Dr. Walt Brown on the Hydroplate Theory

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Stripe

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aharvey said:
stipe, sorry I missed the last paragraph in this post. I'm afraid you are going to have to do more here than say "read this stuff again; it answers all your questions," because this is the text that inspired my concerns in the first place! So what exactly in this verbiage allows the formation of trenches and ridges in all the major oceans? What exactly explains where the hydroplate slides to without sealing up the back end of the rupture? Surely by now you realize that the "coulda slide 400 miles" text you bold-faced implies that the two plates that slide away from each other along the Atlantic side could only reach their 400-mile potential by meeting each other over the Pacific side.
Err .. it made sense to me at the time.

I'm going to have to re-read it again to make it make sense again now....
 

aharvey

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What pushes up the ridges again?

What pushes up the ridges again?

I do find pictures to be invaluable aids, so here's my latest page . The bottom line is that the hydroplate model seems to be quietly invoking something besides the mere release of compression of the mantle by the hydroplate to cause the mid-oceanic ridges to rise in the rupture, but for the life of me I can't tell what that something might be, as it's never explicitly identified.
 

Stripe

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"There are several things that bother me about this example. Mainly, though, it seems to overlook, or certainly not advertise, that the reason the foam springs up and leaves that all-important void is not because the bricks are removed from the center, but because the foam was stuffed into the rigid box. Compare Walt's picture above with my own simple photographic sequence:"

I don't see how this is relevant? What's the difference?

"If the upward pressure of the mantle and floor against the hydroshell and hydroplate is due to compression caused by the mass of the hydroshell and hydroplate, then removing the hydroplate will result in the corresponding upward expansion of the floor and mantle, not in the physical upward displacement of the floor and mantle"

And again - is there a difference whether mantle uplift as a result of released compression or something else? The simple model is that if the mantle adjusts its position on one side of the globe then that is going to propogate throughout the Earth and create disturbances on the other side.
 

Stripe

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Walt doesn't state that a void opens up under the crust.

"Although a void opens up under the upbuckled foam mattress, no void would open up deep inside the earth, because pressures are too great. Consequently, high pressure rock from below would squeeze up to fill the space."

In both his model and yours the compression would be less in the area under the removed material.
 

aharvey

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stipe said:
"There are several things that bother me about this example. Mainly, though, it seems to overlook, or certainly not advertise, that the reason the foam springs up and leaves that all-important void is not because the bricks are removed from the center, but because the foam was stuffed into the rigid box. Compare Walt's picture above with my own simple photographic sequence:"

I don't see how this is relevant? What's the difference?
You can see the difference in the two sets of pictures. When Walt squishes the foam sideways and removes the bricks, the foam pops up and leaves a void, which Brown specifically equates to a low pressure region (vaccuum) that pulls in lower mantle rock. When I don't squish the foam sideways and remove the bricks, the foam pops up but there is no void, just an expanded region of foam with a lower density than before. Thus, there's no void, no vaccuum, that needs to be filled by the upward movement of lower mantle rock. And don't forget, we're dealing with basalt here, not foam!

stipe said:
"If the upward pressure of the mantle and floor against the hydroshell and hydroplate is due to compression caused by the mass of the hydroshell and hydroplate, then removing the hydroplate will result in the corresponding upward expansion of the floor and mantle, not in the physical upward displacement of the floor and mantle"

And again - is there a difference whether mantle uplift as a result of released compression or something else? The simple model is that if the mantle adjusts its position on one side of the globe then that is going to propogate throughout the Earth and create disturbances on the other side.
Sigh. Except that the mantle does not adjust its position! It expands, its density is locally lower, but it doesn't leave anywhere it was before. Since its mass is unchanged, the amount of pressure that this expanded mantle partially filling the rupture applies to lower mantle levels is also unchanged, right?

It is indeed important that what Brown describes does not depend on the weight of the hydroplate compressing the floor, but rather on the floor pushing laterally on itself.
 

aharvey

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I'm curious; how many people have sent feedback to Walt via the web site? How many have gotten a reply?
 

Stripe

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aharvey said:
You can see the difference in the two sets of pictures. When Walt squishes the foam sideways and removes the bricks, the foam pops up and leaves a void, which Brown specifically equates to a low pressure region (vaccuum) that pulls in lower mantle rock. When I don't squish the foam sideways and remove the bricks, the foam pops up but there is no void, just an expanded region of foam with a lower density than before. Thus, there's no void, no vaccuum, that needs to be filled by the upward movement of lower mantle rock. And don't forget, we're dealing with basalt here, not foam!
The density of the rock and the pressure on the mantle. In both cases the tension is eased by uplift. This will influence the stability of the material beneath. If your situation is a better demonstration of reality then it simply lacks the graphical indication of the force of gravity is acting on the mantle.

aharvey said:
Sigh. Except that the mantle does not adjust its position! It expands, its density is locally lower, but it doesn't leave anywhere it was before. Since its mass is unchanged, the amount of pressure that this expanded mantle partially filling the rupture applies to lower mantle levels is also unchanged, right?
Unless the lower layers of the Earth are at higher pressures again and would act against the decreased pressure above.

aharvey said:
It is indeed important that what Brown describes does not depend on the weight of the hydroplate compressing the floor, but rather on the floor pushing laterally on itself.
How so? There is pressure from teh hydroplate and pressure inside the Earth. What does it matter which influence is defined as the trigger and which is the response when they act in unison?
 

