• CSC Home Page
  • Order Book
  • Table of Contents
  • Preface
  • Endorsements
  • Part I: Scientific Case for Creation
    • Life Sciences
    • Astronomical and Physical Sciences
    • Earth Sciences
    • References and Notes
  • Part II: Fountains of the Great Deep
    • The Hydroplate Theory: An Overview
    • The Origin of Ocean Trenches, Earthquakes, and the Ring of Fire
    • Liquefaction: The Origin of Strata and Layered Fossils
    • The Origin of the Grand Canyon
    • The Origin of Limestone
    • Frozen Mammoths
    • The Origin of Comets
    • The Origin of Asteroids and Meteoroids
    • The Origin of Earth's Radioactivity
  • Part III: Frequently Asked Questions
  • Technical Notes
  • Index

  • Previous Page
  • Next Page

Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood, by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.

Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.

[ The Fountains of the Great Deep > The Origin of Ocean Trenches, Earthquakes, and the Ring of Fire > Theories Attempting to Explain Ocean Trenches, Earthquakes, and the Ring of Fire ]

Theories Attempting to Explain Ocean Trenches, Earthquakes, and the Ring of Fire

Two broad theories propose explanations for ocean trenches, earthquakes, and the Ring of Fire. Each explanation will be given as its advocates would. Then, we will test these conflicting explanations against physical observations and the laws of physics.

trenches-hydroplate_explanation_for_trenches.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 82: Hydroplate Explanation for Trenches. (A) Before the flood, the weight of rock and water, pushing down on the subterranean chamber’s floor, balanced the floor’s upward pressure. The rupture destroyed that equilibrium. Directly below the rupture, the imbalance grew as escaping, high-velocity water and the 10-mile-high, unsupportable, crumbling walls widened the globe-encircling rupture hundreds of miles. Eventually, the imbalance overwhelmed the strength of the floor. First, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge buckled, or sprang, upward. As Europe, Africa, and Asia slid eastward and the Americas plate slid westward (based on today’s directions), weight was removed from the rising floor, causing it to rise faster, accelerating the hydroplates even more. Pressure directly under the floor, represented by the large black arrows, naturally decreased as the floor rose.

(B) During the flood phase, frictional heating in the inner earth began melting and contracting solid rock, as explained in “Magma Production and Movement” on page 154. Because of this contraction, the crust on the Pacific side of the earth (hereafter called the Pacific plate ) fractured at many places within the boundaries of the Ring of Fire and settled (downward, toward the Atlantic) by at least 10 miles!14 That drop steepened the downhill slope of the sliding hydroplates and allowed them to slide into the Pacific region without major obstructions. Downward buckling and deep faulting formed trenches. Soon, huge volumes of magma began erupting onto the days-old Pacific floor. During the next few years, frictional heating melted much of the inner earth. All this melting lubricated the shifts inside the earth and allowed gravitational settling, which released much more heat, increased earth’s spin rate, and converted the inner earth to today’s inner and outer core—monumental changes. The thick layer of magma that spilled upward onto the top of the sunken Pacific plate provided most of the heat that drove the ice age and accounts for almost 40,000 volcanoes. Even today, magma breaks out and escapes upward, heating part of the ocean and creating “El Niño” weather conditions.15

Magma Production and Movement

Magma’s Compressibility. Magma (melted rock inside the earth) is more compressible than the solid rock from which it came.2 Rock that melts under the extreme pressures more than 220 miles below the earth’s surface will contract and occupy a smaller volume than before melting! At depths of about 220 miles, melted rock occupies nearly the same volume as the original rock. At atmospheric pressure, rock expands by 7–17% when it is heated and melts. The density where the rock’s volume does not change as it melts is called the crossover density. The exact crossover depth depends on the minerals present. Because of magma’s compressibility, magma below this depth of about 220 miles is too dense to rise, so magma cannot circulate inside the mantle,18 contrary to what has been taught for 50 years!

trenches-crossover_depth.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 83: Crossover Depth. This graph shows how the density of liquid rock (magma) changes with depth below the earth’s surface. Above the crossover depth, magma is less dense than solid rock at the same depth and will try to rise through the cracks where the magma was produced by sliding friction; below the crossover depth, magma is denser than solid rock and will sink along those cracks toward the liquid outer core. Magma that drains down into the liquid outer core becomes almost twice as dense as the solid rock at the base of the mantle. [See Table 35 on page 541.]

Earth’s magma began to be produced during the flood. [See "Melting the Inner Earth" on pages 540–543.] The magma’s final volume was more than 120 times greater than all the water in today’s oceans! With so much more liquid rock inside the earth than liquid water on earth, we need to understand how magma forms and why it moves. 

