The Evolution of Geospheres on an Expanding Earth

The evolution of the geosphere is considered in the light of the expanding Earth hypothesis, an alternative concept of plate tectonics, the fifth axiom of which is the statement about the immutability of the mass and size of the Earth, as well as the mass of water on its surface. A new look at the evolution of the Earth and its geospheres (lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and biosphere.) is proposed. The physical mechanisms of the not yet understood processes of increasing its size with a simultaneous increase in mass are discussed. For the first time, a physical scenario of the expansion process is proposed. It consists in the constant absorption of dark matter by the Earth in the form of quark nuggets (strangelets), followed by their decay and transformation into ordinary matter. The expansion of the Earth makes it possible to explain not only the large size and mass of land animals at the end of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, but also to establish the most probable causes of the movement of continents and Great Extinctions.

All attempts to include the evolution of the Earth in the framework of mega-history, or global evolutionism, have failed. The reason for this was plate tectonics, the fifth axiom of which is the immutability of the mass and dimensions of the Earth as well as the volume of the water on its surface, which are contradicted by paleontological, paleogeographic and geological data. There are at least six important arguments in favor of the alternative plate tectonics of the expanding-earth hypothesis: 1) the paleontological paradox and its special case – the law of irreversible miniaturization of megafauna giants over the past 160 million years [1-5]; 2) the paleogeographic fact of the combining of all fragments of the continental crust into a single ancient continental crust covering the entire earth, with a decrease in the earth’s size [6]; geological data about 3) the steady rise in the level of the world's oceans, the increase in the area of the Earth's crust and the increase of the gravitational constant, g, [7]; 4) the existence of processes of continuous degassing and dehydration of the Earth's interior [8]; 5) the very young age of the oceanic crust, which is only 340 million years old [9]; and the geomorphological argument 6) inexplicable from the point of view of plate tectonics, that the shape of the earth is a geoid. The rejection of the fifth axiom of Euclid led to the creation of non-Euclidean geometries; the rejection of the fifth axiom of plate tectonics will inevitably lead to new theories of the evolution of the Earth and its geospheres: the lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryo-sphere and biosphere. The main stumbling block to the idea of an expanding earth was the incomprehensible process of increasing its size with a simultaneous increase in mass. Therefore, geologists tried to "inflate" the Earth in the old-fashioned way with an ether that did not exist, from the point of view of physics, immediately branding this concept as marginal and placing it on a par with the "theories" of a flat and hollow Earth. The Australian geologist and paleogeographer S.W. Carey, the most ardent supporter and propagandist of the hypothesis of the expansion of the Earth, by analogy with the Hoyle-Bondi-Gold cosmological model [10,11], used the hypothesis of the unobservable birth of matter, but not in intergalactic space, but in the Earth's core [12]. The theoretical basis for these speculations was the Dirac hypothesis of large numbers [13], according to which the number of baryons B grows as t2 in an expanding universe. But since Dirac's hypothesis about large numbers did not receive experimental confirmation, the search for the physical process responsible for the expansion of the Earth continued. In particular, hypotheses have been put forward for the transformation of photons, cosmic rays, right neutrinos (sterile neutrinos), axions, majorons, goldstone bosons, supersymmetric particles, as well as the energy of physical vacuum into ordinary barium matter. But the justification of the Earth's expansion process using these hypotheses is "hindered" by the law of conservation of the baryon charge B, to which all four fundamental interactions obey. This means that as a result of such processes, the number of baryons that make up the Earth remains unchanged, since the new baryons formed appear simultaneously with the antibaryons, which annihilate with ordinary matter. Therefore, an increase in the mass of the Earth in this case is possible only by changing the binding energy of nucleons in the nuclei, that is, at the level of 1-2%, which cannot provide a mechanism for a multiple increase in the size of the Earth. Yes, the law of conservation of the baryon charge B is violated in GUT's models, but at energies of 1015-1016 GeV, which are not present in cosmic rays. Even assuming that such energies exist, new baryons appear in one case out of 109, which means that all the energy of cosmic particles (or physical vacuum) is converted into thermal energy, which, with a multiple increase in the size of the Earth, will simply turn it into a plasma cloud. In [5], a new physical scenario of the expansion process was proposed. It consists of the continuous absorption by the Earth of dark matter in the form of quark nuggets - (strangelets), accumulating in the mantle and core, followed by their decay and transformation into ordinary matter under the influence of solar neutrinos. The discussion of the origin of dark matter is not discussed in this paper, and readers who wish to familiarize themselves with the latest ideas in this field can refer to the work [14]. Dark matter, which participates only in weak and gravitational interactions, is distributed heterogeneously in the universe. It forms a halo around massive objects such as stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters and superclusters. The dark matter distribution profiles presented in [15-18] allow