THE EARTH’S DEGASSING, ROTATION AND EXPANSION AS … · New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter, no. 63, 2012. 35 global geodynamics. If the rift ring was formed only by spreading

New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter, no. 63, 2012. www.ncgt.org

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THE EARTH’S DEGASSING, ROTATION AND EXPANSION AS SOURCES OF GLOBAL TECTONICS

Nina I. PAVLENKOVA

Institute of Geophysics of the Earth, RAS B. Grusinskaya 10, Moscow, 123995, Russia

[email protected] Abstract. Several specific structural features are typical for the Earth. Like other planets it is divided into two hemispheres with different relief: the Pacific hemisphere with the lowered relief and thin oceanic crust, and the continental hemisphere with a raised relief and a thick continental crust. This division is outlined by the Benioff zone ring around the Pacific Ocean. Another regularity is a system of the oceanic ridges forming a ring around Antarctica with regular sprigs of mid-oceanic ridges. The origin of these regular structures contradicts to chaotic movement of the lithosphere plates but it may be explained by the fluids-rotation concept proposed by the author. The conception supposes two main energy sources of the global tectonics: the degasification of the Earth (the fluids advection) and the Earth’s rotation. Three basic stages of the tectonosphere formation are distinguished by the conception. Judging by the paleomagnetic data in Archean-Proterozoic several continents were formed in the southern hemisphere. The geochemical studies show that the thick continental tectonosphere (continental roots) was formed in from the mantle matter with a high content of fluids and it means that the intensive deep fluid flow has been at that time in the southern hemisphere. The formation of the thick tectonosphere has led to asymmetry of the planet and to the relative displacement of the mass centers of the Earth’s spheres. That resulted in mantle turning around the core in Paleozoic with the movement of the continental hemisphere to the north. The mantle rotation around the core created a new nonequilibrium system. Therefore in Mesozoic era an expansion of the southern hemisphere began. Such expansion resulted in the regular system of the mid-oceanic ridges symmetrical to the Antarctica.

Key words: Earth rotation, fluids, geospheres, continents, oceans, geodynamics.

Introduction

The plate tectonics concept is still the most popular concept. It explains the geological processes as the paleomagnetic pole mobility, the formation of the orogens and rift systems by the large scale drift of the lithosphere plates. The ocean formation is explained by the spreading of the lithosphere in the regions of mid-ocean ridges and its subduction beneath the active margins of the continents. But the concept can not explain why the subduction is observed only within the Pacific Ring, and how the observed ancient subcontinental crust was formed in the oceans. Many other contradictions between the plate tectonics concept and the experimental data are widely discussed in many articles (Meyerhoff and Meyerhoff, 1974; Beloussov, 1979; Grant, 1980; Barto-Kyriakidis, 1990; Dickins et al., 1992; Meyerhoff et al., 1992; Dickins, 1994; Storetvedt, 1997; 2003; Pavlenkova, 1995, 1998; Pratt, 2000; Shalpo, 2002) and in the special international journal New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter. The main conclusion of all these publications is that the plate tectonics cannot be used as the basic tenets of the global geodynamics, and other models should be developed to explain the observed geological and geophysical data. There are some other concepts of the global tectonics, but they consider most often some limited amount of data or individual events, without linking them in with each other. The most of them do not consider the sources of the global processes and their origins. Thus, the hypothesis of the expanding Earth (Scalera and Jacob, 2003) explains the formation of the oceans by the rupture and spreading of the continents without the subduction. But the expansion sources are not clarified. There are also not enough foundations of such large expansion possibility during the short period of time (from the late Paleozoic). The endogenous regime concept (Beloussov, 1990) on the contrary considers mainly the processes within the continents without touching the problems of the oceans. The wrench theory by Storetvedt (1997 and 2003) overcomes many weak points of the plate tectonics and describes in detail the results of the continent rotations but the origin and the scale of this rotation are problematic. The concept of the plume tectonics considers only some abnormal tectonic activity in the local regions and does not address other problems. In many concepts the observed tectonic evidences are rarely considered with the common energy sources and a little


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attention is paid to the dynamics of the Earth as a planet. As a result, many structural features of the Earth’s upper spheres are not explained or are still debatable. In this paper the data on those basic features of the tectonosphere structure are presented, which have no general explanation yet, and then a new geodynamic concept is proposed. All these structural features are put together to form a single logical system of development. The concept is called fluids-rotation model of the tectonosphere evolution, because it considers the energy of the Earth's rotation and degassing as a major source of the global tectogenesis. Certain aspects of the fluid-rotation interpretation were made earlier by the author (Pavlenkova, 1995, 2005 and 2007), but its complete version is published for the first time. 1. Unsolved problems of the tectonosphere structure and dynamics. The structure of the Earth's surface and its upper spheres, the crust and upper mantle, has been studied in detail by now in many geosciences. Despite the general complex structure of these spheres, some well-defined regularity in the surface topography, in the structure of the crust and its relationship with the upper mantle, are shown. Several of these regularities have not been clearly explained yet, and this impedes the progress of the geosciences. Some examples of such regularities are presented in the following sections. 1.1 The main regularities in the structure of the Earth’s surface. The main structural feature of the Earth is its division into two hemispheres with a lowered (the Pacific Ocean) and a raised (the continental hemisphere) surfaces. These main segments of the planet also differ significantly in the structure of the crust: in the ocean, the crust is thin (5-10 km) with high seismic velocity, in the continent it is thick (30-50 km) with low velocity upper part. It is not the accidental peculiarity of the Earth, the same structure is characteristic of the other planets (Fig. 1), for example, of the Moon and the Mars, where the hemispheres with the prevailing high and low relief are distinguished (Araki et al., 2009).

Fig. 1. Distribution of the continental areas along the latitude belts in the Earth (1), and of the plane areas in the Venus (2), the Mars (3), the Mercury (4) and the Moon (5). The figure shows that the planet surfaces are characterized by the division in two hemispheres with higher and lower relief.