Where Did All the Magma Go? The denser (deeper) magma and the denser unmelted minerals in the magma slowly drained into what grew to become earth’s outer and inner cores, respectively. The less dense magma that formed above the crossover depth tended to escape upward to the earth’s surface as volcanoes or flood basalts. For years after the flood, most eruptions spilled onto the Pacific floor—a floor littered today with 40,000 volcanic cones, each taller than 1 kilometer! The following analogy explains why.

A Cable Analogy. Imagine a long, unbreakable cable passing through the center of the earth before the flood. One end is anchored to the portion of the subterranean chamber floor that will rise to become the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. The other end attaches to the Pacific plate on the opposite side of the earth. When the Atlantic floor is forced upward at the end of the flood, the Pacific floor will be pulled down.

Gravity produces the same effect as our imaginary cable. Gravity creates so much compression deep inside the earth that voids cannot open up; rock is always squeezed against rock (including melted rock). However, compressed rock can shear. For example, if a heavy weight is on top of a deck of cards lying on a table, space cannot open up between the cards, but a relatively small horizontal force can cause a card to slip (or shear) relative to another. Friction from shearing and deformations deep in the earth always melts the sliding surfaces. The magma produced then lubricates those surfaces, so they slip more easily.

Shearing. Now let’s imagine many evenly spaced cables connect the rising Atlantic floor to the broader, subsiding Pacific plate. (The upward pull from the rising Atlantic floor widens with depth;19 this is why the Pacific has a larger area than the Atlantic.) These cables shorten by varying amounts, because of variations in frictional heating along their lengths and magma’s compressibility. The farther a cable segment is from the Atlantic floor, the more likely it will move at a different rate than a corresponding segment on an adjacent cable, thereby shearing the rock between them, and produce magma. Each segment’s movement is the cable’s net expansion (or contraction) between the segment and the Atlantic floor. Therefore, the farther a segment is from the Atlantic floor, the more likely shearing becomes. Thus, shearing and magma production are extreme in and under the Pacific plate.

  

   

trenches-inner_earth.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 84: Inner Earth. The dashed white line marks the crossover depth. Magma generated above that line is less dense than the surrounding rock and will try to rise to the earth’s surface. Magma generated below that line contracts and becomes denser, so it drains through cracks into the outer core (a liquid). Standard explanations for today’s shifting continents and for so much liquid 1,800 – 3,200 miles under our feet are full of scientific problems.21 [See “Molten Earth” on page 29; “Plate Tectonics” on page 111; and “Melting the Inner Earth” on pages 540–543.]

Large shearing offsets that reached the Pacific floor formed ocean trenches. Benioff zones under trenches are shearing surfaces (fault planes), not subducting plates, as commonly taught.20 Island chains often formed where magma escaped upward along these cracks. The Hawaiian Islands and the Emperor Seamounts are prime examples.

Deep Movements during the Flood Phase. As subterranean water escaped during the flood phase, the rupture steadily widened. This removed more and more weight from the chamber floor directly below, so that portion of the floor increasingly bulged upward. For a while, two types of forces resisted the rising of what would become the Atlantic floor: (1) the strength of the rock between that floor and the Pacific side of the earth, and (2) the weight of the stationary hydroplates that still lay above most of what would become the Atlantic floor.

Fractures and melting occurred deeper and deeper beneath the bulging chamber floor on the Atlantic side. Magma produced below the crossover depth contracted, so deeper fracturing, melting, and contraction occurred at an accelerating rate. By the end of the flood phase, the Pacific plate’s sagging foundation had fractured in millions of places, and the magma generated along the deep sliding surfaces instantly contracted. Therefore, the Pacific plate, lacking support, rapidly subsided and sheared around its perimeter—now called the Ring of Fire. This shearing suddenly increased the upward pressure under the rising Atlantic floor, so the hydroplates began to accelerate away from the rising Mid-Atlantic Ridge. That also removed weight from above the Atlantic floor, so it rose even faster.

Because so much compressible magma was quickly produced under the Pacific plate, that plate subsided (caved in) faster than the Atlantic floor rose. In hours, the downhill slope on which the hydroplates slid steepened, and the sheared Pacific Basin, surrounded by the Ring of Fire, became so deep that the hydroplates, sliding away from the rising Mid-Atlantic Ridge, met no major obstacles.

