Echoes of the Ice Age (Pre-History)

[Ishmael]

How Continents are Made
VI

The position of the Earth's center of mass is a function of the distribution of mass within its bulk and upon its surface, ameliorated by the anti-gravitational effects of its spinning centrifuge. It stands to reason that, with so much water sloshing around on the surface, and with land being actively constructed and elevated, the center of mass for the planet is sure to be somewhat fluid. But what mass and how much of it finds its way someplace over the equator can play as much a role in determining where the center of mass shifts as any other factor. This makes predicting what land will sink and what land will rise, given any particular pole shift, a puzzling proposition.

Water tends to rise at the equator and sink at the poles. In general, the same can be assumed of land. It will tend to buckle outward at the equator and collapse inward at the poles. But the temporal delay in the remolding of land as opposed to water insures that continents will rise and sink when latitudes change.

As a general rule we can expect continents to sink below the waterline as they move toward the equator and expect them to rise above the waterline as they move away from the equator. However, continents on the equator will tend to rise, so far as gravity will allow, under the influence of the centrifugal force. Likewise, continents elsewhere may be expected to subside, but by how much and how rapidly is unknown. Also unknown is whether uplift and subsiding occur at the same pace.

There is reason to believe they do not and that continents, once lifted out of the ocean at the equator, tend to persist until weathered down to sea level by erosion. This would explain the vastness of the Asian continent, as its bulk is produced in repeated waves at the equator, with each new layer shifted northward upon completion, to erode to the east.

It was in fact the Asian landmass and its tree-ring like, east-coast erosion and alluvial patterns that first alerted me to this process and allowed me to trace out the hinge points for each successive axial shift.

If Asia is manufactured in this manner, the deposition of its tonnage upon the surface of the globe is bound to impact the position of the Earth's center of mass. In fact, in so far as the continents appear to dominate the north, they can be expected to pull, northward, the center of mass for the entire planet.

Water, however, does not retain its distortion, post shift. Regardless of the planet's shape, the water always seeks a consistent relationship with the center of mass: An equidistant relationship. If the planet's center of mass favors the north of the planet then so too will the water. That is, we can expect the ocean to bulge at the top of the world and a piece of the solid planet to stick out dry at the bottom.

[Mick Harper]

You must take on board my new idea about the Pacific Ocean. If we accept, and by AE principles we must, that the Pacific cannot accidentally occupy half the earth's surface and be circular and be midway between the poles, then we must assume that it is a permanent feature.

As you know, I first proposed the equatorial bulge principle to account for the fact that the retaining walls of the Pacific seemed to vary in height (when of course they must be all the same height), but seemed to vary rather consistently. I see no reason why we can't push the process forward to account for continent-building as well as ocean-containing (especially as they are obviously the same thing for all practical purposes).

But if you re-orientate the circular Pacific after each smash-up to place it midway between two new poles then you ought to be able to build continents (and sink them) in all the appropriate places. You can't though (please tell me if this wrong) have a pole actually in the Pacific (which should help with reconstructions).

However the best way forward is to look at the one stasis-point that we know about, the present one. All you have to do is add up the present balance of land, sea and ice and you should come up with a machine that, by dint of the Pacific Ocean flying around in constant contra-force with the great geographical features of the opposite half of the globe, does the following vital Gaian things:
1. Keeps earth's orientation in space
2. Keeps it slightly off-kilter to provide seasons
3. Keeps it spinning fast but not too fast.

[Ishmael]

How Continents are Made
VII

Unfortunately, it is phenomena related to the submerging and reemerging of land forms that confused much of Mick Harper's SLOT, leading him in some erroneous directions when attempting to map his process to a global scale.

There is no doubt that SLOT is a real phenomenon and that it has played an enormous role in shaping the morphology of Gaia. Split level oceans have existed and Mick has identified many of them, and missed some others. Nevertheless, SLOT lacks the power necessary to produce the continents in their present configuration. Attempts to do so using SLOT have proved a distraction.

Mick's interpretation of the Indonesian archipelago as the site of a former SLOT disaster is the point on which his global application of SLOT fails its most pivotal test. Mick's characterization of the islands as having "obviously" not formed as part of a "normal process" requires us to ignore the nearly identical geography of the Caribbean island chain to be found on nearly the opposite side of the globe, at almost precisely the same latitude, and on the same side of its respective, adjacent continent.