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The edges of the continents around the Pacific Ocean form a proper arc (Wilson, 1954), along which a ring of the earthquake epicenters, the Benioff zones, are formed. The Pacific Ring intersects at right angles another global ring of the earthquake epicenters – the Mediterranean- Asian belt. So the planetary origin of these structures and their large depths can be suggested. The large depth of the Pacific Ring is proved by the gravity field based on the satellite data (Choi and Pavlenkova, 2009). Around the Pacific Ocean there are two circular anomalies: positive and negative ones. The origin of the positive anomaly can be explained by the topography influence, as it covers the mountain regions surrounding the ocean. It is impossible to explain the ring of the negative anomalies with the surface topography because it crosses the completely different regions: the central part of Eurasia, the Indian Ocean, the eastern parts of the North and South America. Such global anomaly can be caused by deep hetorogeneities of the planet. Dividing the Earth into two hemispheres is proved by data on the different ages, geological history and structure of the Pacific Ocean in comparison with the other oceans, that means the different origin of the Pacific and Indo-Atlantic segments of the Earth (Pushcharovskii, 1997). 1.2. Global lineaments, the system of mid-ocean ridges. The geophysical fields and the geological data trace many global lineaments that extend for thousands of kilometers and cross the tectonic domains of different ages, and often move from the continents into the oceans. For example, the Angola-Brazilian Geotraverse (Pogrebitsky, 1996) shows that the magnetic anomalies in the western part of Africa with the north-west strike are traced through the entire Angolan deep-water basin. Some of magnetic anomalies of the East Asia stretch to the marginal seas (Shalpo, 2002). Previously, such examples were presented by Beloussov (1979). The satellite data significantly increased the number of such lineaments and their lengths. Many of the global lineaments are traced in the structure of the upper mantle. They often coincide with the gradient zone between the geoid anomalies of the opposite sign. For example, the famous Trans-European suture zone or theTeisseyer-Tornquist line, separating the East European platform from young Western European plates (Pavlenkova, 1996), extends further into the Atlantic along the border of large positive geoid anomaly. As shown by the seismological data, this anomaly has a deep origin and is connected with the structure of the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle (Bott, 1971). Another global structural feature of the Earth is the system of mid-ocean ridges (Fig. 2). It is symmetrical about the South Pole, forming a ring around Antarctica and the series of the fracture zones drift from this ring along the meridians with about the same distance between them, 90° (Fig. 3a). Three of these zones are the mid-ocean ridges. The fourth zone runs along the meridian 155o from the western shelf of the Australian continent, through the Philippine Trough to the Sakhalin Island (Fig. 3). Currently, these areas are distinguished as areas of the active hydrogen degassing (Syvorotkin, 2002).


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Fig. 2. Present globe with sketch drawing of ‘mid’-oceanic ridges (Storetvedt, 1997). The figure shows that continents Antarctica and Africa are located in the center of the assumed spreading system without corresponding subduction zones. The oceanic ridges form a ring surrounding the Antarctica continent, with branches along meridians with approximately identical distance of 90о between them.

Fig. 3. Systems of the planetary rifts (a) and of the Antarctic rifts (b) which are the major channels of the Earth degassing (Syvorotkin, 2002). A prominent feature of the Antarctic rift ring is the absence of the corresponding subduction zones: all surrounding continents have passive margins (Fig. 2). That contradicts the plate-tectonic concept of the


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global geodynamics. If the rift ring was formed only by spreading of the oceanic crust as it follows from the plate-tectonics, the Antarctica would be the area of all-round compression. But the subduction zones were not formed around it, and also the continent contains more zones of expansion, than those of collision. All the noted structural regularities indicate the absence of large-scale chaotic movements of the lithosphere plates relative to each other. 1.3. The mantle roots of the continents, the Benioff zones. The continental “roots” as regions of high seismic velocities in the upper mantle were discovered at the first seismotomographic studies (Jordan, 1979; Dzewonski and Anderson, 1984; Gossler and Kind, 1996). They showed a fundamental difference in the structure of the continental and oceanic upper mantle: the continental anomalies of the higher seismic velocities extend to depths of 300-400 km. So they cover almost the entire upper mantle (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Seismotomography section of the upper mantle across the continents and oceans (Dziewonski and Anderson, 1994). Dots show the lower velocities, and the hatched zones are the higher velocity zones. The latter are observed beneath the continents and are interpreted as the continental “roots”. It is also well-known fact that the composition of the mantle of the continents and oceans is different. The upper mantle under the oceans is depleted. That is why, there are objections to the large displacements of the continental lithospheric plates, because it is impossible to detach them from their mantle roots (Beloussov, 1990; Pavlenkova, 1995). Another important feature of the upper mantle structure undoubtedly plays an important role in the global geodynamics. It is the higher seismic velocity zones often cutting the whole mantle (Bijwanrd et al., 1998). These anomalies bound the sides of the continents, they are also traced at the borders of large geostructures or regions with different endogenous regimes (Fig. 5). They are the most expressive on the active continental margins, where they can be traced from the Benioff zones to a depth of more than 2000 km. The large depth of these anomalies can not be explained by the subducted slabs proposed by the plate tectonics.


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Fig. 5. Tomographic models of the mantle along the lines shown in the upper figures (Bijwaard et al., 1998). The deep higher velocity zones are disconnected and wavy; they penetrate through the transition zone and sometimes through the lower mantle. These data conflict with the plate tectonic interpretation of the zones as the subduction of the lithosphere plates. It is more realistic to interpret the zones as the channels of the fluid flows from the core. The anomalous high velocities may be the result of higher stresses, of velocity anisotropy, or of the core matter fractions. The lines: (a) Mexico – Atlantic Ocean, (b) Russia – Kamchatka, (c) Aegean Sea – Black Sea, (d) China –Japan, (e) Bangladesh – Burma, (f) Pakistan - Tadzhikistan


