1

. See Endnote 5 on page 441 for an explanation.

2

. Plate tectonics, as first proposed, had 6 to 8 plates. This number has grown as followers of the theory have applied it to specific regions of the earth and found problems with the theory. Although textbooks usually mention only about a dozen plates, the theory now requires more than 100, most of them small.

This is reminiscent of the use of epicycles, from A.D. 150 to 1543, to explain planetary motion. Ptolemy explained that planets revolved about the earth on epicycles—wheels that carried planets and rode on the circumferences of other wheels. As more was learned about planetary motion, more epicycles were required to protect Ptolemy’s geocentric theory. Of course, any theory can appear to explain facts if the theory has enough variables (adjustable parameters).

Both the plate tectonic theory and the hydroplate theory claim that plates have moved over the globe. The plate tectonic theory says that plates move, by an unknown mechanism, slowly for hundreds of millions of years. The hydroplate theory, using an understood mechanism, says that a few hydroplates moved rapidly at the end of a global flood. Upon collision, they fragmented into pieces which today are shifting slowly, but in jerks, toward equilibrium.

As historians of science know, old theories frequently accumulate many anomalies—discoveries that oppose the theory. These problems do not overthrow the old theory until a new theory comes along that can explain all that the old theory did plus the anomalies. [See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970).] Plate tectonics is becoming more complex as new information is learned, a sign that “epicycles” are with us again. This has caused a growing number of international scientists to announce that “a lot of phenomena and processes are incompatible with this theory [plate tectonics] ... we must develop competitive hypotheses.” [A. Barto-Kyriakidis, editor, Critical Aspects of the Plate Tectonics Theory, Vol. I (Athens, Greece: Theophrastus Publications, 1990), p. v.]

3

. W. Jason Morgan, “Rises, Trenches, Great Faults, and Crustal B,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 73, No. 6, 15 March 1968, p. 1973.

Jürgen Friedrich and Guy G. Leduc, “Curvilinear Patterns of Oceanic Fracture Zones,” Journal of Geodynamics, Vol. 37, 2004, pp. 169–179.

4

. Ken C. Macdonald and P.  J. Fox, “Overlapping Spreading Centers,” Nature, Vol. 302, 3 March 1983, pp. 55–58.

5

. Paul G. Silver and Nathalie J. Valette-Silver, “Detection of Hydrothermal Precursors to Large Northern California Earthquakes,” Science, Vol.  257, 4  September  1992, pp. 1363–1368.

6

. On 25 March 1998, the largest earthquake in 4 years and one of the largest ever recorded on the ocean floor struck inside the Antarctic plate, 350 kilometers from the nearest plate boundary. [See Richard Monastersky, “Great Earthquake Shakes Off Theories,” Science News, Vol. 154, 5 September 1998, p. 155.] Powerful intraplate earthquakes have also occurred near Lisbon, Portugal (1755), New Madrid, Missouri (1811, 1812), and Charleston, South Carolina (1886).

7

. Richard Monastersky, “Reservoir Linked to Deadly Quake in India,” Science News, Vol. 145, 9 April 1994, p. 229.

8

. Mark D. Zoback, “State of Stress and Crustal Deformation Along Weak Transform Faults,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 337, 15 October 1991, pp. 141–150.

9

. “[Deep earthquakes] have posed a fruitful puzzle since their discovery 60 years ago. How can rock fail at the temperatures and pressures that prevail hundreds of kilometers down?”  Cliff Frohlich, “Deep Earthquakes,” Scientific American, Vol. 260, January 1989, p. 48.

10

. Arthur D. Raff, “The Magnetism of the Ocean Floor,” Scientific American, October 1961, pp. 146–156.

11

. R. S. Coe and M. Prevot, “Evidence Suggesting Extremely Rapid Field Variations During a Geomagnetic Reversal,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Vol. 92, 1989, pp. 292–298.

R. S. Coe, M. Prevot, and P. Camps, “New Evidence for Extraordinarily Rapid Change of the Geomagnetic Field During a Reversal,” Nature, Vol. 374, 20 April 1995, pp. 687–692.

Roger Lewin, “Earth’s Field Flipping Fast,” New Scientist, Vol. 133, 25 January 1992, p. 26.

12

. The Mid-Ocean Canyon begins between Canada and Greenland and extends 2,300 miles to the south.

13

. Quinn A. Blackburn, “The Thorne Glacier Section of the Queen Maud Mountains,” The Geographical Review, Vol. 27, 1937, p. 610.

Ernest Henry Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic, Vol. 2 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1909), p. 314.

Stefi Weisburd, “A Forest Grows in Antarctica,” Science News, Vol. 129, 8 March 1986, p. 148.

Richard S. Lewis, A Continent for Science: The Antarctic Adventure (New York: Viking Press, 1965), p. 134.

14

. Lewis, p. 130.

15

. “[Canada’s Ellesmere Island, well inside the Arctic Circle, was] warm enough throughout the year to sustain palm trees and other tropical flora and fauna.”  Daniel B. Kirk-Davidoff et al., “On the Feedback of Stratospheric Clouds on Polar Climate,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 29, No. 11, 15 June 2002, p. 51–1.

