Plate tectonics appears to have no accepted explanation for the widely recognised cycles of kilometre scale uplift and subsidence - why they appear to have such regular periodicity measured in many 10’s million years, why they seem to occur synchronically over widely dispersed geographic domains, and why they so often occur at locations where plate tectonics suggests passive tectonic activity. This short paper reconsiders these cycles of uplift and subsidence so strongly in evidence within the Grand Canyon area, and especially the timing of the onset of new pulses of sedimentation as revealed by the dates of strata immediately above the major unconformities. This suggests that commencement of new pulses of marine sedimentation initiating continuous kilometre scales of burial have a strong periodic signature of circa 130Ma. It is demonstrated that these recommencements of burial of often mega sequences of sediment occur when earth climate is emerging from ice-house to hot-house conditions. Furthermore, it is pointed out that recognised periods of mountain building have similar 130Ma periodicity with phasing closely aligned with periods when earth is experiencing ice-house conditions. Tentative explanations as to why changes in climatic conditions could account for these kilometre scales of uplift and subsidence focus on the associated changes in the surficial disposition of ice and water associated with ice- and hot-house conditions and how this effects the geothermal flux. Changes in geothermal flux will as a result of phase changes at the lower crustal boundary producing changes in crustal thickness and hence crustal buoyancy, accounting for both the massive cycles of burial and those of exhumation.
Dear Chris, sorry to have missed your comments but over the last 8 months I have been preoccupied with other rather important health matters and unable to come back to what was intended to be just a short note. The aim was to highlight what is pretty well accepted evidence from the Grand Canyon area that seems to support predictions of an earlier theoretical model of what could be the cause of many forms of vertical tectonics. You will appreciate that although having had a longstanding interest in geology (going back 60 years to one of my first jobs working on the Wairakei geothermal power plant in New Zealand), my professional activities have been elsewhere. But that fresh thinking is needed to explain vertical tectonics is I think rather widely acknowledged. This is especially true of the rises and falls of oceanic and continental crust remote from any plate tectonically active areas – including the cratonic interior of N America. My own thinking on the subject explored in some earlier papers may well be off the wall but it is just possible it might help to explain processes that are widely recognised as being poorly understood. Let me respond to your various points below and then follow that with some comments on what I thought were the problems that this new publication initiative of the UCL Open press is trying to address:
Decision of the handling editor after review (my reactions in italics)
This manuscript requires substantial revisions before it can be published. Once the author has revised the manuscript it shall need to undergo further peer-review. In its present form, the manuscript is missing:
This was not the aim of the short note which is why a brief summary only was provided in the appendix B. My intention is to publish a stand-alone paper addressing the theoretical model which will be an updated version of the brief account provided in the referenced, but unpublished except in ResearchGate, paper presented to the Geological Society London meeting back in 2012. Other intended papers will also demonstrate that periods of geographically widespread synchronous epeirogeny also have a very strong correlation with these long term climate cycles. These intended papers will also draw attention to some possible serious inadequacies of current thinking about mountain building, orogeny, etc
I was of course hoping that these might be revealed in the open discussion of the paper.
Yes, I agree. A few of the figures were not of publication standard. In any revision these will to the best of my ability (as a pre-computer graphics fossil) be brought up to expected standards.
It will I believe be a regrettable derogation of the very laudable aims of this new UCL Open publication initiative if genuinely open debate of new ideas should be repressed by the damp hand of the refereeing system. To my knowledge the work described in the short note is novel. It addresses problems in geological science that are widely recognised as being of a fundamental nature but remain inadequately explained. While it is possible that this new line of thinking may lead to a dead end it is also possible it might open up new ways of explaining some of these unresolved problems. It is noticeable that the reviews of what is just a short note have concentrated on process rather than the substantial ideas and the underlying arguments. It would be great to have the chance of discussing openly these important issues and underlying arguments.