Origin of Plate Tectonics (VIDEO)

University of Sydney

Caption

The movie tells an 87-million-year-long story. It shows an early buoyant continent (made of a residual mantle in green and continental crust in red) slowly spreading toward the adjacent immobile plate (blue). After 45 million years, a short-lived subduction zone, where the plate goes under, develops. This allows the continent to surge toward the ocean, leading to the detachment of a continental block, the starting step in the movement of the continental plates or plate tectonics.

Credit

Patrice Rey, Nicolas Flament and Nicolas Coltice

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