us to calculate the rate of absorption of dark matter by the Earth and in [5] the simplest models of linear and exponential growth in the size and mass of the Earth are presented. Both models describe well the law of irreversible miniaturization of Megafauna giants over the past 160 million years, and the latter is fully consistent with the law of exponential growth in the rate of formation of the area of new oceanic crust [7]. With a nugget size of 10-7 m, as statet in [19], the volume occupied by ordinary matter, as shown in [5], after the disintegration of the stranglet, increases hundreds of billions of times. At the same time, the processes of degassing and dehydration of the earth, as well as the genesis of oil and gas deposits of non-biological origin, are explained. Of course, other planets in the Solar System must also absorb dark matter, increasing in size. The Sun is a special case. The fact is that the flux density of solar neutrinos on the surface of the Sun is 4.62 x 104 higher than the flux density of these particles on the surface of the Earth. Therefore, a significant part of the quark nuggets should be destroyed already in the solar corona, and the formed baryons are carried away by the solar wind. Therefore, the rate of increase in the mass of the Sun will be significantly lower than the rate of increase in the mass of an equally massive, but non-neutrino-emitting object. Some astrophysicists believe that the effect of the destruction of quark nuggets in the corona of the Sun is able to explain the paradox of the abnormally high temperature of the solar corona, reaching two million kelvin, which is 345 times higher than the surface temperature of the Sun [20]. Unlike plate tectonics, there is no subduction in our reconstruction, and instead of mantle convection, proposed by A. Clark as the moving force of continents, a significantly more effective mechanism is proposed, consisting of an increase in volume and pressure in the mantle, leading to the formation of fault zones (rifting) of the continental crust and the opening of oceanic basin. Thinner crust is constantly growing as a result of the expansion of the Earth, rather than spreading. It is believed that all the water of the World Ocean appeared as a result of dehydration of the earth's interior, that is, it is juvenile. The expansion of the Earth can explain not only the large sizes and masses of land animals at the end of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, but also establish the most probable causes of the movement of continents and mass extinction of life forms. The oldest crust of the earth was formed about 4.4 billion years ago. Since the cross section, σ, of the process of converting an s-quark into a u-quark under the action of neutrinos is 1.92x10-41 cm2, and the decay of a quark nugget requires a significant change in the number of s-quarks in it, it took about 4 billion years for the oceanic crust to form on the Earth's surface. Before the early Carboniferous, the earth was covered by a single ancient continental crust (Pangaea), over most of which the boundless but shallow sea of Panta Lassa splashed, which is clearly visible from paleogeographic reconstructions. The radius of the earth was 1.58 times smaller than its present value. The gravitational constant, g, was proportionately smaller, and the volume of the earth was almost 4 times smaller. Such a small value of g explains the appearance in the ate Silurian of giant prototaxite fungi (Prototaxites, 420-370 million), huge scorpions (Devonian Brontoscorpio anglicus; 416 million and Praearcturus gigas, as well as Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis; 336 million from the early Carboniferous), monstrous carbon millipedes arthropleura (Arthropleura, 345 million), gigantic flying insects informally called griffins (Protodonata) – meganeura (Meganeura monyi, 305 million), mazotairos (Mazothairos, 300 million) and Paleodictyopterids (Paleodictyopteroidea, 323 million). In the same Carboniferous, on the stage of evolutionary biology of land animals, new actors of the tetrapod superclass appeared - labyrinthodonts (Labyrinthodontia), which divided into three branches of amphibians: lepospondyl (Lepospondyli, 350 million), Temnospondyl (Temnospondyli, 330 million), and reptiliomorphic (Anthracosauria, 330 million). In the middle Carboniferous, small forms of reptiliomorphs made an evolutionary breakthrough, acquiring the ability to lay real eggs with an aquatic shell (amnions) on land, which finally severed the umbilical cord connecting them with the aquatic environment, turning them into real reptiles. The presence or absence of an amnion divided all vertebrates into two groups – amniotes and Anamnia. Cardinal changes in the lithosphere began with the emergence of the Levantine Basin (340 million), at the bottom of which the oldest basalt oceanic crust began to form [9]. But this event alone was clearly not sufficient for the subsequent evolution of the geospheres, since the formation of coal deposits in Svalbard and the rapid movement of the future Antarctica from the equator, where it was located in the Cambrian, to the south Pole region required the opening of the Arctic Ocean in the late Carboniferous. As a result of this process, the continental slope of the ocean is located on average at a latitude of 43.5° N, and the equator has shifted 137.1 km to the north. The ocean waters that filled the ocean basin and the beginning of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) [21], or the Karoo glaciation (360-255 million), exposed huge areas of land, i.e. caused sea regression, drying up of swamps and the establishing an arid climate, as a result of which the first two branches of labyrinthodonts, which continued to maintain an amphibious lifestyle, died out. The occurrence of the rift and the large magmatic Skagerrak province (SCLIP; 305 million) [22], aggravated the catastrophe and caused the crisis of carbon forests (CRC) – fragmentation of tropical forests, largescale extinction of the previously