After a half-assed, 20-second search on this forum, I couldn't find the topic about Neal Adams' theory that the earth used to be smaller. But I came across this YouTube video animation that shows his theory in action.
Basically, he believes that all the continents used to be connected on each side, and that oceans did not form until the earth began growing, causing cracks between the continents, to form the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans. This is not the Pangaea theory, which holds that there was one big continent on one side of the planet completed surrounded by a huge ocean, and that continent slowly drifted apart to cause the Atlantic Ocean to form, amongst other things. Neal Adams believes the continents stayed where they are -- only the world expanded like a bubble from the inside, creating cracks and fissures that eventually became the oceans -- ALL oceans.
Neal Adams calls it a conspiracy of silence by scientists. I think it's a stronger possibility that his theory is too easily disproven to bother talking too much about it. There's got to be some scientific discussion somewhere online about this. I haven't looked for it yet.
I'm wondering if this idea has ever been used in sci-fi, somehow. It's one of those theories that attempts to explain a lot of things with little evidence to back it up. Judge it for yourself.
Strangely enough, I found this by chance while looking at a cartoon called "Mr. Hell's Science" on YouTube.
If this doesn't bring Beardguy out of hiding, nothing will.
I can see why certain scientists wouldn't appreciate the idea. It pissess in the eyes of people in geological, climatological, and evolutionary fields.
I got halfway through the video, and got a bit bored.
White Cliffs of Dover. Chalk deposits in Dover and the Champagne region where once a prehistoric sea. Trillions of plankton died and were calcified. Once all of that was undersea. Seas rise, seas fall, it doesn't necesssarily correlate with the outlines of continents.
Seashells have been found on places as high as the Andes, because of meteor strikes. If you find them in France, its no big deal.
Finally, you have the vexed question of where the additional mass comes from. I see from the Wikipedia entry that Adams postulates some sort of electron/positron mass thingie. That sounds very remote.
I actually imagine a shrinking earth, where gravity slowly compacts things.
If your gunna believe that tailpipes are making the earth warmer, and monkey turned into people, why the hell shouldn't you believe this nonsense as well!
