Sunday, March 24, 2013

Geologists 'R Us

Geology rules
( .. you bet! .. )



Students contemplate a basalt dyke and appear to be expressing manifest disinterest. But I don't think they are. I think they're being very diplomatic.


[This image was taken from the web a while back; can't remember where from.  If anybody objects to me using it I'll remove it, but in view of the subject of these posts it seems to illustrate a nice point (see footnote*)]

Being centre-stage, the subject of this photo is almost certainly the dyke. but I do wonder at the apparent disinterest, .. and why that might be.

It must be the first or second field trip when students get taken to look at a dyke, because like mountains (and valleys) a dyke is one of the simplest, yet most interesting things to contemplate in geology and is instructive for a number of reasons.  We won't cover them all here, .. just to say that when looked at properly (i.e., from the viewpoint of the most incisive question - being, "How the Hell did it get there?"), one look is all it takes to dismiss Plate Tectonics in an instant.  Less incisively perhaps are some others that are more 'circumlocutory' steps along the way to an answer, and are therefore equally valid.

It would have to be the most representative expression of the Principle of Structural Superposition in that it is clearly cutting through, and is therefore later than, the host rock, which in this case looks like granite.  The dyke, which is probably of dolerite (slightly coarser than basalt but of the same composition) is cutting, and therefore younger than, the granite.  So properly speaking we should refer to The Principle of Stratigraphic, Structural, and Magmatic Superposition. This is the triumvirate of Earth processes operating at different scales and different levels in the crust that allows proper time-sequencing of geological events and interpretation of Earth history. The other reasons relate to larger questions of global significance as sketched below.

What seems interesting to me about this picture is why somebody is taking it.  That somebody is probably the group leader, who has decided to take a picture in order to save himself the bother of saying a thousand words about something to do with this particular pit-stop, and which is self-evident.  And maybe something too about the apparent disinterest on show, for that dyke epitomises a fundamental point of logic that the "outsiders" of Plate Tectonics ("without a geological clue") ignore.

So let's consider what it is by asking some of those leading questions.

Did the granite body move sideways to let the dyke in, or did the dyke (being magma) (an incompressible fluid) intrude and forcefully heave the host-rock aside?   Ostensibly the students appear to be looking for an answer.  One at least seems to be convinced it lies underfoot, whilst the others seem to think it lies somewhere off to the side.  [Well, .. at least they're looking at the right side - looking at it my way, that is.]

So, .. pit stop, ..questions, .. thinking, .. photograph.   Here's my take on it (it goes  like this) :-

(Team leader) :-
"Here's a dyke, .. etc., etc., .. with a chilled basaltic margin (both sides) (indicating cooling) (etc.,  etc.)," .. and .. (applying best teaching practice by using leading questions the class can answer themselves, .. "Which was first and which was second, the dyke or the host rock?"

"..Well obviously the granite is first, and the dyke is second".

Then the next question follows :-
"So where did the granite come from?"  To which the answer is, well, .. it's coarse grained, .. it cooled slowly, and there's a great mass of it, so it must have originated at depth and cooled slowly. .. .. 
<  ... >
"So what's the answer?"
"Deep."
"And where did the dyke come from then?"
"Deeper."
"But the dyke is fine-grained and chilled quickly, so where did it crystallise in relation to the granite, and how did it lose its heat?"
"The dyke intruded, .. lost its heat to the granite as it came up, which must have therefore been cooler than the dyke."
"So how did the granite get from being in a hot place to being in a cold place?"
"It must have been uplifted."
"Right? Who thinks that's right? ... How much granite have we got here?"
< .. The whole country .. >
"So how did the whole country get uplifted from a hot place to a cold place?"

You can see here the students beginning to shuffle a bit at this point.  This is not what was expected from a simple dyke in a simple granite. Anyway, it was supposed to be about the dyke, not the granite.

"And what about the dyke?  Where did it come from, what was it feeding? And where is all of that 'feeded-stuff'  now?  And if the granite cooled at depth and got uplifted so we can stand on it, what happened to what was on top of *it*?  Erosion?  Who said 'erosion'? Did someone say erosion?  And how did *that* erosion, relate to the dyke's erosion that we see now - and what it (the dyke) was feeding?  And how do we think this uplift happened exactly, if it applies to the whole country, and the dykes (and that little sill over there - out of the picture) are not folded?  And what do you think uplift means for the 'sideways' aspect of this intrusion shown by the separation of the walls of the dyke?  Did this 'sideways behaviour crumple anything?  And where did the *granite* come from in relation to the basalt, if it was at depth long enough to cool down and be coarse grained? .. And if the basalt was below the granite in the first place, why did it come up?  Why didn't it just stay down there and likewise be coarse-grained?  And since it did come up, why did it come up in such skittery bits as this dyke, instead of in a big country-wide mass like the granite.  Fracture?  Who said fracture?   How deep was it, and how laterally extensive might it have been? Can we map it and find out?  What was the spatial and temporal relationship of the respective melts?  And which do you think was under the greater pressure to come up? "  Why did the granite 'come up' on the scale of the whole country while the basalt is just coming up what is essentially a hairline fracture - or less?

