science question for disaster epic

I'm a little leery about throwing out a disaster idea in light of what has just transpired via the drunken upheavals of the Burma plate (may all the God's love and hold them dear), but here goes:

In the fashion of biblical or otherwise Irwin Allen-type world catastrophes, I think I've come up with a new, and possibly unique, global killer, that might take on the complexity and
fascination of the once and still famous MOTE IN GOD'S EYE type scenario. What if one of the pacific subduction plates cracked wide open via a massive quake, creating a crust fracture so vast that a sudden intact of water rushed in to fill up the cavity? Like pulling the plug in a bathtub, a horrendous whirlpool was the result? Of course you would have to account for this massive empty chasm between the floor crust and the mantle, I suppose. Could such a cavity be ripped open enough to intake thousands of cubic miles of sea water?

You would certainly have tsunamis and quake percussions as an after-effect, but is it scientifically or theoretically possible that such a geological incident, such as this, could take place?
I could imagine a very minute drop in sea level, or disruption of the Gulf stream conveyor, perhaps even a slight axial tilt.
Satellite imagery would pick up the phenomenon, as well as ships in the area that would report phantom currents that potentially got stronger until rudder navigation became impossible.

I've seen massive whirlpools documented on programs, but those were of the type where a huge mine caved in and allowed river water to enter. Giant sink holes sometimes have this effect. What about a pacific sinkhole, caused by quake=massive, hungry whirlpool, swallowing cargo ships and liners?

Lots of science here, folks. Physics and marine geology. I'm
into paleontology big time, but can't quite get a handle on this
premise. Does it sound feasible? Any comments?

As for solving this Man Against Nature theme, I propose, in the last chapter, to nuke the bitch's vortex and close the wound. Gak! Maybe that would compound the problem! Ah...subplot!

I dunno. If anybody likes the idea, run with it and tell me how it all comes out. Definitely a problem solver.

Tri

I'm not a geologist, but I'd assume that all that water pouring through the Earth's crust would cause huge volcanic eruptions as well, as a result of water meeting magma. For the rest, I'll leave it to the scientists here.

Not a scientist, either. But I think an ocean of cold water suddenly coming into major contact with molten rock would be far worse than an eruption. Imagine a boiling Pacific Ocean! I doubt that would actually occur; it would take too long to boil the Pacific. More likely, the sudden expansion of steam beneath all that water would cause an explosion. Probably greater than any since the last big asteroid hit the planet. I can imagine several results: the earth could crack in two; most of the water in the oceans would be blown into space, taking the atmosphere along; giant tsunamis the height of Mt. Everest could wash away most life forms on land.

In the story Lucifer's Hammer, there is a good description of the effect of a comet hitting earth in the pacific ocean...and the aftermath. Again, I dunno, but somehow putting the Pacific Ocean into contact with magma sounds a lot worse.

Gak!! Pthom, I absolutely stand corrected! It Was Lucifer's
Hammer that I was trying to reference--not the Mote in God's Eye.

You're also right about cold sea water hitting hot magma or even deep hot crust. There would have to be some type of energetic explosion involving steam, pressure and possible fault fracture, resulting in a tremendous upsurging of volcanic magma, thus preempting volcanic release and God knows what else! Now that I think of it, a simple giant whirlpool would be out of the question, there's too many variables. A domino effect. The most damaging result from this occurrence would be Tsunamis, any way you look at it,
especially if it's mid-pacific. BUT, the ring of fire is Not mid-pacific, unless you factor in the Hawaiian group which are cone-volcanic in origin.

Guh. I've opened up a can of worms instead of fractured fault.

Much thanks for both responses--I think WHIRLPOOL might go right down the drain.

Tri

You might enjoy Mother of Storms if you haven't read it already. Here, the villain is a global hurricane.

There are already lengthy splits in the seabed where magma touches seawater. Some are many miles in length and the magma just comes out and forms new bedrock while the ocean floor moves gradually without any major explosions. For the kind of explosion you may be considering, I believe you'd have to have a plate shift of such magnitude that the world would probably be in its death throes.

Of course. The current magma/sea water interface is a tiny leak. However, the original question was, in part:

What if one of the pacific subduction plates cracked wide open via a massive quake, creating a crust fracture so vast that a sudden intact of water rushed in to fill up the cavity? ... Could such a cavity be ripped open enough to intake thousands of cubic miles of sea water?

The bold emphasis is mine; I based my suppositions on those ideas. IF (and there are always big IFs in SF) there was a massive quake sufficient to expose a great portion of the mantle to sea water, there is no doubt in my mind that regardless of the resulting explosion, the Earth would most definitely be well on its way to destruction.
Found the following; thought it interesting.

Mantle
The layer below the crust is the mantle. The mantle has more iron and magnesium than the crust, making it more dense. The uppermost part of the mantle is solid and, along with the crust, forms the lithosphere. The rocky lithosphere is brittle and can fracture. This is the zone where earthquakes occur. It’s the lithosphere that breaks into the thick, moving slabs of rock that geologist’s call tectonic plates.

