An Introduction to

The ABC's of Plate Tectonics

by Donald L. Blanchard
The Theory of Continental Drift has had a long and turbulent history since it was first
proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1910. Vigorously challenged yet widely ignored, the
theory languished for half a century, primarily due to its lack of a plausible mechanism to
support the proposed drift. With the discovery of sea-floor spreading in the late 1950's
and early 60's, the idea was reinvigorated, this time as the Theory of Plate Tectonics.
Plate tectonics is now almost universally accepted, its mechanisms plausible and to a
degree demonstrable. However, many details of the mechanism are yet to be worked out,
and many theories involving various details of plate tectonics rest on some questionable
assumptions. This set of pages attempts to define some of the basic principles of the
mechanism, and to examine their effect on the creation of landforms.
What follows is NOT a summary of the current thinking about plate tectonics and its
mechanisms; rather, many new, and probably highly controversial, ideas are presented for
consideration. What IS presented is a broad analysis of the basic principles that should
apply to the movements of plates, some new hypotheses about how they apply to
convection and landform formation, and some expected scenarios for differing tectonic
events.
For those unfamiliar with the theory of plate tectonics, a separate page - The Basics of
Plate Tectonics - is provided. This summary offers a brief condensation of the basic
principles of Plate Tectonics. A much more comprehensive explanation of Plate Tectonics
can be found on the USGS Web Site.

Buoyancy and Floating Continents

Introduction: Buoyancy.
Buoyancy is what makes a piece of wood float in water. It is also what makes a battleship
float on the high seas, or a block of steel float in a pool of liquid mercury. The first
principle of buoyancy is very simple: (1) If a solid immersed in a fluid weighs less than
an equal volume of the fluid, the solid will float. Another way of saying the same thing is,
if a solid has a lower specific gravity than a fluid, the solid will float in that fluid.
Specific gravity is defined as the weight of a substance divided by the weight of an equal
volume of water (specific gravity of water = 1).
If the first condition is met, then the level at which the solid will float is determined by
the second principle: (2) A floating object will displace its own weight in a fluid. Thus,
the percentage of the solid immersed in the fluid will be equal to the specific gravity of

the solid divided by the specific gravity of the fluid. For a block of wood having a
specific gravity of 0.7 floating in water (specific gravity 1.0), 70% of the block will be
below the water's surface.
Continents are made up of solid rock, and float in the fluid (a very viscous fluid) of the
Earth's mantle. If the specific gravity of the mantle and the specific gravity of continental
material are known, it should be possible to calculate how continents float in the Earth's
mantle.

Floating Continents:
Specific gravities of various Earth substances are listed in table 1.

TABLE I
Typical Specific Gravities of Earth Materials
Substance

Specific
Gravity*

Sea Water

1.02

Limestone

2.68-2.76**

Granite

2.64-2.76**

Sandstone

2.14-2.36**

Slate

2.6-3.3**

Basalt

2.4-3.1**

Average Specific Gravity of Continents

2.7

Average Specific Gravity of SiMa (Mantle

Material)

3.3

* Actual specific gravities vary slightly, depending on chemical

composition.
(** Source: Handbook of Chemistry and Physics)

The average continent is made up primarily of limestone, granite, or eroded granitic

byproducts such as shale, siltstone, and sandstone, as well as metamorphics like slate,
schist, and gneiss. However, most continents also have substantial amounts of andesite
and basalt added in, from a past history of various volcanic events. The addition of these
denser materials raises the average specific gravity for continental material to around 2.7.
SiMa (from Silicon/Magnesium - its principal elements) is the material of the Earth's
mantle - the 'fluid' in which continents are floating. To all appearances, this material is
solid rock, but under the extreme pressure and temperature to which it is subjected, it