“On eastern Axel Heiberg Island [in Canada], ... fossil forests are found. ... just 680 miles from the North Pole. The stumps of ancient trees are still rooted in the soil and leaf litter where they once grew. ... many trees reaching more than a hundred feet in height.”  Jane E. Francis, “Arctic Eden,” Natural History, Vol. 100, January 1991, pp. 57–58.

16

. Carl K. Seyfert and Leslie A. Sirkin, Earth History and Plate Tectonics, 2nd edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 312.

17

. “Estimates vary widely, but most experts agree that marine gas hydrates collectively harbor twice as much carbon as do all known natural gas, crude oil and coal deposits on earth.” Erwin Suess et al., “Flammable Ice,” Scientific American, Vol. 281, November 1999, p. 78.

18

. John Woodmorappe and Michael J. Oard, “Field Studies in the Columbia River Basalt, North-West USA,” Technical Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2002, pp. 103–110.

19

. Richard A. Kerr, “Looking—Deeply—into the Earth’s Crust in Europe,” Science, Vol. 261, 16 July 1993, pp. 295–297.

Richard A. Kerr, “German Super-Deep Hole Hits Bottom,” Science, Vol. 266, 28 October 1994, p. 545.

Richard Monastersky, “Inner Space,” Science News, Vol. 136, 21 October 1989, pp. 266–268.

Richard A. Kerr, “Continental Drilling Heading Deeper,” Science, Vol. 224, 29 June 1984, p. 1418.

20

. Yevgeny A. Kozlovsky, “Kola Super-Deep: Interim Results and Prospects,” Episodes, Vol. 5, No. 4, 1982, pp. 9–11.

21

. The geothermal gradient in a few continental regions far from volcanoes varies from 10° to 60°C per kilometer.

22

. Harvey Blatt, Sedimentary Petrology (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1982), pp. 3, 6, 241.

23

. In Norway, China, and Kazakhstan, tiny diamond grains have been found in nonvolcanic, metamorphosed, crustal rocks that were once sediments.  [See Larissa F. Dobrzhinetskaya et al., “Microdiamond in High-Grade Metamorphic Rocks of the Western Gneiss Region, Norway,” Geology, Vol. 23, No. 7, July 1995, pp. 597–600 and Richard Monastersky, “Microscopic Diamonds Crack Geologic Mold,” Science News, Vol. 148, 8 July 1995, p. 22.]

24

. John V. Walther and Philip M. Orville, “Volatile Production and Transport in Regional Metamorphism,” Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, Vol. 79, 1982, pp. 252–257.

25

. George C. Kennedy, “The Origin of Continents, Mountain Ranges, and Ocean Basins,” American Scientist, Vol. 47, December 1959, pp. 493–495.

26

. Larry Gedney, “The World’s Deepest Hole,” Alaska Science Forum, Article 725, 15 July 1985, p. 2.

27

. “... we estimate the depth of the mother salt layer as about 20,000 feet in the Texas Gulf Coast. This is in general agreement with estimates on the same basis made by Barton.” L. L. Nettleton, “Fluid Mechanics of Salt Domes,” Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Vol. 18, No. 9, September 1934, p. 1177.

28

. “As the name suggests, it was once thought that evaporites formed exclusively from the drying out of enclosed marine basins. This required improbably large volumes of seawater to provide the resultant evaporites.” R. C. Selley, “Mineralogy and Classification,” Encyclopedia of Geology (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005), p. 31.

29

. Kenneth J. Hsu, The Mediterranean Was a Desert (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983).

30

. Barry Setterfield, “An Investigation That Led to Unexpected Results by the Late Mr. G. F. Dodwell, B.A., F.R.A.S., South Australian Government Astronomer, 1909–1952,” Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of South Australia, September 1967.

Another data point that could be added to Dodwell’s long list is the Great Pyramid of Egypt. For it to line up with today’s cardinal directions, it would need to be rotated about 3 degrees counterclockwise. The pyramid’s builders were much too skilled to have made such a large error.

31

. See Endnote 4 on page 288.

32

. See “Meteorites Return Home” on page 309.

33

. “Strikingly large concentrations of iridium were also observed [in the eruption debris of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano], the ratio of iridium to aluminum being 17,000 times its value in Hawaiian basalt.”  William H. Zoller et al., “Iridium Enrichment in Airborne Particles from Kilauea Volcano: January 1983,” Science, Vol. 222, 9 December 1983, p. 1118.

Charles Officer and Jake Page, The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc., 1996), pp. 110–124.

34

. Ibid., pp. 98, 114–115, 117–121.

35

. “Taken together, our analyses indicate that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction was a globally uniform event.” David M. Raup and David Jablonski, “Geography of End-Cretaceous Marine Bivalve Extinctions,” Science, Vol. 260, 14 May 1993, p. 973.

36

. Sometimes, the popular press has announced the discovery of craters that might explain the extinction of dinosaurs. Usually, after the initial fanfare, other discoveries were made which falsified the proposed impact site.

37

. Officer and Page, pp. 151–156.

Rex Dalton, “Hot Tempers, Hard Core,” Nature, Vol. 425, 4 September 2003, pp. 13–14.

“To date, no one has found iridium associated with Chicxulub.” Gerta Keller as quoted by Barry DiGregorio, “Doubts on Dinosaurs,” Scientific American, Vol. 292, May 2005, p. 28.