As we descend into the Earth temperature rises and we reach part of the mantle that is partially molten, the asthenosphere. As rock heats up, it becomes pliable or ‘plastic’. Rock here is hot enough to fold, stretch, compress, and flow very slowly without fracturing. Think about the behavior of Silly Putty® and you have the general idea. The plates, made up of the relatively light, rigid rock of the lithosphere actually ‘float’ on the more dense, flowing asthenosphere!

Short answer is ... I don't think it's possible.

Faults come in several different types. If you talk about magma being exposed by a massive quake, you'd have to be talking about a divergent plate boundary which suddenly split wide open.

Unfortunately, I can't think if a single good reason why this would happen. You'd have to explain why the crust held together for a long period of time, and then suddenly snapped like an elastic band. Also, you'd have to provide some kind of mechanism that would drive it. At present, divergent p[late boundries are driven by the drag of magma convection cells in the asthenosphere. The thick goopy magma pulls the plate boundaries along with it as it moves. This is going to be another problem for you to explain -- in that you'll have to change the entire structure of the earth in order to drive the kind of sudden movement you'll need.

So, in short, it's not going to happen.

But...

You could think about a supervolcano or possibly a megatsunami.

Hurrah! I found a use for my degree!

Yea, we have a real expert here! Thanks Euan. Sounds like you're affiliated with geology somehow. My ex-girlfriend is a geologist specialist, topography, and currently works for NOAA, but won't give me the time of day. I think you elaborated even further why this giant whirlpool concept couldn't work. Science is controversy, there's no doubt about that.

If all the pros could agree on the extinction hypothesis having to do with the Cambrian, KT, and the Pleistocene ice age, we would really know what planet killers were all about. That said, I hope we don't ever have another tsunami like the recent one, nor see Yellowstone start the "big bulge."

Euan, what's your degree in?

Ooh. I like this topic. I try to teach science for middle school age students. We're hitting this subject now in one of the classes.

@ triceratops

Geology. Utterly useless in my present job (English teacher) but it was very interesting when I was studying it. When Jurassic Park came out, one of our paleontology lecturers took us to see the movie, then gave us a paper to write on the flaws in it. If you want to get a 19 year old's attention -- that's the way to do it.

THe problem is scale, an earthquake big enough to move that much rock that far would be off the scale. You're talking about quadrillions of tons of rock moving maybe a quater of a mile in a short period of time (literally), the force generated by this would have be greater than the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal. It would, however, be the end of the earth.

What about a massive meteor or the moon crashing into the Earth? (No, I don't know how that would happen, but . . . ) Something that big would certainly crack the earth's crust open.

Welcome Stephenie

In fact a large bollide, six miles in diameter, supposedly gouged a 150-diameter-mile crater off the coast of Yucatan, about 65 million years ago, thus wiping out our dino friends.
No major crust fracture, per se, just a big spoon-sized hole.
I HAVE often wondered what an astronomical impact would do to our moon--knocking it katiwampus. Our tides would certainly be thrown in to upheaval, as well as an effect on the earth's magnetic pole. It has been said, that if not for our moon, keeping our earth in rotational check, there would be no life on earth. (recent t.v. program)

Hmm. I'm pretty sure the Earth wouldn't stop spinning if suddenly there was no moon. And, I'm pretty sure that life would continue. However, I seem to recall reading (in a science journal, not a SF story) that one of the primary reasons life was able to begin on Earth was that there were tides. That the rythmic wetting and drying of the tidal zone is where life evolved.

The magnetic pole(s) is where it(they) is(are) because of the magnetic field produced by the Earth's rotation. The recent earthquake in the Indian Ocean is thought to have altered the axis of the Earth's rotation minutely, a huge asteroid of the size of the one you mention hitting the Yucatan would have at least the same effect, if not a greater one. Removing the moon from Earth's orbit would cause major changes but I doubt it would alter the location of the axis of rotation. As far as the locations of the poles, they change over time. The Earth's magnetic field is fading and the poles will, perhaps even in our time, flip north for south.

If those links spark your imagination, have a look here.

Meteors are all old hat, anyway. I still say go for the mega-volcano. Actually, I seem to remember that for a long time the competing theory (or at least one of the competing theories) to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs was the eruption and emplacement of the Deccan flats in India. Basically, a huge amount of basalt and plutonic rocks got injected into the earth's crust and spilled out over large areas of India. It blew huge amounts of CO2 and other nasty gases into the atmosphere, as well as massive amounts of ash, smoke etc.

If you're looking for a planet-killer, that's the one to go for -- especially if it goes off somewhere in the Middle East and wipes out all the oil supplies.

Anyway.

If you're looking for a planet-killer...

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Personally, I think the Vogon constructor fleet is the best planet killer to come along in quite some time.
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." --Douglas Adams

There's not much I can say that others haven't. I tend to agree with the masses on the improbability of this. I'll just grab one point:

You're also right about cold sea water hitting hot magma or even deep hot crust. There would have to be some type of energetic explosion involving steam

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Water's reaction to the magma isn't as one might suppose. Presently, there are deep see vents where water is meeting magma. The water at these vents reaches many hundreds of degrees above the boiling point. It does not, however, boil or become steam because of the pressure at those depths. Additionally, that magma in contact with the water is solidifying and becoming a part of the crust.

