Onset and cause of plate tectonics
Earth's surface is broken into moving plates that sink back into the mantle, while Venus, its near twin, has a single unbroken shell. When Earth's plates started moving and what made that possible are open.
Why it matters
Plate tectonics recycles carbon and water and may be required for long-lived habitability.
Review
Jun Korenaga, Initiation and Evolution of Plate Tectonics on Earth: Theories and Observations, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-124208 reference checked
Timestamp record
- Signed record
- 88e7a08ea0c1…
- Public log
- Entry 206, in checkpoint 2,123
- In the log by
- Block 969,698, 2026-10-03
This text was in the PubPhys log by that date. The date says nothing about when the problem was first posed.