A simple solution to the puzzle of the Earth?

[glenn_w_l]

Perhaps some of you will be as amazed as I was when I discovered that the puzzle of the earth has a simple solution.
Using modelling clay, a globe of the earth, a ball, and a balloon, I built a model in which the continents fit together jig-saw like around a globe that is approximately half the size of the present earth.
The model is easy to build and the first paragraph of my essay ‘Meditations on Novagaea’ describes the method I used constructing my first model.
Please download a copy of ‘Meditations on Novagaea’ from:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/novagaea/
in the files section. (it’s only four pages long)
The illustration on the title page is a digital photograph of my model of Novagaea that I processed with photoshop.
I hope some energetic Volconvo people will build their own models and contribute their thoughts.
The thoughts that occurred to me as I pondered the meaning of the model are related in my essay.
Could this be the most concrete evidence yet for the existence of a Creator?
No doubt, you will have your own ideas…

[Pooeypants]

Just how the heck is it evidence for the existence of a creator?
0_o

[shunyadragon]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (glenn_w_l,)
Perhaps some of you will be as amazed as I was when I discovered that the puzzle of the earth has a simple solution.
Using modelling clay, a globe of the earth, a ball, and a balloon, I built a model in which the continents fit together jig-saw like around a globe that is approximately half the size of the present earth.
The model is easy to build and the first paragraph of my essay ‘Meditations on Novagaea’ describes the method I used constructing my first model.
Please download a copy of ‘Meditations on Novagaea’ from:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/novagaea/
in the files section. (it’s only four pages long)
The illustration on the title page is a digital photograph of my model of Pangaea that I processed with photoshop.
I hope some energetic Volconvo people will build their own models and contribute their thoughts.
The thoughts that occurred to me as I pondered the meaning of the model are related in my essay.
Could this be the most concrete evidence yet for the existence of a Creator?
No doubt, you will have your own ideas…<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

The history of the oceans and continents have been well documented by geologists as a product of continental drift where over millions of years the continents have slowly drifted appart and collided as a result of the heat convection currents in the core of the earth.

[dannyp]

if you'd just post the paper that would be nice. i don't want to join a group to then find out it's crap. and i'm assuming it's crap becuase you're the only member.

[glenn_w_l]

hi dannyp
i created that group very recently so i could put the essay on file and refer people to it. I would have posted it here except 1) it's four pages long and Volconvo is for discussing ideas rather than presenting them and 2) there are a couple of illustrations in the essay that would not be included if i posted the essay here.
You simply join the group, download the essay, then leave the group.
As far as i am aware only one person has actually downloaded the essay. As i said i hope people will read the essay and BUILD THE MODEL, because until they do, I will not be able to get reasonable feedback on my ideas.

[glenn_w_l]

It seems that scientists are convinced they understand Earth’s history and development. The Novagaea hypothesis might make them think again.