Stripe

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aharvey said:
I'm curious; how many people have sent feedback to Walt via the web site? How many have gotten a reply?
I emailed the site and the secretary(?) replied a couple of times. Even to messages where I got a 'undeliverable' response.

I think they are not overly interested in communicating by email.
 

Johnny

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There would be no "buckling upward" unless there was longitudinal compression. The density of the rock in the ruptured region would decrease and expand vertically, but there would be no resultant void for which to fill with mass from the opposite side of the earth. The expansion would be purely volumetric. The same goes for all layers underneath. There must be some sort of longitudinal compression for buckling to occur.
 

aharvey

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stipe said:
The density of the rock and the pressure on the mantle. In both cases the tension is eased by uplift. This will influence the stability of the material beneath. If your situation is a better demonstration of reality then it simply lacks the graphical indication of the force of gravity is acting on the mantle.
You've got some grammatical problems here, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. Look, Brown's model specifically, explicitly says that the uplifting creates a low pressure region that sucks up material from the lower mantle. I'm saying that that's not going to happen, that all that will happen is that you might see some expansion of the crust in the rupture, but no mantle material will be moving. Do you agree with Walt's assessment or not?
stipe said:
Unless the lower layers of the Earth are at higher pressures again and would act against the decreased pressure above.
Perhaps you don't understand the source of the "pressure above:" it is, entirely, the mass above. If the mass above doesn't change, then the pressure above doesn't change. Changing density doesn't change mass, and if the expansion is strictly vertical (ie., up into the rupture), then it doesn't change the pressure above. Get it? The pressure above will not be decreased.
stipe said:
How so? There is pressure from teh hydroplate and pressure inside the Earth. What does it matter which influence is defined as the trigger and which is the response when they act in unison?
Well, what you're saying is not what Walt implies. You refer to the pressure from the hydroplate above vs. the matching pressure from the mantle below, right? What I'm saying is that Walt's foam gets its upward push from the box pushing in from the side. The side, get it? Neither the top nor the bottom. He's slipped in another player.
 

aharvey

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Okay, I think I'm just about done with the hydroplate "theory." The more I ponder it, the more ridiculous it becomes; the problems I'm having even contacting these folks are starting to seem less than coincidental; and I've got some actual science to deal with elsewhere. Here's my latest question. Consider the hydroplate and hydroshell ("hydrobits" for short) pushing down on the crust + mantle ("crantle"?) below in the 800 mile wide zone pre-rupture. Within this region, the downward, compressive force exerted by the hydrobits is entirely a function of their mass, and is exactly matched by the upward force of the crantle mass below, once the basalt within this wedge has reached its equilibrium compression. What do you think the relative hydrobits:crantle mass ratio is? The thickness of the hydrobits is about 10 miles, the radius of the earth is nearly 4000 miles. So how much do you think the hydrobits will actually be able to compress the denser (basalt is denser than granite, much less granite+water) and far far far far larger underlying crantle? If you like the foam metaphor, think of putting a one inch thick layer of foam on top of a 30-foot thick layer of foam (much more accurate than putting bricks on top of a layer of foam stuffed into a box!). How noticeably will that top inch compress the layer below? Or, conversely, if I remove a seven-foot wide strip from the middle of that top layer, how much will the layer below rise up into that gap? Or, think of it with bricks instead of foam.
 

Stripe

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aharvey said:
You've got some grammatical problems here, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. Look, Brown's model specifically, explicitly says that the uplifting creates a low pressure region that sucks up material from the lower mantle. I'm saying that that's not going to happen, that all that will happen is that you might see some expansion of the crust in the rupture, but no mantle material will be moving. Do you agree with Walt's assessment or not?
Agree with it. He simply predicts that in such an event pressures from deeper areas will have an influence as well as the influences you predict. I don't see how changing the nature of your model alters the fact that pressure is decreased on the underlying material.

aharvey said:
Perhaps you don't understand the source of the "pressure above:" it is, entirely, the mass above. If the mass above doesn't change, then the pressure above doesn't change. Changing density doesn't change mass, and if the expansion is strictly vertical (ie., up into the rupture), then it doesn't change the pressure above. Get it? The pressure above will not be decreased.
The mass above does change.

aharvey said:
Well, what you're saying is not what Walt implies. You refer to the pressure from the hydroplate above vs. the matching pressure from the mantle below, right? What I'm saying is that Walt's foam gets its upward push from the box pushing in from the side. The side, get it? Neither the top nor the bottom. He's slipped in another player.
That's simply another factor in the equation. And the pressure of the hydroplate is obviously negligible given it is part of the mass that gets uplifted.
 

