Subduction - how we know 

Prof. Rob has incredible clarity and the ability to simplify complex observations.

I've been missing your content, so this is refreshing. Thanks Professor.

Traveling north from the Gulf of California in Mexico, there is ths Salton sea, then the San Joachim valley and further north, Tomales Bay. These crustal depressions represent a failed rift. The sense of movement along the San Andreas fault is strike slip as it meanders along this failed rift. There is nio evidence of subduction. The subduction hypothesis was floated a decade before Marie Tharp's map of the ocean floor was published and is at odds with the evidence of global expansion. Yes, continents have moved away from one another but none have collided. Zones of 'subduction' are much more likely to be zones of obduction. Amazon sells magnificent copies of Tharp's map in a 36" x 24" (900mm x 600mm) format, displaying breathtaking detail.

This is excellent, Rob.

Useful explanation - thank you.

Great video as always, Rob. Thanks for the history and science

I find all your videos fascinating.

Excellent explanation and level of detail, an instant follow, thank you.

This content is top notch!

I have been looking at that area for a long time now. I love Google Earth. I can see so much like this. I call them crowns, and they look dangerous to me. Thank You for showing us. I had a feeling it was like that under there.

I like expanding earth theory for the general continental movements still, as the sea floor ages match that way. And other things similar to this for localised changes.

Greetings from the BIG SKY of Montana.

Great video! I like the perspective

You have a graphic error with ‘ones’, which should be zones. Love all your videos.

Excellent piece! Very clear research, great illustrations an excellent delivery. This is a classic! Thank you so much, especially for the correllation on seismic tomography and computing power. Very clear and amazing. O presume this was the method used to identify the two "blobs" of what once might have been Thea under Africa and the pacific ocean that have been reported recetly?

Playlist link for more videos in this series: ru-vid.com/group/PLxvNbEa7Qws7fgAfOIHx9ax9TkTy84rS_&si=Ql7sdyreCvgUU0uB

Thanks a nice video, however a massive subduction of this kind is extremely unlikely at least in the well known form in which it is presented and taught in most colleges. The problem is that it could be interpreted completely in other way, they are just the slabs from the ancient "continental" crusts in different orientations mainly under the Pangean pieces (and previous slabs form resurfaced crusts from the prior times) that form the now continental floors (or exist beyond them), and there are many misfittings with "subduction ideas" when you look to world´s examples. The occurrence of the seismic activity prove just that contact and stress is being released in the interface between the plates, they hold each side, they have friction, the plates did move laterally as a result of planetary expansion and changes in isostasy through time, and thus the tomographies do not prove beyond reasonable doubt any massive horizontal subduction. The process is also impossible, how lighter materials will sink into heavier and denser ones? What force will push them so massively under even more lighter continental slabs and where are the scars of the stress that such a massive collision will cause on the allegedly conveyor belt in the oceans? It just is absent, major failures are perpendicular to the rifts and some parallel features occur along the main ridges but none of them are clear near the "massive subduction zones". Both ideas are well established in the mainstream geological scheme while being mythological and against the laws of physics. Some vertical subduction do happens and lithospheric leaks do sink continental pieces, you can observe it in some places on the continental emerged areas, and in Zelandia. I had seen many seismic tomographies and look at many papers and it clearly seems that facts are being forced into these failures of the mainstream tectonic theory by dogma and academic inertia. Theories sometimes drives the research and genial ideas sometimes take a long road in order to be accepted and widely recongnized. As many are convinced of it happening (massive subduction and conveyor belts), they interpret observations in a wrong way, it is a mischieving auto maintaining circle. Now consider the thickness of the plates involved, many cases are in the ratios of 1:12 which would be already strange enough, but we have deep continental roots and thicknesses of 1:47 in some areas of the Andes, for instance. That means that a thin oceanic crust of 11-28 km at the best, is expected to curve itself and go down about 350-650 kms to go under the continent for unknown real reasons... How will a thin layer will collide with such a massive wall and swiftly move beyond it? Ancient resurfaced slabs of prior continental-planetary pre-oceanic-expansionary are a much better explanation for what we can see in the tomographic and seismic data. For if it isn´t enough to consider those ideas, we have the ages of the sea floor “precisely telling the story of how all the sides of the chronological floors met each other” and when removed carefully in corresponding ages in smaller globes we arrive to the hard truth and fact that all the edges of the continents (which are just pieces of the Pangean time crust opened by the new oceanic ridges and ocean floors) match each other at 99% precision. James Maxlow from Curtin published a brilliant PhD Thesis reconstructing all the fitting and giving a wide range of other hard proofs on several scientific fields some 28 years ago. The proofs ensembles well with Croizat´s biogeographical ideas, panbiogeographic tracks and nodes, biogeographic patterns in Gondwanaland, biodiversity resemblances, rock match-correspondances in correspondent continental sides, geological formations, the worlds hydrocarbon doughnut (pre-mesozoic, mainly late Paleozoic doughnut on then tropical areas), and even geodetical data. Once you realize the amazing match, it result unnecessary to think about massive horizontal subduction mainly because it will directly contradict the match and it goes against physics, and also, the later (expansion matches) are so real and overwhelming that I find difficult to understand the slow rate of acceptance of the whole idea and the facts behind it. It is even a well distributed phenomena in the Solar System and had been mapped in Ganymede and other places, and expansion is also a main feature of the known universe... so expansionary plate tectonics without myths might be a good idea. M Sc David Brailovsky Mexico City

'Wadati' is the awkward pre-war 'Japanese-style' orthography, modern (Hepburn) spelling (and pronunciation) is 'Wadachi'

what makes a subduction zone form? Is it a random thing or are there elements to the process that we know about?