This is the bit where the students begin to look right and left, and realise that what he's going to say next is ...

" And let me have your thoughts by Monday."




Fig.2.  Filaments of NW-striking dolerite dykes intrude a diapiric granite pluton.  (Pilbara region, Western Australia.)  [GoogleEarth Location :-   -22.822591°, 117.341177°]


[*Footnote :- The point here being (apart from the obvious one of erosion) the importance of fracturing as indicative of scale of crustal penetration, and the likely importance of incremental upwards movement as a means of creating sideways space rather than (as Plate Tectonics has it) ~3,000km of (sideways) movement such as are said to build the Himalayas and, further away, deform the Russian Peninsula ["far-field tectonics"].

Truly, we live on a flat ('sideways') Earth according to Plate Tectonics.  This, I think, could well be what is occupying the collective minds of the students in the picture, which is why they're shuffling and contemplating their boots.  But how are they going to weasel such cleverness into their class exercise on which they'll be judged at the end of term?  It's all very well for the group leader to be asking suchlike questions implying 'up', but they know perfectly well that 'im indoors, .. their professor, waxes lyrical about sideways Plate Tectonics being the best thing since sliced bread and deserving a Nobel prize, with five centimetres of dyke three thousand kilometres away heaving up the Himalayas and all..  The students are no doubt wondering why three thousand sideways kilometres are needed at all if just a few centimeters of on-the-spot 'up' will do the job anyway.  Or even better if the global distribution of dykes in general are the issue, just lithospheric stretching - as the crust adjusts to outwards movement from the centre - like Earth expansion says?  Why the need for all the sideways hyperactivity?

Let's hope that's what they're doing anyway (contemplating).  We need a whole new crop of geologists apparently.  Otherwise another generation is (well and truly) screwed., and screwed up.

Geology.  It's all a question of scale. Observation / Logic /'Science'. And not getting carried away by anthropomorphic-homo/eccentric fantasy and speculation (/'models'). ["India came running full speed at Asia and boom, they collided," - said.]  Communicating to the public on the level of three-year-olds is one thing, but precisely what is being communicated is another.  A mindset is a mindset.  And the mind of Plate Tectonics is set in a both naive and zombie-like cast.  (And a few other adjectives as well, i.m.o.,  when it comes to questions relating to the biggest 'dyke' intrusions of all - those  (as Plate Tectonics would have it) constituting the sheeted dykes of the ocean floors.)
 

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

.. "and Ice-Cream Castles in the air."

.. Built by the Big Chill.
( Blog for website at hhtp://users.indigo.net.au/don/ )













Fig.1.  Mount Everest and the Himalayan front as seen from Alice's Tardis.  (Wikipedia)

Chomolungma.  Qomolangma if you're Chinese.  Everest - or (as we learn from the wiki) 'EEv-rist' if you are the man himself, .. or Peak15 if its a matter of cata-logic.  Draped in ice and snow, .. rocks that are today chiselled to a peak that were therefore once even higher.  Yet they formed in the deepest recesses of ancient seas.  What cataclysmic event was it turned those chilly watery deeps of  five hundred million years ago of Ordovician time, into the freezing hell of today's Heavenly Holy Mother in her icy throne on the roof of the world - eyeballing her adopted daughter with the 'attitude', on cloudless nights?

You'd think there would be an answer to that one by now, wouldn't you?  And so there is.  It is the chill of those ancient seas soaking up heat from the sea bed, or, since those seas are themselves losing heat to the atmosphere (and thence to outer space), it's the chilly night air.

And that's the best answer modern 'science' can give as a mechanism for mountain building, .. the chilly night air is causing subducting mantle slabs to drag continents from one side of the planet to the other, and crash them into other continents, likewise but oppositely pulled, to 'build' mountains - "by plate collision", ..and buckling to form the highest tracts on the planet. Because, .. "Subduction is driving the plate machinery".