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1.4. Stratification of the upper mantle. At the description of the tectonic processes the basic model of the upper mantle is still the lithosphere-asthenosphere model (Pollack and Chapman, 1977; Artemieva and Mooney, 2002). However, the deep seismic studies, made in Russia with the peaceful nuclear explosions, don’t confirm this model for the large platform area of the Northern Eurasia (Egorkin, 1999; Fuchs, 1997; Pavlenkova and Pavlenkova, 2006). These works have studied the whole upper mantle and transition zone to the lower mantle to a depth of 700 km, and showed that the asthenosphere, as a layer of partial melting, i.e. a layer with lower seismic velocities, does not exist (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Seismic section of the upper mantle along “Quartz” and “Kimberlite” profiles made with the peace nuclear explosions (in the inset the long-range profile scheme is given). The profile crosses the East-European old platform, the Urals, the West Siberian young platform and the Siberian Craton. Legend: 1 – iso-velocity (km/s) line; 2 - seismic boundary sites from which the high amplitude reflections have been obtained; 3 – low velocity layer; 4 – high velocity blocks; 5 – high reflectivity zone. The thermal asthenosphere is proposed at the depths of 250-300 km beneath the Siberian Craton and at the depths of 120 km beneath the West-Siberian Platform (Artemieva and Mooney, 2002). The seismic studies have not discovered any low velocity zone at these depths. All boundaries are thick reflective zones which are proposed to be weak layers with higher fluid concentration. In the regions of tectonic activation and high heat flow, the asthenosphere is observed in the form of disconnected lenses (asthenolites or asthenolenses). Even in oceans beneath the mid-oceanic ridges only asthenospheric lenses are revealed. In Fig. 7 the seismic cross-section along the Angola-Brazil geotraverse is presented. In the deep water Angola and Brazil oceanic basins the low velocity layers are determined at the depth of 80 km. This corresponds to the thermal and geoelectrical asthenosphere which can be explained by a certain concentration of fluids. In the mid-oceanic area an uplift of the asthenosphere was proposed on basis of gravity data. Instead of this, several local low velocity layers (asthenolenses) are observed and they are divided by the anomalous high mantle velocity (Pavlenkova et al., 1993). Within the continental lithosphere some separate velocity inversion zones (waveguides) are also observed (Fig. 6). The nature of these layers can not be explained traditionally, as an area of partial melting of the dry mantle. They can be the high fluid content zone where the partlial melting is possible at the relative low temperature (Pavlenkova, 1988). This assumption is confirmed by the xenolith data (Solov’eva et al., 1989). The absence of the asthenosphere as a continuous sphere also makes impossible the large movements of the lithosphere plates around the world.


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1.5. The subcontinental crust in the oceans The geological and seismic data show that large areas of the oceans are covered by the transitional types of the crust, such as 15-30 km thick subcontinental crust with thin “granite” layer and 10-20 km thick suboceanic crust without this layer (Beloussov, and Pavlenkova, 1984). The subcontinental crust is discovered beneath submarine plateau and aseismic ridges, and drilling confirms that their upper parts really consist of continental rocks. For example, the subcontinental type is found beneath the Faeroe-Iceland Ridge (Bott et al., 1974; Makris et al., 1995), in the Rockoll region (Shannon et al., 1994), in the Indian Ocean (Udintsev and Korenieva, 1982), beneath the Mendeleev Rise near the centre of the Arctic Ocean (Zamanskii et.al., 2003), in the western part of the Pacific (Choi and Vasiliev, 2008) and in all other oceans (Fig. 8; Mooney, 2007). Even the Iceland, crossed by the mid-oceanic rift has the subcontinental type of the crust (Pavlenkova and Zverev, 1981; Richardson et al., 1998). Ancient continental rocks were found in many regions of the oceans, even near the mid-oceanic ridges (Keith, 1993; Udintsev, 1996; Pratt, 2000; Pogrebitsky and Truchalev, 2002).

Fig. 7. Seismic cross-section along the Angola-Brazil geotraverse (Pavlenkova et al., 1993). Δg –gravitational anomalies, HF – heat flow. In the cross-section the digits stand for velocities (km/s), the shadows mark the low velocity layers; the thick lines show the seismic boundaries. The data show that beneath the Mid-Atlantic ridge in the upper mantle there are several low velocity layers (asthenoliths) separated by the anomalous high velocities. The “thermal” asthenosphere is outlined at depths of 60-80 km.


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Fig. 8. Map showing the major oceanic plateaux and other large igneous provinces with crustal thicknesses up to 30 km (Mooney, 2007). Boreholes drilled in the Atlantic, in the Indian and in the Pacific oceans, suggest that the areas of the subcontinental crust were much larger before Miocene. In the past the continental crust covered large areas of the present-day oceans (Dickins et al., 1992; Pratt, 2000). The deep drilling in oceans has also shown the extensive distribution of shallow-water sediments at the bottom of the sedimentary cover (Rudich, 1990). That means that a large area of present-day oceans had the continental or subcontinental crust before their rapid subsidence. These data contradict with the idea that the thick crust in the oceans is formed by the process of underplating (Fountain, 1989). All these data also run counter to the main plate tectonics statement that the oceans were formed by the spreading. 1.6. Drift of the palaeomagnetic poles According to the palaeomagnetic data during the whole geological time a change of paleomagnetic poles is observed. According to the plate tectonics concept this movement is apparent, in fact, the separate lithosphere plates are moving relative to the magnetic dipole. For such interpretation the continents often have to be broken up into small terranes and to move them over the large distances relative to each other. As a result different solutions by different authors appear, and each time the question of the palaeomagnetic data and their interpretation credibility arises. But in the chaos of the magnetic pole movements, all the authors still distinguish the common component for all the continents – the pole displacement from the southern hemisphere to the north. Moreover, this main component of the global displacement of the magnetic poles is defined almost equally by the plate tectonics reconstruction (Khramov, 1983) and by their opponents. So Storetvedt (1997) showed that the palaeomagnetic data really reveals a large movement of the magnetic poles from the southern to the northern hemispheres during Carbon-Triassic periods without the large movements of the continents relative each other (Fig. 9b). But to get agreement between the palaeomagnetic poles locations for different continents, Storetvedt proposes the wrenching of the continents (Fig. 9a).