After the flood, magma under the Pacific floor, but above the crossover depth, erupted onto the Pacific floor. (To a much lesser extent, eruptions continue today, so in those places, ocean temperatures rise temporarily, a phenomenon called El Niño.15) Magma below the crossover depth drains down into the outer core, so the outer core is slowly growing today! Simultaneously, melting is shrinking the total volume below the crossover depth, so the crust must be compressing like the wrinkling skin of a drying (shrinking) apple. Also, continents, thickened during the compression event, are still sinking into and laterally displacing the mantle. So the mantle is being squeezed downward from above and upward by the growing outer core. Mantle volume is also being lost primarily from the Pacific mantle by draining below the crossover depth and by eruptions above the crossover depth. Therefore, the mantle is shifting an inch or so a year, in general, toward the Pacific to replace that escaping volume. [See Figure 90 on page 167.] These movements and stresses produce earthquakes. Slowly shifting continents led to the mistaken belief that the entire solid mantle somehow circulates as if it were a liquid—and, over millions of years, drifted continents over the face of the earth.

Since the flood, magma that spilled up onto the Pacific floor has raised sea level relative to the subsided Pacific plate that lies a few miles below the Pacific floor. This slow rise allowed today’s coral islands on top of tablemounts to grow upward—fast enough to maintain the sunlight they needed for optimal growth. The coral depth below one of these islands, Eniwetok Atoll, is 4,600 feet.22

Rapid Cooling. Some claim that if magma spilled out only about 5,000 years ago, heat would still be present. The lack of heat, they assert, shows that millions of years have elapsed. They have overlooked that magma’s contents: (a)  crystals of unmelted minerals with high melting temperatures, (b) rock fragments, called xenoliths (ZEN-oh-liths), dislodged by the violent shearing and crushing, and (c) water absorbed by the rising magma as it passed up through what remained of the subterranean water chamber. (This is why volcanoes emit so much water vapor; typically 70% of all gas released by volcanoes is water vapor.23) Because water lowers magma’s melting temperature, the magma remained a liquid at temperatures below the rock’s normal melting temperature. The solid crystals and rock fragments absorbed heat from the magma, so it quickly cooled and solidified.

The Hydroplate Theory. [For a summary of the hydroplate theory, see pages 110–145.] At the end of the flood phase, unsupportable, crumbling walls and erosion from escaping high-velocity water had widened the globe-encircling rupture to an average of about 800 miles. Exposed at the bottom of this wide, water-filled gap was the subterranean chamber floor, about 10 miles below the earth’s surface. Before the rupture, the weight of rock and water pressing down on the chamber floor balanced the upward pressure directly under the floor. [See Figure 82.] Afterward, with the overlying rock suddenly gone, only the strength of the upward-bulging chamber floor and the weight of 10 miles of water resisted this upward pressure. As the rupture widened, the Mid-Oceanic Ridge suddenly buckled upward.[See pages 125–129.]

The continental-drift phase began with hydroplates sliding “downhill” on a layer of water, away from the rising Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This removed more weight from the rising portion of the subterranean chamber floor, lifting it faster, and accelerating the hydroplates even more. As that part of the chamber floor rose to become the Atlantic floor, it stretched horizontally in all directions, just as a balloon stretches when its radius increases. This stretching produced cracks parallel and perpendicular to the Mid-Oceanic Ridge, forming the overlapping spreading centers shown on pages 111 and 141. The rising began in the Atlantic, so the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and its cracks are the most prominent of the oceanic ridge system.

The rising Atlantic floor pulled even deeper material upward. As material shifted within the inner earth toward the rising Atlantic floor, a broader, but initially shallow, depression formed on the opposite side of the earth—the basins of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Just as the Atlantic floor stretched horizontally as it rose, the western Pacific floor compressed horizontally as it subsided (sank).

As the slope between the upward bulging Atlantic floor and the subsiding Pacific floor increased, even more dramatic events occurred. (Figure 49 on page 113 is one small, but telling, “snapshot” of what happened.) The instability that triggered the continental drift phase was like that of a large, flat rock resting in the center of a horizontal teeter-totter. Slight imbalances (such as variations in the width of the rupture during the flood phase and the shifting of water from the Atlantic side to the Pacific side) would slowly tip the teeter-totter. A tipping point would be reached where the rock rapidly accelerated downhill, so the tipping increases even more. Although the earth departed significantly from a spherical shape, gravity restored most of that spherical shape in the following months and years.

The trench region of the western Pacific lies near the center of the combined Pacific and Indian Oceans. As explained on pages 154–155, material beneath the western Pacific subsided at least 10 miles,14 it sheared and buckled downward in some places, forming trenches. The Atlantic Ocean (centered at 21.5°W longitude and 10°S latitude) is almost exactly opposite this trench region (centered at 159°E longitude and 10°N latitude).  [See Figure 80 on page 149.]

A simple, classic experiment illustrates some aspects of this event.

A cup of water is poured into an empty 1-gallon can. The can is heated from below until steam flows out the opening in the top. The heat is turned off, and the cap is quickly screwed onto the top of the can, trapping hot steam in the metal can. As this steam cools, a partial vacuum forms inside the can. The can’s walls buckle inward, forming wrinkles in the metal—“miniature trenches.”

