billiards

What do you mean when you say the lid has overturned? Would this not require some kind of breakup and plate movement? I.e. would this not count as "plate tectonics"?

Wow. Just wow. You've been asked multiple times by multiple users over the course of this thread to summarise your ideas. This is stooping pretty low as far as excuses go. It's a testament to how COMPLICATED your theory is that you cannot do it. Now what were you saying about Occam's razor?

Arc, you continually avoid all the science questions I throw at you. You spend your time on these light weight digs at me. That's the thing that is very revealing. Rather than tackling the science head on you go for me. What goal posts have I moved exactly? Remember I'm not here to defend the "standard theory". You're here to defend YOUR theory. I think you forget that. Let me know when you are ready to answer some science questions.

Sigh. There is just no point. The layers of ignorance are just too thick. OK, let me elaborate. Fair enough. They were buried in a couple of your posts. You'll just have to forgive me. I can't be expected to trawl through everything you've ever written. Note that this is not the same thing as saying the mantle does not convect! False. We can agree that the mantle does convect, we just can't agree on exactly what the convection looks like. Again. False. Because you're starting from a false premise. Interesting historical aside. Still spectacularly missing the point. Where does it say that convection is not physically feasible? Perhaps you should read the extensive literature on the subject before clinging so tightly to one paragraph you have taken out of context. Yes, you're still talking about the same thing and you're still missing the point. Can we move on now? Dig your heels in a little deeper and commit the appeal to authority fallacy while you're at it. Can we move on yet? I think you've got all the milk out of that sentence now! Whilst we're stepping out on limbs, I'm going to step out on a limb here and say that Holmes (and hell, Doglioni too) would reckon you're completely off your trolley. Dude, you really need to catch up and do some reading. Here you go: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/referenceworks/9780444538031#ancv0040 They are not frictionlessly decoupled. They are obviously decoupled to some extent hence the plates can move as rigid objects independently of the more complex visco-plastic deformation of the underlying mantle. Though we do not know what that decoupling looks like or how it is controlled. But that IS the point of Doglioni's first sentence. “nor has a unique solution been proposed for how material in the mantle convects”. You just haven't realised it yet as you've been too blinkered. If your model has zero convection then the simple answer to the question would be: "There is no flow in the mantle". The flow is zero everywhere. Easy, right? But we've already been over this ground haven't we? You claim your model has zero convection but can explain subduction. A frankly impossible situation. Classic Dunning-Kruger. You've not taken the time to actually study the material. Have you ever run a geodynamics calculation? Do you know what the Rayleigh number is? How about the Prandtl number? Not trying to do anything of the sort. Was trying to get you to stand up to the same "Doglioni" test you insist the standard model lives up to. Of course you failed spectacularly with hilarious consequences. You fell into your own trap. More repetition. You need to cut down on that. It's tiring. Unfortunately when replying to your thread I can't see what you were quoting. Therefore, without going back to look, I can't easily respond to this. That's a limitation of this site. Not my problem mate. Without maths you can't make a testable prediction. But your model is horrendously complicated and involves impossible forces. It fails. But your wrong, wrong, and wrong, in all the assertions you have made. Take your head out of the sand. Read some more literature. Quit with the Doglioni thing. Please. I'm embarrassed for you. Perhaps if you make an honest effort to understand the science you will be able to open your eyes. Unfortunately I can't do that for you. You have to do it for yourself. Yes the science is not there yet. Unfortunately your model is a wild leap in the wrong direction.

You do need to make a much better effort to present your evidence. How about putting it all together in a nice easy to read table?

