A New model of Plate Tectonics
A research team from University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Johannes Gutenberg University (Germany) has developed for the first time an advanced numerical model of one of the main processes behind the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates.
The tectonic plates that form the Earth’s surface are like puzzle pieces that are in constant, very slow motion—on average, they move only up to around 10 centimeters a year. But these puzzle pieces don’t quite fit together: there are zones on one plate that end up plunging under another, known as subduction zones, central to the dynamics of the planet.
This movement is slow, but it can lead to moments of great energy release and, over thousands of years, large mountain ranges or marine trenches are formed in these regions.
How do these subduction zones originate, and how do they evolve over time? Geologists already knew that in these zones, on a time scale of thousands of years, this process can stagnate and reverse itself, giving rise to new subduction zones. But it was still necessary to know how this happens, and to include in the models the various (and enormous) forces involved in this process.
For the first time, it was possible to simulate in three dimensions one of the most common processes of formation of new subduction zones, ensuring that all forces are dynamically and realistically modeled, including Earth’s own gravity.
“Subduction zones are one of the main features of our planet and the main driver of plate tectonics and the global dynamics of the planet. Subduction zones are also the places where earthquakes of great magnitude occur, as is the case of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the largest system of subduction zones in the world. For this reason, it is extremely important to understand how new subduction zones start and how this process takes place”, explains Jaime Almeida, first author of this study, researcher at Instituto Dom Luiz, at Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Ciências ULisboa).
Image: Communications Earth & Environment (2022)
Each of the simulations that led to these results took up to a week to process on a supercomputer at the Johannes Gutenberg University (Germany). But it could have taken weeks, or even months, to run on this supercomputer—had it not been for the computational code recent developed at this University, significantly more efficient than other available codes.
“It had already been theoretically proposed that new subduction zones were more likely to form from pre-existing ones, but models of this kind had never been carried out. In a way, it seems to be easier and more likely than anticipated”, explains João Duarte, researcher at Instituto Dom Luiz and co-author of this study, now published in the Communications Earth and Environment journal.
This model opens up a new range of perspectives and represents the starting point for studying specific regions of our planet:
“We are now applying these models to specific cases, such as the subduction zones that are starting in the Atlantic Ocean, in the Caribbean, the Scotia Arc, next to Antarctica, and on the Southwest Portuguese margin, and which could lead to the closing of the Atlantic Ocean”
“The 1755 Lisbon earthquake may have been the harbinger of the beginning of subduction on our margin, and there are marine geology data that support it”, concludes João Duarte.
See more here: phys.org
Header image: Gringer
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
This article begins: “A research team from University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Johannes Gutenberg University (Germany) has developed for the first time an advanced numerical model of one of the main processes behind the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates.” I ask a reader to tell me what “one of the main processes” is.
Before writing more I need to Google mid-ocean ridges to make sure they have been observed to exist, just as the trenches are observed to exist, or if instead I have had a bad dream. If I find that these ridges do not exist, I will come back and admit that I have had a bad dream.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Robert Beatty
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An interesting study which raises in my mind several related questions, such as where does the energy come from which drives this ring of fire phenomenon? Was this energy source always the same expression, or has it waned from what it used to be? If it has waned, was it ever strong enough to launch the moon from earth, and maybe planet mercury? The mid atlantic ridge is well known and shows how molten rock emerges from within the earth and pushes the americas away to the west. Does that ‘new’ material balance or exceed the subducted quantity of material? If it exceeds that quantity, where does the ‘extra’ come from? All good questions with no obvious answers.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Robert
You concluded: “All good questions with no obvious answers.” I would edit this to: All good question with n0 absolute correct answers. For if one accepts what has been observed to this point without exceptions: the law of the conservation of mass-energy suggest a possible answer. For seldom considered in this specific case, that all which has been observed will continue to be observed. For the issue here is previously we could not observe the relationship between mass and energy with enough experimental precision. Which, lack of absolute precision, is the fundamental reason that we can never be certain we are observing All the TRUTH!!! The problem was not any previous measurements were wrong. Just, to repeat, they were not precise enough.
Richard Feynman wrote about ‘The 7 Percent Solution” (“Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman!”) and reported that after mistakes had been corrected there still remained a 2 percent difference that could be possibly explained by experimental error. However, another physicist’s earned a Nobel Prize for explaining this 2 percent difference.
Have a good day, Jerry
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Robert,
Was the break up of Pangea and the subsequent movement of the plates initiated by the impact of a large meteor or comet with the Earth and did this impact also produce the tilt of the Earth?
