Terrestrial Palaeoecology and Global Change

Chapter 5. Tectonic factors of global changes
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alies (Schouten & Klitgord, 1982), with polarity changes over their vertical sections
(Lowrie & Alvarez, 1981), better agrees with impregnation than spreading.
In other words, the so-called spreading anomalies (the M-series beneath the Cretaceous
sediments in the Atlantic) are basically of the same nature as the J-anomaly of the
same zone reflecting an exhumed basaltic ridge. Likewise, the “quiet zone” of continental
margin is an exhumed mantle impregnation into the marginal fault zone (Witmarsh et
al., 2001).
As for the age progressions over mid-plate volcanic ridges, such as the Hawaiian
Islands, their plate-tectonic interpretation as hot-spot (plume) traces is scarcely compatible
with radiometric dating. The Hawaiian Islands and the roughly parallel Line Islands
occur on the same plate, but are of the widely disparate chronologies and rates of volcanic
progression. Moreover, the diagonal Line lineament overlaps in age with the orthogonal
Emperor lineament – a paradoxical situation of two simultaneous hot spots leaving
diverging traces on the same plate. No systematic age progression is found over the
Cameroon Line, an alleged plume trace in western Africa (Holliday et al., 1990). In the
case of the Ninetyeast Ridge, Indian Ocean, the age progression is inconsistent with the
hot-spot mechanism (Sclater & Fisher, 1974).
The plume theory fails to explain a midplate volcanism along the Cooke – Austral
Island Chain, with an inconsistent age progression apparently controlled by lithospheric
stress (McNutt et al., 1997). Such features more realistically reflect propagation of
tectonic stresses and concurrent volcanic activities over the parallel, but diachronous,
shear zones. Insofar as igneous activity over meridional lineaments systematically propagates
towards the equator, the Eötvös forcing appears a possibility.
Although still afloat owing to the powerful lobby, the plate tectonics theory shows no
prospect of further development, which means that it will be soon abandoned. Stones
rejected by the builders of the model (essentially geophysical, with little respect to stones)
will then be used as cornerstones for new geodynamic theories. But even then plate
tectonics will remain in the annals of epistemology as a paradigmatic Kuhnian paradigm,
as such deserving a critical analysis.
Meanwhile it seems best to seek explanations of global tectonomagmatic developments
in the most obvious global processes, such as rotation of the earth. The rotational
model is by now the only one accounting for a correlation of geomagnetic, tectonomagmatic,
epeiric and climatic processes (Krassilov, 1976d, 1985, 1991, 1995a and below).
V.2. Rotaion tectonics
The earth is not the only tectonically active planet, and there is little ground for believing
that its tectonic structure is unique in the solar system. Therefore, geodynamic models
can be verified by applying them to other planets or their moons. Comparative planetology
tells us that only non-synchronous planets (those with widely disparate rotation