When what you SHOULD be doing is establishing that your model is even physically feasible in the first place. Something you have repeatedly avoided. Simple energetic considerations expose your model for being the fraud that it is. What you ARE doing is finding areas where scientific knowledge is lacking and then claiming that your theory can explain all the gaps. You are CLAIMING victory over ground you see as fair game. Take these Doglioni problems you keep coming back to. (Note you have never actually stated yourself what the "Doglioni" problems actually are, only referring readers to a LONG document. A classic and pitiful obfuscation tactic.) Let me have a go at summarising them: (1) We do not precisely know the kinematics of the convection flow patterns inside the mantle; and (2) We do not fully understand how the plate is coupled to these underlying flow patterns (convection). Let's take argument (1) and say your model tells us the flow direction at every point inside the mantle. So what is the flow direction 500 km deep beneath the UK? What is the flow direction 2800 km deep beneath Hawaii? Please answer these questions and if you can't then your model automatically fails "Doglioni test #1". Now let's assume you do give quantitative answers, let's compare your position to the "standard" model. There are plenty of models in the literature that will give you an answer to that question. However, they are just models, and the "problem" Doglioni is talking about is just that: they are only models! We need better observational constraints in order to TEST the models. So how is it possible that your model can improve over the existing models when the observational constraints needed to directly TEST this are missing? You cannot possibly claim this ground over the "standard model". Now let's take point (2). You claim your model can explain the link between the underlying flow and the tectonic plate movement. Well first of all how can you do that if you are not SURE you even know what the underlying flow is? (see point 1) Second of all what IS the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary? That is a subject of intense scientific debate right now, something I doubt you've even heard of, and certainly something you've never mentioned. Understanding the nature of this boundary is CRITICAL to this question and your model says absolutely ZERO about it. Thirdly, and this really is the killer, your model contains NO PHYSICS. Not only is the physical basis underlying the WHOLE of your model a COMPLETE SHAM, you have NO NUMBERS anywhere to explain how the tectonic plates move in relation to any mantle process whatsoever. So you really cannot claim this ground either.

Wow, typically evasive response. Turning it back around on me, nice touch. Is not answering *all* criticisms against the rules? If you like I'm sure we could arrange some mod intervention if we started hitting the report button. But that wouldn't be very nice, would it? I doubt the mods want to trawl through this mess of a thread. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you just haven't got around to answering the Qs yet. Again, deflection tactic. What does your theory say about this? Convection in the mantle doesn't exist? So how exactly is heat transferred? Conduction, radiation? Have you looked at the physical plausibility of this? What's the Rayleigh number in the mantle? So the cartoon image of a trench rolling forward then backwards "fits" your model. What about the timescales? Do they fit with the solar cycles? What about the Japanese earthquakes? Have you looked to see whether any of the timescales actually tell the same story?

Hi arc, You still flogging this dead horse? Yes. However.... You must also answer all the criticisms that have been raised in this thread. Waiting a year between posts does not make them go away I'm afraid. Nice find. Of course cherry picking results from the literature that "fit" your model is not how science is done.

+1 Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotroph

I guess the wavelengths don't fit. The spatial wavelength is far too short. These bulges are of order +/-1 km elevation with 10^3 km lateral wavelength. The temporal wavelength is far too long. Geological evidence shows this topography develops over millions of years.

Press release: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-global-map-of-flow-within-the-earths-mantle-finds-the-surface-is-moving-up-and-down-like-a-yo Or go straight to the paper: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2709.html My own perspective: We already knew that the Earth's surface moves up and down, and that one way this can happen is because the mantle pushes the land up from underneath. In this paper a new dataset of observations is presented measuring this type of topography ("dynamic topography"). What's interesting is that the "shape" of the bulges is different from what has been previously been predicted. They are narrower than the broad peaks predicted by previous modelling. They also form more quickly. The authors demonstrate how hot buoyant material confined to channels in the asthenosphere can fit the data.

The funny thing here is that subduction is actually a (really important) mode of mantle convection. It's cold material from the surface that is dense, buoyantly unstable, and sinks into the hotter (more buoyant) fluid below (only fluid over long timescales mind) -- that's pretty much the definition of convection. Subduction = convection Arc denies convection and ridicules it by calling it 'gnomes' yet at the very same time he claims that his model (which kicks the gnomes' collective butt) elegantly explains subduction. So ironically his model "explains" convection. Yet convection is the very thing that he hates (and that every Earth scientist (including Doglioni by the way) is too stupid enough to "believe"). Arc hates convection, but subduction's just fine. Arc's stuck in a kind of dumb position here, it's a bit like saying "I hate animals that fly, but birds are okay".

Your dwarves sound a bit my like my ants. Out of the three theories presented in this thread I'd definitely say my one has got the most legs!

I don't think I'm being overly harsh; it's his idea, not him, that I dismiss. His idea doesn't stand up. I've given a lot of patience to arc if you look through the thread. I took the time to understand his ideas and to challenge them from many angles. This is what the speculations forum is here for. To challenge ideas. However, it's reached a point where it has become clear (to me) that arc is not interested in dialogue. Every challenge arc faces he either ignores or sweeps under the carpet of a wall of (largely duplicated) text. You could boil down all the hard science content from arc in this entire thread probably into something about as long as his average post. Oh, and I have a PhD in geophysics; my dissertation was about the mantle. I've been through the peer review process and have a better than fair idea of how arc's theory would cope under professional scrutiny. It would crumble.