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Fig. 9. (a) Mesozoic-Tertiary palaeomagnetic polar path for Africa and Europe. The symmetrically arranged and oppositely trending polar curves suggest the relative continental rotation. (b) The Master Curve for Global Polar Wander (solid curve) since the Middle Paleozoic estimated from palaeomagnetic data (Storetvedt, 1997). UT: Upper Tertiary, LT: Lower Tertiary, P –Upper Carboniferous-Permian, LC: Lower Carboniferous The list of the structural and geodynamic patterns that still have no sufficient explanation, can be extended. The main task of the following geodynamic conception is to combine all known details about the structure of Earth’s upper spheres into a single system of their formation with common energy sources. 2. Fluids-rotation concept of global geodynamics In the fluids-rotation conception the major sources of the global energy for the tectogenesis are the Earth’ degassing (fluid advection) and the Earth’s rotation. It has already been shown in many examples that both types of energy have played important roles in a variety of geodynamic processes. 2.1 Earth’s degassing and fluid advection. There are two main sources of fluid advection: near-surface and deep sources. The near-surface sources are formed in the Earth's crust due to the circulation of the surface waters and to various physical and chemical transformations of the matter, followed by separation of the water and other fluids. These sources and the relevant processes have been fully described by Storetvedt (2003), Dmitrievsky and Valjaev (2002), and Leonov et al. (2006) and there is no need to discuss them in this paper. The deep source of fluids is the Earth's core and its planetary degassing. Such degassing is considered globally in (Larin, 1995; Syvorotkin, 2002; Gilat and Vol, 2005). The fundamental point of this concept is a proposition about the high content of hydrogen and helium in the Earth's core. Larin (1995) assumes the hydride composition not only for the core, but for the lower parts of the mantle as well. In the most general form the degassing of the Earth was described by Gilat and Vol (2005) as follows: “The tectonic energy release is always accompanied by H- and He-degassing. Solid solutions of H and He, and compounds of He with H, 0, Si and metals were discovered in laboratory experiments of ultra-high PT-conditions; He-S, He-Cl, He-C and He-N structures can be deduced from their atomic structure and compositions of natural He-reach gases. Ultra-high PT-conditions exist in the Earth’s interior; hence it seems most likely that some “exotic” compounds are present in the Earth’s core and mantle. During Earth’s accretion, primordial hydrogen and helium were trapped and stored in the planet interior as H- and He- solutions and compounds, stable only under ultrahigh PT-conditions that were discovered in recent experiments. These are described step by step (for each PT-conditions): H- and He-trickling from the solid; convecting in the liquid core; flux-melting the solid mantle and generating gas-liquid scavenging plums. H- and He-release from core solutions and incorporating in H-He and other chemical compounds and follow-


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ing gradual decomposition due to decompression are accompanied by intense energy release”. None of the other source of the Earth internal energy (the convection, the advection of deep matter and others) can be compared with the fluid advection in the volume of the transmitted energy and its relatively small losses during the transportation over long distances. No other energy sources can provide such fast processes as the formation of the asthenoliths and plumes, the strong activation of the tectonic processes in local regions, during a relatively short period of time. It is almost unlimited energy, which has a high concentration and very high velocity of allotment. Only this type of energy is capable of the immediate focusing, e.g. earthquakes and volcanic eruption (Dmitrievsky and Valjaev, 2002). 2.2. The Earth rotation as a source of tectonic processes. The rotation factors connected with the uneven rotation of the Earth are discussed by many scientists. The effect of these factors on the different tectonic processes is shown in numerous examples. But the question always arises, how large the emerging pressure is and whether they can play a significant role in global tectonic movements. The answers to this question can be found in recent studies by Avsyuk (Avsyuk and Afanasieva, 1997) and Barkin (2002). Avsyuk considers that the orogeny sources are connected with the peculiarities of the Earth's rotation in the Earth-Moon-Sun system. It is shown that the astronomical observations record the change of the orbital motion of the Moon and the corresponding change in the Earth's rotation. The rotation axis slowly changes its position in the body of the Earth (Fig.10), which means changing the position of the geographic poles and the rotation equator. It is oscillation process with the ten degrees total deviation of the geographic pole. The regular changes in the orbital and rotational motions lead to an imbalance between the new plane of the rotation and the plane that was formed earlier. This should cause a transformation in the outer shells of the Earth. The role of these movements is proved by a precise correlation between the major tectonic events and the cycles of the Earth’s rotation (Avsyuk et al., 2007). This explains the overall cyclic development throughout the geological history described in numerous papers (Wezel, 1992; Milanovskiy, 2007). It was found that the most important tectonic events occurred at the boundaries of the Vendian-Cambrian, Devonian - Carboniferous and Jurassic-Cretaceous with the interval of 220 Ma (Dmitrievsky, Valjaev, 2002). There is another interval – 1 Ma (U.S. Geological Survey, periodicity). These intervals are associated with the main stages of the kimberlite magmatism, high-pressure metamorphism, formation of the explosive ring structures, the fluctuations in sea level and peaks of the granitoid magmatism. Thus, the geographical pole wonder plays an important role in many geological processes, but it is too small to explain the large-scale paleomagnetic pole mobility (Fig. 9). Such large changes in the position of the Earth’s rotation axis are not confirmed by the astronomical data (Avsyuk, 1997): the geographical pole wander does not exceed 10 degrees. Munk and MacDonald (1975) also conjectured that the Earth had sufficient strength to resist large-scale polar wander.


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Fig.10. The astronomical observations detect slowly changing rotation axis position in the Earth with the total deviation of the geographic pole near ten degrees. The regular changes in the orbital and rotational motions lead to an imbalance between the new plane of the rotation and the plane formed earlier (Avsyuk and Afanasieva, 1997) 2.3 Fluid-rotation model of the global tectonosphere evolution. The main statements of the fluid-rotation model of the tectonosphere evolution are the following. * An important feature of the Earth, which distinguishes it from other planets, is the high content of fluids. Degassing of the Earth has led not only to the formation of the atmosphere and hydrosphere, the deep fluids strongly influenced the formation of the thick continental crust. So, according to (Lutz, 1980) the continental crust was formed from the mantle matter saturated with fluids, that is in the field of the intensive fluid flows. The most intense fluxes of the mantle material which were saturated by the fluids and which generated the greatest volume of continental crust, are related to the Proterozoic (Lutz, 1994). During this period the area of the increased fluid flows was the Southern hemisphere, because according to the paleomagnetic data all the continents were located at that time in that hemisphere. Supposedly such irregular degassing of the Earth is caused with the bipolar convection at its core. In the areas of the modern oceans, where the fluid flows were weak, only some separate spots of the intermediate type crust appeared. This type of the crust was distinguished in all oceans (Fig. 8) and it was difficult to explain their origin by the plate tectonics conception (Bott at al, 1974; Udintsev, 1996; Pratt, 2000; Pogrebitsky and Truchalev, 2002; Choi, 2007; Choi and Vasiliev, 2008). * Further development of the continental crust is caused by two main processes: by growth of its thickness and its granitization. The granitization also takes place in the conditions of the increased flows of deep fluids, which bring the additional energy for this transformation. The granitization increases the resistance of the continental rocks to the geochemical impacts and protects the continental crust from the destruction. When the thickness of the crust reaches certain level (for the platform areas - 40-50 km), at its bottom a plastic and poor permeability layer is formed (Nikolaevsky, 1985). This layer keeps the crust from breaking down by the mantle melting. The fluid flows are very important for the formation of the thick continental roots as well. Thus, Letnikov (2000 and 2006) showed that the long process of the removal of the silica, alkalis, fluids and incompatible elements in the crust should lead to the depletion of mantle rocks and their crystallization. The longer this process continues - the thicker the crust and the mantle roots become. Further gradual cooling makes the upper mantle more stable, promoting the formation lithosphere that is less permeable then that in the oceanic areas. The growth of the less permeable continental tectonosphere resulted in the fluids concentration on the edges of continents, where the most active orogenic belts were formed. These areas are marked by positive


