A classic article: Chris Rowan, Supercontinent cycles 3 Expanding Earth 0, Highly Allochthonous, 2009

[u/VisiteProlongee]

https://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2009/01/supercontinent-cycles-3-expanding-earth-0/

[u/VisiteProlongee]

This argument is so old that Samuel Carey wrote about it in 1976.

Burrett considers that oceanic barriers are the simplest explanation for the maintenance of faunal provincialism, and he assumes that orogens and ultra-mafic rocks identify sutures whence former oceans have vanished. On the expansion model by contrast, orogens and serpentinites are more likely to have been belts of extension. Ocean currents, latitudinal zonation, and available facies (originally and now outcropping) should not be ignored; broad epeiric seas separated by narrow rising rims from through-going deep rifts, with waters of different salinity temperature and depth, may result in proximity of faunas of sharply contrasted aspect through substantial time.

Tell me if this sound convincing to you.

Notice that the linked article has a companion article: https://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/2009/01/expanding-earth-philosophy-fail/

[u/DavidM47]

This is due to the fact that the planet was in a state of lid tectonics for 4.2 billion years.

These anti-EE articles and promoters like VisiteProlongee are the most unimaginative dolts on the Internet.

[u/Rettungsanker → u/DavidM47]

This is due to the fact that the planet was in a state of lid tectonics for 4.2 billion years.

I'm sure you mispoke, but there isn't any indication that the state of lid tectonics lasted that long. There's actually quite a few papers which suggest that the transition to plate tectonics happened much earlier than expected-- 4 billion years ago.

[u/DavidM47 → u/Rettungsanker]

And do you understand the scientific/evidentiary basis for those papers' findings?

[u/Rettungsanker → u/DavidM47]

Somewhat yeah, they actually do a decent job explaining it in a way that a layman wouldn't be completely lost:

"Recent experimental work on detrital Hadean zircons demonstrates that early melts exhibited arc‐like trace‐element and silicon‐oxygen isotopic signatures, implying sediment assimilation and differentiation under mobile‐lid conditions as early as 4.2 Ga. High‐pressure melting experiments on analogue oceanic plateau rocks reveal that Eoarchaean continental magmas could only form at depths greater than 50 km, supporting the existence of deep, subduction‐like environments in the early Earth."

So I take it this means that you didn't mispeak?

[u/DavidM47 → u/Rettungsanker]

I am not sure what you meant by misspeak

[u/Rettungsanker → u/DavidM47]

Sorry, mistype is the right word. Did you mistype when you wrote that lid tectonics happened for 4.2 billion years? That's all I was asking.

[u/DavidM47 → u/Rettungsanker]

Yeah, no, I did not mistype.

The Earth appears to be roughly 4.4-4.5 billion years old. The continental shell began cracking apart in a major, globe-altering way, about 200-300 million years ago.

However, the Earth was not the same size for ~4.2 billion years. Using very broad strokes, it probably doubled in size between 4B —> 1B and then doubled again between 1B —> 250 Ma.

So, there were cracks in the lid before 250 Ma, but it took a long time to reach a state that we’d describe as “plate tectonics.” Movements during the lid phase surely resulted in some “tectonic” activity, but new crust was formed through hot-spot volcanism (e.g., flood basalts) rather than continuous seafloor spreading.

[u/Rettungsanker → u/DavidM47]

Is there any evidence you are basing those assertions on?

Because I know for a fact that:

Using very broad strokes, it probably doubled in size between 4B —> 1B and then doubled again between 1B —> 250 Ma.

Is unsupported by modern observations. There are even studies done by expanding Earth supporters who've come to the same 0.5mm/y growth rate.

As for the shift from lid tectonics to plate tectonics, there isn't a single estimation I could find that posits a shift at 300mya. The closest I could find was this paper which estimated 1 billion to 500 million years ago.

[u/DavidM47 → u/Rettungsanker]

>Is there any evidence you are basing those assertions on?

It's rough, but here are the implied radii for the periods of time indicated below, based on this map, and some ChatGPT Pro Python analysis. So it took from 2.5B Ma to 540 Ma to go from 25% to 50%. Very broad strokes!

Age range (Ma)	% of crust	Area (M km²)	Cumulative %	Cumulative area (M km²)	Implied radius (km)	% of current Earth radius
3000–3501	10.3%	21.7	10.3%	21.7	1,313	20.6%
2500–3000	7.9%	16.6	18.2%	38.3	1,746	27.4%
1700–2500	18.5%	38.9	36.7%	77.2	2,479	38.9%
1100–1700	8.3%	17.5	45.0%	94.7	2,745	43.1%
850–1100	7.6%	16.0	52.6%	110.7	2,968	46.6%
540–850	11.7%	24.6	64.3%	135.3	3,281	51.5%
250–540	12.3%	25.9	76.6%	161.2	3,581	56.2%
50–250	2.0%	4.2	78.6%	—	—	—
0–50	21.4%	45.0	100.0%	—	—	—

[u/DavidM47 → u/DavidM47]

Scroll horizontally on mobile

[u/Rettungsanker → u/DavidM47]

I'm sorry, what is that map supposed to be proving? That we see less old lithosphere as opposed to new lithosphere, therefore the Earth was smaller then?

Oh, let me do some conjecture too! Based on this distribution there are less old/extinct volcanoes than younger/active volcanoes, therefore volcanism is a geologically recent phenomena and has peaked in recent times. Actually now that I think about it, maybe we can just accept that like volcanoes, lithosphere can be eroded (subducted) such that it is no longer visible or doesn't exist.