38

. Robert Vickers Dixon, Treatise on Heat (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1849), pp. 143–144.

39

. In water at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, only about one in a billion water molecules is ionized. That is, the random vibrations of water molecules sometimes break a molecule (H₂O),  which has no net electrical charge, into OH^- and H⁺, which have a negative and a positive charge, respectively. Because they are electrically charged, the particles are said to be ionized. The more ionized the water, the easier it is for water to conduct an electrical current.

Energy is required to pull the positive and negative charged particles apart, but that energy is recovered if those charges recombine, as positive and negative charges always try to do. If you expend energy by rubbing your shoes on a carpet, some electrons from the carpet stick to your shoes. Your body becomes negatively charged and your hair will tend to stick out. Then, if you touch the nose of your unsuspecting sister, a spark will jump between your finger and her nose; energy is released instantly, much to your sister’s surprise.

As the temperature of the subterranean water increased, its ionization increased. At the temperatures and pressures in the subterranean water, the ionization of each gram of water is hundreds of millions of times greater than that of the water you drink. When the flood began, the temperature and pressure of the water jetting up through the rupture suddenly dropped, allowing the electrical charges to recombine. Ionization energy was then released as heat that accelerated the water to even greater speeds.

For a good discussion of the extent of ionization of water at the temperatures and pressures in the subterranean chamber, see E. U. Franck, “Fluids at High Pressures and Temperatures,” Pure and Applied Chemistry, Vol. 59, No. 1, 1987, pp. 25–34.

40

. “Both numerical simulations and laboratory experiments confirm that supercritical out-salting is a viable process of geological significance for the formation and accumulation of evaporites.” Martin Hovland et. al., “Sub-Surface Precipitation of Salts in Supercritical Seawater,” Basin Research, Vol. 18, 2006, p. 221. (Figure 2 on page 223 shows the pressure-temperature curve at which “out-salting” occurs.)

41

. Conduction and convection (including boiling within the liquid) remove relatively little heat from the liquid; radiation at these temperatures is small.

42

. Ph. Wernet et al., “Spectroscopic Characterization of Microscopic Hydrogen-Bonding Disparities in Supercritical Water,” The Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 123, 12 October 2005, pp. 154503-1–154503-7.

What this paper calls “small patches of hydrogen bonded water molecules,” I am calling shimmering, microscopic droplets.

43

. Because the expanding vapor had such high energy, the mass of rocks that escaped earth’s gravity was comparable to the mass of jetting water.

44

. The energy in the subterranean chamber was vastly greater than one would suspect by simply examining a steam table. Steam tables do not include the dominant forms of energy that were in the subterranean water, namely (1) ionization energy, explained above (sometimes called energy of dissociation); (2) surface energy; (3) chemical energy from burning within the SCW; and (4) nuclear energy. [See “Energy in the Subterranean Water” on pages 437–442.]

What is surface energy? Energy is required to create a surface—to break chemical bonds and thereby form a surface. Immediately before the rupture, the total surface area of all microscopic liquid bundles in the SCW was about a trillion times greater than before tidal heating began. (Furthermore, the polar nature of water molecules gives liquid water unusually high surface energy.) Therefore, as tidal pumping and chemical burning added energy to the SCW, most of that energy (1) ionized both the liquid and vapor, and (2) increased the total surface area of the liquid bundles by further fragmenting the microscopic liquid particles. Consequently, temperatures did not rise as much as one might expect. Based on the Widmanstätten patterns found in iron meteorites (which came from subterranean pillars), temperatures exceeded 1,300°F. [See Figure 157 on page 302.]

45

. Baron Cagniard de la Tour and most researchers before 2005 thought supercritical fluids (SCFs) were gases. They were wrong, although at the macroscopic level, SCFs behave in many ways as gases. Unseen were microscopic droplets of liquid throughout the SCF. These droplets account for many of the amazing properties of SCFs.

De la Tour’s fluids included ether and alcohol. With water, he was unable to reach the critical point, because of its high temperature and pressure—705°F (374°C) and 3,200 psi (220.6 bars). Also, his glass tubes were attacked by the high solubility of water as it approached the critical point.

46

. A common novelty item, the lava lamp, demonstrates some aspects of this. A lava lamp is a vertical, transparent tube containing two different colored liquids with slightly different densities. A light bulb at the bottom heats the denser liquid, causing it to expand, become less dense, and float up into the liquid above. Because the densities are almost equal, a slight undulation in the lower liquid will rise far into the liquid above and then pinch off to become a droplet. Sometimes droplets collide and merge.

47

. Steel and other hard solids can be cut like butter using a very high-velocity water droplets.

48

. In 1964, one of the first solids dissolved in a SCF for economic purposes was caffeine from coffee beans. This produced decaffeinated coffee. Organic wastes and toxic substances (such as the agents in chemical weapons) can be dissolved in SCFs and rendered harmless. The SCF is usually carbon dioxide (CO₂), because its critical point, 88°F (31°C) and 1,072 psi (74 bars), is so low.

49

. “Even Jules Verne did not foresee this one. Deep down at the very bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, geochemist Andrea Koschinsky has found something truly extraordinary: ‘It’s water,’ she says, ‘but not as we know it.’  ... She thinks it could offer a first glimpse at how essential minerals and nutrients like gold, copper and iron are leached out of the entrails of the earth and released into the oceans.” Catherine Brahic, “Found: The Hottest Water on Earth,” 4 August 2008, http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn14456.

