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Moon and Earthquakes

4 February 2022
Geology

William sent in the link, https://yahoo.com/entertainment/sun-moon-could-unleashing-earthquakes-00… … It begins – what causes lava to gush from volcanoes in plumes of liquid fire? Plate tectoncs. What causes plate tectonics?

Until now the answer was thought to be unrest in earth's Mantle. Under pressure super heated magma wells up in what is known as convection currents, causing the tectonic plates to shift. The problem with this idea is that the 'hypothesis' relies on convection currents that may not have the power. Geophysicist Anne Hofmeister is suggesting gravity might play a role – as a result of imbalances caused by the moon. The sun pulls on the moon with so much force that it creates an elongated lunar orbit which creates problems 'inside' the earth's fragile lithosphere, or crust and upper Mantle. She says available data does not support the convection current model as the heat source is insufficient as rock requires large forces to deform and thermal plumes do not exist. Convection only affects fluids. Not solids. She ends up by saying, 50 years of convection modeling have failed to explain any of our observations. What is missing? She says it is the moon, the body that creates tides on the surface of the earth. An interesting read.

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