissions by reducing them, trapping carbon may be how we can get to 80% reduction in atmospheric emission of carbon.
Then we just need to figure out what to do with it after we bottle it.
I never said the earth doesn't "breathe". I was replying to your assertion that what we are seeing is the earth breathing. It is not just breathing.
952,
Seriously I didn't know the mantle warmed in steps. I thought it would be a steady gradient sort of climb.
Actually the warmth is increasing so it wouldn't be a direct proportion.
If the mantle is viewed as being a ball, expansion creates a bigger ball which has a surface area that can be calculated. The Atlantic and pacific rifts are expanding at about the rate a fingernail grow, here are some maps that have the ages for the Oceanic crust going back about 180 million years. Does that help?
Say the crust is on average 25miles thick. That would make for a slightly different surface area for the outside over the inside of the crust. The diameter would be 50 miles less overall. I'm just curious as to how much the mantle would have to heat up so it was 50 miles longer in the diameter dimension and how much would that 50 miles add to the area of the outer crust. Youtube has several short vid on the theory behind the expanding earth theory. The islands were mentioned briefly but they never really explore the concept of how water reacted to their theory. It is basically receding from the coast-lines (or at least it should be) simply because the Oceans are deeper where the rifts are. I will warn you it is not a widely accepted theory, but them massive floods creating the scablands was also not accepted at first, last i heard every deep river valley is now thought to be carved by large masses of water in what could have been frequent floods rahter than the trickle doing the work over long periods.
Taken to the extreme, closing the expansion joints, as done in the available animation, would push the water up on the land, go far enough back and that might explain the shallow seas of North America as well as in other places.
Right, but we're talking about sea level change. If you think of the mantle as a ball, and the ocean and crustal plates are on top of it, when the ball expands, both ocean and crust rises. In order for this to explain sea level rise, now you have to show that the ball (mantle) isn't expanding equally.
I can see that the expansion would not be uniform; different levels of friction between tectonic plates, southern hemisphere cooling as the northern hemisphere warms, vice versa, and all that. Besides Antarctica having a larger load resting on it than the Arctic lands. Actually the Atlantic sea level is about 8" higher than the Pacific, too. That's a bit of a load difference, too.
Yup. It's a big number, too.
6.0221415 × 10 ^ 23
It's a liquid so pressures are somewhat equal already. The mantle also has convection currents, that is related to heat, the core must be hotter than the area just under the crust because there are rising currents. odds are those zones also put more pressure on the crust and that is why certain parts are expanding.
I agree that the crust has gotten thicker over time and it would ride higher but nobody would notice as the atmosphere also rises, sideways motion would be the most noticeable change and that means wider Oceans in our case as the 'new' land mass is under water and the only gain in area of dry land would be from a receding sea.