Oh wow. Sometimes the stupidity of people surpasses my expectations. I just got a comment on a post I wrote about the Expanding Earth "Theory" nearly two years ago. I'm really hoping the rest of the geoblogosphere will crack open a beer and enjoy this next bit.
A really simple diagram of the rock cycle from Pull Out The Plug, an age 11-14 science revision site.
All the sediment in the Grand Canyon came from elsewhere on the Earth. There is a conservation of material within the system - possibly even a loss of volatiles through volcanism. The Grand Canyon did not conjure up material. We obey the laws of physics in this universe. This is right up there with someone I dealt with a few years ago who thought the mass of the Earth had increased when all the water fell in the Biblical flood.
Okay, on to the next bit.
Another really simple diagram, this time of the carbon cycle, from somewhere in the depths of the Woods Hole Research Center website.
We are made up of atoms that have been in millions, if not billions of organisms before they formed us. We take in carbon every day from our food. Plants take in carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, and convert it to starch to build structure. This joker has completely forgotten about decay, as they had forgotten about erosion, isostatic rebound, sedimentation and all the everyday geological processes we take for granted. If we didn't have decay, and organisms that eat our waste (whether it is our exhaled gases, our faeces or our corpses), we would be surrounded by the incorruptible bodies of our ancestors. That is, if all the free oxygen hadn't been sequestered, suffocating the planet...
Now, I'm going to have some margin of error here (and let me make it very clear that it's going to be on a negligible scale), because I can't be bothered to work it out by increase of volume of the earth (can't find my scientific calculator anyway). If we assume that the surface area of the Earth is a totally flat disc of area 510,000,000 km2 (a rounded version of the surface area of the Earth referenced on Wikipedia, and you can shut the fuck up flat-Earthers), then we can make a calculation. Mass over density equals volume. So 30,000 tonnes divided by 5.5 tonnes/m3 is 5,455 m3. 5,455 m3 would mulch my garden for a few years, I suppose...
But hey, let's carry it through to its conclusion. Let's divide the volume by the area to get the thickness of dust deposited in one year. 5,455 m3 divided by 510,000,000 km2 (or 510,000,000,000,000 m2). That's 1.07 x 10-11 m. Or 10.7 pm thickness of space dust deposited per year. The diameter of a carbon atom is 154.4 pm (radius is 77.2 pm). It's going to take nearly 15 years to cover the Earth with dust the thickness of a single carbon atom. So, over the past 3.8 billion years (approximate time since the Late Heavy Bombardment), 40,660,000,000 pm of space dust (or thereabouts) has been dropped on the Earth.
41 mm. That's less than two inches. Tops. Are you really trying to base the entire Expanding Earth "Theory" on a length of measurement that, if it was a penis, would be classified as a medical deformity?
And this isn't even including the mass we are losing as atmospheric particles escape the Earth's gravity. And finally:
No landslides have ever buried anything? No sediment floods a flat fertile region close to a river? No turbidites cascade down into the abyssal plain? The Mississippi carries no sediment out into its delta? Come on, you're from south of the Mason-Dixon. You must know how muddy the Mississippi is!
It is a no-brainer, J Hunter, but not in the way you think.
It would take a complete moron not to realize that the earth is in fact expanding, and i'm not talking about from the inside out, blah blah.Do you ever find yourself faced with a mound of bullshit so high you almost don't know where to start? Let's try with a couple of sentences at a time, and maybe I can get through it all. I'm probably on a hiding to nothing, because expanding-earthers have this annoying habit of not accepting science, just like creationists. The normal rules of engagement as far as the debate goes don't apply to expanding-earthers and creationists - they refuse to accept logical arguments, they attribute causal relationships to coincidences and vice versa. If I get any comments back from J Hunter (suspicious as I am of anyone whose e-mail address includes the word "Alabama"), I suspect they'll be of the form "You smell of poopies and I'm right". Here goes...
They have to dig to find the lost city, T-Rex, building foundation, or skeleton that they ’re looking for. Look at the layers on the walls of the grand canyon, at one point in time each of those layers were on top.So here we have someone who does not understand that sedimentary rocks form from the eroded particles from existing igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. They do not understand the principle of isostasy, where mountains are buoyed up like a heavy boat on a lake. They do not understand the closed system that is the rock cycle. And that's truly tragic because the rock cycle is taught at the equivalent of junior high school level in the UK.
