Hi Mars.
You brought up some interesting points regarding the growing earth idea that before the flood in noah's day the shallow seas were on the continental sections of the earth but when the flood waters retreated they wedged their way between the continental sections and pushed them apart making the ocean beds.
http://mysiddhi.freehostia.com/spiritual/earthmap1.JPG
This picture shows the mapping of both sides of the earth with color indication of the dating of the core samples of the land (granite continental plates) and sea floor (basalt level); Newest 10 million or so is RED, and as we go back in time orange, yellow, green, blue, with the oldest dating of the sea floor being 70 million years old. First thing I should point out is that the granite continental plates are measured to be 2 billion years old; That's over 28 times older than the oldest sections of the sea floor (basalt level)!
Where do fish fossils come from? From the land! In fact the basalt level never existed when the dinosaurs such as the T. Rex were around!
The next thing I will point out is that the granite continental plates fit together
completely on a much smaller earth;
http://mysiddhi.freehostia.com/spiritual/earthmap2.JPG
The two earth maps no longer show up when I click on them, they just show the generic host pages. Is it possible for you to find another copy of those images?
How could the earth grow so much larger? From hydration, buoyancy, and osmosis.... from tons of pure water that was in the thermosphere falling to the earth! When material hydrates it expands; Liquid water is vastly heavier than gaseous water (lightest of all gases) and many material things are lighter than liquid water... thus liquid water sinks and the material objects 'float'; And place material in pure water and the osmotic pressure will force the water into the material and the material into the water. Thus the earth grew!!
How can we prove that there was tons of gaseous water in the thermosphere? Well insects breath through absorption of their skin. If there was tons of gaseous water in the thermosphere the atmospheric pressure would be quite higher. There are fossils of GIANT insects that use to roam the earth. But today our atmospheric pressure is too low to sustain the existence of giant insects because lower pressure means lower absorptive diffusion through the skin (giant fauna and giant dinosaurs would also experience a similar problem with breathing)! Also giant dragon flies and flying animals such as pterodactyls (given the aerodynamics of their wings) can not fly in our atmospheric pressure... the higher the pressure the easier it is for winged flight!
On a similar note but with respects to gravitation... a smaller earth with tons of water in the heavens would have a lower gravitational density. There are many fossils of GIANT dinosaurs that could not have even walked in our current gravity!
So, not only is it a necessity that there was significant gaseous water in the thermosphere to explain how earth grew and how giant insects could breath or how giant dragon flies and teradactals flew (because of the higher pressure), and even how giant dinosaurs could even walk (because of lower gravity)... it is also quite probable such existed there, as the thermosphere is thousands of degrees and could maintain the water in the gaseous state.
I did a google search for ( fossils "giant insects" ) and it seems that giant insects did exist.
Here's a question for you were the creatures we call dinosaurs originally called dragons?
A note to be added here is that if there were such a large amount of gaseous water in the thermosphere the radiation intensity reaching the earth (in certain spectra) would be significantly reduced (possibly even types of radiation we are not aware of). Thus dating methods while preserving relative date relations are significantly off if they assume constant radiation intensity over time!
Also life span is correlated with radiation intensity (via destruction of our telomeres). There is also a telomere sequence directly in the center of one of our chromosomes (we are the only animal with this).
Thus man died before the flood from run away bodily fermentation because God would not let man eat of the fruit of the tree of life (coconut). But today man dies because his telomeres are being destroyed and possibly because the radiation is interfering with the reading of the telomere sequence in the center of one of our chromosomes; which potentially could be used as a template to regenerate all our telomeres at the end of our chromosomes (according to our original design).
The link below on Hyperbaric Oxygenation Therapy may help with your research.
http://www.hyperbaric-care.com/
The only way to fix the earth back to the original design is to 'destroy' it with fire... in other words boil that water out of the earth and put it back into the thermosphere. I am not going to explain how this will happen.... I just wanted to spark your interest... that what God says he will due is actually what God needs to do to fix the earth.
(2 Peter 3:10-13) . . .Yet Jehovah’s day will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a hissing noise, but the elements being intensely hot will be dissolved, and earth and the works in it will be discovered... through which [the] heavens being on fire will be dissolved and [the] elements being intensely hot will melt! But there are new heavens and a new earth that we are awaiting according to his promise, and in these righteousness is to dwell.
Might the scripture below be the one you were looking for?
And I perceived a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth pass away, and the sea is no more.
There's a number of possibilities in Revelation to look at.
Take care Mars.