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the Early Jurassic Period (i.e., to about 200 million years ago). This mapping is used in Expansion Tectonics to quantify both plate reconstruction and the rate of crustal generation on small Earth models. Four views of a set of 11 spherical models, extending from the Early Jurassic Period to the present, are shown in figure 3 below. These models have since been extended back in time to the early Archaean Aeon (about 4,500 million years ago), and one model has been projected to five million years into the future (not shown here). To construct each of the models, successively older geological time stripes paralleling the mid-ocean spreading ridges (figure 2) are simply removed. Each crustal plate is then restored to a pre-spreading or pre- extension configuration at a reduced Earth radius along their common plate or continental margin respectively. By successively removing young oceanic crust and reuniting the continental and oceanic plates along their common mid-ocean ridges, each of the models shown in figure 3 demonstrates a better than 99 per cent plate fit-together. These opinions are based on very outdated and arguably emotive and opinionated research carried out during the 1950s to 1970s, well before the advent of modern Plate Tectonics, computer technology, global data- gathering capabilities and multimedia communication. Unfortunately, these same outdated opinions are being carried through to recent literature without proper scientific investigation, regardless of new advances made in Expansion Tectonics research. Expansion Tectonics theory simply removes one primary premise from current tectonics theory: namely, the assumption that the Earth's radius is constant. By removing this premise, we are then in a position to apply correct scientific principles to test whether the global data are in fact better explained on an Earth undergoing an increase in radius with time. The completion of oceanic magnetic mapping and age-dating of the crust beneath all of the Earth's major oceans (figure 2) has provided a very important tool to quantify Expansion Tectonics. This ocean floor mapping has placed finite time constraints on the plate motion history shown in all the oceans extending back to before Omy > ONDIFF | CONT LITHO | Eocene | Olig | ffisenne al OCEANIC LITHO 3 OB 3 SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN CARIBBEAN SEA Figure 3: Spherical Early Jurassic to Present-day Expansion Tectonics models. Models show the relative increase in Earth radii during Earth history, and include basic continents plus oceanic geology. (Geology after the CGMW and UNESCO Geological Map of the World, 1990) 38 * NEXUS APRIL - MAY 2010 INDIAN OCEAN www.nexusmagazine.com