dominant tree-like plovers and their replacement by tree ferns [23]. The establishment of an arid climate, the fragmentation of tropical carbon forests and the emergence of herbivorous animals capable of digesting lignin and cellulose launched an evolutionary race to increase the size and mass between two clades of amniotes - synapsids (Synapsida) and Sauropsids (Sauropsida). From the end of the Carboniferous to the beginning of the Triassic, synapsids were ahead in this race, and the lagging Sauropsids were forced to grovel before the winners who broke ahead. The Great Permian Extinction, which occurred 251.9 million years ago, interrupted this race. The reason for this disaster was increased volcanic activity and the formation of the Siberian traps [24], which could become the final stage of the opening of the Arctic Ocean and the formation of the Gakkel middle oceanic ridge. The Permian-Triassic extinction, which intervened in the race, ruthlessly mowed down the cohort of leaders and the undisputed winner of the race in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods was the team of sauropsids, which divided all three elements among themselves: the aquatic element went to the thiosaurs (Ichthyosauria) and plesiosaurs (Plesiosauria), the aerial environment was conquered by pterosaurs (Pterosauria), and on land Titanosaurs (Titanosauria) from the infraorder of sauropods (Sauropoda) reigned supreme. The formation of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP), which reached peak activity 201 million years ago, caused the Triassic-Jurassic extinction (less intense than the Permian) [25], the collapse of Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwana, as well as the reversal of Gondwana, so that the future Antarctica was again in the tropics, was caused by the opening of the central Atlantic. The opening 180 million years ago of the North Atlantic Ocean, in the area of its modern northwestern border, and the Pacific Ocean (Pigafetta Basin) were less dramatic. Formed at the end of the Jurassic period, 150 million years ago, the Mozambique Channel split Gondwana into two parts: the western one, which included South America, Africa and Arabia, and the eastern one, consisting of Madagascar, Antarctica, Hindustan and Australia [26]. The first phase of the formation of the Indian Ocean was the opening of its eastern part and the formation 120 million years ago of oceanic crust between Antarctica and Hindustan. The second phase was the opening 90-70 million years ago of the western sector and the appearance of oceanic crust between India and Madagascar. South America separated from Africa 100 million years ago; thus began the process of the formation of the South Atlantic [27]. Since the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (65.5 million years ago) lasted not for several years, but for millennia, it is ridiculous to associate it exclusively with one impact event - the collision of the asteroid that formed the Chicxulub crater. Most likely, this extinction was also caused by an outbreak of volcanic activity 66-65 million years ago, caused by the extrusion of lava through cracks in the earth's crust, forming the Deccan traps [28]. Antarctica separated from Australia in the early Cretaceous period, 125 million years ago, and from New Zealand, in the late Cretaceous, about 72 million years ago. As late as 65 million years ago it basked in a subtropical climate. But about 30 million years ago, the Drake Strait separated South America and Antarctica, and the intensive expansion of the bottom of the created Southern Ocean squeezed Antarctica into the area of the South Pole, forcing the rest of the continents to move north. At the same time, the equator began to shift to the south, which is why Mongolia, which was previously in the tropics, found itself in a desert zone, on the border of the circulation of the atmospheric Hadley and Ferкell cells. The final separation of Antarctica and the associated formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (AACP) created a powerful upwelling zone, dramatically increasing the bioproductivity of Antarctic waters, which tempted some mammals that formed the Cetacea infra-order to change their land and coastal lifestyle to an exclusively aquatic one. The formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet 23 million years ago again led to a regression of the World Ocean and the formation of Beringia, a land bridge between Asia and North America. The mass extinction of dinosaurs 66 million years ago at the boundary of Cretaceous and Paleogene periods, reopened the evolutionary race for the title of giants, but this time among mammals. It took the ancestors of indricotherium (Paraceratherium linxiaense) 32 million years to grow a champion in their team under conditions of an ever-increasing gravitational constant, which was increasingly approaching the modern value. 23 million years ago, Indricotherium was replaced by other representatives of the megafauna of the Neogene Proboscidea, and since that time, the largest representatives of the megafauna of the Miocene (23.03-5.33 million years ago), Pliocene (5.330-2.588 million years ago) and Pleistocene (2.588-0.0117 million years ago) remained the proboscidae. The proboscidae who managed to survive to the Holocene, with the exception of the Indian and African elephants, were then finished off by the new super-predators, Sapiens, armed with spears [29].

In a retrospective reconstruction of the evolution of geospheres we used only a hypothesis about the date of the opening of the Arctic Ocean, which (due to the complexity of the work) has not yet been confirmed by direct geological exploration through drilling on the bottom of the ocean. An indirect confirmation of our hypothesis is the fact that the crystalline rocks of the foundation of the mountains around the Arctic Ocean were recrystallized after the Caledonian orogeny 500-400 million years ago [30].

We thank Thomas Kosco for checking of our English text.

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