Gneiss2011
Registered Senior Member
What is Carey's source or evidence that "all of the continents except Antarctica have converged on the Arctic [...] since the Permian"?
I can't cite his specific sources because Carey didn't provide footnotes in his two books. However, his 1976 book includes about 800 references, so I suspect they're listed in there.
Here's some recent thinking with respect to timing -- the Arctic began "opening" during the Mesozoic:
"The Arctic Ocean accommodates, besides the vast shelves, the two deep Amerasia and Eurasia basins. It has been inferred that the former began to develop in the Late Mesozoic, when east Siberia and Alaska, in a not fully understood way, rotated away from Canada, with a rotation pole in the Mackenzie Delta and an inferred transform fault along the former Eurasian margin, today's Lomonosov Ridge. The Eurasia Basin is separated from the Amerasia Basin by the latter, which is a sliver of continental lithosphere that apparently detached from the Eurasian shelf by the opening of the Eurasia basin in early Cenozoic time." (Lorenz, Eurasian Arctic Tectonics, 2005, emphasis added.)
So, while Arctic tectonics remains enigmatic, the consensus seems to be that (1) it opened as a sphenochasm (the "rotational opening" or "windshield wiper" model), just as Carey originally proposed in the 50s, and (2) it began opening in the Mesozoic, i.e. after the Permian. And I could find nothing (on line) that indicated that subduction has taken place in the Arctic since that time.
So on one hand, mainstream science claim that a part of the Arctic area openend/extended/created crust since late Mesozoic.
On the other hand, Carey don't show anything supporting his claim that "since the Permian [...] the Arctic has been an area of extension".
What is Carey's source or evidence that "since the Permian [...] the Arctic has been an area of extension"?
Again, I don't know what Carey's specific sources were.
Me neither.
you might want to take a look at "Fragmentation and Assembly of the Continents, Mid-Carboniferous to the Present" (Irving, 1983). (FYI: Nearly all of Irving's references that pre-date Carey's 1976 book are referenced in the latter.) Irving's paper includes maps "showing the motions of the major continental blocks" that were "prepared by first rotating each block into its correct palaeolatitudinal and palaeoazimuthal position for successive time intervals, using the palaeomagnetic poles (palaeopoles). The continents were then assembled into their palaeolongitudinal position using evidence from sea-floor spreading based mainly on the work of Laughton (1975), Norton and Sclater (1980) and Sclater et al. (1977)."
check out the two animated GIFs that I've attached, which I created last night from Irving's maps.
Thank you very much for those maps.
These maps clearly show that "all of the continents except Antarctica have converged on the Arctic [...] since the Permian."
I don't see that in these map. Where, or how, do you see that in these map?
In these maps, I see most of continent moving to the North since Permian. But among those continents, during this time, only a few are converging on the Arctic, and not even all this time.
I see continents moving norther, and the Artic "sphenochasm" opening. I don't see any paradadox or deadly flaw.
According to mainstream science, or rather according to what i understood of the current consensus among mainstream science, there has been seafloor spreading (of less than 10,000,000 km²) between North America and Siberia since Jurassic, but not during Jurassic or Permian. See this map. By this are, North America and Siberia have diverged of about 2,500 km.
Corrected: but not during Triassic or Permian; By this area.
(I presume that all of your comments about the divergence/convergence of "North America" and "Siberia" refer entirely to the Arctic and not the Pacific.
You are right.
I don't answer to the 2 § about oceanic crust before the Mesozoic, because this seem out of scope.
as Carey pointed out the northward movement of both North America and Siberia (i.e. the southward movement of the latitudes) must mean that North America and Siberia have converged.
I would rather wrote "claimed" instead of "pointed".
If they both drifted north on a globe, then they converged
No, they converged not.
It is not because Mollweide projection (oval globe) show converging upper border, that the North side of the Earth is a triangle and continent which move norther than Arctic circle must converge and stack up there.
if you're saying that they moved side-by-side and in tandem (i.e. in the same hemisphere on a constant-sized earth)
I do, and mainstream science's paleogeographic maps here and here say the same. North America and Europe where togethere between Devonian and Jurassic. Europe and Siberia are togethere since Carboniferous. North America, Europe, South America, Africa have moved to the North, without convergence on the West-East axis between them, since Devonian.
if you're saying that they moved side-by-side and in tandem (i.e. in the same hemisphere on a constant-sized earth), then Siberia and/or North America must have wrapped around the glove to arrive at their current circum-polar location, with Siberia in one hemisphere and North America in the other, which means they must have converged not only across the Arctic but also in the North Pacific, i.e. roughly across the Bering Strait and points south. But there's no evidence for any of that.