Herb
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Robert Beatty
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No doubt many large meteors hit the earth from time to time, but I doubt any had the impact potential you describe. IMO the largest tectonic incident which occurred on earth was when the moon launched. This caused the orbit to be elliptical, operate in a higher solar orbit, and to launch planet mercury as well. See https://bosmin.com/PSL/23.htm and https://bosmin.com/PSL/25.htm
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Mark Tapley
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Genesis 7:11
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
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Robert Beatty
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Hi Mark and Jerry,
I am left with these thoughts:
The past is history.
The present is real.
The future is speculation.
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Beatty:
Having practically no background in science from my years in government propaganda centers as a young person long ago, I just try to comprehend whatever information I can from reading here at PSI. Your comment as to the impact of meteors reminded me that I had read years ago that practically all meteors are found in the upper layer of the earth’s crust. If this is correct then how is it claimed that the earth is billions of years old?
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Herb Rose
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Hi Mark,
A meteor is an object that enters the Earth’s upper atmosphere and burns up. A meteorite is any part of the meteor that reaches the Earth’s surface.
The Earth was once a molten mass of rock. As it radiated energy into space, it cooled and developed a crust, an atmosphere and water. With volcanoes it is still losing geothermal heat but because it is gaining energy from the sun it has lost very little internal heat resulting in it developing a very thin crust over its existence.
If the flood covered the Earth the water could not come from the oceans but had to be newly created water. The evaporation of water from the oceans would lower their levels by the same amount of water falling on the land. When the flood receded where did this water go? If the ark contained seven pairs of good animals and two pairs of bad animals how could it store enough food to feed those animals for a year? (Who had to clean up their stalls and cages?) Since no land plant can survive a year under water how did the dove find a twig from an olive tree on Mt Ararat? At the end of the flood the surviving family of Noah complained they were going to starve because there was no food and God allowed them to eat meat. What did the animals have to eat when all the vegetation was drowned? You believe the Bible is literally true without question but doubt everything else. (If God gave the Holy Lands to the Israelites doesn’t that mean that the Zionists are right?)
You had a career as a obfuscater. That explains why you keep shifting directions in your arguments.
Herb
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Mark Tapleye
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Hello Herb:
So Venus and Uranus have different rotation to the other planets. Venus being opposite and Uranus laying over close to the poles. That was my original question. If all the planets were created from the same force, what explains this anomaly? You offer no explanation as to the lack of meteorites at deeper layers. As far as the great flood, there is evidence for it all over the world. As to how God carried this out is beyond our finite ability to comprehend, as is the infinite complexity of everything on this little blue planet that has to be minutely regulated as it hurtles through space.
They have found (as PSI attests to) alligator bones and tropical plants in the arctic. T Rex dinosaur bones in Montana with ligament and soft tissue as well as blood vessels, and mammoths in Siberia with plant material in the gut. All of this indicates a very different earth and atmosphere than it is now.
Don’t know if you found it but I did answer you on the subject of usury. Chapter and verse.
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Howdy
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Hello Mark and Herb,
Might not be your thing Herb, but Mark, are you aware of Diamond, from the ‘Oppenheimer Ranch Project’? If not, your comments about the flood mean you might be interested in one of Diamond’s videos about Sacred geometry, ‘The Great Year’, and the catastrophe it causes, resulting in civilization loss, including previous civilizations. It includes sea level rise, and fall, plus the evidence of such. Diamond reckons we’re on the cusp of one now.
I have a feeling you might find It interesting.
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Howdy:
The narrator of this video opens his talk by showing photos of the typical sedimentary layers, each allegedly deposited separately over eons of time. We know this cannot be the case since there have been numerous cases in which petrified tree trunks extend through “millions of years.” These strata are present on all continents and I believe are representative of a single great cataclysmic flood.
If you take a jar and throw various sediments such as some sand, rocks and clay, then spin it around all of this material will settle out immediately into layers in the jar. We see the same thing for example in the Grand Canyon. What the geologists normally do not show however is that in many areas these layers are not strictly horizontal but twist around almost in circles. This illustrates a fast deposition not a slow one. Also when these sediment layers are examined it is apparent that there is no erosion between them with the resulting deposition of top soil as would occur over long periods between “events.” There is also no evidence of the inevitable tree root formation that would have subsequently formed over long periods nor is there any evidence of long term drainage cracks (erosion between the individual layers) or even the normally expected excavation by digging and burrowing animals. Thanks for the link. This is another issue that needs to be looked at more carefully.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Mark,
Things, including planets and sun, change with time (aging) due to external forces acting upon them. Despite what the current theory says there is no evidence that the planets were formed at the same time. As the sun “burns” it produces ashes (the elements). It needs to dispose of these ashes in order to continue “burning” just like a log in a fire. The initial dumping of ashes was a nova where the sun blew off the ashes in all directions. The planets and asteroid belt are results of the sun’s magnetic field moving the ashes to an area where the attraction to the North and South Poles are equal. (The Ort clouds are where the ashes are still scattered.) The energy contained in the ashes causes them to coalesce forming planets, except the asteroid belt where Jupiter’s energy/magnetic field disrupts the coalescence. The planets are the trash piles of the sun and it keeps adding to them as it “burns” with the solar winds (Charged particles emitted from the sun). This disposes of the light ash but the heavier ash (large stable elements) continues to accumulate until the sun again explodes throwing out that trash, shrinking in size, and forming a new planet. Mars was once like Earth, Earth will be like Mars. The solar system is a changing thing whose present appearance is quite different from its original appearance (true for all of us). Meteorites that struck the Earth long ago have weathered and become part of the trash pile.