The Novagaea hypothesis holds that the material that is now distributed around the world as continental crust once formed a continuous layer over the entire globe.
It also recognises that this layer was disrupted very recently in the geological time-scale, so recently, in fact, that humans experienced the disruption, and mostly interpreted it as a supernatural event.
The experience deeply affected the human psyche, and the disruption entirely altered the character of the planet.
The observation that generated the Novagaea hypothesis is that the fragments of continental crust form a simple spherical jig-saw puzzle, that can be completed by modelling the continents in clay from a globe of the earth and then fitting the pieces together, (as I will show below), into a continuous spherical surface.
While exploring some interesting speculations (which, not being relevant here I will describe in a future post), I was led to consider the possibility that Antarctica once occupied the region between South America and Africa that is now occupied by the South Atlantic Ocean.
An inspection of a globe of the earth enabled me to visualise that if I ‘rolled’ Antarctica anticlockwise up the eastern coast of South America, the resulting combination might fit well against the west African coast.
I then did some sketches of how the three continents might have combined, and measured and compared the lengths of the coastlines involved. These encouraged me to attempt a three dimensional representation of the combination, and I purchased some modelling clay and a spherical balloon.
I modelled the shape of the three continents in clay using a twelve inch globe of the earth. I then inflated the balloon and put Antarctica on it.
Noting that an anticlockwise northward ‘roll’ of Antarctica would close the Weddell Sea and open the Ross Sea, I did so on my model.
Then I placed Africa beside Antarctica so the western lobe of Africa fitted into the Ross sea, and put South America on the balloon so that the easternmost tip of South America touched the lobe of Africa, and let the balloon down until the tip of south America touched the tip of Africa around Antarctica.
Here is a photograph of my model showing the three continents joined at this stage of the construction.
[photo of model]
Having determined the size at which these three continents neatly join together, I found a firm ball of the same size (and here I was lucky because an old moon globe that had hung from my ceiling for years was just the right size), and I transferred the assembly to the ball.
I then modelled North America in fitted it so that the west coast of North America lay adjacent to the north coast of South America, Columbia occupying the Gulf of Alaska and Los Angeles roughly adjacent to the entrance of the Amazon. The NW of Africa fitted into the Gulf of Mexico with the position of Florida corresponding to the Gulf of Sidra on the north African coast.
Western Europe is wedged between the east coast of North America and the southern Mediterranean shore of Africa.
Asia, with the northern Indonesian isles incorporated and the Bengal sea zipped up, occupy most of the remaining space. The north coast of North America lay adjacent to the NE coast of Asia, with the western termination of Alaska corresponding to the position of Japan. The SE Asian and Indian peninsulas are bounded by the west coast of South America (see diagram).
The remaining circular area neatly accepts the Australian continent in combination with Greenland.
I have described the model in a fair amount of detail so that the reader can easily build their own model. I have no doubt that some will have the energy to do so.
Down the western side of south America was a thin strip of land that in now broken into fragments that stretch across the Pacific. These are Central America, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Macquarie Island, and the south Indonesian Islands, with numerous Pacific Islands constituting even smaller fragments.
Apart from the distortion due to the greater curvature, the continents have retained their shape.
I have ‘christened’ the model Novagaea, since its concepts are similar to Wegener’s Pangaea, but with obvious important differences.
The implications of the fact that the continents fit together like a spherical jigsaw puzzle are enormous and wide-ranging, but I will reserve discussion of them for later postings on this topic, by which time (hopefully) some people will have constructed their own models.
I will just list some of the features of the model that have led me to believe that the model is a representation of the Earth at an earlier stage of the planet’s development.
In future postings I will discuss each of these in greater detail.

1) At the size of a sphere defined by the containment of Antarctica by South America and Africa, the rest of the continents complete a continuous spherical surface.

2)The arrangement of the continents on Novagaea is very similar in many respects to their arrangement on Earth.

3)The fissures that define the continents show global-scale continuity and order on the model of Novagaea.

4)The highest mountains on the continents of South America, North America, and Asia all occur in a small region of Novagaea‘s surface.

5)The rift valleys of Africa and Siberia (whose structural similarity had been commented on by Holmes) and the arc of North American lakes all form a neat circle on the sphere of Novagaea surrounding Australia.

The model is so simple that it is surprising that it has not been discovered before now.
It seems to me that the geologist’s ‘obsession’ (Holmes p.1227) with the parallelism of the opposing Atlantic shorelines has blinded scientists to any other possibilities.
Every attempt by scientists to reconstruct ‘the super-continent’ has begun with the assumption that Africa and South America joined directly.
I hope the model of Novagaea will break the spell.


PS if I can my avatar to work it will display an illustration of Novagaea that I processed from a photo of my model with photoshop. Any help with getting the avatar to work would be appreciated.

[dalin]

Couldn't you just link the photos? There's actually an IMG tag available.

