Fifty years ago, Plate Tectonics was a major breakthrough in the understanding of the Earth. It changed everyone's perspective. It had everyone talking. It opened a whole new way of thinking. It was a godsend to the scientific community. Too bad it's wrong.

Or so says (and shows) Marvin Herndon, an astrophysicist whose clear thinking and elegant explanations of the nature of the solar system made me want to read more about his take on Plate Tectonics.

The problem is that everyone was so excited with the solution, no one looked at the basic science and mechanics underlying it. In order for the molten mantle to move the continents around, there has to be convection in the mantle. But the mantle has it upside down. The bottom is heavy, and the top is lighter. Convection, if you've ever boiled water, works the opposite way. A differential in density and temperature causes top heavy fluid to sink to the bottom, and lighter fluid to rise to the top. That's the cycle - the opposite of what exists in the mantle. So convection cannot be at work in the Earth's mantle even in theory.

Herndon shows convincingly that the ocean floors are expanding, cracking and infilling without any need to rely on convecting lava below. It also turns out that the ocean floors are made of much harder rock basalt than the continental rock of mountain ranges. Herndon describes mountain formation as the result of crimping of the surface to conform to the flatter curvature of the expanding Earth. The ocean floor basalt is the real crust of the Earth.

In this short ebook, Herndon turns the standard theory of the Earth on its ear, showing conclusively it was not only not thought through, it is provably and demonstrably wrong. His Whole Earth Decompression Dynamic theory makes far more sense, and is quite provable. It says the Earth began as a Jupiter-like gas giant. When the sun ignited, it blew away the gas, and the Earth has doubled in size since, as the removal of 300 earth masses of gas pressure allowed it to relax.

Herndon's major book, Maverick's Universe, which I also reviewed, is an earlier, greatly expanded version of this ebook. The ebook is much more concise and updated, and contains far better graphics. It's a fine introduction to a history-making mind at work.

David Wineberg ( )