The shell resulted from external aggregation of solids and gases and internal segregation about a molten core.
The fault blocks came from shrinkage of the shell over a liquid core, adjusted by luni-solar gravitation and rotation through the pre-geologic ages.
The continental and oceanic boundaries of the fault blocks were determined by elevated and sunken blocks with core volcanism of escaping gas melting walls and laying down an exterior siliceous armorplate on the earliest solidified globe. This in continents is the seismologists’ lighter exterior layer underlaid by denser rock at the armorplate bottom.
Continental volcanism (VOLC.-CONT.) became differentiated from oceanic volcanism, by light atmospheric pressure over the raised blocks and much greater water pressure over three-quarters of the earth, the sunken blocks.
The subdivision is represented in the diagrammatic section on the globe by three-quarters of the section being ocean, namely twelve-sixteenths.
The section shows twelve-sixteenths as sunken blocks, four-sixteenths as raised blocks. The four sixteenths by the tetrahedral hypothesis of Lowthian Green and Michel-Lévy make the four continental protuberances.
Twelve-sixteenths of the surface is broken by fundamental rifts of irregular shapes, some of them north-south, controlled by centrifugal stresses and corresponding to the north-south deeps and heaps and known rifts. These have persisted since the first volcanism of primitive time.
Circum-continental volcanism is represented on the diagram by VOLC.-CONT., oceanic volcanism is represented by VOLC.-OCEAN. Both are shown as interblock rifts, adjusted through the ages (exaggerated on the drawing) and always tensional over expansional core pressure, with exothermal heating agencies.
The sixteen fundamental block boundaries correspond approximately to sixteen fundamental volcanic fault blocks known vaguely on the globe. Something similar is known on the moon. The rifts are the boundaries of sixteen blocks, some polyhedral, some elongate. Some are oceanic like New Zealand-Tonga, some are ancient and continental like Arabia. The imperfectly mapped ocean deeps are boundary lines. The rifts of Africa and Chile-Patagonia are boundary lines. The great arcs of Himalaya, Java-Sumatra, and Aleutian ridges are boundary lines of circular blocks. Possibly they were circular calderas of engulfment on the primitive spheroid. The edge of Mare Imbrium on the moon shows fault rifts. The straight alignment of lunar calderas hints at moon rifts under an unmapped mosaic. The blocks of the theory of continental drift, are guesses at a mosaic of crust blocks. But the possibility drift theory omitted is that the blocks are deep. Except for the Lowthian Green, Wegener, Holmes, and Daly speculations, based on thin crust blocks of continents, no mapping of the shell mosaic exists. It is not feasible until we map the detail of ocean bottoms. Primitive blocks require acceptance of a thick crust and justify new speculation. The cracks between blocks are the volcanic partitions of the earth, which I call ignisepts.
There are many points for speculation, some of them subject to mathematical inquiry. Does surface water penetrate the partitions? Is it high pressure and saline under oceans? How do deep earthquakes stem from friction 300 miles down under the Cordillera and the west Pacific? Do earth and moon spheres as rounded tetrahedra crack similarly? Because of rotation are north-south cracks dominant? Are the core fluids changing volcanism through the ages?