SCIENCE IN ANCIENT ARTWORK AND SCIENCE TODAY

Was Wegener Wrong?

Tectonic Plates, Continental Drift and
The Symmetry of the Continents
Part One

Charles William Johnson

Presentation

Alfred Wegener's theory on continental drift, published in 1915, remains to be the interpretative force behind the field of tectonic plates and oceanography. In his book, The Origin of Continents and Oceans Wegener supported a previously debated idea of continental drift, explaining that a supercontinent he called Pangaea (i.e., all lands), once existed in the past, then dismembered. This breaking-up process started some 200 million years ago, and, the pieces "drifted" into their present positions around the globe. Wegener called attention to the fit of Atlantic rim of South America and the western rim of Africa, along with similarities in ancient climate, fossils (such as the fern Glossopteris and mesosaurus), and the similarity of rock structures.

Wegener dismissed the notion about sunken land bridges, proposing instead the concept of drifting continents and seas that widened in order to explain the geography of Earth. Wegener drew attention to the fact that the continents consist of a less dense, granite rock, unlike the volcanic basalt that constitutes the deep-sea floor of the oceans. He posited that the continents floated somewhat like icebergs in water, moving up and down in order to maintain equilibrium in the process called isostasy. Wegener also argued that mountain ranges occur usually along the narrow edge of a continent, forming when drifting continents collide.

He also emphasized how the fit between Africa and South America show mountain ranges and coal deposits, that appear to be linked in an uninterrupted fashion.

Recent research portrays the view of the continents having extensions that reach down into the Earth's mantle, much like the keel of a ship. Various other ideas have come into play regarding the interpretation of continent drift and plate tectonics. There are far too many to examine in this short essay. We shall concentrate upon a few ideas.

Some Considerations

It is difficult to suggest that the continents do not drift, or that the dozen or so tectonic plates that make up the Earth's surface do not collide. In fact, today's sophisticated, technological research findings reveal that continents and plates do collide producing mountain ranges, earthquakes, and many other manifestations in the geography of the Earth. The continental drift or shift is cited as representing a yearly movement of between 50mm and 90 mm. In terms of absolute measurement, that amount appears to be insignificant; in terms of geological time, the distance can be enormous.

The view of an everyday individual might question even the possibility of measuring such a minute distance in relation to an entire continent. But, even supposing that such movement were feasibly commensurable, in terms of geological time, one might question whether the movement of the continents is in the manner as conveyed by the thesis of the supercontinents Pangaea, or that of Gondwana. In this essay, we shall not consider whether there is or is not movement of the continents, which appears to be empirically confirmed, but rather, how might that motion be interpreted as of the maps offered by different scientific sources today. We shall examine some of the maps of the floors of the oceans and the outline of the continental shelves.

First, let us look at the two main ideas about the proto-continents or super-continents; Pangaea and Gondwana.

In the previous illustration, we offer a summary view of the break-up of the imaginary proto-continent of Pangaea. The sketch is rough, because almost all presentations of this particular continent are themselves sketchy. The significant point is to note how the view is offered as a lop-sided section of the Earth's globe. We are led to believe that all of the continental land mass is gathered on one side of the Earth, and somehow, by some yet unrecognized force, wandered across the face of the Earth to its present-day distribution.

A second version of this same proto-continental idea is that as pictured above, which suggests a larger southern continent once formed by South America, Africa and the Antarctica. Still, the interpretation remains that the proto-continent represented a singular land mass that supposedly was gathered on one side of the globe.

As one views the perspective of the South Pole of Earth, one may easily be convinced that the Gondwana proto-continent may have been once a reality some 200 million years ago, and finally was pulled apart into the pieces now comprising South America, Africa, Australia, and the Antarctica. The question, however, would appear to be whether the continents were all massed together once upon a time, in a lop-sided fashion, on one side of the Earth's surface, and slowly crept across the surface of the Earth. Or, whether the continents may have consisted of a singular land mass that covered the entire Earth, as a spherical-like covering, with the ocean and waterways slowly eating their way between the continents.

In either of these scenarios, one would allow for certain movement of the continents, but possibly not one as drastic as that conceived by Alfred Wegener and the scientists of today.

In our mind, and from our analytical perspective, Wagener was wrong. The apparent fit between the eastern rim of South America and the western rim of Africa is simply that: apparent. It is like any two opposing banks of a rive. Having lived along the Mississippi River for many years, it was once attractive to think that the river banks were once joined together. But, as one grows a little older and comes into contact with a certain amount of knowledge, it becomes obvious that water cut its way in between the river banks. In fact, that the water actually formed the river banks.

One would wonder why anyone would deny the more powerful oceans to be able to cut their way in between the shorelines of the continents. It is difficult to think why the ocean currents, ebbs and tides, would not have a similar effect upon the continents' shorelines as the might Mississippi River has had upon its banks. The first question that comes to mind, is whether the ocean's waters are less powerful than that of the rivers. Obviously not; so, there must be some other interpretation to the structuring shape of the continents.

