Expanding Earth hypothesis

The Expanding Earth hypothesis (or Growing Earth hypothesis) may refer to several different but similar and related observations about the geological life of the planet, all essentially holding that the volume of the Earth (and potentially other planets) has increased through history, and that this change in volume can explain phenomena such as continental drift. Advocates have proposed several distinct causes of the increased volume, including: thermal expansion; a change in the gravitational constant; increasing mass; a ballooning effect, producing a hollow cavity in the Earth's interior.

Prior to the wide-spread acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics, variations of this hypothesis (and even its direct opposite, the Contracting Earth hypothesis) were widely discussed in the conventional geologic circles.

in German

 * &mdash; [English: "The Expanding Earth"]
 * &mdash; [English: "The paleogeography of the Expanding Earth from the Carboniferous to the Tertiary after paleomagnetic measurements"]