Archaeologica.org

1. The lithosphere is not a contiguous structure. There are alternating layers that make the separation of the lithosphere from the asthenosphere impossible to determine.

2. Earthquakes and volcanoes are supposed to define plate edges. However, recent oceanic research detected earthquakes at depths that are supposed to have no seismic activity, since the deep oceans are far from plate boundaries.

3. Many plates seem not to even exist. As Pratt describes, the northwest boundary of the Pacific, North American, and Eurasian plates, the southern boundary of the Philippine plate, part of the southern boundary of the Pacific plate, and most of the northern and southern boundaries of the South American plate, are fictitious.

4. The appearance of the “continental fit” is an illusion. Many proposals for how the present day continents fit together leave out important considerations. Overlaps of the continental shelves are passed over, while gaps are given no credence. The reader is referred to pages 7-9 of Pratt’s paper.

5. The assumption that rocks are magnetized when they form, and that they retain that magnetization over eons of time is untenable. Furthermore, it is necessary that they retain the magnetic orientation that existed on Earth at the time of their formation.

6. Rather than India being an island for over 200 million years after it separated from Antarctica, and before it “crashed into” Asia, the evidence is that it has always been part of Asia. India shows no sign of a unique flora and fauna that would suggest hundreds of millions of years as an isolated environment, such as the biota in Australia.

7. Heat flow from the spreading zones in the mid-ocean does not fall off farther from the zone. Instead, there is hardly any variance in temperature distribution from the ridges and the rest of the ocean. This fact contradicts a concentrated flow of magma creating new crust in the seams of the ocean floor.

8. The seafloor spreading theory of magnetic anomalies on the ocean floor has been disproven by drilling cores. The so-called “magnetic bands” on the ocean bottom have been found to be composed of isolated ovals, rather than linear formations.

The Mariana Trench is part of a global network of deep troughs that cut across the ocean floor. They form when two tectonic plates collide. At the collision point, one of the plates dives beneath the other into the Earth’s mantle, creating an ocean trench. (1)