Is it true that the Earth is growing?

Question

Could it be at one point in time, the earth was covered totally by land ... then through out millions of years the planet grew larger separating land masses to their current state, creating oceans. If you look at a map of the atlantic ocean floor you can see flat stretch marks near africa and europe.

Answer 1

In a sense... the earth's mass is increasing steadily due to all the cosmic dust and a few dozen meteorites that impact the surface every year. Our planet gains about 4,000 tons of matter every year... that may sound like allot but its a tiny fraction of the overall mass.

What you are describing is tectonic plate activity.

Answer 2

The earth by itself is not growing, just changing forms. If you think of a volcano growing out of the ground somewhere then somewhere else there is less ground so it is causing a shrinking. This shrinking could be anywhere, above or below ground.

You can think of it as a huge balance. For the world to be completly covered by land, there would have to be no water. Since water is a hard thing in nature to change the molecular formula into something else, its not going anywhere anytime soon.

Long long ago there could have been no water but over millions of years H2 gas and O2 gas could have been burned together and formed H20. More and more water was made until we have what you see on earth today. It is not likely it will go away unless our atmosphere leaves first.

The only growing the earth is doing is from space objects crashing into the earth. we are collecting solar dust (about 100 tons a day) but this is so slow that you dont have anything to worry about for a long time

Answer 3

It is "possible", but according to what geology/geography has shown is that water is brought up to earths surface by various mechanisms such as volcanoes (magma contains water). As the earths plates subduct they carry surface water below the crust which then lowers the melting point of the magma. As a result pressure builds and is released through the volcano.

I hope this helps answer your question. Also, it is possible that in the future that our atmosphere completely disappears and the sun evaporates all moisture from the earths surface.

Answer 4

No. land is created when magma cools. That land will eventually wear away into the ocean. Its a constant cycle

Answer 5

those stretch marks are just because of the continents separating, no the earth is not growing................
this is my guess tho

its educated
but



its not a definite answer


sorry

Answer 6

No its more likely that someone's figured out how to grow stupid people!