James Maxlow
James Maxlow | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | May 12, 1949 Middlesbrough, England |
| Residence | Glen Forrest, Western Australia, Australia |
| Nationality | English-born Australian |
| Known for | Expanding Earth, Expansion Tectonics |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geologist |
Dr. James Maxlow (born 1949) is an English-born Australian geologist and the leading contemporary researcher of Expansion Tectonics — a term he coined to distinguish the expanding- and growing-Earth theory from conventional plate tectonics. Regarded by his peers as the direct successor of Professor Samuel Warren Carey, the "father of modern Earth expansion," Maxlow has spent decades developing quantitative, empirical small-Earth modelling studies in support of the Expanding Earth hypothesis.
Biography
Early life and education
James Maxlow was born in Middlesbrough, England, in May 1949. His interest in geology can be traced to a family history of "ironstone workers" who supplied iron ore mined from the Cleveland Hills, south of Middlesbrough, to the foundries and steel rolling mills of the town during the 1800s. In 1953 he emigrated to Australia with his parents and grew up in Melbourne.
Maxlow initially studied civil engineering at the then Swinburne College, but, becoming disillusioned with engineering, redirected himself to a degree in geology at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), graduating in 1971. It was in Melbourne that he met and married his wife, Anita, with whom he has three children. Many years later he returned to university, gaining a Master of Science in geology in 1995 and a Doctorate of Philosophy in 2001 at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia, receiving a letter of commendation from the university Chancellor for his original, thought-provoking research into Expansion Tectonics.
Career as a geologist
After first working as a mine geologist in Victoria, and after brief periods in surveying, survey drafting, mine surveying and home building, Maxlow returned to geology in the Northern Territory and later in Western Australia. Over a career spanning more than 25 years (and, in total, some four decades before his retirement in 2013) he worked as an exploration and mine geologist throughout much of Australia, accumulating extensive field experience that he later applied to his research into Earth expansion.
Research: Expansion Tectonics
Maxlow's interest in Earth expansion stems from his work in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, a huge, ancient domal structure several hundred kilometres across, where 2,500-million-year-old iron- and silica-rich sediments form the world's largest iron-ore deposits. He was struck that the bedded sediments — down to the finest laminations in the iron ores — could be correlated between sites separated by more than 300 kilometres. His studies indicated that some 30 kilometres of sediment and volcanic rock had been eroded from the centre of the Pilbara dome, and it occurred to him that the structure might be a preserved fragment of the ancient Earth, its curvature reflecting the smaller radius of the Earth at that time.
Building on this, Maxlow developed a body of empirical small-Earth modelling studies, reconstructing the continents on globes of progressively smaller radius. He argues that the continental crust reassembles into a complete shell around a smaller Earth, which he presents as evidence that the planet has grown over geological time. He has coined the term Expansion Tectonics for this framework and has promoted it at conferences in Japan, Athens and Australia.
Succession from S. Warren Carey
During his academic years Maxlow corresponded with many of the world's leading "expansionists," including Yan Koziar of Poland and Klaus Vogel of Germany (a pioneer of modern Expanding-Earth modelling), but most notably the late Professor Samuel Warren Carey of Tasmania. In 1993 Carey wrote to Maxlow with comments on the manuscript of Maxlow's M.Sc. research and offered to "pass on" his Expanding Earth work to him. Maxlow regards this passing of Carey's Earth-expansion "baton" as one of the greatest honours of his career, and he has since been widely recognised as the principal inheritor and continuer of Carey's research program.
Recognition
In 2017 Maxlow received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society (CNPS), presented by CNPS President David de Hilster, in recognition of his work advancing Expansion Tectonics.
Abstracts
- 2012 - "Global Expansion Tectonics: A Significant Challenge for Physics" (Read in full)
- 2008 - "Expansion Tectonics: An Overview" (Read in full)
- 2003 - "Global Expansion Tectonics - A More Rational Explanation" (Read in full)
Books
- 2018 - Beyond Plate Tectonics: Unsettling Settled Science (2nd ed. 2021)
- 2014 - On the Origin of Continents and Oceans: Empirical Small Earth Modelling Studies
- 2005 - "Terra non Firma Earth" (Read in full)
Media
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 1 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 2 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 3 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 4 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 5 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 6 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 7 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 8 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 9 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 10 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 11 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 12 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 13 (Video Lecture)
- 2006 - Yes! The Earth is Expanding 14 (Video Lecture)
External links
- Dr. James Maxlow — Expansion Tectonics (official site)