50

. Large earthquakes rupture (in both directions) at speeds approaching 3 mi/sec—nearly the speed of sound in rock. [See Michel Bouchon and Martin Vallée, “Observation of Long Supershear Rupture during the Magnitude 8.1 Kunlunshan Earthquake,” Science, Vol. 301, 8 August 2003, pp. 824–826.]

As the flood began, the crack’s two ends circumscribed the globe and produced the 46,000 mile rupture in about 2 hours.  

Of course, the pressure that ruptured the crust began dropping in the subterranean chamber immediately after the rupture began. This pressure drop propagated through the liquid shell at the much slower speed of sound in water, which is only about a third of the speed of sound in rock.

The rupture did not begin in what is now the Atlantic as some people have thought. (It was the later upbuckling of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge that began in the Atlantic.) Notice on the map on page 107 that the Mid-Oceanic Ridge intersects itself only once (in the Indian Ocean). The end of the crack that passed south of what is now Africa must have reached that intersection after the other end of the crack had passed by that point as it traveled to the northwest. Therefore, if the rupture began anywhere between what is now the North Pole and Alaska, the two ends of the crack (traveling at the same speed) would have formed that intersection in the Indian Ocean.

Also, by starting anywhere in that 2,500-mile region, the crack always raced ahead of the dropping pressure in the subterranean water. In other words, both ends of the growing crack propagated through the crust that was still pressurized from below—still in tension. Cracks can grow only through solids that are in tension.

51

. Yes, the Mid-Oceanic Ridge encircles the earth, generally along a great-circle path. On maps showing details of the ocean floor, the Mid-Oceanic Ridge may seem to disappear along the northwest coast of North America. However, on a globe, if you place red dots everywhere an earthquake occurs, many dots will form a continuous red line along the Mid-Oceanic Ridge. That line goes under the northwest coast of North America. So, the ridge is hidden under California, western Canada, and Alaska. The North American plate probably overrode that segment of the ridge at the end of the continental drift phase.

52

. Vibrating aspects of hydroplates are explained on page 280. [See “What Is Flutter?” and “Water Hammers.”]

53

. Consider a semi-infinite hydroplate, settling at a rate R and overlying a water layer of thickness t. A water particle exactly below the center of the plate will not move, because it is “undecided” whether to flow to the right or left, but the farther a particle is from the center, the faster it will flow. A conservation-of-mass calculation shows that a typical water particle a distance x from the plate’s center will move with a velocity of  

However, the plate settles slowly, because the water’s maximum velocity under the hydroplate will be limited by viscosity, rubble from crushed pillars, the mass of sediments carried, back pressure from the accelerating fountains, and compressible flow considerations. As more water escapes, pillars are increasingly crushed and the flow steadily slows.

Velocity and erosion from the upward expanding flow will increase as the top edge of the plate is approached. When the plate finally settles onto its basalt foundation, it will have a continental shelf and a continental slope. (Compare erosion patterns in Figure 73 with Figure 46 on page 107.) 

Twenhofel and Mead reported that the chemical composition of the earth’s sedimentary rocks (excluding sediments containing carbon) can best be matched by taking 65 parts of granite and 35 parts of basalt. [William H. Twenhofel, Treatise on Sedimentation, 2nd edition (New York: Dover Publications, 1961), pp. 2–3; W. J. Mead, “The Average Igneous Rock,” Journal of Geology, Vol. 22, November–December, 1914, pp. 772–778.] This is a remarkable statement, because the quantities of what turns out to be ten minerals in the earth’s sediments depend on only an amount of granite and an amount of basalt. From the above, we can now see why this happens. For every 65 parts eroded above the subterranean chamber, 35 parts of basalt were eroded under the subterranean chamber. This produced almost all the earth’s sediments and sedimentary rock.

54

. T. McKenny Hughes, “Bursting Rock Surfaces,” Geological Magazine, Vol. 3, 1887, pp. 511–512.

55

. J. P. Den Hartog, Advanced Strength of Materials (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), pp. 141–171.

56

. John Larsen, “From Lignin to Coal in a Year,” Nature, Vol. 314, 28 March 1985, p. 316.

57

. Compressed solids, liquids, and gases store energy. Springs are common examples. If a force, F, compresses some material by a small amount, D, the additional energy stored in the material is F × D. If the compressed material is rock, D will be small, but F will be huge. The product of the two could be very large. The compressive energy stored in the earth’s mantle and core is immense.

Just before the rupture, the strain energy in the crust would have been about 2 × 10²⁹ ergs. The released energy, as the Mid-Oceanic Ridge sprung upward, was about 10³³ ergs. (This is explained beginning on page 120.) Only a small fraction of this energy was needed to form mountains. (A one-megaton hydrogen bomb releases about 5 × 10²² ergs of energy. Two of the most violent volcanic eruptions in modern times, Tambora in 1815 and Krakatau in 1883, released about 8.4 × 10²⁶ ergs and 10²⁵ ergs, respectively.) [Gordon A. Macdonald, Volcanoes (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 60.]

