I could understand the expansion aspects of Plate Tectonics with the widening of the Atlantic Ocean about a central fault where basalt was extruded on to the ocean floor and thickened to form the mid-Atlantic Ridge. However, I could not understand “subduction” where the oceanic crust was supposed to disappear beneath the adjacent continents in the Pacific and other oceans as I could not see any evidence of structural compression in the adjacent continental crust; whereas when India impacted Asia it threw up the Himalayas, and Africa impacted Europe and formed the Alps.

I decided someone must have sorted this out in the last 30 years and found papers presented at a Conference in Cairns in 2008 “When did Plate Tectonics Begin”. Two rather surprising statements gained my attention; “Plate Tectonics is proven”, and “The Earth is the only planet on which Plate Tectonics exists.”. Concerning the first I have not found any hard facts on the Earth’s surface or on the sea floor to show that Plate Tectonics is proven, and the second statement seemed to be on a par with statements such as “The Universe Rotates about the Earth”, and that seemed a bit old fashioned these days.

My further reading gave no explanation of the basic assumption that underlies Plate Tectonics that the Earth has retained a more or less constant radius throughout time. I decided to gather all the factual information I could find and see what eventuated.

 

Ernest Wilson