Subduction For Dummies

Cross-section of Mariana arc and trench

The staffers at the Antisocial Network all try to be lifelong learners. They enjoy gleaning bits of information and picking up new knowledge wherever it might appear. That may be why some potentially interesting content we've found floating around in cyberspace has turned out to be so disappointing. It's disappointing because it combines new and interesting information with old and irritating mistakes. A case in point is today's nominee for our infamous award, Moina Arcee (real name Mark Fellows?) of InfoBarrel.com. Moina combined fascinating facts with misinformation in "Life In The Mariana Trench"¹ – our problem is that given how badly s/he mangled what we already knew, we don't know what to trust in the rest of it...

Moina / Mark's article is full of tidbits of information, many related to James Cameron's 2012 dive into the Trench, There's more there about other historical exploration of this deepest place on Earth (though, oddly, he never mentions that the Mariana Trench holds that reverse-Everest record). Given that the title is "Life in..." it's also surprising that the article is mostly jumbled science and a good bit of history. We said "jumbled science" because of some of Arcee / Fellows' statements concerning the tectonic setting of the Mariana Trench, which contain significant misinformation:

"Because of intense pressure even farther below, our crust has broken up into eight large tectonic plates (and a host of smaller plates)."  The planet's internal pressure isn't a direct cause of the segmentation of the crust. Arguably, it's an indirect cause, but the direct cause as the writer implies? No. "The plates collide with each other, with the larger plate tending to thrust underneath the smaller plate." No Mark, not the larger plate: the denser plate. "Water trapped between the two plates heated and then exploded up through the overlaying Mariana Plate, creating a curved chain of volcanic islands..." Volcanism is a result of the heating of water? No, it's caused by the magma that results from melting of the leading edge of the subducting plate, dummy.

As we said before, we like receiving new and interesting information. But if we know that it's mixed in with undependable information on topics we already know, then quite frankly we don't think we can trust that it's right. Because Moina / Mark Fellows / Arcee (or whatever this person's real name may be) can't be depended on for accuracy, we reward him (her? who knows?) with presentation of today's Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ The post has been deleted, but you can still see it using archive.org's Wayback machine. Its URL was   http://www.infobarrel.com/Life_In_The_Mariana_Trench

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