The upper 5 miles of the earth’s crust is hard and brittle. Below the top 5 miles, the large confining pressure will deform rock if pressure imbalances are great enough.33 So, as the western Pacific floor sank, it sheared and buckled into “downward creases,” forming trenches. The hard crust and deformable mantle frequently produced trenches with an “arc and cusp” shape. The brittle crust cracked and slid in many places, especially along paths called Benioff zones.34

trenches-trench_cross_section_based_on_hydroplate_theory.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 85: Trench Cross Section Based on Hydroplate Theory. Notice that the trench axis will generally not be a straight line. Sediments (green) hide the top of a fault plane that would otherwise rise a few hundred feet above the floor. Other sediments (not shown) and flood basalts (dark gray) cover most of the western Pacific floor. The three large black arrows show the direction of the rising Atlantic and the forces that downwarped the mantle and the Pacific plate. Earthquakes occur on the many faults produced, especially in Benioff zones and at low tides. Most volcanoes are not above Benioff zones, but are near a myriad of other faults near the center of the western Pacific, where downwarping and shearing were greatest.

High-pressure deformations inside the earth produced faulting and, therefore, extreme friction—and heat.

To appreciate the heat generated, slide a brick one foot along a sidewalk. The brick and sidewalk will warm slightly. Sliding a brick an inch but with a mile of rock squarely on top would melt part of the brick and sidewalk. Earth’s radius is almost 4,000 miles. Place a few thousand of those miles of rock on top of the brick and slide it only one thousandth of an inch. The heat generated would melt the entire brick and much of the sidewalk below.

Small movements deep inside the solid earth, even microscopic, puttylike deformations, melted huge volumes of minerals. This released the water locked within the crystalline structure of certain minerals.

trenches-bimodal_earthquakes.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 86: Earthquake Depths. One might expect that the conditions that produce earthquakes would increase or decrease with depth—or that earthquake frequencies would peak at a certain depth. Shouldn’t there be, at most, only one depth at which earthquake frequencies peak? Surprise! For earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or more, there are two peaks. In other words, earthquake frequencies are bimodal with depth.27

The fact that there are two peaks—one 22 miles (35 kilometers) below the earth’s surface and the other at 370 miles (600 kilometers) below—tells us that two types of earthquakes occur, each at a different depth. The hydroplate theory explains both conditions and why conventional geophysics does not explain the root cause of earthquakes.

Shallow earthquakes (above depths of 220 miles) involve only brittle fracture and sliding friction.28 However, deep earthquakes (at 220–410-mile depths), where pressures are so great that cracks or space should not open up to allow movement, have perplexed geophysicists for more than 80 years.29 Those rocks should be so hot that they would not break, but would deform like hot tar—slowly and quietly. Deep earthquakes occur where pressure and heat should cause rocks to deform and flow before enough stress can build up to cause failure. How then do deep earthquakes occur?

Here’s a clue based on the hydroplate theory. Few earthquakes occur at 220 mile depths—the crossover depth—because magma produced along faults at that depth has little tendency to rise or sink. Magma above 220 mile depths expands and tries to rise to the earth’s surface. Magma below 220 mile depths contracts and drains into the outer core. Figure 87 completes the answer.]

    

trenches-japan_earthquake_displacements.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 87: Strange Displacements during the 9.0 magnitude, 11 March 2011 Japanese Earthquake. The Japanese government, using the Global Positioning System (GPS), continuously measures the location of 1,200 points to an accuracy of better than an inch. Each arrow above shows the direction and distance that a point on the ground moved during that earthquake. Some points moved 18 feet (5.5 meters)! Horizontal movements primarily converge toward the epicenter, Point E. The actual earthquake began at the focus, 20 miles below Point E (below the earth’s surface), on the fault (the Benioff zone) that descends from the Japan Trench—down and to the west, under Japan.

How can rock suddenly converge radially toward a point? Obviously, rock near the focus, far below Point E, must have been removed to make room for the convergence—to allow the surrounding rock to collapse. As discussed on page 154, frictional heating along the fault first melts grain-sized minerals with the lowest melting temperatures, causing them to expand, because they were above the crossover depth. (Remember: Tiny movements at the extreme pressures deep in the earth create great heat and melting.) Minerals with higher melting temperatures remain solid, maybe for centuries, thereby encasing and trapping the tiny droplets of melted rock. [See "Liquid Droplets Seen in Hot, Compressed Rock" on page 158.]

If frictional heat steadily “soaks” into the rock on both sides of a fault, magma droplets will increasingly form, so sooner or later, leakage will begin. Paths will open up for the expanding melt to escape upward buoyantly. The highly compressed solid “scaffolding” (surrounding the focus and composed of minerals with the highest melting temperatures) will become unstable and eventually collapse. Frictional heating will instantly become extreme, so all nearby minerals will suddenly melt.  The result: a powerful earthquake.

