What if There Were No Earthquakes These Days? Part III

The existence of earthquake and volcanic activity contributes to the habitability of planet Earth for advanced life for an additional reason.  Besides producing dry continents through the raising of land masses above ocean level (see prev. blog), plate tectonics also ensures the recycling of elements and minerals that are vital for the existence of life to return again and again to the surface of the earth.  In the same way that the hydrological (water) cycle, together with wind, wears away at dry land mountainous surfaces through the process of erosion, and carries the particles into rivers that flow back down into the sea, so vital ingredients for life are also destined to be emptied into the oceans.  It is required for life to exist that a mechanism be in place that will return such ingredients back to the surface of the Earth.  While earthquakes and volcanos can certainly be harmful to humans, they also replenish the earth with these necessary ingredients.  That list includes oxygen which over time combines with other elements, and carbon which is digested by bacteria.  By their return to the Earth’s interior they are recycled to be used again and again on the Earth’s surface.  

Plate tectonic activity is also connected to the Earth’s electromagnetic field which not only produces the beautiful display of the northern and southern lights (“auroras”).  It also produces a field which prevents harmful radiation of the solar winds from penetrating Earth’s atmosphere at dangerous, indeed fatal levels.

Plate tectonics is further evidence that the existence of life, including advanced life such as ours, cannot be the result of mindless chance.  It must be deliberately intentioned by the Maker of heaven and earth.

For further reading I encourage you to turn to Hugh Ross’ book, Why the Universe is the Way it Is. (Reasons to Believe, 2008), and also the Reasons to Believe website at www.reasons .org.  And consider further  www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3039/plate-tectonics-could-be-essential-for-life.

“Thou didst set the earth on its foundations,

so that it should not be shaken.

Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment;

the waters stood above the mountains…

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down

to the place which thou didst appoint for them.”  (Psalm 104:5,6,8)