Another Big Theory
Sam Aurelius Milam III
The
History Channel presents some interesting material. It also presents
some stupid things. On Tuesday, February 2, 2010, I saw one of the
stupid things. I call it
the Big Pull Theory. It isn't as stupid as the Big Bang Theory1
but it's still pretty stupid.
I
was watching an episode of How The Earth Was Made. They were
talking about the Marianas Trench and tectonic plates, in particular the
Pacific Plate. The Pacific Plate is adjacent to various other geological
features but, primarily, it's bounded on its west edge by the Marianas
Trench and on its east edge by the East Pacific Rise. I don't know
its size in miles but it's very large. It's the bottom of a large
part of the Pacific Ocean between the vicinities of New Zealand, Japan,
the Aleutian Islands, and the west coast of the American continents.
That's a lot of rock and ooze.
The
Pacific Plate moves at about two inches per year. That motion is
what has caused the Hawaiian Island volcanoes to be a linear arrangement
of separate volcanoes. The Pacific Plate moves over the stationary
hot spot that causes the volcanoes. The Pacific Plate is being subducted
at its interface with various other plates, primarily (apparently) the
Filipino Plate. The subduction at the Filipino Plate is what forms
the Marianas Trench. The stupid part of the program was a theory
that was proposed as the reason for why the Pacific Plate moves.
The theory is that the weight of the part of the Pacific Plate that's being
subducted under the Filipino Plate (and maybe some other plates as well,
I'm not sure) is pulling the Pacific Plate in uniform motion. According
to that theory, the entire enormous mass of the Pacific Plate is being
pulled across the mantle, under tension, without breaking, by the weight
of its subducting edge.
The
Pacific Plate is very heavy. In addition to its own weight, it bears
the weight of the water that rests on top of it. Even if its coefficient
of friction with the mantle is low, the frictional resistance to relative
motion will still be very high. The force that would be required
to pull the Pacific Plate across the mantle is enormous. The tensile
strength that the Pacific Plate would have to possess in order to be pulled
without breaking would be nearly infinite. I doubt if there's a material
anywhere on Earth with such a high tensile strength. There might
not be such a material anywhere in the universe. The theory that
the Pacific Plate is being pulled across the mantle, under tension, without
breaking, is a stupid theory.
An
alternate stupid theory was also proposed on the program. That theory
is that the Pacific Plate is being pushed across the mantle by material
that is being forced upward at the East Pacific Rise. The Pacific
Plate is large and thin, somewhat on the proportions of an egg shell.
Material being pushed upward at its eastern edge would be more likely to
buckle it than to move it. Big pieces of the plate might break off
at the East Pacific Rise and pile up, forming a long, narrow island off
of the west coast of the American continents. The only thing that's
likely to move the Pacific Plate without breaking it is a magma current
in the upper mantle. The Pacific Plate is probably drifting on just
such a current.
I
expect that the fault (no pun intended) lies not with the people who produced
the program but with the scientists who they interviewed. I expect
that the people who produced the program just reported what the scientists
told them. After all, there's a long and well established tradition
among allegedly educated scientists, who ought to know better, of proposing
stupid theories. They're the same bunch of people who brought us
the Big Bang Theory so the Big Pull Theory ought not to be a surprise.
As I've noted before, getting a higher education often consists of learning
more and more about less and less while understanding less and less about
more and more.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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