Similar events occur below the crossover depth, except there the melted minerals “shrink” (become denser), and slowly drain down into the outer core. Drainage into the outer core continues today, releases gigantic amounts of heat throughout the mantle and core,31 and will eventually produce many powerful earthquakes.  When this will happen is uncertain.32

What Causes Earthquakes, and How Can They Be Predicted?

Each day, on average, earthquakes are expected to kill at least 500 people and destroy about $500 million in property!40 Current scientific understandings do not explain earthquakes, so a better paradigm is needed.

Everyone agrees that an earthquake is a sudden slippage along a preexisting fracture—a fault—inside the earth. However, much greater forces and energy are required to produce fractures than to produce slippage, so any explanation for earthquakes must first explain the fractures.

What created all the preexisting fractures? The plate tectonic theory doesn’t explain how those fractures occurred, but only tries to explain earthquakes that occur at plate boundaries, when plates rub against each other. How plate boundaries formed is never explained. Besides, most earthquakes occur inside or below plates, not at plate boundaries. [See for example Figure 86 on page 156.]

Gigantic shifts of mass during the flood produced a myriad of fractures through earth’s crust and mantle. These shifts included: the 800-mile widening by erosion of the 46,000-mile-long, 10-mile-deep rupture, the deposition of the eroded sediments, the uplift of the Atlantic floor and the corresponding subsidence on the opposite side of the earth, the formation of earth’s core, and the compression event. Today, most of these fractures are locked by friction.

What causes slippage along faults? An earthquake involves one or more of the following three mechanisms:

1. Migrating liquids within the earth lubricate faults, causing slippage. The liquids can be tiny amounts of the remaining preflood subterranean water or magma produced by frictional heat that melted rock.

2. The mantle consists of thousands of blocks as tall as the mantle is thick. (Crushed and buckled continental crust rests on these blocks.) Each mantle block is normally locked by friction to adjacent blocks. Dense magma slowly drains down the thin cracks (faults) separating the blocks and into the liquid outer core.41 Therefore, the outer core is steadily, ever-so-slightly, growing and increasing the upward pressure on the bases of these blocks. Periodically, the block least locked by friction to an adjacent block slips upward42 with a jerk—an earthquake. That slippage, in turn, melts more mantle rock and produces more draining magma. These cycles continue.43 The blocks that rose to form plateaus are smaller examples of this. [For details, see "Plateau Uplift" on page 211.]

3. Frictional heat generated by slippage along a fault increasingly melts, deep within the walls of the fault, mineral grains with the lowest melting temperatures. Above the crossover depth, the liquid droplets expand, so they stretch the rocks encasing them; below the crossover depth, the droplets shrink, so the surrounding rock is compressed even more. As this frictional heating increases, more magma droplets form, merge, and eventually escape along faults.44 Then, the remaining solid rock may collapse as an earthquake. Slow escape of magma from faults allows continental movement, as shown in Figure 90 on page 167.

If piezoelectric45 minerals, such as quartz, are among those stressed, voltages can build up for hundreds of miles around what will become the impending earthquake’s point of origin (the focus).46 Such voltages and the resulting electromagnetic effects (known earthquake precursors) are even detected in the ionosphere, about 40–600 miles above the solid earth.47

How can the specific locations of major earthquakes be predicted days beforehand? British and Russian scientists are planning a two-phase, commercial satellite system that may identify, with the help of other ground-based information, future earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.48 In 2015, the first phase of the TwinSat Project will place two tiny satellites in low-earth orbits to detect electromagnetic signals similar to those accidentally detected by a French satellite days before two major earthquakes.49 (The second phase will involve a fleet of 15 satellites.) These signals, for example, were detected days before both the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Those earthquakes killed about 20,000 and 316,000 people, respectively, and each quake produced more than a hundred billion dollars in damage. Tragically, both sets of electromagnetic signals were ignored, because they were unexpected and the scientific connection between such signals and earthquakes was unknown. As the designers of this multimillion dollar project have stated,

The links between the seismo-tectonic process and atmosphere/ionosphere earthquake precursors remain poorly understood.50

Researchers now know that days before a major earthquake significant electromagnetic signals can build up in the ionosphere directly above a future epicenter and large heat emissions often occur nearby; scientists just don’t know why those precursors occur.51 The heat emissions are from outpourings of magma (produced above the crossover depth) escaping upward along faults.

After you have finished Part II of this book, you will have an understanding these scientists currently lack. Unfortunately, their main difficulty will not be the physics of the process or an acceptance of all the supporting evidence. Their difficulty will be an unwillingness to consider a global flood and a new scientific paradigm.