The evidence of the flood you cite can also be explained by changes in the land. We know that land sinks and rises due to seismic activity, land masses can move, and climate changes (even before man was around).. Areas that were once under water are pushed up to become dry land and land has sunken to become sea bed. This seismic activity is prevalent in the region where the Old Testament was written.
It is interesting that you point out the remains (don’t forget the petrified forest) from the changing environment but deny evolution and the changing of animals, contending that all the animals that exist today were created at the same time and haven’t changed. You cite evidence that contradicts the Bible but do not accept it.
I did not find your reference to usury but I wasn’t referring to what the Bible said but what the churches believed and demanded. Could it be that the antisemitism, that has existed for eons, all started due to the nobles and rulers (who were the ones borrowing money) not wanting to pay it back? Since they had given their word to repay their honor and religion required them to do it, but neither their honor or their faith prevented them from killing, or inciting others to kill, those who had loaned them the money.
Herb
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Herb:
The planetary theory you propose is just conjecture. If the sun were throwing off that much ash and somehow coalescing in planets that orbit concentrically, then the sun would also be deteriorating at a substantial rate during this process. This would preclude any life on Earth. It would all be more like mercury. The Ort Cloud is just an Astrological construct used to explain other inexplicable elements of the universe such as the rapidly diminishing comets that will be gone in only a few thousand years. The fake Out Cloud is supposedly making more. Right, just like CGI airplanes fly like a hot knife through butter, through multiple floors of welded steel and concrete.
Land formations do change over time, especially due to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions but the multiple sedimentary depositions all over the world I referred to do not evidence the typical signs of long term development but rather fast formation as the examples I gave indicate.
Animals do not demonstrate any change in kind as predicted by Darwinian evolutionists but only variations within the DNA of the present species. Dogs are a good example. You may have a tea cup Chihuchau or a Mastif but they are just variations of the same animal. Darwin knew nothing of DNA but had the very simplistic notion that an organism could just adapt over millions of years. Which brings up the primary corollary of evolution, “given enough time, anything can happen.” Realizing that evolution was headed down a dead end, they grasped on to the prospect of mutation. Alas, this has also gone nowhere, as all mutations involve the loss of genetic material. Not very promising for developing a new “kind.” So far scientists have grown thousands of generations of bacteria, equivalent to millions of years in human generations. Some bacteria have dropped genes and mutated but they are all still bacteria. Another good example is the mule. Hybrid – mutation of the horse and donkey. They are practically always (except for very rare cases) sterile as animals always resolve back to their original state.
On usury (interest) relating to the religions you brought up, I referenced the scriptures as to the false notion that interest is condemned in the Bible. Read the Parable of the Talents-Matt 25:14. You being up the old shibboleth of antisemitism which like the holohoax is a critical part of the Zionist toolbag frequently used by all the puppet actors such as cyrpto Jew Abbot here in Tx. and shabbas butt goy DeSantis the Holohoax builder of Florida:
https://i.imgur.com/RnxcmmB.jpg
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Herb Rose
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Hi Mark,
In my physics the sun is composed of matter (neutrons). Energy is attracted to positive matter (protons) with a stronger attraction than electrons .This dislodges electrons from the proton forming elements where there are no electrons exposed (ashes) Energy is mining the sun’s surface and refining occurs in the corolla (hotter than the sun’s surface). This is why a neutron, not in the nucleus of anatomy will convert into a proton, electron, (hydrogen atom) and a gamma ray in ten minutes but stable atoms (like hydrogen) can last for billions of years. The sun is “burning” (fission) on its surface and like a piece of wood that ash must be removed for it continue to “burn”.
As for the rate of change, you are projecting our concept of time and fast and slow on other things. (There is no such thing as dog years.) Time does not exist only matter and energy. What we call time is just a reference to the energy of other objects everybody can refer to, the orbiting of the Earth, rotation of the Earth, and orbiting of the moon. There is only the present and change is determined by the energy associated with the object. (All atoms change (deteriorate). It is just the rate of change that has us label them stable or radioactive. ) As the sun loses matter Mercury will one day become like Earth and exists in the zone of liquid water having life. (Maybe the aliens are really Martians returning to the old neighborhood (solar system) to see if it’s time to move back.)
