Steven Alan Athearn
Steven Alan Athearn | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Rockland, ME, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | expanding Earth hypothesis, reciprocal system, Auxotectonics Forum (forum.auxotectonics.com) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geophysics, Tectonics |
Steven Alan Athearn is an American independent researcher based in Rockland, Maine, whose work centers on the expanding Earth hypothesis and on relating Earth expansion to the reciprocal system of theory developed by the physicist Dewey B. Larson. He is a member of the John Chappell Natural Philosophy Society and is associated with the Auxotectonics Forum, an online venue devoted to discussion of Earth-expansion and growth-tectonics ideas.
Biography
Athearn lives in Rockland, Maine, in the United States, and pursues his research as an independent investigator rather than through a university affiliation. His stated areas of interest include extensional tectonics, neotectonics, and back-arc basins. He took part in the international expanding-Earth research community that gathered for the workshop "The Earth Expansion Evidence — A Challenge for Geology, Geophysics and Astronomy," held as the 37th Interdisciplinary Workshop of the International School of Geophysics in Erice, Sicily, on 4–9 October 2011.
Work
Athearn's principal interest is the hypothesis that the Earth has increased in volume over geological time, an idea associated historically with S. Warren Carey and others, which he treats as an alternative to conventional plate tectonics. He seeks to connect this hypothesis to Dewey B. Larson's reciprocal system of theory, a framework that treats space and time as reciprocal aspects of motion and offers its own account of the growth of matter. In this connection he uses the term "auxotectonics" (from the Greek auxo-, meaning growth or increase) for tectonic processes attributed to a growing Earth, and he is associated with the Auxotectonics Forum, which hosts discussion of the expanding-Earth hypothesis, planetary geodynamics, and related topics. These positions lie outside the mainstream scientific consensus, which regards Earth expansion as unsupported by the geophysical evidence.