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anomalies of the seismic velocities, shown in Figure 5. According to Letnikov (personal communication) the increased velocities in this case can be explained by the core matter leaching with the fluids. Thus, at the end of the Proterozoic the large upper mantle inhomogeneity (continental roots) were formed in the Southern hemisphere. * During the Paleozoic, there was a change in the position of paleomagnetic poles (Fig. 9). According to the fluid-rotation model (Pavlenkova, 1995 and 2005), this wasn’t a result of the continent movements or the geographical pole wander, but of the upper mantle rotation relative to the lower one or, more likely, of the whole mantle rotation relative to the liquid core (Fig. 11). Only such movements were able not to violate the established regularities of the tectonosphere structure.

Fig. 11. The formation of the large inhomogeneity in the form of the thick continental roots in the Southern hemisphere can lead to the turning of the whole mantle around the liquid core and moving the Earth’s mass center. This mantle rotation can explain the palaeomagnetic data (Fig. 9b). But are such movements possible and what forces are able to move the mantle relative to the core? There are little experimental data on these movements. They are only the data on the distribution of deep earthquakes on the top of the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle. On this boundary there are the corresponding displacement of the earthquake zones and changing of their inclination angles (Benioff, 1954). The theoretical data on the subject are ambiguous. Some researchers believe that the tidal forces can not cause such large-scale displacement. However, Barkin (2002 and 2009) proposes another source of the global geodynamics. He shows that the Earth's sphere heterogeneity shifts the mass centers of the spheres relative to each other and therefore a significant dynamic compression appears between the spheres (Fig. 11). The Moon gravitational influence initiates the different acceleration to the Earth’s spheres and as a result the additional areas of the large tension appear between them. These stresses are three orders of magnitude higher than the tidal stresses and can lead to planetary processes, for which the cyclicity, polarity and the inversion asymmetry are typical. In particular, it leads to the mentioned asymmetry of the Earth's surface. The large inhomogeneity of the Southern hemisphere in the form of the thick continental roots, can lead to turning the whole mantle around the liquid core or the upper mantle relative to the lower one. Such mantle rotation explains the palaeomagnetic data and it does not contradict with the mentioned above global regularities in the structure of the Earth’s upper spheres.


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The rotation of the mantle around the core took place unevenly, thus it increased or decreased in accordance with the cyclic change of Earth's rotation axis. The changes in this rotation velocity resulted in the cyclic tectonic processes and their activation during certain periods of the geological history. Due to the block structure of the tectonosphere and to the irregular degassing of the Earth, the described movement of the mantle is accompanied by the complex tectonic processes which are described in detail in the geological literature. *Moving of the mantle with thick continental roots from the Southern hemisphere to the north led to a new displacement of the mass centers of the Earth’s spheres and to the deficit of the mass in the Southern hemisphere. This mass deficit results in the inner core moving to the south (Barkin, 2002) and this led to the next important phase of the global tectonics: to the expansion of this hemisphere and to the formation of mid-ocean ridge system symmetric about the South Pole (Figs. 2 and 3). This process is consistent with the geological data, that the mid-ocean ridges started to develop from the south (Pogrebitsky and Truchalev, 2002). The expansion of the Southern hemisphere was accompanied by melting the huge amount of the basic material from the mantle, and the platobasalts cover the continents and oceans. The platobasalts marked the formation of the modern oceanic crust in the deep ocean basins, as well as the destruction of the primary and subcontinental crusts. A partial destruction of the continental crust due to the erosion of its bottom by the eclogitization and magmatic replacement, is supposed to be also on the continental margins and at the formation of deep basins. The final stage of the global basaltic magmatism and the formation of the thin oceanic crust were the rapid dip of the seabed and the formation of the deep ocean basins (Rudich, 1990; Frolova et al., 1992). The Southern hemisphere expansion continues to nowadays and now it is expanded relative to the northern hemisphere (Fig. 12; Barkin, 2002).

Fig. 12. (a) According to the astronomical data the Earth has the pear form (the black line): the southern hemisphere is larger than the northern one, (b) the velocity of secular variations of the latitudinal circle lengths in mm/year (Barkin, 2009). +10, -10, -20, -30 in meters. These are the main stages and the basic mechanisms of the tectonosphere formation and development according to the fluids-rotation model. An important advantage of this interpretation is the ability to explain many of the structural features of the Earth and its geological history on the basis of common