Now it might be asking for some child-like credulity from us to believe that colliding plates build mountains, but it's quite another to ask us to believe it's the cold night air doing it.  And yet  that is precisely what is being said, coded in platespeak and straight-faced as you like.   And that's even not allowing for a breeze.  You could understand it (a bit) if there was a chill factor in it, .. some friction, .. but no, .. nothing so complicated.  It's just the chilly night air standing there doing nothing,  moving the crust around and crumpling it up into mountains.  Well! .. everybody had just better look out, and not open their fridge doors all at the same time or the consequences could be dire indeed  - every bit as devastating as my shaving cream knocking a hole in the ozone layer, or anthropogenic (that means you and me by the way) bad behaviour causing global warming.  (Spin, .. and couching rubbish in big words to confuse the issue.  They're at it all the time, .. in the name of 'science'. )

"Tossed high by colliding plates." So the story goes.   A high toss indeed, considering that the forces for the requisite crumpling reside deep in the crust, .. as does the heat that mostly accompanies it.  So the question stands.  How did all that (metamorphosed) sea floor get up there?  Well, .. so the story goes, .. and considering Mr Uyeda's proposal (mentioned above) of subduction driving the whole Plate Tectonic gravytrain, the cold night air ('cooling') makes the mantle sink and at the same time makes the continental crust rise up into mountains, ..that is, the air draws heat out of the mantle to give wholesale convective mantle overturn, and at the same time (via the exigencies of moving plates) puts heat into the continental crust to give folding and thrusting and metamorphism (and mountain building).  When you look at the sum total of nonsenses in that lot, maybe it's best just to stick with 'tossing' for peace of mind.

The extensive pediments that flank the mountain chains are the eroded products of the mountains and show no folding (Fig.3 here) The folding that is being exhumed in the mountainous terrain (from the Alps to the Himalayas and the Americas as well) therefore did not take place during elevation from the surface of the sea floor to the present mountain tops..

We are left with the only reasonable and logical conclusion that folding happens deep in the crust.  But the only way there can be folding (accompanied by heat and pressure)  is if the crust buckles *down*, .. not up.  And it's not so easy to crumple crust down, because there is no space for 'down', so to speak, to occur.  Pushed stuff crumples *up*, where there *is* space, not down where there is none.  The only way there can be crumpling down is if there is a hole of sorts for the crust to 'fall' into.  And holes are not formed by crustal 'collision', but by extension.  And extension (on the scale of mountain belts) happens when the crust as a whole is being stretched, not compressed.  That is, except for smaller-scale second-order effects at the toe of collapse structures, such as was mentioned before in that post about collapsing, folding by-and-large is due to *extension*.  And wholesale extension happens with the crust having to continually take up an ever enlarging surface area. 

And so we are returned to the considerations that plagued geologists of a century ago, considerations that led to the questions of geosynclines and orogens, epeirogenesis and taphrogenesis, but with the added caveat of scale:  How, really, do mountains form, and the answer most certainly is, *not* by the collision of any "moving plates", which can't get their act together to push up a global-scale mountain belt any more than their proponents can get theirs together to come up with a coherent story.
 
 And with equal certainty (going by the distribution of the present-day mountain belts of the Earth) it may be stated that they form by erosion of the crust as this is exhumed by the relentless drop in sea-level as the Earth's surface is extended and takes up an ever-increasing surface area - *Globally*.

And in the passing we should note that the above gobbledegook about colliding plates crumpling the crust is promoted by the foremost teaching and research institutions in the world - and all others as well.  What's the deal? How far are people willing to let themselves be led up the garden path (by other people who are not Elvis)?   What's their agenda?  It can't be the geology when their concoction of it is so patently deficient and the simple alternative so obvious.

Well, the answer is really quite simple : the objective is to remain within consensus and 'do science', because to not remain so is high professional risk, i.e., the point is not the doing, but the remaining within.

When academics are rated according to the number of publications they can notch up, preferably in prestigious journals, and number is best met by staying within consensus, what else *can* be the reason?  It contradicts even the basic intelligence necessary to do science if you don't obey its rules.  It's not just the scientist himself that's the issue, but his family and place in the community as well, not to mention how his wayward behaviour might affect his colleagues.  What value truth in science then?  So long as career is founded (/funded) on publications, the answer is "not much".  It's an oxymoron: no bang for the buck.


[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Moonstruck

( ..Loony tunes? ..)


