Privileged Planet: plate tectonics same since start (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, June 26, 2020, 20:11 (1612 days ago) @ David Turell

Analysis of plate rifts composition in the deep ocean shows subduction rate has been the same over time:

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-geochemists-mystery-earth-crust.html

"The researchers provided fresh evidence that, while most of the Earth's crust is relatively new, a small percentage is actually made up of ancient chunks that had sunk long ago back into the mantle then later resurfaced. They also found, based on the amount of that "recycled" crust, that the planet has been churning out crust consistently since its formation 4.5 billion years ago—a picture that contradicts prevailing theories.

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"'Like salmon returning to their spawning grounds, some oceanic crust returns to its breeding ground, the volcanic ridges where fresh crust is born," said co-author Munir Humayun, a MagLab geochemist and professor at Florida State's Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science (EOAS). "We used a new technique to show that this process is essentially a closed loop, and that recycled crust is distributed unevenly along ridges."

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"The Earth's oceanic crust is formed when mantle rock melts near fissures between tectonic plates along undersea volcanic ridges, yielding basalt. As new crust is made, it pushes the older crust away from the ridge toward continents, like a super slow conveyer belt. Eventually, it reaches areas called subduction zones, where it is forced under another plate and swallowed back into the Earth.

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"Early on, the team discovered that the relative proportions of germanium and silicon were lower in melts of recycled crust than in the "virgin" basalt emerging from melted mantle rock. So they developed a new technique that used that ratio to identify a distinct chemical fingerprint for subducted crust.

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"Digging deeper into the patterns they found, the scientists unearthed more secrets. Based on the amounts of enriched basalts detected on global mid-ocean ridges, the team was able to calculate that about 5 to 6 percent of the Earth's mantle is made of recycled crust, a figure that sheds new light on the planet's history as a crust factory. Scientists had known the Earth cranks out crust at the rate of a few inches a year. But has it done so consistently throughout its entire history?

"Their analysis, Humayun said, indicates that, "The rates of crust formation can't have been radically different from what they are today, which is not what anybody expected.'"

Comment: Certainly looks as if God designed the perfect mechanism for keeping Earth's crust perfect for us as it needs to be. Mechanical things are easy to make perfectly.
Unfortunately the mechanisms of life are not.