A really simple diagram of the rock cycle from Pull Out The Plug, an age 11-14 science revision site.
All the sediment in the Grand Canyon came from elsewhere on the Earth. There is a conservation of material within the system - possibly even a loss of volatiles through volcanism. The Grand Canyon did not conjure up material. We obey the laws of physics in this universe. This is right up there with someone I dealt with a few years ago who thought the mass of the Earth had increased when all the water fell in the Biblical flood.
Okay, on to the next bit.
If plant matter such as a blade of grass grows, then dies, it becomes part of the topsoil beneath the new growth. That matter does not simply “go away� just because the plant died. New grass grows in its place, dies and the process is repeated over and over.And this is a basic failure to understand the carbon cycle, which is something I was taught in elementary school. Plant matter is broken down by bacteria and carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and nutrients into the soil. These are taken up by the next plant to grow there.
Another really simple diagram, this time of the carbon cycle, from somewhere in the depths of the Woods Hole Research Center website.
We are made up of atoms that have been in millions, if not billions of organisms before they formed us. We take in carbon every day from our food. Plants take in carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, and convert it to starch to build structure. This joker has completely forgotten about decay, as they had forgotten about erosion, isostatic rebound, sedimentation and all the everyday geological processes we take for granted. If we didn't have decay, and organisms that eat our waste (whether it is our exhaled gases, our faeces or our corpses), we would be surrounded by the incorruptible bodies of our ancestors. That is, if all the free oxygen hadn't been sequestered, suffocating the planet...
Meteorites strike the earth hundreds of thousands of times per day. Most are small and get vaporized in the earths atmosphere. But that matter does not disappear, it falls to the earth as dust etc. Nasa estimates vary between how much TONS of matter fall to earth EVERY DAY.This is beginning to move away from my area of expertise. However, the most common estimate I have found is 30,000 tonnes of dust per year. Let us assume also that the dust has a density equal to that of the Earth, some 5.5 tonnes/m3.
Now, I'm going to have some margin of error here (and let me make it very clear that it's going to be on a negligible scale), because I can't be bothered to work it out by increase of volume of the earth (can't find my scientific calculator anyway). If we assume that the surface area of the Earth is a totally flat disc of area 510,000,000 km2 (a rounded version of the surface area of the Earth referenced on Wikipedia, and you can shut the fuck up flat-Earthers), then we can make a calculation. Mass over density equals volume. So 30,000 tonnes divided by 5.5 tonnes/m3 is 5,455 m3. 5,455 m3 would mulch my garden for a few years, I suppose...
But hey, let's carry it through to its conclusion. Let's divide the volume by the area to get the thickness of dust deposited in one year. 5,455 m3 divided by 510,000,000 km2 (or 510,000,000,000,000 m2). That's 1.07 x 10-11 m. Or 10.7 pm thickness of space dust deposited per year. The diameter of a carbon atom is 154.4 pm (radius is 77.2 pm). It's going to take nearly 15 years to cover the Earth with dust the thickness of a single carbon atom. So, over the past 3.8 billion years (approximate time since the Late Heavy Bombardment), 40,660,000,000 pm of space dust (or thereabouts) has been dropped on the Earth.
41 mm. That's less than two inches. Tops. Are you really trying to base the entire Expanding Earth "Theory" on a length of measurement that, if it was a penis, would be classified as a medical deformity?
And this isn't even including the mass we are losing as atmospheric particles escape the Earth's gravity. And finally:
if the earth didn't expand you'd NEVER HAVE TO DIG SOMETHING UP!So nothing has ever been buried? No graves were dug, no bodies sunk six feet below? No roads built on top of previous roads?
i'm sorry but its a no-brainer there.
No landslides have ever buried anything? No sediment floods a flat fertile region close to a river? No turbidites cascade down into the abyssal plain? The Mississippi carries no sediment out into its delta? Come on, you're from south of the Mason-Dixon. You must know how muddy the Mississippi is!
It is a no-brainer, J Hunter, but not in the way you think.
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