CHAPTER 4.6
Reduced Friction in the Crust and Mantle Rocks

   
Reduced Friction in the Crust and Mantle Rocks


Several papers in 2015 indicated that the friction between the rocks in the Earth's crust or mantle could be significantly lessened under special circumstances.

Previous sources have hypothesized that water in the crust or mantle would allow for the reduction of friction between rocks, especially during episodes of extreme earthquake shaking. The question is this: Is there really water in the lower crust or in the mantle?

Five different articles outline the possibilities of water being present in the mantle and how it reacts to reduce friction when under pressure.

Six other articles deal with the reduction of friction under circumstances of shaking and pressure even if water is not present.

Typical of the mechanisms of frictional reduction is a story by Iqbal Pittalwaia based upon materials provided by the University of California - Riverside. Professor Harry W. Green reports "that a universal sliding mechanism operates for earthquakes of all depths- from from the deep ones all the way up to the crustal ones. The physics of the sliding is the self-lubrication of the earthquake fault by flow of a new material consisting of tiny new crystals, the study reports."

Another article, entitled "Research redefines the properties of faults when rock melts," based upon the work of Yan Lavallee, et al., reports as follows: "

The researchers, from the University's School of environmental Services, warn of the inadequacy of simple Newtonian viscous analyses to describe molten rock along faults, and instead call for more realistic application of viscoelastic theory. "Melt may be considered a liquid, which is able to undergo a glass transition, as a result of changing temperature and/or strain-rate. This catastrophic transition allows the melt to either flow or fracture, according to the fault slip conditions."

The article later reports, "Professor Lavallee added: "This new description of fault slip is not just important for our understanding of earthquake fault rheology, it has far reaching implications for magma transport in volcanic eruptions, for landslide and sector collapse instabilities, and within material sciences; namely for the glass and ceramic industries."

The reason that these articles and papers are important to my theory is the fact that I propose that extreme shaking and pressure created by large cosmic impacts has allowed contemporaneous mantle plumes to break through the mantle. These articles and papers provide more evidence that this type of event can be possible.






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