    

Liquid Droplets Seen in Hot, Compressed Rock

Professor Wendy Mao, a mineral physicist at Stanford University, has duplicated the pressure-temperature conditions 125 miles (200 kilometers) below the earth’s surface. She compressed a tiny piece of silicate rock that was mixed with an iron-rich alloy. Then, she heated the sample to 3,300°F (1,800°C) and, with a series of x-rays, produced a three-dimensional image. The iron melted and became tiny spherical droplets encased in a solid silicate matrix.52 They looked like bubbles in a block of ice.

What can we conclude? If no more heat is applied, the mixture will be stable. The trapped liquid will support the solid “scaffolding,” just as trapped liquid in a waterbed can support a person lying on top—and, before the flood, trapped, high-pressure liquid in the subterranean water chamber helped support earth’s crust.

Today, very slight amounts of slippage frequently occur along thousands of faults in the crust and mantle, especially where faults extend from a trench down to the growing liquid foundation of the outer core. If, instead of a solid foundation, your home rested on a dense liquid foundation, you can imagine how cracked the walls of your house would be if ripples sometimes pulsed through the liquid or if that foundation slowly rose by the steady addition of dense liquid. Slippage would frequently occur along existing cracks in the walls. Within the mantle, slippage along faults produces more magma, most of which drains into the outer core, adding to its volume and causing more uplift, slippage, and ripples. The mantle is unstable.

Frictional heat generated along faults throughout the mantle conducts slowly into the walls of the fault. Above depths of 410 miles (700 kilometers), local instabilities sometimes arise as heat weakens the solid silicate scaffolding and forms more droplets. Once leaks form, the liquid droplets can escape; their buoyancy forces them upward if they are above the crossover depth or downward if they are below the crossover depth. The scaffolding then collapses and generates much more heat and melting. Earthquakes—runaway shocks—result.

The mantle is essentially solid, so even below 410-mile depths the same slippage produces friction and heat. Why then do earthquakes not occur below 410 miles? At those great depths, when heating along faults melts minerals with low melting temperatures, the droplets shrink even more, so their individual encasements collapse more and experience further frictional heating. That, plus the higher temperatures at those depths, weakens and collapses the scaffolding before leakage can occur. Because these deformations are plastic, no earthquakes occur below 410-mile depths.

   

Prediction Icon

PREDICTION 7:   By 2020, satellites in low-earth orbits will predict the location of major earthquakes several days beforehand. They will do this by measuring electrical changes in the ionosphere that are produced by piezoelectric voltages building up in stressed rock around the focus of the coming earthquakes. If the focus is above the crossover depth, which is 220 miles below the earth’s surface, upward escaping magma may also produce detectable heat around the epicenter days beforehand.

Suppose the inner earth initially had a more uniform mixture of minerals. Heating would first melt minerals with lower melting temperatures, which would allow denser grains to settle and lighter grains to rise, a process called gravitational settling. This would generate much more heat and produce more faulting, melting, and gravitational settling. After many such cycles, the earth’s core would form with solid, denser minerals (containing iron and nickel) settling to form the inner core and the melt forming the liquid outer core. Shifting so much mass toward the center of the earth and doubling the density of the rock melting below the crossover depth would increase earth’s rotational speed. Today, the earth spins 365.256 times each year, but there are historical reasons for concluding that a year once had 360 days.35 [For details, see "Melting the Inner Earth" on pages 540–543.]

We saw that the skater in Figure 81 spins faster as she draws her arms closer to her spin axis. Likewise, as denser minerals settled through the magma toward the center of the earth, the inner core spun faster than the outer earth. The inner core is still spinning faster (by about 0.4° per year),36 because the liquid outer core allows slippage.

In the mid-1980s, seismologists noticed that seismic waves pass through the inner core about 4 seconds faster when traveling along the axis of the magnetic poles.37 Other tests showed that this was because crystals in the inner core have a preferred orientation.38 That direction is slowly changing, so the inner core must be slowly spinning relative to the rest of the earth. “The Origin of Earth’s Powerful Magnetic Field” explains how this alignment of crystals arose. Other evidence, explained in Endnote 21, supports these powerful movements inside the earth.

Shrinking Earth. The liquid outer core has a volume of 4.1 × 1010 miles3 (1.7 × 1011 km3)—7.7 times the volume of our moon. The outer core’s density is almost twice that of the mantle rock from which it came. Therefore, before the core formed, the preflood earth’s volume was almost 4.1 × 1010 miles3 greater, and the earth’s radius was about 180 miles larger than today. In other words, the earth has shrunk.

Undoubtedly, most of this shrinkage occurred during and soon after the flood, as the mantle lost about twice the volume that the dense core gained. Earthquakes still occur, so the earth is still shrinking, because slight amounts of relatively low density mantle rock below the crossover depth are still becoming high density magma draining into the outer core.