When you think of this fracture you're suggesting, In addition to the gross causes that would be required, you have to take more into account than just miles of a crack in the crust. In addition to its width, the ocean is deep, and though tsunamis and earthquakes would occur; that crack would have to be created almost instantaneously (as the magma will immediately begin resolidifying) for the temperature change to impact more than just the deep sea ecosysytem. Of course, who knows how that change in the deep sea will effect the rest of the marine ecosystem. You'd also have to accomodate for the thermodynamics of currents. So it seems to me you'd have to have this crack occur in just the right spot, massively and instantaneously, and have a reason for it to happen that makes sense in regards to plate techtonics. That's my 2 cents.

Oh, and one more thing. For there to be a cavity created for the whirlpool effect, that mass of crust that is absent must be replaced somewhere. For instance, if by force two of the plates were pushed apart on one side, they'd be pushed together on the other. It's how many mountain chains were produced. So you'd have two devastating occurrences, the whirlpool,/tsunami on one side of the planet and the rapid and cataclysmic earth quakes and mountains shooting up on the other.

ok, 3 cents.

The plates are massive, too, aside from another planet hitting the earth I can't think of anything that could move that much crust; and we'd be in a world of hurtin long before the crust crack if that happened.

Plus, wouldn't the giant whirlpool only be a danger to what's in the water? You wouldn't have tsunamis because the water would be moving toward the crack. The complete destruction of the ocean's ecosystem aside, I don't know how it would affect us on land any more than our current disasters.

Dang, you made me get out my map of the ocean's floor. It's an interesting and curious proposition at least. (as to the map btw, the mid atlantic fault line looks like your cleanest and most devastating break to me, you could hit the east pacific one too but then its a little more complicated as a story because California falls into the depths of the crack, which certainly would be entertaining) there may be a way to create the effect you are proposing through density principals but with the pressure and deep sea temps in consideration, it's just over my head to even conceptualize. Perhaps a drastic deep sea temperature change, or such a change in the mantle...Hmmm...

Ah ha! I've got it! Gravity could do it. If per se the orbit of the moon were to slow enough, the moon would start to be pulled closer by the earth's gravity. (at present the moon is slowly moving away from us because of its orbital speed) anyway, if the moon fell closer to earth enough and in the right place, the moon's gravity could create a bit of lift on one of the plates and that would create the effect you're proposing. A massive cavity could be formed between the crust and mantle and the fault line would serve as the drain. Of course the gravity would be pulling on the water and tides too, so I'd go with the California fault line, it goes from ocean to land, if the gravity pulled at the plate in the vicinity of California, Oh yeah, that would jack us up good if that happened...

Now, how to slow the moon's orbit...It'd have to hit something big...

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Y'all are showing why writing speculative fiction is so much fun!

How about a nice sized asteroid zooming in and coming close enough to the moon to move it without actually striking it? That way you don't have to factor in debris hitting the earth. It could be spotted too late and/or be too big to intercept or deflect. Before the near-miss everyone could freak out while scientists argue over what will happen, after the near-miss you let the moon creep ever closer while the politico's waffle and the scientists continue to argue, then the "big crack" takes everyone by surprise.

Thinking of global disasters, I just had a flash of sudden recall. I read once, (in an anthology, the name of which and the story title, I've forgotten), a story where the sun goes nova. The main character is a gum shoe or something in Los Angeles; his girlfriend works for, um, well, I forgot that too, but let's say she works for JPL of NOAA or the like (good to have one of the characters know what's going on for expository purposes ). When the sun blows up the western hemisphere is turned away--it's night there. There's a great description of the "dawn"--the entire horizon lights up--and of the reports coming in from the other side of the planet (it takes a little over 8 minutes for light to travel from the sun to Earth). At the end of the story there isn't much the gumshoe and his gal can do but wait for the last sun "rise."

Hapi, you might have something there with gravity. I'm wondering what a small body (asteroid) would do if it came it at a shallow and very slow angle just enough to nudge the moon or be captured by earth's orbit. Uhg. That would mean we didn't see it coming, which it nuts, because we have a society that specifically looks for rogue trajectory impact. Forget what its called. Any way it might disrupt the tides for sure and cause massive flooding but no whirlpool effect to speak of. What would happen if the magnetic poles took a gradual or quick flip flop? Since our magnetic field protects us from incoming solar radiation, there would be a lapse, leading to increased radiation, leading to rise in global temp--leading to toasted flora and fauna.

Tri

Pthom, was it Inconstant Moon, by Larry Niven?

That would mean we didn't see it coming, which it nuts, because we have a society that specifically looks for rogue trajectory impact

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The folks who do this will probably be the first to tell you that they don't have nearly enough resources to keep an eye on the entire sky, so I think you'll have a plausible scenario so long as you don't wait too long to discover it, just long enough that by the time it is discovered, it can't be stopped.