Like so:

['img]<url of photo>[/'img]

(minus the apostrophes)

Or just host the paper in its entirety on a publicly available page. There are numerous free hosting plans out there, just google it and you should find some, but here are a few:

www.netfirms.com
www.brinkster.com

[Domino]

It seems to me that this is an easy hypothesis to test. Select the various new joinings of land (for example, Alaska to Japan), and examine the current rock stratums of these places. If they were once joined, as you say, then their stratums should align just as neatly as your continents do.

It might not be an easy test for you, personally, to perform, but I'd be willing to bet that the strata of these areas are all on record somewhere: a simple research paper could lend great credence to your hypothesis.

And I'd certainly read the results of that.

[dalin]

Actually one way they can assess previous tectonic formations is studying the rocks that form at mid-oceanic ridges and at "divergent subduction zones", trench areas with seismic activity, were one plate slides under another. Every 1 million years or so the magnetic field of the earth inverts, and this difference affects the polarities of magnetic minerals in cooling molten rock. As a result, moving away from a ridge one notices an alternating pattern of magnetic polarities in the rocks (measured with a magnometer [sp?]). Here's a site on magnetic striping.

Now using this information, they have a good idea of where plates were at particular points in time.

One thing I notice is that all the evidence your model provides is based on the "continental fit". Sure, it's a good indicator, but not necessarily a reason for the overhaul of tectonic theory alone. Maybe seeing your models will help.

In the mean I found this site (note the immediate graphic), which implies something different to what you've proposed:

http://faculty.valencia.cc.fl.us/jbeeman/A...ic/mesozoic.htm

[glenn_w_l]

Thanks for tip dalin.

Here is a photograph of my model showing the three continents joined at this stage of the construction.

[IMG]<http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/novagaea1.jpg>[IMG]

The north coast of North America lay adjacent to the NE coast of Asia, with the western termination of Alaska corresponding to the position of Japan. The SE Asian and Indian peninsulas are bounded by the west coast of South America (see diagram).

[IMG]<http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/novagaea_protopacific01.jpg>[IMG]

The Atlantic side joined thus:

[IMG]<http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/pangaeashrunk4.jpg>[IMG]

And this is a preview of what's to come:

[IMG<http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/expanding_earth.jpg>[IMG]

If none of these have worked, you can see them on my homepage at
http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/index.html

Have fun building your models!

[glenn_w_l]

Sorry people I can't include images from 'dynamic pages'. If you haven't guessed it i'm pretty new to computers. please see the images on my homepage or explain why i can't post them...thanks.

[glenn_w_l]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Domino,)
It seems to me that this is an easy hypothesis to test.  Select the various new joinings of land (for example, Alaska to Japan), and examine the current rock stratums of these places.  If they were once joined, as you say, then their stratums should align just as neatly as your continents do.

It might not be an easy test for you, personally, to perform, but I'd be willing to bet that the strata of these areas are all on record somewhere: a simple research paper could lend great credence to your hypothesis.

And I'd certainly read the results of that.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

You are quite right Domino.
The model is easily disprovable by the scientific method, as any scientific hypothesis should be.
I am hoping that people from adjacent regions can research the strata in their local areas and compare data. If you live on the coast, the images on my homepage can quickly show which land used to be adjacent to you.

[PatrickHenry]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (glenn_w_l,)
Thanks for tip dalin.

Here is a photograph of my model showing the three continents joined at this stage of the construction.

[IMG]< http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/novagaea1.jpg >[IMG]

The north coast of North America lay adjacent to the NE coast of Asia, with the western termination of Alaska corresponding to the position of Japan. The SE Asian and Indian peninsulas are bounded by the west coast of South America (see diagram).