Can this shrinkage be measured? Marginally. The best (and highly impressive) measurements in changes of the earth’s radius were conducted in 2000 and 2005 by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in Paris, France,39 using seventy stations around the world. Those measurements (based on Satellite Laser Ranging, Very Long Baseline Interferometry, and the Global Positioning System) showed a 0.2 inch (5 millimeters) shortening of earth’s radius during those 5 years. However, more accurate techniques were used in 2005, so the shortening may be due to improved accuracy. In the future, with even more precise techniques, the amount of shrinkage should become clear.

Prediction Icon

PREDICTION 8:   The mean radius of the earth has shrunk about 180 miles since before the flood. Earth is still shrinking, but at a much slower rate.

Before plate tectonics became popular, some geologists said that many of the earth’s surface features were a result of past shrinkage deep within the earth.53 Among the many crustal features they felt this would explain were ocean trenches, tablemounts, and the dropping of the Pacific Basin as one huge block. Most of those geologists believed that a molten earth shrunk as it cooled over millions of years. However, because they could not provide convincing details, their idea has fallen into disfavor. [The belief in a molten earth can be easily rejected. See “Molten Earth” on page 29.] Nevertheless, the idea of millions of years has remained in most people’s imaginations.

While these geologists did see evidence of shrinkage, they were reasoning only from the effects they saw back to possible causes. Had they also arrived at a consistent picture by reasoning from cause to effect and not been satisfied until the forces, energy, and mechanisms were understood, they would have been on firmer ground.

 

The Origin of Earth’s Powerful Magnetic Field

Earth’s magnetic strength today is 2,000 times greater than that of all the solar system’s other rocky planets combined! No doubt before the flood, the earth had a magnetic field,54 but how and when did it become so large? Also, why do seismic waves pass through the inner core much faster when traveling parallel to the axis of the magnetic poles?37, 38

A common and dense mineral that settled through the increasing melt in the inner earth was magnetite (Fe3O4). Its pressure naturally increased as it fell toward the center of the earth. This produced a phase change (a different crystalline structure) that increased the mineral’s melting temperature.55 Magnetite, as the name implies, is highly magnetic. Its magnetic strength remains as long as its temperature remains slightly below its melting temperature.

As each magnetite crystal fell, the phase change prevented the crystal from melting and allowed it to retain its magnetic strength. Each falling crystal oscillated like a tiny compass needle seeking the north magnetic pole. However, the viscous magma dampened those oscillations, so each crystal’s magnetic field quickly aligned with the earth’s magnetic field, which grew in strength as each tiny magnet was added to the inner core.56

In summary, before the earth’s core began to form, trillions upon trillions of tiny magnetite crystals were somewhat randomly oriented inside the earth, so their magnetic strengths were self-canceling to some degree. When melting and gravitational settling ended, many of those crystals had fallen onto the inner core and aligned with earth’s growing magnetic field. Thus, (1) the magnetic field increased greatly, and (2) crystals in the inner core aligned parallel to the axis of the magnetic poles, allowing seismic waves today to pass faster through the core in that direction.37, 38

The standard explanation for earth’s magnetic field is that radioactive decay heats the earth’s core, causing the liquid outer core to convect. That movement of electrically conducting liquid then creates a dynamo that maintains earth’s magnetic field. However, a dynamo shuts down if its magnetic field ever becomes zero, so how could earth’s magnetic field pass slowly through zero and reverse?57

Actually, radioactive decay probably is not occurring in earth’s core. [See “Where is Earth’s Radioactivity?” on page 355.] Also, calculations of the electrical and thermal conductivity in the outer core indicate that heat is primarily transferred by conduction, not convection. Therefore, not enough circulation occurs in the outer core to maintain—or explain—earth’s magnetic field.58

 

What caused the shrinkage? The greatest movements (within the earth) caused by the rising Atlantic floor would have been at the center of the earth. [See Figure 95 on page 178.] Also, the center of the earth, where pressures are greatest, would have produced the greatest melting and shrinkage. Even slight movements of one mineral grain relative to an adjacent grain at those extreme pressures will produce instant melting followed by about 50% shrinkage. [See "Magma Production and Movement" on page 154.]

As the Atlantic side of the inner earth rose, the Pacific side of the inner earth had to collapse onto the magma forming and shrinking near the center of the earth. This runaway subsidence, melting, and shrinkage would have fractured and distorted much of the Pacific side of the earth—especially the Pacific crust. Because the Pacific crust would not have dropped as “one huge block” (as early geologists thought), its millions of fragments, buried under and within the magma that rose to the surface, will be difficult to detect seismically. However, researchers have begun to detect some granite under the floors of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.60

trenches-andesite_line.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 88: Andesite Line. This sharp discontinuity (shown in red) in the western Pacific was identified in 1912 by the famous New Zealand geologist, Patrick Marshall. The andesite line is considered “the most significant regional geologic distinction in the Pacific Ocean Basin,”59 although the term andesite line has fallen into disuse among plate-tectonic advocates.