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energy sources. Every stage and every restructuring follows directly from the previous stages. The formation of the thick continental roots in the Southern hemisphere has led to the mantle rotation above the core and corresponding displacement the continents to the north. In turn, this shift has caused the expansion of the Southern hemisphere and the formation of the global mid-oceanic rift system. The described global tectonics conception is based on the previous studies in the geosciences and it includes many fragments of other geodynamic concepts. 3. Comparison of the fluids-rotation conception with other concepts of global geodynamics. Generally, the fluid-rotation concept was developed as an alternative to the plate tectonics. Its main task was to remove the contradictions between the plate tectonics and the data on the tectonosphere structure. And what about the other conceptions: the endogenous regimes by Beloussov (1990), the Earth expansion (Scalera and Jacob, 2003), the wrench tectonics by Storetvedt (1997 and 2003) and the plume tectonics, they do not contradict to each other although have some differences in the explanation of size and origin of some tectonic processes. Together with the fluids-rotation interpretation all these studies can be united in one conception of the global geodynamics. This problem is represented in the following examples. 3.1 The plate tectonics concept Although the fluids-rotation conception is an alternative to the plate tectonics doctrine, it does not deny that the tectonosphere is divided into the crustal and lithospheric plates (or blocks) and the tectonic processes are most clearly represented at the boundaries of these plates. The mantle rotation above the core should lead to the complex interactions between the plates, to the formation of the orogenic and collision zones. However, the fluids-rotation concept significantly limits the extent of this interaction and in some cases changes their origin. As mentioned above, the global structural features of the Earth are the division into two hemispheres and the presence of the long lineaments that extend from the continents to the oceans. These features go against chaotic movements of the lithosphere plates across the Earth's surface. These chaotic movements are presented by the paleomagnetic data interpretations. But Storetvedt (1997) showed that these data can be explained without large movements of the continental plates relative to each other. And the fluid-rotation concept follows this conclusion. Another important contradiction of the plate tectonics with the tectonosphere structure is the presence of deep "roots" of the continents. As it is shown before, these roots were identified in the recent seismic surveys as the positive velocity anomalies, covering almost the entire upper mantle to a depth of 400 km (Fig. 4). The correlation is observed between the tectonic domains and the deep mantle structures (Bott, 1971; Spakman et al., 1993; Pavlenkova, 1996). Large horizontal movements of the lithospheric plates, whose thickness varies from 100 to 250 km, are not consistent with the existence of these roots. It was the major objection of Beloussov (1971) against the plate-tectonics: he emphasized the relationship of the surface structures with deep ones and the inability to disrupt these relations. If the continental plates moved, they had to move together with their roots. The rotation-fluids concept investigates the movement of the continents, but all together by the common rotation with the whole mantle around the core. It does not break the observed correlation between near-surface structures and their deep roots, does not brick the regularities in the structure of continents and oceans and preserves the global lineaments. But the fluids-rotation conception does not deny the local horizontal movement of crustal and lithospheric plates, if they do not violate the global regularities. As in plate tectonics, in the fluids-rotation model, the spreading of the oceanic lithosphere plays an important role in the formation of mid-ocean ridges. But this model limits the scale of this process. The Pacific Ocean and the deep oceanic basins in the Indian and Atlantic oceans were not formed by this process, they are more ancient and were formed in areas of lower flows of deep fluids. As a result, only some fragments of the ancient subcontinental crust were formed in these areas and these fragments are found now in the oceans and in the spreading zones too (Pratt, 2000; Pogrebitsky and Truchalev, 2002;


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Choi and Vasiliev, 2008). These finds are difficult to explain by the classical plate tectonics, proposing that oceanic crust was formed over the entire area of the oceans as a result of spreading. According to the fluids-rotation model, the mid-ocean ridges were formed by the southern hemisphere expansion. That eliminates another problem of the plate tectonics - the lack of the subduction zones beneath all oceanic shelves except those of the Pacific margins (Fig. 2). According to the plate tectonics the oceanic lithosphere slabs sink into the mantle over hundreds of kilometers. This interpretation is based on the assumption that the subduction zones coincide with the Benioff zones and with zones of the higher seismic velocities observed beneath the Pacific continental margins (Fig. 5). This interpretation has always been doubtful. It is difficult to explain them by the oceanic lithosphere slabs taking into account the shape of these anomalous zones and the absolute values of the seismic velocities (8.5 km/s in the uppermost mantle. Even assuming that the lithosphere slab keeps the lower temperature at greater depths, it can not differ so from the seismic velocities of the surrounding rocks. For the oceanic crust the velocity of 8.5 km/s is too high even after eclogitization (eclogites have high density but with normal seismic velocity - 8.0-8.2 km/s). The fluids-rotation concept considers the Benioff zones as deep fracture zones, forming the Pacific Ring. The inclined anomalies of the high seismic velocities in this zone characterize them as a region of high stress and of the corresponding laminated matter. As the laboratory experiments show (Letnikov, 2006), such matter is highly permeable to the fluids and therefore it can form channels for the powerful fluid flows. Judging by the depth of these channels, reaching the bottom of the mantle (Fig. 5), the source of the deep fluids is the liquid core. The interpretation of the Benioff zones as the high pressure fracture (disrupted) zone can explain the high seismicity at the great depths (200 km and more), and the observed mechanism of the deep earthquakes. They are often of an explosive character (Balakina, 2002). The compressed fluids can be the cause of such explosions at the transition to a lower pressure and temperature area, as the gases, in contrast to the liquid, compress to high densities at the high pressure. Their rise to the upper spheres and their phase transition may be accompanied by explosions. This is also confirmed by the laboratory experiments (Karpov et al., 1998): the heavy hydrocarbons detonate at the pressure and temperature, which correspond to the PT conditions at a depth of about 70 km. Gufeld et al. (1998) showed that the rock physical-chemical transformation can play a large role in the seismogenic zone formation, which is accompanied at the certain depths by a change in the matter volume and by release of large amounts of energy. The fluid flow can also explain other features of the Benioff zone, for example, the high heat flux of particular magmatism, the abundance of gas and pyroclastic material, the abundant acidic volcanism (Lutz, 1994; Gordienko, 2007). 3.2 The endogenous regime concept There is no reason to argue that several endogenous regimes, proposed by Beloussov (1990): platform and geosynclinal regimes, tectono-magmatic activation and rift regimes, the oceanization (basification) continental crust, etc., are observed in reality. The main source for them is the thermal energy emitted by the mantle matter advection, and enhanced by the fluid advection. The process of the deep material lifting is described in detail by the advection-polymorphic concept (Gordienko, 2007). Depending on the permeability of the lithosphere, on the amount of allocated energy and substance of the rising matter, various endogenous regimes are developed and they form the different tectonic domains. In the plate tectonics the only process is usually considered for the formation of different types of orogeny. Under this scheme, at the first stage after the destruction and spreading of the continental crust, an ocean is formed (a basin with the oceanic crust and ophiolites), which characterized by the basaltic magmatism (tholeiitic magmatism associated with the ancient mid-oceanic ridges and the calc-alkaline magmatism as a sign of the island arcs). Then the sedimentation stage and the closure of this ocean take place with subduction of the oceanic crust into the mantle, and deformation of the sedimentary cover down to the orogeny. Such a scenario was designed to replace the geosyncline regime. Its main difference is the


