Geomagnetism and the rate of Sea-floor Spreading

I have a couple of questions for HH and anyone else who would like to pipe in. If possible, I would like a real geologist to confirm what I remember from my scant two semesters of geology courses.In class I remember discussing the magnetic stripes and going through a list of evidences for why we are pretty sure they are caused by sea floor spreading and why the speed of plate movement has been constant within a range of very low values.1) SymmetryOne of the best evidences I took for why the magnetic stripes are certainly caused by spreading is the symmetry of the reversals as you move in both directions from a mid ocean ridge. They are symmetrical both in their order and in their width. Wouldn't any alternate explanation of the magnetic data also have to account for symmetry before sea floor spreading can be overturned?2) The Age of MountainsWhen you piece back all the continents into Pangaea you can notice that the Appalachians and other mountain chains in Europe/Scandinavia look very much to be a part of the same mountain building event. I am pretty sure there is actually some pretty convincing mineral analysis that supports this knowledge but I cannot recall at the moment the details.These mountains were obviously split at the rift point however the details of the plate tectonics. It is interesting then to look at the other side of North America where it meets another tectonic boundary of the opposite kind. The eastern part of the plate is part of a divergent boundary while the west part of the plate is part of a convergent boundary which in particular is a subduction zone.Ignoring other geologic evidence for the age of mountains, one would have to explain why the Rockies are less weathered (younger) than the drastically weathered by comparison Appalachians (older). Using the current widely accepted theory of plate tectonics the answer is because it took a long time to form the Rockies (still forming) and meanwhile the Appalachians had that time to erode to their current state.In a young earth where rapid plate tectonics took place the mountains should be relatively the same age. Why then would we have such a disparity in weathering rates over just a few thousand years? The classical answer should be that plate tectonics happened slowly.3) BiogeographyParticularly marsupial biogeography. Extant and fossil marsupials have only existed in certain geographic environments. In particular, as you extrapolate through geologic time, the ancestors to current day marsupials were exclusively located in South Africa, Antarctica, Australia and South America. As species were geographically separated due to plate tectonics, marsupial species diverged in their respective isolated areas. Assuming that a proto-marsupial "kind" cannot "micro evolve" into a kangaroo in a weekend, this process was slow.Also, someone please confirm this, I believe that marsupial migration into North America only became possible once North and South America became connected via Panama. Therefore we can time the diversification of marsupials into North America with the data from plate movement. The conclusion is that plate tectonics is a slow process.4) HawaiiThe classical theory regarding the formation of Hawaii is that the Pacific plate is moving over a hot spot to which the subsequent volcanism has created a chain of islands. Loudmouth had a great thread on this YEC Challenge: Hawaiian Islands discussing all the wonderful correlations. This is great evidence that the Pacific plate motion has been slow for quite some time.Overall, any theory of rapid plate tectonics would have to explain these things. How does the Hydroplate Hypothesis address these in order to overturn the classical model regarding plate tectonics?

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Now is the winter of your discontent!
-- Stewie Griffin

Awesome info! Thanks to you and Quetzal.I think the big idea I was trying to get at for the purposes of this thread is that any hypothesis that proposes some kind of faster plate tectonics must also account for the evidence from numerous other fields of science that support the continents moving slowly. It really is a mountain of a problem it seems for anyone to undertake.The reason the Hydroplate nonsense hasn't been subject to scrutiny is IMO that its creators are not stupid and do actually know about the hordes of other evidence that have the plate moving slowly. Therefore it is more of a political action of trying to garnder support from the layman for their crusade to push religion into public education.To many people are misled by heroic drama to realize that one scientific sounding "breakthrough" is not enough to overturn paradigms that are cemented for all practical purposes. How long did it take the works of even those we condisider legitimate geniuses to take foothold in the scientific knowledge of society?When you see it for what it is, it becomes a lie. A purposeful lie which is in discrete travesty to Christian values. For all the effort that concerned citizens, scientists, and educators put into dispelling the efforts of these tricksters I think that the biggest outrage needs to start to come from within Christianity for the lies being peddled to innocent people in the name of the Lord.Sorry for the slightly off topic rant. Please take further digressions into a seperate thread.

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Now is the winter of your discontent!
-- Stewie Griffin

What about the other evidence that supports the rate of plate tectonics? My post (Message 197) gives just a few but if any are correct then regardless of mechanism we DO KNOW that the plates have not moved orders of magnitude quicker in the past.Playing semantics with the current lack of knowledge about how the plates move exactly does not invalidate the numerous other lines of inquiry that science has for slow geologic activity, plate tectonics being one of them.Kindly do not ignore challenges to your position.Thank you,

