Deep Space Travel to find a Better Earth -Play Dough

Twenty eight Western Sydney students (names changed for this article) are on a mission to find a better planet. They have been selected not because they are experts, but have been profiled as "Can do problem solvers".

"The Japanese Tsunami chucked an entire country, mountain ranges and all, 2 meters to the right.  This planet is definitely alive" said Jane Mitchells  leader of the "Planet Mechanics Team".  "We were expecting to hear the usual "The earth is a lump of solid rock", but were shocked to hear "The earth a lump of solid play-dough wrapped around a liquid center with a giant ball bearing in the center"

"At first it is was hard to think of solid rock as 'Plastic' but heat and tremendous pressure can get rock to squeeze about the mantle like tooth paste. It is only in the top 300 km, the so called weak layer rocks, that things stick and shatter creating earthquakes." commented Brodie who spends his weekends canyoning and caving. "The Blue Mountains, a hour out of Sydney is the world's second biggest Canyon system is my back yard."

"Abseiling then lie-lowing down the canyons is action packed. But in winter its colder, there is less light hours and you look out for dry canyons like Tiger Snake just up from my friends house.  It was here we got stuck behind so Sydney Uni Geologists back from Antarctica. Here is the quick story of Sydney:

1: 250 Million years ago, Lithgow was higher than Mt Everest but was near the South Pole.

2: Rain fall was x10 today, and a slow river ten times todays Amazon laid down 1 km thickness of river bed on top a a sizable seam of forest (now coal)

3. Australia drifts to the equator over a mantel uplift, creating the oldest volcanoes in Qld, working its way down to Victoria now creating the continental North- South Great Dividing Range. Including the Blue Mountains."

Many students travel down from the Mountains each day through Glenbrook Gorge.

They travel right through a mountain peak that has lift gently in last few million years, with the original creek still in place. A result of the Mantel hotspot.