The Sun: Engine of the Dynamic Forces for the Movement and Deformation of the Earth’s Lithosphere

Abstract

The dynamic forces that cause the movement and deformation of the Earth’s crust have been the subject of debate for decades. Recent studies, based mainly on the analysis of stresses, have suggested that tectonic plate dynamics is mainly controlled by gravitational potential energy, subduction, the expansion of oceanic transform faults, thermal convection, plumes, etc. This shows that for over sixty years, geophysicists have considered plate tectonics as a unique and direct consequence of the Earth’s internal activity. However, the Earth is not alone in the universe; it is part of the Milky Way and in particular the Solar System where the Sun is the dominant gravitational mass. In this article, I take a gravitomagnetic approach of the action of speed on the moving bodies and examine the action (forces) of the Sun’s gravitational field on the rotating masses of the Earth verify that there are dynamic forces generated by solar gravity acting on lithospheric plates through a comparison of my model of tectonic plate velocities with GPS data (not to be confused with the action of the lunar tide on earth). The results indicate that my model is consistent with data for the Eurasia (EU), Pacific (PA), North American (NA), South American (SA) and Australia (AU) plates in the ITRF 2000 and ITRF 2005 Terrestrial Reference system. This suggests that the various layers of the Earth, including its crust, the lithosphere, the asthenosphere, the upper and lower mantle and the core, undergo additional stress to that resulting from the internal activity of the Earth. My results provide new perspectives on heat flow, lithospheric rheology and a better understanding of earthquakes and dynamic of plate tectonics.