Similarly-shaped islands can also be seen in Canada's far north (easily forgotten and ignored).

There is nothing especially unique about the islands of Sumatra. Which is not to say there is nothing interesting about them. But what is interesting about them is the similarity they have with those of the Caribbean and with those of the Arctic Circle.

What force created these islands?

The force is nothing more mysterious than submersion. All of these islands are but the rooftops of former continents now submerged in the sea. The latitudes of each archipelago points to the reason for their submersion: Both the Indonesian and Caribbean continental masses have slipped beneath the equatorial bulge. The arctic continent is reemerging from beneath the arctic bulge.

The arctic bulge?

Yes. Because Earth's continental land mass favors the northern hemisphere, so too does the Earth's center of mass -- by just the tiniest fraction. But it's enough to swell the ocean in the north and to sink the land in relation to it (it also may be enough to shift the largest portion of the equatorial bulge slightly northward). The Philippines, Cuba and Baffin Island all exist for the same reason: They are the last vestiges of former continents plunged, by pole shifts, beneath ocean bulges produced by gravitational variation on the Earth's surface.

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

How Continents are Made
VIII
The Origins of Split Level Oceans

If split level oceans are real, then where do they come from? What produces them in the first place?

The answer is there in the last post: The submerging and re-emerging of continents. We can see in the morphology of the Caribbean a protogenic split level ocean waiting to happen. All we need is time and coral and another pole shift.

Time allows coral to accumulate on the continental shelves conjoining Florida, Cuba and the archipelago through Trinidad, rising to a level just below the ocean's surface (as we see in the Great Barrier reef of Australia). The longer it waits, the thicker and stronger grows the retaining wall. Then, when the pole shifts, the entire earth work lifts right out of the ocean, raising the water inside along with it: A massive bathtub of former ocean water lifted perhaps 10,000 feet into the air.

Unfortunately, there will be no more pole shifts (for reasons to be explained elsewhere). The Earth's ecology is frozen in its present state and is likely to decline, if pole shifts have been necessary to keep it running to now.

But we can see where this same process occurred in the past.

The vast desert of Turkmenistan, from the black sea to the Gobi desert, was one a vast inland sea. Before this, it had been part of the world ocean, pooling at the feet of the island continents of the Himalayas, when they occupied more southerly latitudes.

The same pole shift that sent the mountains north and raised them to the roof of the world lifted the waters of the Asian Ocean to great heights, in multiple layers of inset, split level seas (the most prominently recognizable being the now Taklimakan Desert (surrounded by its former retaining wall and eroding escarpment).

If we could generate another pole shift, we could do exactly the same with the waters of the Mediterranean. A pole shift northward could, theoretically, lift it thousands of feet above the Atlantic, sealing its waters within its raised shelf. But then, this has already happened.

[Hatty]

The map shows the Pacific bulge is most pronounced just where the putative outbreak happened, unless the shape is the result rather than the cause. But note the isthmus between north and south America has remained.

The Pacific's bulge exactly mirrors the earth's bulge and is presumably because the weight of half the world's water is pressing down the crust which resulted in a basin?

Antarctica which is of course almost completely covered by ice displaced or rather distorted the earth's crust if orthodox geographers are correct. Is this sinking of the Antarctic continent the result of the pressure of the world ocean as it were, not just ice sheets?

[Hatty]

The Pacific map clearly marks the Mariana Trench, where the water is deepest. Would this increased depth not add to the pressure?

The trench coincides with the proposed Indonesian breach.



It is also the area with the highest rainfall in the world which may be another factor?

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Ishmael]

[Hatty]

Maybe it's me being confused. Wiki says Antarctica, the second smallest continent, is on average the highest landmass in the world but also that parts of Antarctica are depressed by the weight of ice:

[Chad]

[Ishmael]

I interpreted Hatty to mean that the map she posted was a literal map of the Pacific "bulge" -- that is, the darkly colored water was of a higher depth than the lightly colored water.

I see now that the darkly colored water is merely the limits of the Pacific Ocean demarcated.

I blame Hatty entirely for my confusion.

[Ishmael]