actually flows like a liquid, albeit very slowly. Its specific gravity of 3.3 is
high enough to insure that continents cannot sink.
Given these figures, it should be possible to calculate the thickness of an average
continent. Hypothesize a continent that is absolutely flat and whose surface is exactly at
sea level. (Substantial portions of Australia and parts of the Canadian shield come very
close to this description.) The effective 'surface' of the SiMa fluid is actually the floor of
the oceans, averaging approximately 13,000' (~4 km) below sea level. The weight of
13,000' of ocean water pressing down on the mantle wherever continents are not present
complicates the formula somewhat. It becomes easier to think in terms of pressures,
rather than the percentage of floating object that are submerged in the fluid.
To refer back to the example in Section 1, if a rectangular block of wood 10" thick,
having a specific gravity of 0.7, is floating in water having a specific gravity of 1.0, 70%
or 7" of the block will be submerged and 3" will be above the surface. In terms of
pressures, the 3" above water is pushing down with a force proportional to 3" times its
specific gravity (0.7), while the submerged 7" are being pushed up by water pressure with
a force proportional to 7" times the difference in specific gravity between the water and
the wood (1.0 - 0.7). Thus:
3" x 0.7 = 7" x 0.3
In the case of a sea level continent (e.g. the image at right), the 13,000' between the sea
floor and its surface is pushing down with a force proportional to 13,000' x 2.7, but that
force is partially offset by the force of 13,000' of sea water pushing down elsewhere on
the mantle, 13,000' x 1.0. Thus the effective downward force from the continent is
13,000' x 1.7. This is equal to the force generated by the buoyancy of that portion of
continent submerged into the mantle, S, times the difference in specific gravities (3.3 2.7, or 0.6). Thus:
1.7 x 13,000 = 0.6 x S
Then S = 36,833, or ~ 37,000', and the total thickness of our hypothetical continent is
37,000' + 13,000', approximately 50,000' or ~15 km.
Continental material extending above sea level is not, of course, buoyed by the weight of
the sea water, and adds thickness to the continent at a rate of
1 + (2.7/(3.3 - 2.7))
or 5.5 feet in thickness for every foot of elevation. Therefore, when erosional sediments
are being deposited above sea level, for every 5.5' of sediments deposited, the continent
will gain 1' in elevation. (Of course, this may not be immediately obvious; the mantle
'fluid' is very viscous, and flows ever so slowly.)

It is interesting to note that in many places on the Earth, marine sedimentary deposits of
up to 50,000' thickness have been reported, but this author has never seen a report of
more than 50,000' of marine deposits. This is predictable from the above calculations.
Sediments eroded on dry land are ultimately washed out to sea, to be deposited on the sea
floor along continental margins. As soon as 50,000' of sediments have accumulated, the
depositional surface has reached sea level. New erosional sediments are then washed over
the old deposits and farther out to sea. The old depositional surface has effectively
become dry land.

Rates of Isostacy:
The mantle flows very slowly, but it moves fast enough to stay ahead of most geological
processes. Thus in most cases isostatic equilibrium - the balance that keeps continents
floating where calculations say they should be - is maintained. The rate of isostacy can
best be illustrated in Scandinavia, which 8,000 to 10,000 years ago was covered by a
large ice cap. The weight of the ice caused Northern Europe to sink some 2,300' (700 m).
In the 8,000 years since the ice melted, the land has risen about 1,800' (550 m) and it is
rising still, at a rate of up to 3' (90 cm) per century. The average over 8,000 years is 0.225'
(68 mm) per year. Put into a geological perspective, this implies that isostacy could
compensate for redistribution of continental mass at a rate of 225,000' (68 km) per
million years! Of course, no geological process known can redistribute continental
material at this rate sustained over that long a time span, but a few processes can get
ahead of isostacy for a short while.
Rates of deposition of eroded sediments rarely exceeds 20,000' (~6000 m) within a single
geological period - typically 35-60 million years, or 1/3' (10 cm) per million years or less.
Over a shorter time span, however, certain forms of deposition can exceed the rate of
isostacy. One example is the formation, or at least the melting, of continental glaciers, as
mentioned above. Another process is volcanism. Mt. Katmai in Alaska erupted in 1912,
ejecting an aerosol of molten lava at essentially the speed of sound. The "Valley of Ten
Thousand Smokes" was filled with tens of feet of tuff for 6-7 miles (~10 km) in perhaps
90 seconds! 30 to 50' (10-15 m) of volcanic deposits aren't significant to the isostatic
balance of an entire continent, but sustained volcanic eruptions over an extended period
can be.
The big island of Hawaii sits above a plume in the mantle - a rising column of hot molten
material rising from deep within the Earth. The mountain thus formed is nearly 30,000'
(9000 m) high; 15,000' (4500 m) above sea level, and nearly the same below to the ocean
floor. Its volcanos are active today, and the island continues to grow. The Pacific plate, on
which Hawaii sits, is drifting slowly to the northwest, and eventually will carry the island
away from the plume, bringing its volcanism to a halt. To the north and west are the rest
of the Hawaiian island chain, each island an extinct volcano which had previously been
created by the same plume. The farther these islands are from the big island, the older
they are, and also the lower in elevation. For once volcanism ceases, isostacy asserts
itself, and the islands slowly sink back into the mantle. Beyond the oldest island of the

Hawaiian chain stretch a row of submerged seamounts - sunken islands that have at last
reached their isostatic equilibrium.
It can then be safely assumed that, barring some obvious short term perturbation like
glaciation or volcanism, most continents are stable and very close to being isostatically
balanced in their liquid mantle medium. But isostacy is a dynamic process; mountains
erode, and their sediments are washed out to sea, to accumulate as sediments along the
continental shelves. Also, continents tend to move primarily as solid blocks, so what
happens in one part of a continent affects the rest of the continent as well. Thus,
Scandinavia is still rising, and Venice is sinking, as Europe rotates slowly in response to
the dictates of isostacy.