Readers of this blog will know that it is a documentation of support for an expanding Earth, a 'catch-up diary' of sorts that grew out of my time as a geologist over a period of some forty years.

Now, I can't claim employment for all of that time.  Far from it.  And not that the employment I was lucky enough to secure would lend a whole lot of gravitas to the proposed motion tabled anyway since the rote machinations of  industry do not take too kindly to geological pontificating about the origins of rocks.   That belongs in a different department.   Exploration is about yakka, rocks 'n socks, 'n boots, .. heat and dust, flies and isolation, .. or mozzies, ice and snow and freezing, .. sampling soils and rocks and testing them for anomalies and drilling them, then more drilling, and then (if you're lucky - 'cos that could mean you might have a job next year), digging.  And increasingly as a concession to propriety (because traditionally we're a bunch of rednecks who don't give a fig about health *or* safety and think having women on the job is just a great idea), about a whole lot of regulation by beaurocrats whose mission in life is to dictate and control everything and issue death certificates before the fact, and to generally remind everybody that a certain person is alive and well and going among us with a lot of let and not a lot of hindrance. .. (And I don't mean Elvis.)

But I can claim that if there was any question of pontificating, or navel-gazing on questions of geological import, then it was mostly done at night, ..under the stars, .. gazing at the naked cool beauty of the huntress Diana as she strode the night sky looking like she owned the place.  And why shouldn't she after all because she'd been doing it for about four billion years and by the looks of those battle scars paid her dues too. 

Draw breath, .. and see as she strings her bow and asks the unvoiced question, "Who are you, .. born of the Hadean hell I suffered, to win my right to stride this starry sky looking like I own the bloody place?  .. And what will become of you?  Look at me!!  And hear the silent scream of your oblivion as I pierce you., for we are one, you and I, and your destiny faces me as I face you."

Shit!  You'd think she'd just shut up for a fucken minute while you think about that.  And stop pointing that thing.  Her child?  What Hadean hell?  What's she talking about?  And what was all that about blood?  Was it true?  Was I?  Would I? .. follow undone from that 'hell'(?) to that starry night? Ashes-to-ashes, dust and all that?  Jeez, ..  The only Hades I know of is the fiery heat of every summer in this place, ..doing this job, ..that's for sure.  Forty-eight in the shade and rising.  What sort of Hades did she know about, .. what agony did she suffer that made her turn her scarred face to her conqueror, and four billion years later lay her toy aside, reach for her accoutrements of war,  and take aim?  Why me?

Hang on, .. was *that* what she was on about? ..  about suffering to make life easy for us?  - all that banded iron formation we were looking at earlier before pulling up for the day - rythmic accumulations of iron dust spewed from the cauldron of creation, .. settling every day, every month, every year in those primal seas.  Gaseous clouds of iron and silica?  Was that how she got those scars, .. Hadeas Corpus from impacts to the core? .. the Earth dragging its envelope of millenial cosmic dust - global-scale ignimbrites - right from the core?  So cosmic it enveloped the Earth for hundreds of millions of years and settled with every turn of the Earth, with every cycle of the seasons, with every advancing year.  Spinning through that dust cloud for zillions of years.  Wonder who will make the splash with that one :-  "Hey, look everybody, what I just guessed about the origins of the Earth-Moon system, banded irons as the terrestrial expression of lunar impacts.  And now let's see if we can turn it around and make a story people will buy."

 [ Added 20130616 :-  "..the whole point of the equivalence of mass and energy is that it’s every bit as valid to call the interaction energy “mass” as it is to call individual particles “mass.” And, in fact, 99% of the mass associated with everyday objects comes from exactly the same source as the energy released in nuclear reactions.  http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2011/01/27/energy-from-mass-mass-from-ene/  ]


Seems pretty obvious does it not, when you think of the different rates of iron and silica dust settling in the primal seas - globally.  And the ages virtually correlate with the lunar impacts, give or take a bit of homo(ex)centricity, ..  Makes you wonder, does it not, .. .. about origin, .. and again about science and how it's done, .. about guessing on multiple working stories, or standing back and taking things in the context of the time-sliced bigger picture.  Algal blooms and iron dissolved in sea-water indeed. You can take all this global warming stuff a bit far, in the punt for funds.  There's nothing like keep being wrong as a reason for keep (not) trying to be right!

No guns, no battleships, no knives, forks, spoons, or weapons of war, and especially not the wherewithall to make anything (much) at all, but for the tribulations of that doxie with the bow and the arrow and the certain aim... looking after us.  But for that scarred face where would 'civilisation' be? And think of the cost if modernity had to be contrived from alternative sources..  More likely we'd still be in the bronze age.