58

. As the Mid-Oceanic Ridge rose, its surface stretched in two perpendicular directions. Because rock is weak in tension, two types of cracks grew, each perpendicular to a direction of stretching.  Both types of cracks are shown in Figures 43, 60f, 61, and 74.

Just as the tops of the coils of the spring are farther apart on page 120 in (e) than (a) or (c), so the surface of the ridge was stretched perpendicular to its axis. One can also feel this type of stretching by grabbing a phone book firmly in both hands and arching it. The outer cover is placed in tension.

The other type of stretching was along the ridge axis. A circle’s circumference increases as its radius grows. Likewise, the entire length of the ridge’s crest was stretched as the ridge moved farther from the center of the earth.

Each type of crack began as a microscopic opening with stress concentrations at both ends. As the ridge rose, both types of cracks grew perpendicular to each other. Cracks along the ridge axis, called axial rifts, began at different locations along the ridge crest. Later, flank rifts, also parallel to the ridge axis, formed farther down the flanks of the ridge. Flank rifts formed after axial rifts because the greatest curvature, and therefore, greatest tension, occurs at the ridge crest. Rifts stopped growing when they ran into the perpendicular cracks called fracture zones. However, fracture zones never ran into rifts, because fracture zones always began at the crest, where the ridge was farthest from the center of the earth. [See A1–A3 in Figure 74.] Both types of cracks are still growing, although sporadically and at a much slower rate. This is due to cooling and thermal contraction, and it accounts for much earthquake activity along the ridge.

As the ridge rose, hundreds of short axial rifts began growing at different places along the rupture path. The more the ridge rose, the longer and wider these cracks became. This created a line of bending weakness, which caused the ridge to rise symmetrically with the axial rift. In general, each axial rift did not align with the next axial rift, so segments of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge are offset from each other at fracture zones.

Lengthening axial rifts also explain overlapping spreading centers (OSCs), where two portions of the ridge axis overlap. Macdonald and Fox, who first reported on OSCs, demonstrated how the overlaps occur. [See Endnote 4 on page 129.] They took a knife and made two parallel cuts in the top of a block of frozen wax—one cut ahead of the other. The block was then pulled perpendicular to both cuts, causing the cuts (cracks) to grow toward each other. As the cracks grew past each other, their ends began turning toward the other crack. Sometimes they intersected. [See Figure 45 on page 107 and B1–B3 in Figure 74.] This suggests that OSCs were formed by lengthening axial rifts as the ridge rose. OSCs contradict the plate tectonic theory.

Another test of the hydroplate theory vs. the plate tectonic theory concerns the cross-sectional profile of fracture zones. The hydroplate theory says that fracture zones are tension cracks formed when the ridge suddenly rose and was stretched parallel to the ridge axis. The cracks grew from the surface downward. Consequently, their profile should be V-shaped or trough-shaped. [See Figure 75 (a).] Relatively shallow cracks will be V-shaped; deep cracks will be trough-shaped, because the pressure is so great at the base of the crack that the rock would flow as the sides of the crack are pulled apart. On the other hand, the plate tectonic theory says that a fracture zone is a boundary between two adjacent plates moving relatively to each other. If so, the profile should look as shown in Figure 75 (b). These two predictions were jointly made on April 30, 1986 with the late Robert S. Dietz, one of the founders of the plate tectonic theory. Bob Dietz and I then set out to learn the actual shape of fracture zones.

The true profiles confirm the hydroplate prediction. [See Tjeerd H. van Andel et al., “The Intersection between the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Vema Fracture Zone in the North Atlantic,” Journal of Marine Research, Vol. 25, No. 3, 15 September 1967, pp. 343–351. See also A. A. Meyerhoff and Howard A. Meyerhoff, “Tests of Plate Tectonics,” Plate Tectonics: Assessments and Reassessments, editor Charles F. Kahle, p. 108.]

This exercise produced two other surprising confirmations of the hydroplate theory. First, the actual fracture zones were trough-shaped near the ridge axis where the fractures should be deepest. At the ends of fracture zones, the profiles were V-shaped. The second surprise was the presence of undeformed, layered sediments inside fracture zones. If the opposite sides of a fracture zone are sliding past each other, as plate tectonics claims, sediments caught between the sliding plates would be highly deformed.

Plate tectonic theory predicts and some textbooks erroneously claim that earthquakes in fracture zones occur only between the two offset ridge axes, where the plates, according to plate tectonics, are moving in opposite directions. To the contrary, earthquakes occur all along fracture zones, as the hydroplate theory predicts.

Also confirming the hydroplate explanation is the map on page 107, which shows that fracture zones lack mass. Figure 75 (a), not Figure 75 (b), fits this observation.

59

. Basalt is highly magnetic because it contains magnetite and hematite. Magnetic material will lose its magnetism if its temperature exceeds a certain value, called the Curie point.  Increasing the pressure raises the Curie Point. At the earth’s surface, the Curie point for basalt is near 578°C.

A typical cross section of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge is shown in Figure 76. The ridge’s temperature generally increases with depth. However, the walls of the cracks in the Mid-Oceanic Ridge are, in general, cooled by cold water circulating down into and up out of them by natural convection. After several thousand years of cooling, the constant temperature line corresponding to the Curie point is shown by the dashed line. As a rock particle cools from 579°C to 577°C, for example, it takes on the magnetism of the earth’s magnetic field at that point. Therefore, more magnetized material is near each crack. Magnetic anomalies also occur perpendicular to the ridge, along fracture zones. According to plate tectonics, such perpendicular magnetic anomalies should not exist. Naturally, if a device measuring magnetic intensity (a magnetometer) is towed across the ridge, it will show the magnetic anomalies of Figure 47 on page 108. These magnetic anomalies, however, are not magnetic reversals.