Sedimentation and Continental Growth

Tectonic forces elevate the land, reducing the surface area of continental masses, while
increasing their thickness. Erosion wears away the high places, transporting its sediments
to the continents' edge and depositing them off the edge of the continental shelf onto the
sea floor, thereby reducing the thickness of continents but increasing their surface area.
The form that this "new land" takes depends on a number of factors: the age of the
continental margin, the shape of the continental shelf, as determined during the rifting
process, and the presence or absence of a subduction zone adjacent to the continental
margin.

Rifts: The Making of a Continental Margin.

When a new spreading center forms beneath a pre-existing continent, a rift forms that
will eventually, if allowed to proceed normally, divide the original continent into two,
with new ocean floor being created to separate them. As the two newly formed plates
begin to separate, molten material, mostly basalt, from the mantle beneath will flow
upwards into the crack. The heat from this molten material is conducted to the continental
material above, reducing its density and causing it to float higher in the mantle, producing
a ridge of mountains above the spreading center. As spreading continues, blocks will
break loose from the sides of the crack and subside into the void, creating the
characteristic "rift valley," such as that in East Africa. As spreading continues, the rift
valley will deepen, ultimately subsiding below sea level and allowing ocean water to fill
the valley. The now water-covered subsidence blocks will later become the submerged
continental shelves.
Depending on the rate of spreading and the amount of heat flowing into the rift, these
continental margins may be broad or narrow. Also depending on heat flow, which to a
large degree depends on the proximity of plumes, volcanoes may or may not form.
Surface fissure flows of basaltic lava may also occur where heat flow is high. (Plumes
generally appear to be associated with the formation of new spreading centers, a notion
that will be discussed further in a later lesson.)
Continued spreading causes the complete separation of the two land masses, with new sea
floor being created beneath the ever-widening ocean. As the continental margins move
farther from the heat flow at the spreading, the mountains formed along the continental

margins cool and slowly subside back into the mantle. Depending on how much material
erosion has removed from their summits, they may sink below the waves and vanish
forever.
Freshly rifted continental margins tend to have steep walls, the continental shelves
plunging nearly vertically from a few hundred feet deep to the ocean floor, many
thousands of feet below. As erosional sediments are washed off the land surface, they first
cover the continental shelves, then wash over the precipice to fall on the ocean floor
below. Very old continental margins, therefore, tend to have large accretionary wedges on
the deep ocean floor piled up against the continental margin.
The rifting process is not always as 'clean' as the above description may sound.
Sometimes a segment of spreading center may shift slightly while separation is occurring,
causing some of the subsidence blocks to be separated from both daughter continents.
These messy remnants may become submerged plateaus or 'banks' on the sea floor, coral
atolls, or islands in their own right. New Zealand, for example, is a continental fragment
left behind after a long forgotten rifting episode.

Passive and Active Margins:

The continental margins discussed in the preceding section are known as passive margins,
where the continent and the adjoining ocean floor are part of the same plate. Passive
margins occur on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, in Europe, Africa, and North and
South America. Margins where continent and sea floor are on separate plates, which
usually implies a subduction zone adjacent to the continent, are known as active margins.
Active margins occur around much of the Pacific Rim, in North and South America, the
Alaska and Kamchatka Peninsulas, the Aleutian Islands, and Japan.
Barring a realignment of plate boundaries, passive continental margins can persist for
very long spans of time, building accretionary wedges that can extend hundreds of miles
out to sea. As the wedge of sediments thicken, the thickest portion can eventually rise
above sea level, burying the original continental shelves and becoming 'new' dry land.
Sedimentary deposition along active margins is made somewhat more complicated by the
presence of a subduction zone offshore. The rate of sedimentary deposition and the
subduction rate, as well as the age of the continental margin, all influence the type of
landforms created. The simplest case, which occurs with very young active margins, is
where a range of volcanic mountains form on the leading edge of the continent as
material from the subducting oceanic plate is heated and the lighter fractions melt their
way up through the overlying continent. (The oceanic plate is always subducted under the
continental plate.) As the mountains rise, some of the erosional sediments will be washed
out to sea, eventually to tumble over the edge of the continental shelf and down into the
offshore trench. A small percentage of these sediments may actually be carried beneath
the continent, to contribute to the molten material feeding the volcanoes. The great
majority of the sediments in the trench, however, will be scraped off of the subducting
plate, to adhere to the edge of the continent, as will any extraneous material of lower

