Pincushion Protea Rob Dempster
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The Three Gorges Dam
and
the Earth's Axis
30 August 2025 		Pincushion Protea

I did not do Geography at school. I choose Bookkeeping instead as I had done it in my Standard VI year (Grade 8), and did well at it. I have subsequently regretted that choice, and now is one of those occasions. More geography later on.

I am not sure when I first read about the Three Gorges Dam in China, but it was a while ago. Since then I have read more about the Dam in terms of what ever came my way.

Yesterday I read that the mass of water that is now accumulating in the dam, is affecting the Earth's Axis. Today Edith and I joined a group of cyclist for a morning ride, and at the risk of upsetting the cyclists while we were enjoying a cup of coffee, I warned them about the Three Gorges Dam affecting the alignment of the earth's axis. One of the cyclists then raised the issue of Ocean Tidal movements and whether that affected the earth's axis.

At the time I thought he might have a point. That evening when I sat down at my PC to wrestle with his point I Google'd, "Tides and the moon" and ended up on NASA's page for tides and the moon. It was only then that I realized/remembered that the ocean's tidal movement reflects with respect to the earth's axis. When the west coast of Australia is experiencing a High Tide, so is the east coast of South America on the opposite side of the globe.

So the changing tides are balanced and probably do not affect the earth's axis such that it would cause it to oscillate as it rotates on its own axis daily. However, I then read a Nasa Goddard Space Flight Center article about tides and I was somewhat surprised when I read that, "the Moon’s gravity affects the entire Earth, pulling [outwards] at every point on our planet". This is graphically represented in a figure labeled, "Net Tide Generating Force". [I have a problem with this!!! See the next paragraph and the one that follows it.]

While I completely buy the idea that the moon's gravitation pull on the sea water will raise its level on the side of the earth below the moon, I struggle with the idea that the moon is exerting a similar force on the opposite side of the earth. Since I read the article I have also started to wonder what causes the water level to rise on the opposite side of the earth.

AaaaaHaaa!! - As the earth spins the water (ocean) should be flung off the earth's surface. The earth( and the Moon)'s gravitational pull prevent that. The influence the moon has in this respect is weakest on side of the earth that is opposite to that where the moon is positioned. That results in the water rising there (in its attempt to leave the earth) resulting in a High Tide. An even higher tide would of course also result on the side of the earth that is directly below the moon as such. QED!

Whew!!!! I should now shut up. However I feel compelled to also share that I was amazed to learn that the first investigations regarding building the the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River was started in 1939. Also that it is navigable and is now generating BUCKETS of (?GREEN?) electricity. I question the GREEN as the construction of the dams radically changed the Yangtze River Valley.

ANOTHER AaaaaHaaa!! - 3 September 2025 - After publishing this blog I continued to struggle with the water on the surface of the earth (ocean) is being flung from the earth as the earth rotates, because of its inerta! So I continued to look for an authoritive publication that supports that view. It is provided by the USA's National Ocean Survice, and you can follow the link provided below to read more about it. ANOTHER QED!

Some Links

If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or plain criticism,
I would appreciate it if you would communicate the same to me.

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