Clete

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By the way, in case you were wondering why I haven't posted anything else on this thread, its because after having read the chapter on trench formation (all of it), I sort of figured out that aharvey's "objections/questions" were contrived at best and down right dishonest at worst. The answers to his questions are intuitive if you've read the material. Either that, or he is simply trying to interpret the theory within a plate-tectonic paradigm, which wouldn't surprise me.

In any case, it isn't worth the effort (not to mention the time) it would take to debate it with him. If the information in the book (which I can barely bring myself to believe he's actually read) doesn't answer his questions, nothing will or even could. If you want badly enough not to see something, you won't see it.

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

fool

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A big round of applause to AHarvey for all the time and careful consideration he's given this.
We are fortunate to have a mind of his stature lend not only his valuable posts but the illustrations that he made and posted for the disscusion.
 

Clete

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Oh that has to mean a lot coming from someone who definitely hasn't read any of the material. :chuckle:

You guys go on ahead an pat each other on the back, though. By all means! Anything to make yourselves feel like the smart fellers you pretend to be.
 
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fool

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Clete said:
Oh that has to mean a lot coming from someone who definitely has read any of the material. :chuckle:
I knew about the Walt Brown shows before most of the regular audiance.
Bob told me about it when I talked to him this time;http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1294359&postcount=113

You guys go on ahead an pat each other on the back, though. By all means! Anything to make yourselves feel like the smart fellers you pretend to be.
I'm a self described fool.
You don't have that excuse.
 

Johnny

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Clete said:
By the way, in case you were wondering why I haven't posted anything else on this thread, its because after having read the chapter on trench formation (all of it), I sort of figured out that aharvey's "objections/questions" were contrived at best and down right dishonest at worst...You guys go on ahead an pat each other on the back, though. By all means! Anything to make yourselves feel like the smart fellers you pretend to be.
I spent 30 minutes writing a response to this. But feh.
 

Stripe

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Johnny said:
I spent 30 minutes writing a response to this. But feh.
That's the funniest thing I've read today. And trust me, I've been correcting Chinese written English all day, that's saying something.
 

aharvey

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stipe said:
Agree with it. He simply predicts that in such an event pressures from deeper areas will have an influence as well as the influences you predict.
Sigh. No, you are misunderstanding Walt's claims. Unfortunately, I don't see how to make this point any clearer than I already have using Walt's own words and a comparison of his foam photo and mine. There is a fundamental difference between mass of a constant density moving (Walt) and mass expanding in place (me). Mass expanding in place on one side of the planet will not cause the subsiding of trenches and oceans on the other side of the planet. I strongly suspect that moving mass won't do it either, for more than a couple of reasons, but I'm quite certain that decompression is incapable of doing so.
stipe said:
I don't see how changing the nature of your model alters the fact that pressure is decreased on the underlying material.

The mass above does change.
Sigh. Keep your elements straight, please. "Obviously," if you somehow managed to clear out all of the 10 miles of hydroplate from the 800 mile wide rupture, then the pressure on top of the compressed crust+mantle decreases in exact proportion to the amount of plate material removed. The underlying crust+mantle will then be able to expand/decompress in exact proportion to that decrease in pressure. But that's not what we're talking about here. Walt is saying that the removal of the hydroplate mass causes the upper mantle to rise (here I don't mean "expand," I mean "rise"), which reduces the pressure on the lower mantle, causing it in turn to rise, which in turn causes reduces the pressure on the core, causing the matter in the core to "rise," which - well, it gets really interesting to ponder what happens next, but that's another story. I'm saying that none of this happens, because when the hydroplate mass is removed, the pressure on the compressed mantle is reduced accordingly, so the mantle expands accordingly. But there's just as much mantle as before (it's just ever so slightly less dense), so the pressure on the lower mantle and core is unchanged.

Think of it this way, stipe: which weighs more, a pound of bricks or a pound of feathers? When you take a plate off of a pound of feathers, sure, they fluff up, but do they weigh any more or less than they did before? Do they exert any less pressure on whatever is below them than they did when they were being compressed?
stipe said:
That's simply another factor in the equation.
What?!? It's an unnamed, undefined, artificial factor that is entirely responsible for the effect he illustrates but to my knowledge has no analog in the real world system he is claiming to model. So what is its purpose except perhaps to deceive?
stipe said:
And the pressure of the hydroplate is obviously negligible given it is part of the mass that gets uplifted.
Sorry, stipe, that makes little sense to me I can't think of how to respond.
 

Stripe

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If you removed the weight of the overlying crust off the mantle, the mantle will respond to the decrease in pressure.

The mantle will react by moving upward.

When the mantle moves upward material below that will move upward.

When all that moves up any material to the side of the affected area that is not massive enough to resist the uplift will also be uplifted.

Your model and Walt's model both say the same thing. Mass has been removed and mass will shift upward. You can sigh all you want and you can deny the plausibility of the model all you like, but don't try and confuse the issue by arguing about irrelevant differences in analogies..
 
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