On rare occasions, jets of former supercritical water (SCW) escape upward through these sediment-filled cracks. (The SCW had been trapped in pockets in the deep rock since the flood.) The jets are called black smokers, because they are still thick and black with dissolved minerals and are extremely hot (400°C). Such hydrothermal vents are intermittent and usually lie on the ridge axis. 

60

. Other factors complicate the movement.

The rupture didn’t necessarily widen by the same amount all along its path.

The Mid-Oceanic Ridge, especially in the Pacific, would not exactly follow the path of the rupture.

A large plate moving over the earth’s surface is actually part of a spherical shell rotating about an imaginary axis passing through the center of the earth. Points on the plate far from the poles of that axis move farther than those near the poles.

Depending on exactly where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge began to rise, the hydroplates would not necessarily slide perpendicular to the entire Mid-Atlantic Ridge. In fact, the Americas Plate rotated about 10° clockwise during its slide, and the European-Asian-African Plate rotated about 10° counterclockwise. (This implies that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge began to rise south of the centers of mass of each hydroplate, very near the present equator.)

61

. In 1749, Pierre Bouger discovered that the gravitational attraction of the Andes Mountains attracted a plumb bob from the vertical far less than expected. In 1854, a similar discovery was made concerning the Himalayan Mountains. Geologists then began to realize that some mass is missing beneath mountains. Since then, more precise measurements on many mountains have confirmed this.

62

. In past years, the United States Government has considered funding a 3-year, 45-million-dollar project to drill a deep hole into the southern Appalachian Mountains. The hole was intended:

... to test, among other things, the hypothesis that a sheet of crystalline rock about 10 kilometers thick was shoved 225 kilometers westward over underlying sedimentary rock by a continental collision. In 1979, despite the seeming improbability that such a thin sheet would hold together like that, deep seismic reflection profiling revealed a layer that is presumably the previously proposed boundary between the crystalline sheet and the underlying sedimentary rock. The hole would penetrate this reflector of seismic waves at a depth of about 8 or 9 kilometers and return samples to verify its nature. Richard A. Kerr, “Continental Drilling Heading Deeper,” Science, Vol. 224, 29 June 1984, p. 1418.

The hydroplate theory explains why and how a thin sheet of rock moved westward. It was not “shoved,” for reasons given on page 435. It gained its velocity by gravitational sliding and, therefore, experienced little internal stress. The movement of a 10-kilometer layer for 225 kilometers should no longer be an enigma.

Such a drilling project could be extremely dangerous. If the prediction of water under buckled portions of mountains is correct, then this drilling project might have disastrous consequences. Upward-escaping, high-pressure water would quickly erode and greatly enlarge the drilled hole. As water escaped from beneath the mountain range, major earthquakes could occur.

63

. “A layer of aqueous fluids could produce the conductance observed in Tibet with a lower fluid fraction and/or layer thickness than considered above for partial melt. For example, a layer only 1.6 km thick containing 10% of 100 S/m brine would be needed to yield the observed 10,000-S conductance.” Wenbo Wei et al., “Detection of Widespread Fluids in the Tibetan Crust by Magnetotelluric Studies,” Science, Vol. 292, 27 April 2001, p. 718.

“Our results imply that of the order of 10% volume of free aqueous fluids in the Tibetan middle crust produces the observed bright spot reflections. The presence of relatively large quantities of free aqueous fluids, presumably mostly saline supercritical H₂O, does not preclude the presence of melt but does constrain the maximum temperature at the bright spots to the wet granite solidus (about 650°C).” Yizhaq Makovsky and Simon L. Klemperer, “Measuring the Seismic Properties of Tibetan Bright Spots: Evidence for Free Aqueous Fluids in the Tibetan Middle Crust,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 104, No. B5, 10 May 1999, p. 10,795.

64

. Some geologists have wondered if quartz migrated out of the black rock. One look at the sharp boundary between the light veins and the dark host rock should eliminate that possibility. Also, quartz is the first common mineral to melt as rock heats up and the last to solidify as it cools.

65

. Shearing forces would produce fairly smooth, straight crack patterns, not the “tangled” patterns see at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Other forces (viscous, thermal, gravitational, electrical, and magnetic stresses) can be eliminated on other grounds. Because few would even entertain them as a means of breaking so much rock, we will not discuss them here.

66

. As each mountain suddenly rose, its distance from the earth’s spin axis increased. This, in turn, increased the mountain’s centrifugal force (blue arrow in Figure 77A), a force that always acts away from and perpendicular to the spin axis. (Likewise, a rock whirled at the end of a string produces a centrifugal force that pulls the string taut.)

