From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Jun 27 2001 - 14:40:45 MDT
On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, Doug Jones wrote:
> > Earth's volcanos : caused by the moon
>
> I don't want to go chasing down the numbers right now, but I'm very,
> very certain that the vast majority of earth's internal heating is not
> tidal. Tell ya what- you're the one making the extraordinary claims,
> how about you dig up the extraordinary evidence?
I'll second you on this Doug. The heating comes from radioactive
elements like 40K, uranium and thorium. The dynamo of circulating
hot magma in convective loops drives the movement of the continents.
Some volcanoes occur over places where these hot spots break through
ocean floors (e.g. Hawaii). Others occur at the subduction zones
where the ocean floor plates diving under the light continental
plates produces enough friction to melt the rock. The volcanoes
get helped out by the calcium carbonate that has accumulated on
the ocean floors releasing carbon dioxide at high temperatures
causing expansion and upward flow of the material. I've never
heard any suggestion that the Moon is responsible for volcanoes.
Robert
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