It is not the volcanos and earthquakes that are causing the shift in land, it is the movement of the land (tectonic plates) that cause the volcanos and earthquakes. Look at the great rift between Africa and the Middle East. The land is already below sea level (Dead Sea) and one day when Africa moves away most of the Middle East will be under water.
A comet loses matter as the heat from the sun vaporizes different compounds. This vaporized compounds continue to move, from momentum, forming the tail. When the comet goes away from the sun it does so tail first (solar winds) so while the comet loses matter on trip to the sun it picks up matter on the return trip into space.
Evolution (changes in animals) is not from mutation (almost always bad) but by feedback from the environment that activate different portions of the genes. Animals have inherited millions of genes from our evolutionary ancestors that have become dormant (blocked by proteins) just as genes that direct development become dormant when the animal matures. Evolution can also occur from the introduction of different genes from other animals (viruses, bacteria, hybridization. All dogs are descended from wolves but they can produce offspring with coyotes.(Mules have reproduced) (Did you see the chicken with a snake head? How did that hybridization occur if reptiles wee not ancestors of birds?) The environment changes and for animals that specialize (adapt to that environment) to far and lose adaptability (giant pandas) it will result in their extinction, when they can no longer adapt to change. It is the adaptability of organism that determines success.
It is our classification system that doesn’t recognize things are not digital but varying ranges. The duckbilled platypus is a mammal that lays eggs, the marsupials are mammals that have pregnancies outside their bodies (portable nests), and the bacteria that survive on the hydrogen sulfide coming from vents on the ocean floor are not the same as the bacteria in yogurt.
In Judaism a jew is someone whose mother (not father) is jewish. Again I ask you, does not the Bible say that God gave the Holy Land to the jews?
Herb
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Herb:
They changed the page so I almost missed your post. You state that the sun is losing matter and one day mercury will be like earth. The conditions that creates earth could not have evolved over time. Too many complex systems of an irreducible nature and therefore requiring intelligence are involved. The complex airliners that we have discussed were not created when a tornado hit a junk yard but required the application of intelligent design. The building blocks of DNA require protein to work and protein has to have DNA. They could not have evolved separately. Bacteria even have propulsion motors (can’t remember name) that could not have evolved but all parts had to be present from the beginning. The whole universe demonstrates entropy, rather than the creation of new kinds which have never occurred. Mules have reproduced as I stated but it is extremely rare. Mercury and all the other planets are dead and will stay dead. There are no aliens because they have no possible kinship to Christ as we do because of his taking on an earthly lineage to establish brotherhood with mankind.
Since as you state the sun is decreasing in intensity that would indicate that if the earth were 3 billion (or whatever) age the evolutionists claim, it would have been much too hot. No one has ever witnessed the creation of a star (sun) but according to astronomers records ap. every 25 years there is a super nova (burned out star) occurs in our galaxy or another one within sight. They have discovered around 200 of them. If that is the case then it is another indication of earth being only about ten thousand years old. I had read that the comets are dissipating. You say they are regaining material (doubt that) as they orbit. This is an area that needs clarification. Nat. Geo. had claimed some type of reptile was an ancestor of birds but as with all evolution this has been shown to be false. Similar to the 60 million yr. old extinct Coelacanths (precursor to reptiles) caught in 1938 and several times since. Animals cannot evolve to adapt but already either have the ability to survive a particular environment or not. Evolutionists tried to show adaptation with the pepper moth but that also was another fake like all the others.
Over 90% of people who today call themselves Jews are Ashkenazi-Khazars. They have no connection to the scion Abraham and so no genetic link to the Biblical Jew. Some of the native Palestinians who have been murdered, and many thousands driven fro their land by the Khazar thugs, may have a connection to the Biblical Jews. One thing is for sure they are semitic which the Khazars are not.
Under the old Testament Law of Moses, which applied only to the Biblical Jews, they were God’s chosen people. The earthly lineage of Christ was through this consanguineous line. God divorced the Jews because of their disobedience and the Law of Moses was fulfilled (and done away with) when Christ established his New Testament Church on The Day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2:1 and others. The coming of Christ and his sacrifice for our redemption as revealed in his gospel is the purpose of the Bible and is prophesied from the time of Adam. The seed (singular) of Abraham unto the world, spoken of in Genesis 12:1 is Christ. The New Law of Christ is for all men both Jew and Greek (Gentile) Galatians 3:28, Romans 10:12. The book of Hebrews goes through all of this in its dealing with the Jews and the desire of some in the Church to revert to the Old Law.
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