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formation not of the local syncline, but of the ocean at the first stage, and at the final stage the formation of the large subduction slab. This interpretation was based on the assumption that the ophiolites and specific magmatism, observed in many orogenic domains, are particular for the oceans and island arcs. However Lutz (1994) showed that the ophiolites and continental basaltic magmatism differ from the oceanic ones, and only local blocks of the oceanic crust are necessary for the formation of the ophiolites. These blocks are common within the continental rifts. The oceans are fundamentally different from the continental rift zones. They are characterized not only by the specific crust, but also by the different mantle. The ocean formation inside the continents would destroy all the observed and the mentioned patterns of the global universe and that is why it is doubtful. If in the plate-tectonic scheme of orogeny the "oceans” are replaced by the wide rift zones, such scenario does not contradict the Beloussov’s concept and may be considered as an additional specific endogenous regime. Several other regimes that took place in the oceans should be also considered. One of them is the oceanic crust spreading in mid-oceanic ridges, an analog to the continental rifting. Another regime is typical for the deep ocean basins such as the Brazilian and Angola basins, within which there is no stripe of magnetic anomalies or abrupt changes in the bottom topography. It is similar to the platform regime with rather smooth immersion of the thin oceanic crust. The origin of this crust was not studied a lot. Within the Angola Basin the magnetic and gravitational anomalies have the same direction to the anomalies of the African continent (Pogrebitsky, 1996), which suggests the large age of its oceanic crust. And there are known extensive fields of the plateau basalts, which have also played an important role in the modern crust formation. Another important regime is the regime of the continental crust basification which is typical for the continental margins. This process is now well-studied by the seismological and petrological methods (Perchuk, 1987; Frolova et al, 1992; Orlenok, 2004). Apparently, it is decisive in the formation of the crustal transition type in the Arctic. The basification is also proposed on the continents at the formation of deep sedimentary basins and the inner seas. In the East-European Craton and its arctic shelves several deep basins have suboceanic crust (Morosova et al., 1995; Pavlenkova, 1996; Roslov et al., 2009). The basin depths are 15-20 km, the consolidated crust is 10-15 km thick and has high seismic velocities, 6.8-7.0 km/s. They have the oval forms and have no evidence for the large extension. The same crustal structure is typical for the Black Sea and South Caspian Basin (Pavlenkova, 1995). Such basin formation can be explained by the basification of the crust (Artushkov et al, 1980). The thin crust of the West Europe also may by explained by the similar transformation of its lower part (Hynes and Snider, 1995). 3.3 The expanding Earth concepts There are different concepts of the Earth’s expansion. They are based on the astronomical and geological data (Scalera and Jacob, 2003). However, up to now the rate and the origin of the expansion are not clear. The possible expansion rate is often determined from the size of the oceans because many concepts explain the formation of the oceans by the rupture and spreading of the oceanic lithosphere due to the Earth’s expansion. But now there is not enough reasons that such large expansion is possible during the short period of time (from the late Paleozoic) and that the oceans with different tectonosphere have the same origin. The expansion sources are not clarified too. The most evident differences are observed between the Pacific and the other oceans. The Pacific mid-oceanic ridge is located not in the central part of the ocean but at its margin. The edges of the continents form a proper arc around the Pacific Ocean (Bostock, 1997), along which a ring of the earthquake epicenters, the Benioff zones, is formed. The Pacific Ring intersects at the right angles another global ring of the earthquake epicenters – the Mediterranean-Asian belt. The Benioff zones around the Pacific are the higher seismic velocity zones cutting the whole mantle (Fig. 5) All these structural features make doubtful the explanation of the Pacific Ocean origin by the Earth’s


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expansion. According to the fluids-rotation model, the Pacific Ocean is an original global element of the Earth which testifies the planets division into two hemispheres with the lower and higher relieves. Only the rings of the deep destruction zones, that surround the ocean, may be considered as a result of the expansion. The Earth’s expansion, however, plays an important role in the formation of all other oceans where the regular system of mid-ocean ridges is observed. The important peculiarity of this system is its symmetry about the South Pole (Figs. 2 and 3) which shows that from the late Paleozoic time mostly the southern hemisphere was expanding. It is confirmed by the astronomical data (Fig. 12), and now the southern hemisphere is somewhat expanded relative to the northern hemisphere (Barkin, 2002). If only the mid-oceanic ridges appear as a result of the expansion, the radial Earth’s expansion would be much less than it is determined now (twice) from the all oceans size. Maslov (2003) also limits the possible change of the Earth’s radius to 25% using the magnitudes of the gravity force at the Earth’s surface and the length of the day during geological time. Several Earth’s expansion sources are considered (Scalera and Jacob, 2003). Among them the transformation of the Earth’s inner structure and the formation of the core and outer spheres play an important role. For instance, the Earth’s radius increased after the core formation and it may be supposed that the global rings of the earthquake epicenters – the Pacific and Mediterranean-Asian belts – were formed at that time. The Earth’s degassing is also an important source of the Earth’s expansion because the deep fluids change the mantle matter significantly and form the thick continental tectonosphere (Lutz, 1980 and 1994; Letnikov, 2000). 3.4 The global wrench tectonics concept The global wrench tectonics conception was developed by Storetvedt (1997 and 2003) as an alternative of the plate tectonics. In his books he presents a lot of the geological and geophysical data which ruin the main statements of the plate tectonics and gives new interpretation of these data for many tectonic regions and in the global aspect as well. The most important point of Storetvedt’s concept is the new interpretation of the paleomagnetic data. He showed that judging by these data the large movement of the magnetic poles from the south hemisphere to the north during the Carbon-Triassic periods are revealed without large movements of the continents relative to each other. However, to get the same palaeomagnetic poles locations for different continents, it is necessary to ‘wrench’ the continents (Fig. 9a). The fluid-rotation concept has some differences with the wrench tectonics. The latter explains the magnetic pole drift by the geographical pole wander, the fluid-rotation model by the mantle turning above the core. Another difference is explanation of the oceans origin. Storetvedt supposes that “the present oceanic crust was formerly thick-crusted continental regions – having subsequently (notably during the Cretaceous-early Tertiary) been thinned by sub-crustal eclogitization”. Such transformations are really typical for the crust at the continental margins and for the deep sedimentary basin formation (Perchuk, 1987; Frolova et al., 1992). Apparently, it is a decisive factor in the formation of the crustal transitional type in the Arctic. The thin crust of the West Europe also may be explained by the basification of its lower part (Hynes and Snider, 1995). But it is problematic if the eclogitization and basification can completely destroy the thick (15-25 km) granite-gneiss part of the continental crust and the thick (300-400 km) continental roots in such large areas. A large amount of the silici-acid and alkali should be formed at such continental crust destruction (Lutz, 1994). The fluid-rotation concept proposes that some areas of the oceans (mainly in the Pacific Ocean) were the areas of the lower fluids flows where the thick continental tectonosphere was not formed. The fluid-rotation model also differs by the proposal of the South hemisphere expansion, which results in the mid-oceanic ridges formation. 3.5 Degassing of the Earth, the plume tectonics Most of the endogenic regimes describe an evidence of the enormous role of advection of deep matter as the main source of global and local tectonics. The fluid advection significantly accelerates and activates these processes. It plays the major role at the plume tectonics, which is analogue of the tectono-magmatic activation regime by Beloussov (1990). Plumes are the local emissions of deep fluids in the upper mantle,