Thanks for the video Prof Butler. I know this is a question for which we might not have an answer yet, but I wonder what your take is: what was first, the chicken or the egg? does the subducting plate create tension, originating spreading ridges? or do the spreading ridges form first, due to some kind of mantle upwelling, which then pushes denser oceanic plates against more buoyant plates, causing them to subduct?

Well made video. However, subduction as it is described by plate tectonics cannot be known because (with all due respect) it is not true; the Earth expanded and does not function under plate tectonics. There are countless evidences that have been accumulated since plate tectonics became the dominant model in geology that are strong proofs that the Earth expanded. For example, the Ontong Java Plateau is considered to have formed with Manihiki and Hikarangi Plateaus as a single unit near Australia, but this puts the oceanic plateaus far away from South America where, in Ecuador, the Pinon Formation is found which is also considered to have been part of the Ontong Java complex *and* is described as having to have formed *in place*, thus demonstrating that the Ontong Java Nui complex was both near Ecuador *and* Australia because the Pacific Ocean was not yet open in the Earth's expansion process. Another example is the region of the East Mariana Basin, thought to be the oldest crust in the Pacific, has core samples dated to tens of millions of years *after* (more recently, that is) samples taken from surrounding regions. This is documented in literature and completely ignored, in terms of accounting for it in the narrative of why plate tectonics is true, because it would mean the Pacific plate is not understood. Then there are enigmatic mountains like in central Australia (Alice Springs) that are described in literature as being unable to be described by plate tectonics as it is currently understood since they are at the center of a "plate" that should be undergoing mountain uplift at its boundary through the Wilson cycle, according to plate tectonics, and not at the center of the plate. It is very important for us to be able to allow for new evidence to come about without also accepting the dominant viewpoint proposed to explain the evidence, or else we become overrun with a singular possibility being weighed which will always weigh more than an unconsidered second possibility, regardless of which is actually true. Seafloor spreading is a good example of something that plate tectonics has staked claim to, but also is able to fit into expanding Earth models where the same evidence being presented as proof of subduction can be also presented as proof of nuances of the Earth's expansion process. In the case of plate tectonics, continental magnetic anomalies are largely ignored and are never publicly discussed with regard to the model because they are not used as evidence of plate tectonics directly. But these two are inseparably one aspect of Earth and cannot be analyzed separately because one component is convenient and helps give credence to the model while the other is cumbersome and difficult to explain, making it not even come up in any presentation on plate tectonics so that only those who are actively seeking the truth and not just any answer will recognize there is something missing. Others will fall for the partial analysis hook, line, and sinker, and live their whole lives never the wiser. Because continental magnetic anomalies are demonstrably shaped by current flows that were part and parcel to the Earth's expansion process, namely undercurrents below the crust that first built up pressure below continental shelf of the Earth (making the magnetic anomaly map as we see) and only after its pressures built up sufficiently was it able to fracture the crust and allow for the Earth's internal pressure to relieve and expansion to occur. A good example is the entirety of central Asia has currents that blatantly flowed through it imprinted in the magnetic anomaly map, literally branching off at a triangular wedge shape in Turkmenistan (the size of the country, in fact) where current flows went right and left. There are places where it can be found to have flowed inward in an eddy such as at the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly which was surrounded by current flow paths (including the one through central Asia). Plate tectonics is only true when it is the only model being considered. Most people know about flat earth theory, which is an easy opponent for plate tectonics, but few know about the expanding Earth theory in spite of it actually being in peer-reviewed technical papers even today (and being the actual reality of the situation tbh).

Question is, does subduction drive plate tectonics, or does plate tectonics drive subduction. Sea floor spreading is clearly not driven by subduction ... so the actual driving mechanism of plate creation and plate destruction isn't subduction (its the result of ... what ... mantle plumes, mantle circulation ... be interesting to hear your thoughts on that.

"Jawlogy"

Profesor Rob appears to lack an understanding of subduction processes, and is mistaking block train pulsation tectonic gravity anomaly signatures for a divers springboard 🤭

Sorry, but in my opinion we are looking at the wrong way of the working of plates. If science would look as the thicker layer is a magma river running underground in a channel. You could with messurements predict earthquakes. Even higher and lower ate predictable.

This is hardly science. It begins with the presumption that the earth has always been exactly the same size, and presumes subduction accordingly. At no point is there any discussion of the many problems with subduction theory. At no point is it acknowledged that everything here might be explained by a mere bunching of the plate, rather than subduction. This is the wide eyed repetition of old theories, nostalgic reverence, without any critical thought.

Just say no to subduction. It's immoral. 😂