[IMG]< http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/novag...topacific01.jpg >[IMG]

The Atlantic side joined thus:

[IMG]< http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/panga...gaeashrunk4.jpg >[IMG]

And this is a preview of what's to come:

[IMG< http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/expan...nding_earth.jpg >[IMG]

If none of these have worked, you can see them on my homepage at
http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/index.html

Have fun building your models!<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>
I joined your yahoo group, then found I needed MS Works to view the documents...too much trouble
I reprocessed the urls of the images so that they "worked"

From your website: Quote "This is a diagram of the other side of Novagaea where the continents diverged to form the Pacific Ocean.
This is where the Moon began to emerge from Novagaea after it was displaced from its former position as the core of Novagaea" End quote

What is your theory as to why and how luna "emerged" from Novagea?

[Ralph38449]

The Earth being a large puzzle has a few glitches. The largest on is that cataclismic events greatly change how the world looks. Let's say that a large earthquake detroys California and it goes into the ocean. Well then you have a gap in the puzzle.
Another example yet not so caticlismic, Italy sinks into the ocean, then you have another large gap. The theory that the earth is a puzzle does not allow for erosion and large events like earthquakes.

[dalin]

I'd say in the plate tectonics model, the earth's lithosphere is a sort of tremendous dynamic puzzle, whose pieces are constantly changing shape and position, some slightly overlaying others, while some still spreading and allowing magma up to form more lithosphere (e.g. mid-oceanic ridges).

Maybe I'm not grasping what you're saying glenn, but it seems all you are proposing is a new mapping of the plates, based solely on continental fit, but existing ridges, faults, etc. need to be considered in the process as well because they serve as indicators of previous states of the planet.

As for California falling into the ocean:
http://www.seismo.berkeley.edu/seismo/faq/...california.html

Here's a page that offers a neat 360 view of a portion of the San Andreas:
http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/kap/carrizo/

[glenn_w_l]

Originally posted by dalin, Maybe I'm not grasping what you're saying glenn, but it seems all you are proposing is a new mapping of the plates, based solely on continental fit, but existing ridges, faults, etc. need to be considered in the process as well because they serve as indicators of previous states of the planet.

Not quite based entirely on continental fit, though i consider that in itself to be quite strong evidence that the continents once fitted together in the way described in the Novagaea Hypothesis.
As i said above some geological features that have structural but not spatial relationships on Earth have both structural and spatial relationships on Novagaea. Primary of these is the arcs of rift valley induced lakes that can be seen on any map of the Earth on Asia, Africa, and North America. That when the continents are fitted together so that they form a continuous layer these arcs join neatly into a circle is very strong evidence that the Novagaea assembly is not a quirk of chance.
But if the Novagaea Hypothesis is correct, some immediate implications must be considered.
For one, you will notice that there are no oceanic basins on the model of Novagaea. The sialic crust forms a continuous layer over the entire globe.
Another is that the model of Novagaea and the globe that was used to build it are on the same scale, demonstrating that Novagaea was only just over half the size of planet Earth.
Obviously, a great deal must have happened if Novagaea is now planet Earth.

I will later today or tomorrow post an edited version of my essay 'Meditations on Novagaea' which will hopefully let you see more clearly what i am saying.

[dalin]

Hmm, you know... it seems probable. I'd really like to see your model and the paper.

P.S. I forgot to mention that the pictures aren't showing up (I generally steer away from hosting with geocities; I believe they only allow linking to HTML pages instead of actual jpegs).

If you'd like I can write the html real quick, or host them for you. I've got a bit of space. PM me, or just email (the address should be in my profile?).

[glenn_w_l]

Greetings dalin
Thankyou for being so patient with my computer illiteracy and also for your kind offer to help.
I'm dissapointed the images weren't there...you can't even see them on my home page?
I would appreciate very much your help in getting the essay and images into a form where interested people could conveniently access them.
Just give me directions and i will follow them.
I will email you a copy, but because it is in (ancient) works format you might not be able to translate it. I will also send them as jpeg picture files.

[dalin]

I apologize...it is visible from your home page.

I'll comment on this later...

[glenn_w_l]

Anyone finished yet?
I have put some more material on my homepage.
Please see:

http://www.geocities.com/glennwglenn/index.html