CHAPTER 3 – SEISMOLOGY AND GEOLOGY

What do we really know about the Earth’s interior? And how trustworthy is our knowledge of it? Many people (mistakenly) think that the lava which pours out of volcanoes comes from a large reservoir of molten material which makes up the greater part of the Earth. Scientists have discovered that lava comes from within the Earth’s crust. The lava comes from approximately 20 miles down. The existence of lava does not affect the passage of earthquake (seismic) waves. This indicates to scientists that the crust is largely solid. So where does the heat come from which melts the rock locally? Scientists have advanced two theories.

• Some say that the melting is due to high concentrations of radioactive elements in a particular area. These decaying radioactive elements generate enough heat to melt rock. Much lava is slightly radioactive and that lends support to this theory.

• Other geologists have argued that shearing and faulting are adequate heat generating mechanisms.

The evidence supports both theories. Lava cannot possibly be rising from the centre of the Earth as some may be tempted to think. It would cool down and become solid on its long, slow journey upwards. Lava is therefore a surface phenomenon and does not in any way reflect what the Earth is like 50 or 100 or more miles down.

The Earth’s temperature is relatively constant. Where does this heat come from? Most scientists believe it comes from decaying radioactive materials deep inside the Earth. The Earth does not seem to be cooling down any further and this should alert us to the fact that the Earth is simply not a ball of molten material which is slowly cooling down and solidifying – as many people believe.

Since the temperatures seem to rise steadily as one goes deeper and deeper, scientists have extrapolated the temperatures and attempted to estimate the temperature of the Earth hundreds of miles beneath the surface. One has to ask oneself whether this extrapolation of temperatures is really logically justified. The extremely deep mines are still nothing but a pin-prick into the surface of the Earth. The centre of the Earth lies some 3,963 miles away. A mine 6 miles deep really does not represent a valid statistical portion of the Earth. No one has discovered a way of determining the temperature deep down. Our best estimates are that lava comes from 20-30 miles down. But what will temperatures be like 100 or 1000 miles down? It’s all guesswork – most of it derived indirectly from Newtonian gravity.

The only “reliable” method we have of knowing what goes on in the Earth beneath our feet comes from the science of Seismology. However, there are many examples of actual findings being different from what was predicted. The science of seismology contains two very broad assumptions which no one has ever been able to verify:

1. The speed of seismic waves beneath the Earth is ultimately inferred from our understanding of the structure of the Earth based on Newtonian Gravity. We have no way of being certain that these waves really are reaching these depths or traveling at these speeds.

2. We cannot be sure that speed changes are due to the changing constitution of the Earth. Our view of the inner Earth might be very skewed.

Since most of our knowledge of the Earth is obtained from those searching for gold, minerals and oil, one can’t help wondering if this skews our view of what the inner Earth may be like. We only search for these minerals in specific regions and this may be misleading us further. These holes seem to prove that much of the predicted structure changes have never turned out to be real. If we find such errors at depths of just a few kilometers, how much less can we trust our ideas when dealing with rock which is hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles beneath the surface?

The Earth is a flattened sphere. This is due to the rotation of the Earth, and the Earth being somewhat plastic. One would therefore expect the inside of the Earth to be similarly shaped. Yet there is some evidence that the Inner core may be shaped like a rugby ball. Instead of being flattened, it may be pointed at the top and bottom. The claim that the inner core is actually prolate in shape is by no means universally accepted. Even less certain than the claims of a prolate core are those for inner-core heterogeneity and, even more remarkably, hexagonal symmetry. These conflicting results in recent times, and the disputes surrounding them make one wonder just how reliable seismology is at those depths.

Slow Earthquakes
Earthquakes are caused when stresses build up and the rock then gives way catastrophically. And earthquake is an explosive event. It therefore cam as a surprise that there are some earthquakes which have unusually long source duration. The seismologists Professor Thorne Lay and Terry Wallace write:

“the mechanism for the slow rupture process is unknown, but in the extreme it could produce a ‘silent’ earthquake devoid of short-period body and surface waves.”

They go on to mention that G. Beroza and T. Jordan surmise the existence of “slow earthquakes": which are virtually undetectable – and that several of these may be occurring each year. These slow earthquakes suggest to me that the Earth might not be as tightly packed in some areas as we presume. Are there enormous cavities inside the Earth, perhaps caused by erosion and other forces deep, deep down? What would happen if these cavities were to be crushed? Could the forces down there be operating a lot more slowly and weakly? Could horizontal or vertical forces be operating as well? What if “slow” events prevent us from ascertaining the stranger aspects of deep seismology? Even more mysteriously, could “silent” quakes be occurring which our instruments are incapable of measuring? Could events be occurring down there which are not violent enough to be detected and we therefore have an inaccurate impression of what really is happening down there?
 

