PLANET MODEL OF PLATE TECTONICS BASED ON EINSTEIN´S THEORY OF RELATIVITY

The model proposed herein for the origin of plate tectonics considers that it results from shearing among the main layers of Earth due to increasing rotation speeds of the Earth´s layers towards its center. It bases on the Earth´s differentiation, due to Earth´s gravity, which provoked the denser elements migration towards the Earth´s center, changing its initial whole pressure and mass-energy balance. It assumes gravity according to the Einstein´s Theory of General Relativity, thus resulting from the warping of the spacetime framework due to the Earth´s mass. By assuming the principle of conservation of energy and of momentum, a disequilibrium in the moment of inertia in the limits among the layers forced that any layer rotates quicker than its immediate neighbor outer layer.

Inertia, similarly to gravity, is herein a field property of the spacetime, analogous to the electromagnetic field, the so-called inertial-gravitational field. This field has an energy density that gives energy to the layers of Earth and maintains them continuously rotating. Plate tectonics would thus result from the net torque and shearing between the lower and the upper mantles that occurs at the 670 km discontinuity. The forces resulting from this deformation propagate upwards, break, and drive the plates.

The group of major layers of Earth behaves similarly to a planetary system, where each “planet” pursues its own spacetime framework. Because of this similarity, this plate tectonics model calls PLANET MODEL. Because it predicts no plumes or hot spots, all plate tectonic features result from deformation by a given stress field so that spreading centers are extensional fault systems, subduction zones are thrust fault systems, and transform faults are strike-slip fault systems.

Accordingly, Linear Volcanic Chains, like the ones in the Atlantic Ocean, are major fractures that form by tensile stresses resulted from cooling of the oceanic crust and thinned continental lithospheres. Gravity-induced differential down warping of the denser lithosphere; the thermal subsidence, is an equally important factor, enhancing the tensile stresses. Linear Volcanic Chains nucleate at deflections of hinge lines of rifts that evolved to passive margin basins. Fracturing induces generation of magma by adiabatic decompression at the base of the lithosphere.