If I am going to create a theory that
says that the antipodal impact effects of a very large cosmic impact will cause
the formation of uplifted continents in the shape of "a blob with a tail", then
I should be prepared to produce examples of this condition.
Furthermore, I should be prepared to
explain shapes that do not meet the criteria I have described.
On the one hand, someone could argue
that, with enough leeway, a person could argue for any continental shapes that
he might come up with
especially in a combination continent.
Furthermore, a "blob with a tail" is a pretty elastic geological structure. A
lot of different variations can fit into that model.
However, we don't end up with any blobs
with two or three tails. There are no hourglass blobs. And we don't come up
with any with no tails (at least not without a solid explanation i.e.
Australia and Eastern Antarctica), except for the combination continent of Asia
and the very-tricky-but-finally-explained continent
of North America in Appendix IV.
Reality is messy. Not every continent
is going to have a perfect "blob with a tail" form. But the form will still be
clearly identifiable.
First, I should note that the
definition of a continent includes the area of the continental shelf, not just
the area that happens to be above sea level at this moment in time.
South America is the prototypical blob
with a tail. Not all continents are going to be as clear an example of this
structure. But South America exemplifies the look.
Africa is another fairly easy example
of a blob with a tail. However, the blob looks rather flattened
until we
remember that part of the African plate is on top of the Matterhorn in the
French Alps (as famously illustrated in a documentary shown on the History
channel). The African plate (and, in this case, the continent) extends up
through the Mediterranean Sea into the southern part of Europe, itself. It also
includes the Arabian Peninsula. Once this is understood, the blob shape is more
what we would expect.
Actually, we also have
to consider the shape of Africa along with the part of Africa that was uplifted
and separated into South America. Not all of South America came from Africa.
The west coast of South America came from the ocean floor, which is why we have
so many ancient sea life fossils found in the Andes.
COMBINATION
CONTINENTS
Now we come to combination continents.
North America is a combination continent with at least two separate uplifted
bodies involved. It appears that one entity came in from the northeast and
fractured the existing continent. There is no clear picture that we can draw
from this ancient happening.
At least this was the
best that I could make of it at first. However, after close examination over
the past year, I have figured out that the Chicxulub impact moved most of the
original tail of Eastern North America to the south and west. Appendix IV
provides a detailed explanation.
Antarctica is another combination
continent. It consists of a relatively new, small western blob with a tail and
a larger, older eastern "half-blob" that separated from the original Australian
continent. As the Standard Theory notes, the northern section of Eastern
Antarctica fits right into the Great Australian Bight, where it used to be
joined.
Australia is a shattered continent.
Half of its blob is now Eastern Antarctica. Part of its tail was stolen by the
rise of India and the rest of its scattered tail consists of the islands
between Australia and Indochina, except for the Indonesian islands (which is an
island arc formed by the Chicxulub antipode's hotspot).
This leaves us with Eurasia, which is a
mega-combination continent. It not only contains the Indian continent and the
Siberian continents (as described in Chapters 8 & 9), but it also contains
the folded remains of many other continents. In many ways, Eurasia is the
graveyard of old continents, as they are swept up by the subduction process and
aggregated over time into this amorphous monster continent (see Chapter 11 for
more details on this process).
THE BASICS OF IMPACTS &
CONTINENTS
Most of the continental masses are so
old that clues about their formation are going to be very difficult to uncover.
However, there are several suppositions that we can make about the continents
and the impacts that caused them.
These are:
1. CONTINENTAL FORMATION
Continents are created at the antipodes of really big cosmic impacts,
not through some other process.
2.
CONTINENTAL SHAPE Continents are created in the shape of "a blob with a
tail" by the directional hydraulic pressure exerted on the mantle by a really
big cosmic impact.
3. CONTINENTAL LOCATION
- Continents are formed at and near the antipode of a really big cosmic
impact, with the "blob" being centered just beyond the antipode.
4. CONTINENTAL COMBINATION Continents
tend to clump together as a result of the "subduction machine" which gradually
subducts the ocean between them until they combine (more in Chapter 11).
5. CONTINENTAL BREAK UP Combination
continents break up because the transfer of cosmic impact energy drives new
continents smashing into old combinations and breaks them up (much like the cue
ball will break up a rack of numbered pool balls on the opening break).
Subsequently, the "subduction machine" will bring the continents back together.
NO! The combination continents stay together
until they are torn apart by impact effects, as we see in the cases of Old
Australia, South America and Eastern North America. However, the subduction
machine will eventually bring things back together.
6. CREATION AND DESTRUCTION Continents have been created
and destroyed over the billions of years of the existence of the Earth. In just
the last 250 million years, we have seen
a. India created
b. Australia broken apart
c. Siberia created (see
Appendix I)
d. Siberia starting to be
pulled apart with the rift at Lake Baikal
e.
India and Siberia smashing into Eurasia and adding to the size of that landmass
f. Western Antarctica created
(see Appendix II)
g. Western Antarctica moving to combine with Eastern Antarctica
(formerly part of Australia)
h.
Eastern North America created (see Appendix IV).
i. South America created (see Appendix
III)
Imagine the continental creation and
destruction that preceded these events, back when cosmic impacts were even more
prevalent.
7. IMPACTS HAVE DIMINISHED
Impacts are not as big or as frequent as in the history of the early Earth, but
they are still big enough to wipe out the entire human race (see Chapter 11).
8. REGULAR IMPACTS The history of
major and minor cosmic impacts (32 confirmed Earth craters of more than 20 km
in size in the past 500 million years17) shows that impacts have not
gone away. They keep coming back.
Michael
Rampino of New York University developed a theory called the Shiva Hypothesis
to explain the continued assault of cosmic objects on the Earth and the other
solar system planets.
The Shiva
Hypothesis
"says that gravitational
disturbances caused by the Solar System crossing the plane of the Milky Way
galaxy are enough to disturb comets in the Oort cloud surrounding the solar
system. This sends comets in towards the inner Solar System, which raises the
chance of an impact. According to the hypothesis, this results in the Earth
experiencing large impact events about every 30 million years (such as the
Cretaceous - Tertiary extinction event).
However, mass extinctions do not show any (statistically
significant) periodicity." 23
Even though the Shiva Hypothesis doesn't stand up to strict
statistical analysis, this problem could easily be explained by random
variation of the orbits of perturbed comets and meteors. The cause could be
happening every 30 million years, just like clockwork, but the results might
appear random due to the huge variation in the paths of the agents.
Furthermore, the sample size of major
extinctions (six) is extraordinarily small. It is difficult to expect much
statistical confirmation from a sample size this small. And expanding the
criteria to include minor extinctions just adds more uncertainty in data (i.e.
We can't be sure that the Triassic extinction was even an extinction, so what
kind of doubts will there be about minor extinctions? Also, we are finding new
big and small craters all the time
the completeness of this project is
far from finished).
The Shiva Hypothesis is
quite appealing. But, even if it is wrong, we are still left with a continuing
geological history of impacts (major and minor) and extinctions (major and
minor). |