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THE MYSTERIOUS ORIGINS Oi As suggested by Prof. Thomas Gold, crude oil is not the result of decayed organic life but is created by hydrogenation processes, as evidenced by helium isotopes, deep within the Earth. hirty years ago, the newly discovered concept of plate tectonics! offered a self- contained and rational explanation of the evolution of the Earth. Within this model it is axiomatic that the Earth of "now" represents the "cooled-down" remnants of a formerly molten blob of cosmic matter that segregated into a nickel-iron core, a ferrous-metal-siliceous mantle and an alkali-metal-siliceous crust. That kind of thinking had developed over the 19th and 20th centuries—the time when Darwinism had turned the living world into something that was always progressing towards optimisation in form and function. Nothing that "is" could ever be ideal, as it is "on its way" to perfection.’ Also inherent in this understanding was that the inanimate parts of the world were evolving What wide-eyed students never really catch onto is the fact that, at best, the top 0.05% of the "thickness" of the inanimate world can be seen; the other 99.05% (if not more) is permanently the realm of more or less educated guesswork. With that, geoscience is surely the most esoteric of all "hard" sciences, and vast doses of "belief" (in theories) on the one hand and "cognitive dissonance" (to be able to disregard factual data) on the other are required for a geoscientist to "function". Within the model of plate tectonics, the lighter continental (crustal) plates "raft" on the heavier oceanic (crustal) plates. The new science of palaeomagnetics showed in the 1960s that the rocks which make up the floor of oceans are magnetised in accordance with the magnetic field of the Earth prevailing at the time the rocks were formed. A symmetri- cal pattern of opposed magnetic polarisation exists on both sides, away from mid-oceanic ridges. This proved two things: (a) the Earth's magnetic field undergoes periodic polar reversals, and (b) the Earth was not "created" at any one time but it is still "forming". Iceland "sits" on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is living proof of the constant creation of new oceanic crustal material by way of volcanic eruptions. New crust (chiefly formed in the Atlantic Ocean) is dipping under the lighter continental plates to get "consumed" in what is called the asthenosphere.’ The circum-Pacific "Ring of Fire" fits neatly into this "metabolic" (circular) model by effecting compensational destruction. The "motor" for all this activity is, according to the basic tenets of plate tectonics, the thermal "activity" of the inner parts of the Earth (driven by radioactive decay). "Hot spots” "wander" around, leaving submarine volcanoes in the world's oceans that generate volcanic islands. Ever since the 1970s, when British atmospheric scientist and inventor Jim Lovelock began urging a more holistic approach to Earth sciences, scientists have been considering the interactions of the different spheres of Gaia (the "living Earth", named after the Earth Goddess of ancient Greece). The Earth is manifestly differentiating: what comes up in the volcanoes does get incor- porated into the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and—not to forget—the biosphere. What is dragged back into the asthenosphere in subduction zones is a quite different mix of elements; the remainder is being incorporated in the continents along the mountain belts which form behind the subduction zones where the excess oceanic crust is being dragged back into the mantle. One of the most important elements in the life cycle of Gaia is carbon. Carbon has three naturally occurring isotopes. Carbon-12 constitutes 98.89 per cent of all carbon atoms and serves as the standard for the atomic mass scale. Carbon-13 is the only magnetic isotope, which makes it very important for structural studies of compounds containing carbon. by Siegfried E. Tischler, PhD © May 2004 Visiting Professor University of Graz, Austria RIAU University, Indonesia Email: setex01@yahoo.com Visiting Professor University of Graz, Austria RIAU University, Indonesia NEXUS * 33 THE LIFE CYCLE OF GAIA Email: setex01@yahoo.com AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com