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By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Thank you, despite your accusations in response to my second post. Well, we didn't use any textbooks we used a chart made from data based on the measurements of sea floor magnatism as it related to distance from the mid atlantic ridge going both east and west from the ridge.Nothing I have read thus far in this thread has explained to me why the data is symmetrical as you go west from the ridge with when you go east. Since I am not a geologist what I am saying might be a tautology but it seems to me that this is pretty good evidence that the mid atlantic ridge is a spreading center. Moreover it is evidence that the magnetic data is a record of global magnatism in the past rather than a localized phenomenon or something else.I don't necessarily disagree with the your post of to the following quote since I have only little knowledge that deep about the dynamics of the mantle. Tsunamis do not happen at subduction zones because all subduction zones, that I know of anyway, are at continental boundaries. Therefore the geologic disturbances caused by subduction will be earthquakes and volcanism which we see. That is why it is a good idea to have really good homeowners insurance on the west coast of the US.Since Tsunamis are caused by geologic catastrophism out in deep water I would not expect subducting plates to cause tsunamis unless the subduction was happening in the deep parts of the ocean. It was my impression that the important data about geomagnetism was actually the sea floor as it extended away from the ridge. Here wouldn't the topography be more or less insignificant? If the topography was significant, say 1000 miles west of the ridge, then how would the different aspects of topography account for the uniformity of the magnetic data as it relates to the distance to the ridge only. I am getting the feeling that we might not be talking about the same thing here but I don't have enough knowledge to be able to tell. It is my understanding that both mountain ranges are a product of uplifted batholiths and plutons so both have a hard crystalline basement. I know of no weather factors that would cause such a drastic discrimination in weathering over either geologic time or YEC time. In geologic time we would not expect similar aged mountains to be so discretely different in their preservation and in YEC time we would not expect a new mountain to be eroded to such extremes at all. Wind and water take their time when destroying granite.Your response to the my statement about marsupial migration was simply that you deny the evidence based on a personal opinion of the value of that evidence. The fact is that we know migration patterns of animals follow geologic history. Certain animals are unable to migrate into certain areas until there is land to walk on. The appearance of this land correlates with the arrival of certain species and the removal of land correlates with certain species being cut off. Correlating evidence from different fields of science is one of the greatest indicators of the strength of a theory. If you deny subduction then how do you explain the effects normally attributed to subduction such as accretionary wedges, increased volcanism at continental boundaries, increased earthquakes at continental boundaries.To overturn subduction one would have to propose an alternate mechanism for the formation of Indonesia which I believe (help me out here real geologists) is primarily an accretionary wedge.You should join the tread that I linked to about the Hawaii age correlations. Many of the details are better presented there and I am sure many would enjoy your challenge to this very convincing evidence of the age, speed, and manner of the plates.

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By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

I won't even pretend to get involved with that conversation due to my lack of knowlege in that area. Despite that, your response to my allegation is entirely a non sequitur. You do not address that other lines of scientific inquiry support the current model for plate tectonics in both speed and manner. No we are not because the evidence from biogeography correlates with geology making both stronger. A scientific theory does not exist in a vaccume. No one is talking about evolution here so I don't know how this response is relevant. Neither the evolution of the peppered moth nor the evolution of marsupials is being used as correlating evidence with plate tectonics. The migration of ancestral marsupials is being used as it relates to biogeography. If for some reason you are proposing a rate of plate movement different from that of classical geology then marsupial migration data that currently correlates with the accepted model must be explained. What do you mean by slow? If you mean on the order of centimeters per year then why is the hydroplate theory widely touted by those who believe the earth is young. From what I have read about it it presumes that the continents moved to their current position from a Pangea like formation in a time frame many orders of magnitude different from classical geologic time. If I am wrong then please let me know.If the Hydroplate Hypothesis claims that the continents moved even 1 order of magnitude faster than what is currently accepted then the lines of inquiry from other science that support the conventional theory must also be explained. There is no escaping this. The reason for proposing such drastic revision to our current understanding has only one motivation and that is a religious one. Talking about this is off topic I'll grant you but I am attacking not a person but an idea. Which I never disputed. The only problem is that the scientific method is not being applied when people propose ideas, fail to participate in the scientific community, and then whine when their ideas are not accepted as equally legitimate as those that have been developed rigorously over generations. I am proposing that the hydroplate hypothesis is an abject failure of science due to its failure to participate in science. Just because you do not like the substance that I am adding does not mean you can disregard it. When the primary motive for overturning a scientific paradigm is political rather than scientific then I have every reason to bring up politics in this thread. Then only respond to the parts of my post that challenge your specific position. If you want to ignore the political side of the issue then you will hear no wails for me. What about ad hominem? I always give each post I write the utmost thought and consideration. If you care to ignore to polical motivations then that is fine. I will respect your desire not do discuss them. That does not mean though that they are non existant or not important to the debate. I don't care about the mechanism. I did not respond in this thread to accept your challenge to mainstream geology. I responded to challenge you to provide information about how the hydroplate hypothesis explains other evidences that agree with the conventional theory of plate tectonics. So far you have not done an adequate job of doing this for my purposes. This is not off topic owning to the "and the rate of Sea-floor Spreading" portion of the title. The challenges stand.This message has been edited by Jazzns, 02-16-2005 15:55 AM

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By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show