Part of each new mountain’s centrifugal force acted tangentially to the earth’s surface and tended to roll the earth. Because mountains are scattered around the earth, many of these “rolling” forces counterbalanced each other. However, the Himalayan Mountains and Tibetan Plateau are so massive that their effect dominates that of all other mountains. (The world’s ten highest peaks relative to sea level—including Mount Everest—are part of the Himalayas.) In other words, crashing hydroplates thickened continents and created today’s mountain ranges. Their net centrifugal force rolled the earth so that the Himalayas moved toward today’s equator. Also, the thickened, massive Eurasian hydroplate helped roll the globe in the same direction.

Fortunately, the earth’s spin creates an equatorial bulge that acts like a huge gyroscope stabilizing the earth. As the earth began a slight roll immediately after the compression event, the equatorial bulge also rotated, so it was no longer perpendicular to the spin axis. The more the bulge rotated, the more its centrifugal force resisted the rolling force due to the Himalayas and the thickened Eurasian hydroplate. (Please study all of Figure 77.)

Once the liquid outer core had begun to form, it partially isolated the solid inner core from this rolling action. However, as the outer earth began its slow 35°–45° roll, it would have received, as it slipped over the core, a large, sudden torque from inside. The law of conservation of angular momentum required the outer earth’s spin axis to precess, with the North Pole in Figure 77C precessing “into the page.” (The last paragraph in Figure 77 explains how the amount of precession, 6°, was determined.)

An equal and opposite torque was applied by the outer earth to the inner core, causing its axis to precess in the opposite direction more than a thousand times faster, because the inner core’s moment of inertia is less than one thousandth of that of the outer earth. So, the outer earth and the inner core developed different spin orientations soon after the compression event. This difference gradually diminished as the liquid in the outer core transmitted torque between the two spinning bodies (the inner core and outer earth), slowly reversing the earlier precessions. The data Dodwell gathered from ancient astronomers showed this reversed precession; Dodwell concluded that it began in about the year 2345 B.C.

The following chapter (pages 144–167) explains why the earth’s magnetic field emanates from the inner core. Therefore, the initial precession of the inner core probably produced the rapid drifting of the earth’s magnetic field described on page 108. The rate of this reverse precession has greatly diminished, but it is probably seen in today’s slight westward drift of the earth’s magnetic field, the so-called secular variation of the magnetic field.

Earth’s slow roll after the flood would have changed the paths of the Sun and stars across the sky. Attempts to measure those irregularities may have led to the construction of ancient observatories such as Stonehenge.

In addition to pushing up mountains, the crashing hydroplates crushed and thickened continents, especially in certain places. Each plate moving on the surface of a sphere has an axis of rotation. Because the driving forces that moved the two largest hydroplates came from the sudden upbuckling of the same ridge (the Mid-Atlantic Ridge), both hydroplates had almost the same axis of rotation. The fastest plate movement and the most thickening would have occurred near the equator of that axis of rotation. After the compression event, centrifugal forces rolled the now out-of-balance earth, so the axis of plate rotation approximately aligned with the earth’s spin axis. Therefore, today’s equator approximately bisects and is perpendicular to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Since the compression event, isostatic adjustments have tended to smooth out the earth’s surface to some extent, but imbalances and adjustments—such as earthquakes—continue within the earth.

67

. As explained in Figure 77, the southern extreme of Ninety East Ridge (85°E, 32.5°S) was slightly north of the old equator, and the Himalayas (centered at 89°E, 33°N) was slightly south of the old North Pole but near what is now 89°E longitude. This would place the North Pole, before the big roll but after the continental drift phase, near the line segment lying between 85°E, 57.5°N and 89°E, 33°N—basically central Asia. The preflood North Pole, before the continental drift phase, would have been about 18° (based on today’s globe) of longitude to the west of that point.

As the equatorial bulge shifted north near 90°E longitude, the northern tip of Ninety East Ridge experienced the greatest tearing stress. This continues and may explain why one of the largest earthquakes in recent years occurred near that point on 26 December 2004, causing a tsunami that killed 300,000 people. The flood is still producing death and destruction. Indeed, all earthquakes, tsunamis, and most natural disasters are a consequence of the flood.

Just as the earth roll produced stretching and tearing along Ninety East Ridge, it produced compression and buckling near both poles. At the South Pole, that compression buckled the crust downward, forming a long basin which holds a 76-mile-long subsurface (unfrozen) lake, appropriately named “90°E Lake.” Parallel and adjacent to that lake is another long, subsurface, Antarctic lake named Sovetskaya Lake. An earlier study recognized that these lakes were produced by stresses in the earth’s crust, not by glacial scouring or meteorite impacts. [See Robin E. Bell et al., “Tectonically Controlled Subglacial Lakes on the Flanks of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, East Antarctica,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, 28 January 2006, pp. L02504–L02507.] Perhaps a compensating upward buckling at the North Pole produced the remarkably straight 1,000-mile-long Lomonosov Ridge.

At the end of the flood, the compression event suddenly thickened the continents and pushed up major mountain ranges. The earth was then unbalanced, so over the centuries Asia and the Himalayas rolled southward, and the shifting equatorial bulge began ripping the brittle crust northward, along what is now Ninety East Ridge. At the same time, melting inside the earth and the growing liquid outer core increasingly isolated the solid inner core from the solid mantle. Therefore, the inner core slid relative to the rolling outer earth, so the inner core applied a torque to the outer earth. That torque caused the earth to precess.