We suspect that the answer to the outline of the continents obeys similar, if not exact, rules as those of the rivers of the Earth. Firstly, the river banks are part of the floating continents, so their behavior cannot be that distinct from the latter. Wegener's interpretation would suggest that the oceans behave in a manner distinct from the rivers. I suggest that this is not so, other than in the elementary terms that we already know about the differences between a river and an ocean.

The oceans, however, have ridges upon the ocean floor that, have been identified as spreading. The spreading ocean floor is even interpreted as giving rise to the continental crust that moves along the surface of the Earth, and revolves back down into the Earth/s mantle-core through the trenches of the Pacific Ocean. This interpretation avoids the need for conceiving of an expanding Earth. The Earth is thereby viewed as being in a steady-state circumstance, neither diminishing, nor expanding.

No one is actually certain of how these processes occur, but such are the interpretations offered as an explanation of the composition of the Earth's geography. Naturally, the reader is invited to read the original works of such interpretations, as we are simply summarily referencing some of the ideas for the sake of argument. The significant point is, that we are within the realm of pure speculation, inasmuch as the particulars of the dynamics of the Earth are yet unknown (at least, agreed upon).

The red lines in the precious illustration simply suggest the idea of the ridges identified on the spreading ocean floors. This action suggests the idea of a force separating the continents, one from the other, over a period of time, such that South America and Africa separated over 200 million years ago. And, with a little imagination, one can see how Alfred Wegener might have considered the eastern rim of South America to have been tucked up under the western rim of Africa.

And, even though the two sides of the two cited continents appear to represent a fit, one can see that the fit is not that exact, but only suggestive of a match. Wegener offered other interpretative evidence that supposedly clinched his interpretation as being convincing, especially data for paleoclimatology, but on the whole rock strata, plant and fossil data could easily prove a similar thesis, that the eastern and western banks of the Mississippi River were joined as well.

One specific event along the Atlantic ridges causes us to rethink the Wegener thesis; that of the existence of Iceland.

As may be seen from the above illustration, Iceland lies right on top of the Atlantic Ridge. A thesis that utilizes the force of the ridges as the driving power behind the drift of the continents would not be expected to have a continental land mass directly over it. Theorists of the Wegener theory must be hard-pressed to explain how such a small continental land mass could withstand the forces that the ridges supposed exercise in moving the continents. Naturally, the theorists are going to tell us that there are no ridges under Iceland, but even then, we are hard-pressed to imagine how Iceland escaped from the pressures of the ridge formations around it. In the formation of rivers, small islands that appear in the middle of the running waters of rivers is a common-place happening. Such islands in the oceans would appear to be common-place as well, and similarly generated.

The previous illustration shows us the shorelines of the continental land masses of the Pacific Ocean, And, obviously, it is more difficult to invoke the idea of the "river-bank" theory. Somehow, the action of water and time has been more destructive on this side of the globe. The separation between the Western and eastern hemispheres is much greater on the Pacific Rim side. Plus, the concave shape of the shorelines does not appear to be a fit or a match of any sorts. This fact, in part, would appear to be why theorists have chosen the Atlantic side as being the side where the continents were joined, and then slowly pushed over towards the Pacific Ocean side. But, the pushing effect (or the converging effect) has been irregular, where the Asian Pacific Rim and the Western Hemisphere Pacific Rim form two arcs that almost make a circular shape.

Our conception suggests that even if the plates in the Pacific Ocean are meeting at the points of the trenches, this results from an all-encompassing land mass, parts above and below water, that have come into contact. But, the initial land mass was not placed only upon one side of the Earth's surface. Theorists speak about the proto-continent, without ever detailing what existed around the rest of the globe. We find it difficult to accept the idea that the earth's spherical-like shape produced such an unbalanced production of continental crust coming from the earth's core-mantle, that was deposited on one side [sic] of the globe (i.e., Pangaea). In our view of the behavior of matter-energy the existence of symmetry appears to be ever present.

The spherical shape of the planet Earth would seem to suggest that the continental crust produced from the core-mantle of the Earth would have been also all-encompassing of the Earth's surface. No doubt the depth of the continental crust, the tectonic plats and the mantle, and the layer of the mantle-core would have been distinct in different parts of the globe. But, a cooling inner core of the Earth would suggest a manifested uniform cooling crust of the earth.

Therefore, instead of a lop-sided continental crust as suggested by the Pangaea thesis, one would expect a uniform crust throughout the planet's surface, whereby the activity of the water's action and other geological factors would have created certain weak spots. Certain parts have remained above water (the visible continents); others under water (the continental shelves); others washed away by time and the action of the ridges and the trenches. There are too many factors to list here, but simply let us view the shape suggested by the continental shelves, not just that of the visible parts of the continents above water. Observe below the rough drawing of the outline of the continental shelves of the Earth.