I still do not see why there should be a convergence of North America and Siberia across the Arctic ocean if North America and Siberia moved to the North "side-by-side and in tandem" (thank you for those last words, they fit perfectly, better that "moved together", to what I wanted to say about this movement).
The previsouly mentionned mainstream science's paleogeographic maps show Alaska and eastern Siberia converging between Jurassic and Paleocene, across the Bering Strait. I do not know if this is right, needed, supported by PT theory, supported by geological evidence.
But such convergence would be far from "all of the continents except Antarctica have converged on the Arctic [...] since the Permian".
Please also notice that if "they moved side-by-side and in tandem", then Carey's claim that they
"have converged on the Arctic", that they "have moved [...] from different directions converging on the Arctic", is simply wrong.
Several continents are now around the North pole and were at lower latitudes previously according to palemognetism. If they moved to the north, they could a priori (presumedly) have used several way, but Carey choice the way that suit him, and conveniently do as if it is the only way.
And this area was not in the Arctic or near the North Pole during the Permian, but souther, according to that map.
Right, and that's exactly Carey's point.
No, it is not. In his speech and writing about the "Artic Paradox", I have never seen Carey distinguishing the geographic area near the North pole and the Earth crust currently near the North pole. It is as if Carey think that the Earth crust currently arround the North pole has always been there (or at least since Permian). It is as if Carey think that this crust can not move and is fixed.
Edward Irving said:In the 20th century there were two opposing schools of thought, “fixist” and “mobilist” (5). Until the late 1960s, the dominant belief was a form of fixism (permanentism), which held that, although shallow seas may have sometimes flooded lowlands, continents and deep oceans remained where they are, and latitudes did not change.
(excerpt from Edward Irving, The Role of Latitude in Mobilism Debates, PNAS, February 8, 2005 vol. 102 no. 6 1821-1828, DOI:10.1073/pnas.0408162101)
The Permian equator ran through both North America and Siberia; the equator today is many degrees to the south of both land masses. Hence, they moved north relative to the poles and equator; hence they must have converged, not only north-south convergence in the Arctic, but also east-west convergence in the sub Arctic.
Why? What support or demonstrate a "north-south convergence"? What support or demonstrate a "east-west convergence"?
Keep in mind that their northward movement occured not on a flat 2-D map where the longitudes are parallel, but on a 3-D sphere where the longitudes converge.
I'm trying.
There has been seafloor spreading between North America and Europe since Jurassic. See those maps.
PT and EE agree on that, though "seafloor spreading" isn't a very accurate description from the EE perspective, as I mentioned above.
No more to say.
Please also notice that, according to Ronald Blakey's maps, North America and Europe moved away roughtly West-East along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Gakkel Ridge. This does not conflict with a South-to-North movement of those two continent, according to Galilean relativity and Newtonian mechanics.
I don't understand the relevance of Galileo and Newton in this context. In any case, those land masses did indeed move apart in the Atlantic. But did they converge in the Pacific as they must have on a constant-sized earth?
Yes. On a constant-sized spherical Earth
- North America and Europe moved to the North
- North America and Europe did not converge across the Artic
- North America and Europe diverged across the Atlantic
- North America and Europe converged across the Pacific
So Carey's claim about Arctic Paradox would become "Paleomagnetic measurements show that all of the continents except Antarctica have moved on to the North Pole by several tens of degrees since the Permian. Wholly independent data from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous give the same conclusion in progressively diminishing degree. Yet since Jurassic there has been seaflor spreading between North America and Eurasia, which diverged (which moved away from each other)"
I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're making.
I substitute "have converged" for "have moved", because they have not conerged in my opinion.
I substitute "on the Arctic" for "on to the North Pole", to repel confusion between the North Pole location, and the crust currently at this location.
I substitute oceanic crust creation since the Permian for oceanic crust creation since the Jurassic, because there is not evidence for crust creation there during the Permian or the Triassic
Carey said that North America and Eurasia have moved north since the Permian, suggesting convergence; but the geological evidence in the Arctic indicates divergence. I think the fact that Carey said that all continents other than Antarctica have moved north is just a general statement that includes North America and Eurasia.
Indeed. This is what Carey said (as far as I understand).
This is fun! And I genuinely appreciate that you don't just blow off expansion as pseudoscientific crap (even if that's what you really believe) but you seem genuinely willing to engage in a rational discussion
You're welcome.