It may be dark energy. See, please, the discussion on my question in RG: "Is spirit our energy? Is spirit dark energy?". In any case, seismic activity on the Earth may be conditioned by the dark energy captured during the Earth formation. Having negative density, dark energy is trying to blow out from the interior of the Earth, which occurred sometime when the balance of its pressure and gravitation of the upper rocks is disturbed.

Sorry, but I have difficulties in answering on this question. I have dealings only with Earth plate tectonics without any etan or metan.

Excuse my ill-information,

yours Prof. Yu. Gatinsky

Quite interesting your question. In my present investigation topic, I am monitoring gas emission in deep caves (depth greater than 200m), in relationship with active faulting and earthquake occurrence. One of the posible gas emission could be ethane or methane. Of course, CO2 and H2 and even Rn have been demonstrated like gases released during earthquakes, and therefore, these gases are present in the inner lithosphere. Regarding your question,geology has proved the presence of active tectonics in other planetary bodies. Of course, plate tectonics occurred at Marte, and in Europe. Anyway, I am placing data loggers for ethane and methane and I hope to get information in a couple of years. Of course, a long time period. I figura that you are searching for a theoretical publications instead of empirical ones. Best regards.

I think the emissions of the gases are the consequences of the plate tectonics. Thus it is not impossible what you said .

What you need to think about is *why* water may act as a lubricant for plate tectonics. Not just any liquid would do it, and it's not that plates are sliding around on a sheet of water, it's the interaction of water with mantle rocks and the decrease in viscosity in the asthenosphere. So what is the analogue for methane/ethane on Titan? Adding these compounds to water ice doesn't make the water ice partially melt under Titan conditions, instead it forms a clathrate. This could lead to volume changes or density changes (see recent abstracts by Mathieu Choukroun about Titan) and perhaps vertical tectonics via basin loading, but I don't see a physical mechanism by which this would promote an Earth-like plate tectonic system.

I think that everything is connected to density. This Wikipedia paragraph is interesting for some of your questions.

"If volcanism on Titan really exists, the hypothesis is that it is driven by energy released from the decay of radioactive elements within the mantle, as it is on the Earth.[23] Magma on Earth is made of liquid rock, which is less dense than the solid rocky crust through which it erupts. Because ice is less dense than water, Titan's watery magma would be denser than its solid icy crust. This means that cryovolcanism on Titan would require a large amount of additional energy to operate, possibly via tidal flexing from nearby Saturn.[23] Alternatively, the pressure necessary to drive the cryovolcanoes may be caused by ice Ih "underplating" Titan's outer shell. The low-pressure ice, overlaying a liquid layer of ammonium sulfate, ascends buoyantly, and the unstable system can produce dramatic plume events. Titan is resurfaced through the process by grain-sized ice and ammonium sulfate ash, which helps produce a wind-shaped landscape and sand dune features.[95]"

It's a very fascinating (and tough) topic.

Thank you, dear Cole, for so actual question.

I understand, that my conception seems fantasy yet. But Time is going.

It is easy to see, indeed, how many problems turn out to be resolved if we admit that a part of dark energy is accumulated in some caverns inside the Earth, where it is equilibrated by the gravitation of the Earth matter. Its stochastically arising escapes lead to motions under the Earth crust and to earthquakes. Moreover, when the equilibrium is disturbed, opening of a large cavern with dark energy may annul its antigravity support of the upper rocks, so that whole continents might be come downward to the earth core by gravitation (Lemouria, Atlantida). Apparently, its often emanations take place in the Bermudan triangle, which are reasons of disappearance of ships and airplanes due to their accidental entry into the regions of low (even negative!) density. Perhaps, that aircraft disappearance in the South-China Sea is that case too.

Possible accumulation of dark energy inside the Earth imposes constraints on the models of the planet formation. The models of the stochastic origin of the matter compressions and their further accumulation by gravitation might not be sufficient. The MHD models only, including gigantic cyclonic vortices, could be adequate.

Galina

From comparative planetology it should be principally possible to assume geologic activity from autochtonous fluids. Recall the example of Jupiter's moon Io, which proved to have an still active sulfur volcanism.

Here is a brief description of the concept of dark energy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy

It is directly correlated with the concept of pressure, actually dark energy seems to act as a negative pressure which accelerates it if is an expanding one and decelerates it if it is a contracting one.

Probably dark energy exist at every planet in order to keep its stability: Think about a rotation giant object and you will understand why.

Of course in Earth there exist many non explained phenomena, like Bermouda triangle and other gravitational anomalies, so who knows?