The reader may want to look at a map of the ocean floors of the world on a Mercator scale as well as on the actual spherical globe of our planet. It is only then that one can visualize the interconnected nature of the continents through the continent shelves. We have offered an extremely off-hand rendering of this view for the sake of the discussion.

The Bering Strait reveals an interconnectedness that defies any theory of these two continents as having come together through some pushing or converging activity. Any view of this region suggests their having existed in this interconnected fashion ever since the beginning of time. And, if the theorists are suggesting these continents existed in a joined manner, and walked their way across the North Pole, leaving an opening there due to the ridges in the North Pole, then Wegener's theory is conveniently resolved by different reasoning at different points on the earth's surface.

One wonders whether the ancient symbol for the yin-yang might not represent a better way of visualizing the interconnectedness of the Earth's crust. One might even suggest that such an ancient symbol may have come from a comprehension of the inner workings of the Earth's surface.

The Forces at Work

There are many forces at work within the Earth's make-up. It is difficult to even begin to account for all of the forces of matter-energy that come into play in the creation of the composition of the Earth and its manifest characteristics. We shall make no attempt to enlighten this point here. Rather, we shall limit our analysis to the simplest one possible. We shall respond to Wegener in the same superficial manner in which he began to establish his theory; that is, as of his initial impression of seeing a match between the continents of South America and Africa.

If we are to believe that the continents have wandered around the Earth on their journey to the shape that we see today, then we would expect there to be a lot of random movement in their formation. One would not expect a symmetry to develop from such a lop-sided mud ball as that of Pangaea plastered on the side of the Earth. One would expect to explain, in part, some of the Earth's wobble from the unbalanced proto-continent ---even though the weight of the continents might be minuscule in relation to the actual size of the Earth itself. But, for now, let us visualize an unbalanced sphere wobbling throughout space, with the continents drifting and shifting across its facial surface.

Definitely, we would not expect any kind of symmetry to appear in their design. The fact that the continents were somehow ripped apart by the up-swelling underwater ridges (except for Iceland, etc.), would suggest a perfect fit between them, and furthermore, a random-like outline of their shorelines.

However, as we consider the outline of the continents from the perspective of their shorelines, we do not see any random, asymmetrical formations, but rather shapes and contours that suggest their being formed as of specific forces acting upon them. Let us compare the outlines of some of the continents; specifically, let us compare those of South American and Africa. For these are the ones that Wegener cited for the initiation of his thesis. And, these are the ones that are still cited today as forming the basis for the theoretical posits of the theory of continental drift and plate tectonics, as well as, for the spreading of the oceans.

Africa	South America

The previous two illustrations appear to be different from what we generally visualize as representing Africa and South America, because we have drawn the lines corresponding to their continental shelves. When we look at these two continents from this perspective, the natural match or fit between the two continents seems to disappear. This becomes even more obvious as we compare the two continents as of their continental shelves, and not simply as of their visible parts above water, the so-called continents of Africa and South America without their continental shelves (something that is in fact an impossibility in reality).

All comparisons between these two continents when analyzed in the light of Wegener's thesis are generally presented as of the above-water view of the continents. One must compare the possible fit or math of the continent shelves of these continents.

Wegener's comparative suggestion would have it thus:

Notice distance between the red and green lines of the visible continents, which are obviously not a fit, if we place the continental shelves of these two continents side by side.

And, if we juxtapose Africa and South America as of the visible shorelines of these two continents, then their continental shelves overlap and deny such a match.

Either way, it is difficult to conceive of how South America may have been tucked under Africa 200 million years ago, especially traveling at 50mm � 90mm /year; the math does not allow such a walk for the close to 5000 km distance.

And, then, even if one were convinced that such a linear match were possible, how could one possibly explain the strange half-eight, double-loop of both continents on their left sides. One would have to question the forces that would have created a dyslexic number three on that side.

There are evidently other ways in which to view a possible fit or symmetry of these two distinct continents, each bordering the opposite side of an enormous expanse of water, the Atlantic Ocean. But, before we make the comparison, let us bring attention to a distinguishing factor of the area. In the Atlantic Ocean, there is only one trench shown on the ocean floor, and that lies between the continents of South America and the Antarctica.

In this image, one can imagine the basalt sea floor breaking through the granite continental crust, as well as the water flow penetrating in the same direction as the sea-floor. Add to this the idea of South America ripping away from Africa, and the up-swell of the ridges, and all of these elements paint a powerful picture of movement, that suggests an expansion of the planet; something that the Wegener theorists cannot accept.

From the previous view, the continental shelf area of the tip of South America would appear to have been developed in situ as of the activity around the formation of the trench in that area of the Atlantic Ocean. One would not expect the continental shelf appendage of the tip of South America as having been formed from its moving away from Africa, as though it were ripped from the tip of Africa.

Now, we are ready to view the comparative analysis of the overlays of the different continents.

johnson@earthmatrix.com

Introduction

Part One

Part Two

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Was Wegener Wrong?
Tectonic Plates, Continental Drift and The Symmetry of the Continents
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