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they are the sources of the active tectonic transformation of the continental and oceanic lithosphere and the signs of nonuniformity (often pulsed) degassing of the Earth. We can assume that throughout the geological history the main cause of large-scale tectonic changes was the emissions of large portions of the fluids (superplumes) from the core. This hypothesis is also proved by the association of the tectonic and magmatic activity periods with the environmental disasters. So, the biggest catastrophe, when the every living thing died out due to the rapid change of the atmospheric gases composition, occurred simultaneously with the areal eruption of the Siberian flood basalts (Pronin and Bashorin, 2002). It suggests a close relation of tectonic processes with abrupt changes in the nature of the Earth’s degassing. The measurements of the hydrogen and helium fluxes show, that the Earth’s degassing continues in the present time and it is the most active in the southern hemisphere, causing of the large ozone hole over the Antarctica (Syvorotkin, 2002). The structural layering of the tectonosphere can also be explained by the fluid advection. As mentioned above, the detailed study on the long seismic profiles with the peace nuclear explosions (Pavlenkova G.A. and N.I., 2006) found the low velocity layers and the regional reflecting boundaries in the continental lithosphere of the ancient platforms (Fig. 6). The boundaries are represented by the zones with alternating high and low velocities and with high electrical conductivity (Hyndman and Shearer, 1989; Jones, 1992; Kovtun et al., 1994; Ionov et al., 2002). The study of the Siberian kimberlites (Solov’eva et al., 1989) showed that these complex seismic boundaries are associated with signs of a film melting. The decrease in seismic velocities and the signs of melting in the cold craton lithosphere can not be explained only by temperature, but by the high content of fluids in these layers. The process of these layers formation can be represented as follows. Due to a significant mobility of fluids, they quickly rise up without losing much energy. At some PT levels where the Q-factor and the permeability of the matter change, the fluids are delayed, forming layers of high fluids concentration. The fluids change the physical properties of the matter (Spencer and Nur, 1979; Kern, 1982, 1993), and initiate its petrophysical transformations (Fyfe, 1985; Menzies and Chazot, 1995; Walter, 1998).The fluids lead to partial melting of the matter at relatively low temperature, and to the formation of the low velocity and high conductivity layers. Thus, as a result of the fluids advection and their concentration at some levels, the rheological weak layers can be formed in the lithosphere. The material can flow along the weak zones and this can cause the horizontal and vertical movements of the upper layers. Both kinds of the movements are evident at any tectonic events. The permanent vertical movements of the large areas such as the rise of the Southern Africa (Bell et al., 2003), and dipping of the Arctic basin are now evident. Together with the horizontal and vertical movements the rotation of the continents and of the individual tectonic domains plays an important role in the geological history. According to Balakina (2002) in the area of the Kamchatka the earthquake mechanism in the Benioff zone is not consistent with the model of subducting lithospheric slab, it is rather a result of the horizontal movements of the oceanic lithosphere relative to the continent. This confirms the wrench concept by Storetvedt (1997). In the Russian geological literature much attention is also paid to this kind of movements, forming the "vortex" or ring structures (Milanovsky, 2007). Part of them may be associated with vortex of the deep fluids. Conclusions The described fluids-rotation concept of global geodynamics, based on a synthesis of current research in various fields of earth sciences (geophysics, geology and geochemistry) develop several previous concepts of the global orogeny and remove their internal contradictions. The title of the proposed concept emphasizes an important role in global geodynamics of the two main energy sources: the external ones, caused by the Earth's and its spheres rotation, and the internal source, caused by the Earth’s degassing with the heat and fluids advection. According to the fluid-rotation model three main stages are determined during the tectonosphere development. In the first stage (in the Archean and Proterozoic eras) in the areas of increased deep fluids flows, the large blocks of the continental tectonosphere were formed as a result of non-uniform Earth’s degassing. In the Archean and Proterozoic such largest areas were located in the southern hemisphere. The formation of the thick continental roots led


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to an imbalance of separate spheres of the Earth. As a result, in the Paleozoic the second phase began: the rotation of the mantle around the core and the movement of the continental hemisphere to the north. This displacement created a new imbalance of Earth’s sphere mass centers, which led to the third stage of the tectonosphere development - to the expansion of the southern hemisphere and to the formation of the mid-ocean ridge system symmetrical about the south pole. The main advantage of the fluid-rotation model is the causal connection between the main stages of the tectogenesis. The proposed geodynamic model is developed as an alternative of the plate tectonics. The arguments against the plate tectonics are the following: the observed regularities in the Earth upper spheres structure, the close correlation between the crust and the deep upper mantle, the existence of the seismic Benioff zones only within the Pacific Ring and of the ancient subcontinental crust in the oceans, etc. These phenomena prove the impossibility of the ocean formation only by spreading, of the large scale lithosphere plate mobility, separating them from their deep roots and of the chaotic movements around the surface. The important point of the fluid-rotation concept is that it can coexist with many other concepts: the endogenous regime study by Beloussov, the degassing and expanding Earth concepts, the plume tectonics and with the most elements of the wrench concept by Storetvedt. The concept avoids contradictions between the fixism and the mobilistic representations because it does not exclude some horizontal movements of the crustal plates, creating the tectonic delamination of the lithosphere, as well as the formation of oceanic crust as a result of the local spreading. References Araki, H., Tazawa, S., Noda, H., Ishihara, Y., Goossens, S., Sasaki, S., Kawano, N., Kamiya, I., Otake, H., Oberst, J.

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THE EARTH’S DEGASSING, ROTATION AND EXPANSION AS … · New Concepts in Global Tectonics Newsletter, no. 63, 2012. 35 global geodynamics. If the rift ring was formed only by spreading