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I am mainly interested in how different liquids (not water) stored in the crust and mantle of a planetary body can help drive plate tectonics. What are the possible liquids that can drive tectonics? I am proposing ethane or methane but am unsure and looking for papers on the topic. We think that plate tectonics can only occur when water is present, but I want to know if it is possible for other liquids to replace the role of water in other planetary tectonic regimes. This has implications for finding life on other planetary systems because we need plate tectonics to refresh the carbon cycle and the crust for generating new resources and nutrients for building organisms. I am interested in what you guys say about dark energy because how can you say that there is an affect that dark energy plays on tectonics when we cannot even quantify what dark energy is?

You are right, Cole, we know very little yet about dark energy. However, one of its properties, namely, negative density is known due to many cosmological evidences, mainly due to acceleration of the Universe expansion.

Just this property of the dark energy may be a source of seismic activity on the Earth, as well as other tectonic phenomena on other planets.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that some other causes, e.g., methane, cannot play their roles.

Interesting propsal thanks!

I believe water would lubricate plate tectonics.The principal gaseous emission from volcanoes is steam ie water. A recent Nature article referred to evidence for water in the mantle.

First direct measurements of the amount of water in the Earth’s mantle - has significance for mantle dynamics and plate tectonics. These measurements have been made by studying very rare diamonds acquired in Brazil by Mark Hutchinson of GSWA. The work has been a collaboration between scientists in Canada, Germany, Italy, the UK, Austria, Belgium and Australia.

A link to where the article appears is:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v507/n7491/full/nature13080.html

"Hydrous mantle transition zone indicated by ringwoodite included in diamond"

Thank you Richard, I was aware of water being the primary lubricant here on Earth, I am curious about any other work that has been done to find out what other liquids could also work.

I spoke with Dr. Stephen Mojzsis today and he informed me that CO2 can facilitate the role that H20 plays in plate tectonics.

CO2 is the second biggest gaseous emission from volcanoes after steam.

This is just speculation, but perhaps ethane or methane could form a plasma under the heat and pressure of a closed system.

Europa has a frozen surface, but scientists now see evidence for subduction zones there. The main difference between Europa and Titan is the tidal heating on Europa. Plate tectonics always requires a substantial energy source -- tides, radiogenic heating, or heat of formation. For a small body, tides are the most likely plate tectonics driver since radiogenic heat and heat of formation are radiated away very quickly (roughly in proportion to 1/R, the surface area / volume ratio of the body).

From a planetary science perspective, the type of world you are proposing -- some place with a cold surface, where water is frozen and more volatile compounds lubricate plate tectonics -- seems unlikely. We expect planets/satellites that formed in cold places to have a high H2O abundance (water or ice). If they have enough internal energy to drive plate tectonics, they are differentiated, so the they will form an icy outer shell and a liquid ocean underneath. If an icy crust is undergoing plate tectonics, water itself can be the lubricant. Titan's surface is made of mostly water ice, so it should have no problem with plate tectonics with an adequate energy source.

I leave the question of whether another liquid besides water can actually lubricate tectonics of rocky plates to the geologists. However, I can think of a few possibilities for forming a rocky world with very little water, where other liquids would have to substitute:

-Form a star system with C/O > 1. The oxygen would be mostly tied up in refractory organics, silicates and CO. Very little water would be available throughout the entire planetary system.

-The Earth has a carbon deficit compared with comets and the sun, possibly because of carbon combustion in the inner solar nebula. Lower the accretion rate of the inner nebula so that it's not hot enough for carbon combustion. That could make hydrocarbons more abundant than water on a forming planet.

Wow Sarah! What an awesome response, thank you so much!

Do you have any papers or evidence that can show me subduction zones on Europa? I was not aware of this and thought that only fractures, fissures, spreading zones, and the isostatic tilting of sheet fragments occured in the ice. Thanks!!!

The Europa work is very new. Here's a summary:

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2014/03191328-lpsc-2014-plate-tectonics-europa.html

Short-term climate changes can also be triggered by processes of plate tectonics within subduction zones as through the release of methane from gas hydrates at active margins. Paull et al. (1991) had speculated on such a role of gas hydrates initially. The return flow of material and the impact of fluids and volatiles at subduction zones also play an essential part in the generation of natural disasters. The largest volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and slumps occur in the arc region of subduction zones where they endanger some 70% of the world population living in coastal regions. The oceanic crust are crumple and crused and finally destroyed and transformed into continental crust and mixed into the mantle. These Fluids are transferred from the subducting plate into the mantle wedge and hence upward by magma, some of which ascend to build highly explosive volcanoes. The magnitude of an earthquake may be related to the fluid content of down-going sediments and to the depth of the seismogenic zone. Many large-scale slumps occur at tectonically over-steepened convergent margins and can cause disastrous tsunamis (Monastersky, 1999). I think the plate tectonic process is the root of all natural disasters and present climate change is the daughter product of it.

