Hi, Dean and All****{ :-) }
Dean, in response to your query. *(A word of warning! This is going to be a bit long-winded!) * The difference between "fault-lines" and "mid-ocean ridges" is as follows.
A geological fault-line is basically the line or direction of a break or fracture in the Earth's crust, along which the opposing halves of what was previously a single mass of rock have shifted in relation to each other. The San Andreas Fault in California is a classic example. Whilst there is seldom any upwelling of magma from a simple crustal fault, there are often very severe seismic-tremors whenever the two sides slide laterally against one another, since this usually occurs in a series of abrupt and sharp "jerks".
A mid-oceanic ridge is usually a submerged mountain ridge that has been created by the tectonic friction between two (or more) crustal plates, and is usually comprised of two opposed plate edges, that build up mountainously thru the constant-upwelling of lava. Typically these mountainous plate-edges oppose each other on either side of a volcanic central crevasse, from which molten lava issues and rapidly cools and sets into solid basaltic rock by the cold water of the ocean deeps. These submarine plate-ridges, or volcanic "splits" in the ocean floor - of which the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a prime example - are studded with many live volcanic peaks, many of which protrude above the surface, eventually becoming habitable islands. The multitudinous islands of the western Pacific are mostly dormant volcano cones.
Because of this constant upwelling and setting of the molten lava, all of the mid-oceanic ridges, (which are crustal plate-edges), gradually push each other apart as the new basalt forms continues to build up along their margins, and this action in turn pushes the continental masses further apart from each other. This has been observed to be occurring between the Americas and Africa and Europe at a fairly constant rate of between four to seven centimetres a year.
Over a period of two hundred million years (since the closing of the Jurassic era), at an average annual rate of, say 5 cm, the ocean-floor expansion between the America and Africa-European landmasses amounts to around 4.000 km. which is the mean average present width of the Atlantic Ocean!
In other worlds, the dinosaurs of the Triassic and Jurassic must have been able to migrate freely out of Africa into Brazil without getting their feet wet! So if we extend this same concept to all such plate-ridges around the globe, we will eventually arrive at the conclusion that the world then was primarily covered by dry land -as well as being only about half its present size!
This is the foundation of the Expanding Earth theory, which, if true, as it certainly appears to be, can only work in favour of a planet with an **expandable "shell". **It's my personal conjecture that a completely solid planet, undergoing such enormously great expansional stresses would probably have shattered itself to fragments long ago. Yet ours has not. **Why? **
The reason can only lie in the fact that our planet - and thus by simple association - all of the terrestrial planets - must be fairly thick-crusted but hollow spheroids! The molten magma must be contained in large "reservoirs" in between the inner and outer surfaces of the crustal "peel", in much the same way that enormous reserves of water are collected in subterranean artesian basins in many parts of the world. (Most of the Australian continent is underlaid by such deep basins, so the principle is not hard to grasp Down Under!)
I also suggest that the molten lava is constantly being produced by the heat of atomic reactions taking place deep within the crust, at the gravitational limit, where most of the Earth's heaviest radioactive elements will have largely have become concentrated.
There may even be radioactive substances down there which are still entirely unknown to us here on the surface! Despite all their boastful and arrogant claims to supreme knowledge, modern scientists simply cannot not know everything yet about geology or physics, so our ideas and hypotheses are just as valid as theirs! Thus far, their geologists have only drilled down a mere 17 kilometres into the Earth's crust - a mere "mosquito-bite" in the Earth's skin - so how can they possibly know what lies beneath?
Apropos, Mr.J. A .Cater's concept that Earth's "gravitation" -
or his suggested equivalent force - terminating at the Earth's surface. I cannot see why this should be so. Surely, the earth's gravitational field must terminate in the centre of the crustal thickness, from whence, if we follow it inward toward the Earth's focal centre, it will gradually diminish again on much the same sort of scale as it does outward from the Earth's upper surface? I would therefore expect the actual focal centre of the "inner earth" to be gravity-free, since the diminishing lines of gravitation "force" from all directions within the spherical shell would surely cancel each other out - much as occurs at the Lagrange Point in astrophysics, where the gravitational effects between two planets cancel each other out - such as between the Earth and the Moon.
If this were so, I would anticipate that the lighter gases such as hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, etcetera, would be concentrated together in that central region. nor is it entirely inconceivable that such a powerful concentration of these light elements might become self-ignited, which would thus cause a similar illuminative effect to that of our external Sun, which is composed of these very light elements, which have undergone protonic reaction. Thus we could well arrive at a "sun" in extreme miniature within a hollow Earth!
I don't wish to appear overly dogmatic about all this, and Mr. Cater's concept of "gravity" may very well be correct. but I believe that the same basic laws would apply regarding the location of its maximum effect in a spherical field at around midway through the crust of the Earth. Also, I believe the concept of a universal "ether" or "soft particles" to be true, and this would also apply within as without the Earth's "shell". Ether, in my own view, is the universal carrier of energy waves of all kinds - including those of light and "gravitation" - whether the sort we were taught to accept, or that other "EM force" which is proposed by Mr.Cater.
I Think I've said enough for now, so will leave it there. Look forward to hearing your reactions to all the foregoing!
Regards to all. {
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Gerry
PS. Dean. I nearly forgot to correct my last statement re the start of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It's actually in the centre of the Nansen Cordillera - not
alongside it. The Nansen Cordillera is itself actually the first part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge! Sorry if I confused you! G.
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