The precession, when viewed from above the Indian Ocean, very slowly shifted the northern hemisphere to the west and the southern hemisphere to the east. Consequently, that rip has a slight curvature and is not a perfectly straight line. As the rip progressed northward, it curved slightly to the east. This curvature can be seen on very accurate maps of the Indian Ocean floor. For example, Google Earth shows the slight curvature not only at Ninety East Ridge but also along parallel stress fractures east of Ninety East Ridge.

68

. William R. Hammer and William J. Hickerson, “A Crested Theropod Dinosaur from Antarctica,” Science, Vol. 264, 6 May 1994, pp. 828–830.

69

. Allan C. Ashworth and F. Christian Thompson, “A Fly in the Biogeographic Ointment,” Nature, Vol. 423, 8 May 2003, p. 135.

70

. Richard H. Tedford and C. Richard Harington, “An Arctic Mammal Fauna from the Early Pliocene of North America,” Nature, Vol. 425, 25 September 2003, pp. 388–390.

71

. L. David Mech, “Life in the High Arctic,” National Geographic, Vol. 173, No. 6, June 1988, p. 757.

72

. A. Hope Jahren, “Humidity Estimate for the Middle Eocene Arctic Rain Forest,” Geology, Vol. 31, No. 5, May 2003, pp. 463–466.

See also Endnote 15 on page 129.

73

. Charles Berlitz, The Lost Ship of Noah: In Search of the Ark at Ararat (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987), p. 126.

74

. For details, see William Ryan and Walter Pitman, Noah’s Flood (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998). These authors correctly conclude that the Mediterranean Sea breached its boundary, carved the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits, and flooded the shores of the Black Sea. “The channel cut through bedrock” and formed a “gorge more than 350 feet deep” (p. 65). Ryan and Pitman incorrectly conclude that this led to the “myth” of Noah’s flood. Instead, the local flood they discovered was a consequence of the global flood.

This local flood around the Black Sea bears no resemblance to many details in famous flood legends, secular or otherwise. Nor would any local flood explain the uncanny similarity of flood stories in almost every ancient culture around the world. A global flood does. Furthermore, a child could have walked away unscathed from Ryan and Pitman’s flood, which they admit rose only 6 inches a day. Undoubtedly, the Middle East experienced many local floods in the ancient past. Why pick one and claim that it led to the world-famous story of Noah’s flood?

75

. These microscopic movements inside the earth generate heat thousands of times faster than heat escapes at the earth’s surface. This increasing heat melts rock, which can then lubricate and facilitate further internal movements. We have no evidence that earthquakes are occurring at a greater rate than 100 or 1,000 years ago, although today we can better detect earthquakes and broadcast their consequences. Also, larger population densities result in greater destruction from earthquakes. Today’s greater destruction and global communications have led some to conclude incorrectly that earthquake frequencies and/or intensities have increased. Still, they could someday increase substantially, because heat should be building up inside the earth.

76

. Earthquakes occur through two mechanisms. This is best shown by the depths at which they originate within the earth. Earthquake frequencies peak at two depths: 35 kilometers and 600 kilometers. Directly above and below each of these depths, fewer earthquakes (and aftershocks) occur.  [See Frohlich, p. 52.]

77

. Maya Tolstoy et al., “Breathing of the Seafloor: Tidal Correlations of Seismicity at Axial Volcano,” Geology, Vol. 30, No. 6, June 2002, pp. 503–506.

78

. Corings into the portion of the Mid-Oceanic Ridge that passes through the Arctic Ocean have revealed ferns and algae that required these warm temperatures.

... extremely warm polar temperatures indicate that, despite much recent progress, feedbacks responsible for early Palaeogene mid- to high-latitude warmth remain poorly understood and are not implemented in existing climate models. Appy Sluijs et al., “Subtropical Arctic Ocean Temperatures during the Palaeocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum,” Nature, Vol. 441, 1 June 2006, p. 612.

Chert forms when silica precipitates from sea water. The ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 in chert indicates that the water temperatures were once as high as 60-80 degrees C. This is confirmed independently by silicon isotopes ratios as well. [See Christina L. De La Rocha, “In Hot Water,” Nature, Vol. 443, 26 October 2006, pp. 920–921.]

79

. When stocking Lake Titicaca with trout in 1939, officials noticed the presence of Orestias, a genus of killifish. How did killifish get into such a remote lake, 2.3 miles above sea level—naturally, or by man? Humans have little desire for killifish for food or sport. Besides, men would have difficulty keeping any fish or their eggs alive while transporting them by foot from some distant source to Lake Titicaca. Did the fish swim there? Hardly. Because of strong winds, intense sunshine, and low atmospheric pressure, 95% of Lake Titicaca’s water leaves by evaporation. Only 5% trickles into a distant, shrinking, brackish lake with no outlet to the sea.

Evidently, Lake Titicaca rose along with the Andes. Did this happen thousands or millions of years ago? Knowing how rapidly environments can change and destroy habitats, one would be wise to bet on a recent date.

80

. An “El Niño” is the sudden warming of waters in the western Pacific. Today, it occurs every few years and alters climate worldwide, especially precipitation rates.

81

. Of the various lapse rates (temperature change per unit change in elevation), the dry adiabatic lapse rate, 28.3°F per mile, or 9.8°C per kilometer, is most appropriate for this illustration.