Sarah, that work theorizing on on plate tectonics of europa is clearly incorrect.

About possible dark energy effects see, please, discussions on the RG question by Patrizio Petricca “Can dark energy have effects on plate tectonics? “, in particular, my discussion with Prof. V. P. Chechev.

Dark energy sounds like a dark art! (-;

Indeed, your art insight is very art.

Thanks for all the replies everyone! I am mainly interested in how different liquids (not water) stored in the crust and mantle of a planetary body can help drive plate tectonics. What are the possible liquids that can drive tectonics? I am proposing ethane or methane but am unsure and looking for papers on the topic. We think that plate tectonics can only occur when water is present, but I want to know if it is possible for other liquids to replace the role of water in other planetary tectonic regimes. This has implications for finding life on other planetary systems because we need plate tectonics to refresh the carbon cycle and the crust for generating new resources and nutrients for building organisms. I am interested in what you guys say about dark energy because how can you say that there is an affect that dark energy plays on tectonics when we cannot even quantify what dark energy is?

I support Joerg´s reasoning and Ustinova´s sentence.  Scientists have to find answers. We have a long list of truths that are no longer true: flat earth, age of the earth, causes of earthquakes, ................

An increase in radiogenic heat flow combined with the presence of water could lower viscosity and get things moving. Earth has water - Someone wrote "no water, no granite, no continents" and that Earth was unique in the solar system in this regard.

Richard,

Yes thank you! I am familiar with that publication, and I too think water-->granite-->continents. However, here I am hypothesizing and wondering if another lubricant could generate a different composition contiental crust with subduction and deivergence.  

Surface erosion events controlled the evolution of plate tectonics on Earth

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1258-4

Stephan V. Sobolev & Michael Brown

Plate tectonics is among the most important geological processes on Earth, but its emergence and evolution remain unclear. Here we extrapolate models of present-day plate tectonics to the past and propose that since about three billion years ago the rise of continents and the accumulation of sediments at continental edges and in trenches has provided lubrication for the stabilization of subduction and has been crucial in the development of plate tectonics on Earth.

We conclude that the two largest surface erosion and subduction lubrication events occurred after the Palaeoproterozoic Huronian global glaciations (2.45 to 2.2 billion years ago), leading to the formation of the Columbia supercontinent, and after the Neoproterozoic ‘snowball’ Earth glaciations (0.75 to 0.63 billion years ago). The snowball Earth event followed the ‘boring billion’—a period of reduced plate tectonic activity about 1.75 to 0.75 billion years ago that was probably caused by a shortfall of sediments in trenches—and it kick-started the modern episode of active plate tectonics.

Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333634737_Surface_erosion_events_controlled_the_evolution_of_plate_tectonics_on_Earth [accessed Sep 02 2020].

Another item of interest:

The initial break-up of Pangæa elicited by Late Palæozoic deglaciation Meng-WanYeh & J. Gregory Shellnutt The break-up of Pangæa was principally facilitated by tensional plate stress acting on pre-existing suture zones.

The rifting of Pangæa began during the Early Permian along the southern Tethys margin and produced the lenticular-shaped continent known as Cimmeria.

A mantle-plume model is ascribed to explain the rift-related volcanism but the NW-SE oriented Cimmerian rifts do not correlate well with pre-existing suture zones or ‘structural heterogeneities’ but appear to have a pertinent spatial and temporal association with Late Palæozoic glacial-interglacial cycles.

Mantle potential temperature estimates of Cimmerian rift-related basalts (1410 °C±50 °C) are similar to ambient mantle conditions rather than an active mantle-plume rift as previously suggested. Moreover, we find that the distribution of glacial deposits shows significant temporal and spatial concurrence between the glacial retreat margins and rifting sites.

We conclude that the location and timing of Cimmerian rifting resulted from the exploitation of structural heterogeneities within the crust that formed due to repeated glacial-interglacial cycles during the Late Palæozoic. Such effects of continental deglaciation helped to create the lenticular shape of Cimmeria and Neotethys Ocean suggesting that, in some instances, climate change may directly influence the location of rifting.

Scientific Reports | 6:31442 | DOI: 10.1038/srep31442