[ Image reproduced with thanks 
to  Kevin Radthorne
www.KevinRadthorne.com ]








Some Kookie. Doesn't look like a bout of Hadeas Corpus to me..
Unerring of aim and right on target whatever the intention.
and scar or no scars, .. a bit of all right.
Not sure about the convolution though, ..
Distraction? (So you don't get the message till it hits you?)
Probably.
( "Bows and flows of angel hair"..)

Bet it's right though, .. about the Moon and the origin of the Banded Iron Formations.  I've come across nothing to contradict it in the decades since it occurred to me.  Everything's still up the smushy garden path of consensus waffle. How does it help exploration?  This way, which is to say, .. by looking at context.

( Crikey! .. I see they're asking nearly forty dollars.) (Jeez!) (Crims!)  (Why not support your local global protest instead and with the help of the internet and the New Deal in World Insemination we'll sink this rust bucket, ..despite its best efforts to drown us in garbage.)

[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Magical Mystery Tour

Through the Looking Glass


("Starry night with Tardis")

by Alice





You know how when you get a flyer through the door selling something, ..and there's bullet points, and you want to see what it is they're actually saying, .. how you have to skip to the bottom line to see what it's all about .. and then you wonder why they made you wade through all the crap to get there and why didn't they just put it right up the top and say it - like, .. "The Earth is getting bigger". Maybe in bold if they want to catch your attention. And just leave it at that. Why do they have to hype it up when there's nothing in it but the obvious? Why don't they just start off with the bottom line then go, blonk - blonk - blonk with the facts and just leave it to you? Why do they have to turn it upside down and make such a meal of it into the bargain?
Well, it's true is it not? And what's more, the difference in the way you read it is exactly that between the S.M. ( sado-masochistic) Scientific (/hypothetical) Method way of doing science and the unscientific (no-probs) Natural Philosophical , observational way of doing it - like here.

In the scientific method (as Feynman says), with a few facts and an apparent correlation you make a guess about what it means, and then see if you can back it up with support. And if there's a 'Hey Presto' in it you think you can sell, then you turn it all around and make it look like a respectable conclusion that follows from those blonks. It's a kind of short-cut way of trying to look at things, one that elevates thinking over looking, and makes you look clever.

For example, you might pick up a grain of sand and say, "Ah-hah, this is a beach," and set about trying to prove it according to rules about beaches. So you see if it is round, and of a certain size, .. at which point you decide you might need a bit more data, so, you go, and you look, and see if you can find another one and you do and so hey, .. now you have *two* grains of sand, .. and they're both just exactly round, .. and so on. (Pretty smart, huh?) Then with a straight face you can say with confidence, "This is a beach", and hope everybody will buy one. Doesn't matter about the water. That's different and can be dealt with later, .. this is about science, sand and beaches, right? (Reductive.) ["Elemental, my dear Watson."]

The No-Probs method is different. In this one you get in your tardis and zoom out and look at everything else *but* the sand, .. and once you've got the framework right and everything in its rightful domino-place then Bob's-your-Uncle. You can zoom in on the sand and check out the boulders and the other flotsam lying around if you like. No guessing needed. In fact you might not even bother that much (about 'beach') because a beach is a beach. Seen one you've seen 'em all. Go a bit further and you might find something quite interesting - like a whale, .. lying on top of a grain of sand. And what do we do about that then, .. (on the beach)? .. Well, we get in the tardis again and ... .. .

See what I mean? No guessing, .. no 'science' (of the guessing /hypothesising /theorising sort) needed, .. Just finding that things just are in their natural rightful order, when you look at them the right way, .. which is in context. And how do you do context right?

Well, ... you just go forth, .. get in the Tardis .. and, ... look through the glass.

Easy. You don't have to molecate everything to be scientific. Alice's No-Probs Tardis is just fine. In fact it's where science begins. Or should begin -with the contemplated life and the considered observation. All sorts of problems arise if the 'molecules' are not in the right order. And that's where the tardis comes in handy, .. it gets you right up there (with Cazaly, a round of leather and a jar of vegemite). Everything just falls into place - right, bright and shiny, .. and speaking for itself.

So, .. all aboard?
=>  *(basketables) rm/genesis.html

(Who said the Earth was flat) (like a plate)  .. ?
=>  *one plate or several nonsense/plate.html =>  *House of collapsing cards nonsense/cards

(next)
[Yeah, .. but so what? ]
====================




[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]