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12. The Effect of Water on the Earth's Lowland
Mars seems very much similar to Earth 200 million years ago, the lowlands are on one side and the highlands are on the other side.
The first lowland to form on Earth was in the Pacific ocean.
Land chunks on Earth have changed position, but on Mars and the other rocky planets they remained in the same place where they were created initially. The main difference between Earth and the other planets is water.
Based on what is seen on Mars and the other inner planets, it is very likely the earth's lowland was flat in the beginning, without ridges and trenches. But just like winds and rain change the surface features of the continental crust, the sea water also changes the surface features of the oceanic crust.
Gases released from the earth's interior created clouds in the sky, which have produced rain that put weight on ocean floor.
This shift of energy, from the interior of the earth to the surface of the earth, must have caused a problem for the Earth stability.
The earth adjusted itself with the new situation by introducing ocean ridges and trenches. Expanding at the ridges and shrinking at the trenches.
The cracked solid, basaltic, layer of the Earth allowed ridges and trenches to form.
At ocean ridges, magma rises from inside the mantle and builds new ocean floor. At ocean trenches, parts of the ocean floor fall down inside the mantle. This process causes parts of the land to spread away at ocean ridges, and other parts to come closer to each other at ocean trenches.
When ocean basins were filled with a considerable amount of water, the Earth tried to balance this water on its surface. It is like putting a weight on one side of a ball, and you see the air is being pushed to other sides. The water in the world oceans is the main factor that causes the land chunks to drift; without the water, Earth will be just like Mars, the lowlands are on one side, and highlands are on the other side.
Most of the water received by Mars evaporated to space very quickly due to the thin atmosphere of the planet, otherwise it would have continental drift like Earth.
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