Volcanic islands to the east of the andesite line are basaltic, while islands to the west are made of andesite, a type of rock named for its presence in the Andes mountains. Andesite contains minerals, such as hornblende and biotite, that are not in basalt but are in granite (continental rock). Despite its significance, geologists have never explained why continental crust lies below the western Pacific.

  

Indeed, the presence of andesite, a fine-grained mixture of granite and basalt, west of the andesite line shows that at least fragments of continental rock (primarily granite) lie below the floor of the entire western Pacific. [See Figure 88.]

The types of rock found on [western Pacific] islands help to determine the edge of the Pacific Basin. The andesite line has on its ocean [eastern] side rocks composed primarily of basalt, whereas on the other [western] side they are principally andesite. This has been viewed as the dividing line between oceanic and continental crusts.” 61

For the most part, the andesite line also marks the true limit of the continents.62

Gravity is the basic driving mechanism that formed trenches and slowly shifts the crust. Gravity always tries to make the earth more compact (or spherical).63 If you suddenly removed a bucket of water from a swimming pool (or even a 10-mile-thick layer of rock lying above what is now the Atlantic floor), gravity would tend to smooth out the irregularity. Because massive volumes of rock inside the earth do not flow as fast as water in a swimming pool, mass deficiencies, which we might think of as slight partial vacuums, still exist under trenches. Today, especially at low tide (when the water’s pressure on the ocean floor is a minimum), mantle material flows in very slightly under trenches to reduce these “partial vacuums.” This stretches the crust above, produces extensional earthquakes near trenches, shifts plates toward trenches, and makes the earth measurably rounder.64 

Both the hydroplate theory and the plate tectonic theory are explained as their advocates would explain the theories. One should critically question every detail of both theories, and not accept either until all available evidence has been considered.

The Plate Tectonic Theory. Earth’s crust is broken into rigid plates, 30–60 miles thick, some with an area roughly the size of a continent. Some plates carry portions of oceans and continents. Plates move relative to each other over the earth’s surface, an inch or so per year.

trenches-plate_tectonic_explanation_for_trenches.jpg Image Thumbnail

Figure 89: Plate Tectonic Explanation for Trenches. Internal heat circulates the mantle, causing large plates to drift over the earth’s surface. Consequently, material rises at oceanic ridges, forcing the seafloor to spread, so plates must subduct at ocean trenches, allowing layered sediments, shown in yellow, to collect. Earthquakes usually occur where plates subduct (Benioff zones) and at other plate boundaries. Subducting plates also melt rock, and the resulting magma rises to form volcanoes.

[Response: Actually, most volcanoes are not above Benioff zones. If this theory were correct, the yellow sediments would hide a cliff face that is at least 30 miles high and the trench axis should be a straight line. Also, some very large earthquakes occur far from plate boundaries. The powerful New Madrid, Missouri earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 and Charleston, South Carolina earthquake of 1886 are famous examples.]

Heat is the basic driving mechanism that formed trenches and moves plates. Just as hot water circulates in a pan on a stove, hot rock circulates slowly inside the earth’s mantle. Radioactive decay warms some parts of the mantle more than others. The warmer rock expands, becomes less dense (more buoyant), and slowly rises, as a cork rises when submerged in water. Sometimes, plumes of hot rock rising from the outer core break through the earth’s crust as flood basalts. Conversely, relatively cold rock descends. Rising and descending rock inside the mantle forms circulation cells (convection cells) which drag plates forward. Currents within the mantle rise at oceanic ridges, create new crust, and produce seafloor spreading.

Because new crust forms at oceanic ridges, old crust must be consumed somewhere. This happens wherever two plates converge. The older plate is denser, because it had more time to cool. Therefore, it sinks below the younger plate and subducts into the mantle, forming a trench. A cold, sinking edge will pull down the rest of the plate and enhance circulation in the mantle. Earthquakes occur under trenches when subducting plates slip along Benioff zones and when plates slip past each other. At great depths, subducting plates melt, releasing magma, which migrates up to the earth’s surface to form volcanoes. Most of the Ring of Fire is produced by subducting plates. Such slow processes require hundreds of millions of years to produce what we see today.

  • Previous Page
  • Next Page

Updated on Tuesday, May 21 05/21/13 13:18:07
Copyright © 1995–2013
Center for Scientific Creation
http://www.creationscience.com

(602) 955-7663