The new analysis provides an alternative to the hypothesis that the movement of tectonic plates is related to convection currents in the Earth’s

Sun and moon ‘tug of war’ may drive tectonic plate motions

submited by
Style Pass
2022-01-27 18:00:05

The new analysis provides an alternative to the hypothesis that the movement of tectonic plates is related to convection currents in the Earth’s mantle. Convection involves buoyant rise of heated fluids, which Anne Hofmeister, a geophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues argue does not apply to solid rocks. They argue that force, not heat, moves large objects.

Earth’s internal workings are popularly modeled as dissipating heat generated by internal radioactivity and from leftover energy created during collisions when our planet formed. But even mantle convection proponents recognize that that amount of internal heat-energy is insufficient to drive large-scale tectonics. And there are other problems with using convection to explain observed plate motions.

Instead, Earth’s plates might be shifting because the sun exerts such a strong gravitational pull on the moon that it has caused the moon’s orbit around Earth to become elongated.

Leave a Comment