Deep Focus Quakes

Among the strongest evidence that the Earth is rigid all the way down to the “outer core” (where a hollow cavity exists?) comes by way of deep-focus earthquakes. Thousands of deep-focus earthquakes, making up to 22% of all earthquakes, have been recorded. Theoretically earthquakes cannot occur below 70 kilometers because the temperatures and pressures there are such that rock will flow rather than break catastrophically. The mechanism for ordinary quakes cannot therefore exist below 70 kilometers because the stresses are always relieved. Scientists hope that a suitable explanation for deep-focus quakes will be found without bending the laws of physics and chemistry, but that might not be possible. Professor Lay et al., writes:

“Deep earthquakes have long posed a problem for seismologists. Laboratory experiments indicate that the pressures at a few hundred kilometers depth should prohibit brittle fracture and frictional sliding processes. Yet earthquakes as large as (magnitude) 8.2 have occurred at 650 km. The deep seismicity has many characteristics that are similar to those of shallow earthquakes. Most important, the deep earthquakes have radiation patterns consistent with double couples, which implies shear faulting.”

(Several other observations which defy accepted scientific theory are given by the author along with attempts to explain them.) The search for deep focus quake mechanisms therefore seems to be far from over. The problem may be more fundamental than scientists have appreciated so far.

Let us now consider deep focus quakes within the Hollow Earth paradigm. The key to understanding it might lie in combining some simple concepts:

(a)   A rigid hollow shell

(b)   The different behavior of gravity deep beneath the Earth’s surface

(c)   Gravity might be more variable and dynamic than science currently believes (e.g. electric currents might affect it)

If gravity varies inside the Earth, then pressure and temperature would not increase as science expects. It therefore follows that the Earth down there would be cooler and more brittle than theory currently allows for and that shear can indeed occur. It also follows that G will indeed be very different to what is currently expected at various depths. There is no reason why some of the rock might even be in a state of almost weightlessness. Density need not keep on increasing with depth. Nor would there be any reason to expect pressure to close all cavities. At these cooler temperatures we could expect water to flow and to erode deep into the Earth. This water could be one of multiple causes of deep quakes. What about dynamic gravity as a possible source of deep seismicity? What if varying electric currents inside the Earth cause gravity to increase and decrease at various times at various depths? Could this be cause of the random three dimensional distribution of after shocks which has been observed?
 

Hollow Planet Structure

The solid Earth, conceptually, is made up of three parts. Imagine three spheres, one within each other.

• The outer sphere is the Mantle. This region is relatively solid. In it is molten material under great pressure.

• Within it lies the Outer Core. The Outer Core is a liquid.

• Within the Outer Core lies the Inner Core which is again solid. The Inner Core lies right at the centre of the Earth.

The author presents a technical analysis of seismic waves with several figures illustrating how waves are supposedly reflected within the Earth. He then presents his theory of seismic wave action in a Hollow Earth and says: In doing my own analysis and thinking about Hollow Planets, there was only one Hollow Planet model which could give the same results as the current scientific models. It seemed logical to me that if there was a hollow crust that somewhere in the middle, perhaps more towards the inner side, there would be an area of maximum density. The density of the crust would increase from the outer surface of the Earth to this point of maximum density. From there the density would decrease toward the inner surface of the Earth. This very simple model exhibits all the characteristics which we have learned from a century of global seismology. The P (primary) and S (secondary) waves which emanate from the epicenter of an earthquake descend into the Earth. Those which strike the hollow cavity’s surface will be refracted back to the surface of the Earth exactly in accordance with what we saw in Figure 3.9 (from “Modern Global Seismology”).

But what really interests us is the “shadow zone”.

(In a nutshell, one can characterize the general behavior of seismic waves as follows:

1. At a distance of between 7,000 miles to 10,000 miles from the epicenter of an earthquake, one finds a “shadow zone”. In this shadow zone there are very few P waves.

2. Beyond the 10,000 mile mark, there is a concentration of P waves and virtually no S waves. What S waves there are, are those which are thought to possibly have passed through the core. But this is open to dispute and most scientists think there are no S waves in this region.)

The shadow zone is now easily explained. The shadow zone is caused by the belt of maximum density in the Earth’s crust. Suppose we go down into the Earth at the epicenter. As we go deeper, the density gradually increases. It reaches a maximum at point M1. But from M1 downwards, the density decreases again until we strike the hollow cavity. Thus P waves which penetrate beyond the belt of maximum density will find themselves refracted and bent and bent downwards – so that they then travel and curve along the inside of the Hollow Planet. These waves will continue to travel like this until they again manage to penetrate and escape through the belt of maximum density. The shadow zone is thus caused by the change in density in this M-belt which naturally separates the P waves. It also explains why there are some P waves in the shadow region. All that is happening is that the waves are being bent around the Earth and being refocused on the other side.

It can be seen that the waves which are thought to be penetrating both the Outer and Inner cores may be doing nothing of the kind. These waves would simply be those which are caught by the decreasing density and bent around the hollow cavity. Note that since density decreases with depth beyond point M1, that any refraction which takes place is inwards – hugging the contours of the Inner Earth. The rest of the seismic waves bounce between the Inner and Outer surfaces as they make their progress around the Earth.

Once one is freed from Newtonian gravity, and one merely studies the seismic waves alone – not sure what path they are taking – the study of the Inner Earth becomes extremely complex and filled with all manner of unknowns. Have scientists already discovered the hollow cavity inside the Earth – in the form of the Outer liquid core? I think so. The fact that S waves don’t pass through it, and that the P wave speeds are abnormally slow makes me think that this “liquid” core is really the cavity which scientists deny the existence of . After going through this exercise I find myself wondering even more if perhaps seismologists are studying a Hollow Planet without ever having realized it was so. What do you think?