density previously residing on top of the subducting plate, such as oceanic sediments,
seamounts, or even small islands. As material is added to the continental margin, the
added weight further depresses the subducting sea floor, effectively pushing the trench
farther out to sea. The western coastline of South America remains in this state today, the
Peru-Chile Trench being responsible for the formation of the Andes Mountains.

Island Arcs and Back-Arc Basins:

When the volume of sediments is great enough relative to the rate of subduction, the
trench adjacent to an active continental margin can be overwhelmed by erosional
deposits, and simply stop subducting. Continued convergence of the two plates will cause
a new trench to form some distance offshore. Subduction at the new site will lead to the
formation of a volcanic island arc, behind which remains a now passive section of sea
floor, known as a back arc basin. The presence of an offshore subduction can also
produce tension on the overriding continent, as subducting material from the oceanic
plate entrains mantle material from beneath the continent. This can lead to rifting and
crustal stretching within the back-arc basin.
Continued erosion from the mainland, plus added sediments eroded from the new
volcanic islands, will eventually fill the basin up to sea level. Subsequent sediments from
the mainland must then be washed over the now dry land, between the volcanic islands,
and out into the trench.
Over a long enough span of time, this process of new island arcs and filled up back arc
basins can be repeated many times, as a careful examination of the Pacific margin of the
Asian continent will reveal. The Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, and the
Japanese Archipelago are the most recent (and currently active) island arcs, while the Sea
of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan are back arc basins that have not yet filled with
sediments. The Korean Peninsula is a former island arc, as are any number of arc-shaped
mountain ranges on the Asian mainland. The Yellow Sea is very shallow (less than 600'
or 180 m. deep) but not quite completely filled with sediments, while the Amur River and
several other Manchurian rivers flow through former back arc basins that are now high
and dry. Manchuria and much of far eastern Siberia, then, are composed of 'new' land
created by erosion and island arc formation along a very old active margin. (An
explanation of the distinction between 'new' land and 'old' land (or cratons) will be
discussed in a subsequent lesson.)

When Continents Collide

Introduction: Initial Conditions.
Undoubtedly the most dramatic event in plate tectonics is the collision of two continents.
The exact sequence of events in a continent to continent collision depend on a large
number of factors, and it is highly unlikely that any two collisions have ever occurred in
exactly the same manner. Nevertheless, a number of general principals can be described,
and correlations made with known collision events.

One thing that can confidently be predicted is that before two continents can
collide, they must first have an intervening ocean between them. There must also
be one trench, into which the ocean floor between them is subducted. Should such a a
trench initially form in the middle of an ocean between two continent-bearing plates, the
ocean floor between the trench and one continent will be subducted first. When all the
ocean floor on the subducting plate is consumed, and the trench reaches the continental
margin, the trench will collapse. Any sediments accumulated within the trench will be
uplifted as the formerly depressed section of ocean floor rebounds. The Coast Range of
California was created by just such an uplift.
Continued convergence between the two plates will cause the formation of a new trench,
most likely forming just offshore from the former one but reversed in direction, as the
now active continental margin overrides the remainder of the intervening ocean floor.
Therefore in all continent to continent collisions, at the time of contact one continent
must have a passive margin, the other an active one. There is no evidence that a
subduction zone can ever form within the interior of a continent (a subduction zone is
defined by the subduction of an oceanic plate). There are, however, several subduction
zones in the South Pacific that are a considerable distance from any continental margin.
It can also be reasonably predicted that when two continents collide, not all adjacent
points will 'hit' at the same time. Depending on the relative shapes of the two approaching
continental margins and the rate of convergence, orogeny may commence in one region
tens of millions of years before it occurs elsewhere. Where island arcs exist on the active
margin, minor orogeny may begin when an island contacts the passive mainland, while
the major 'crunch' doesn't occur until millions of years later. The Taconic Orogeny, which
produced the mountains of the same name in eastern New York state, USA, were an
island arc collision around 450 to 500 MYa (million years ago). The major crunch
between Baltica (northern Europe) and Laurentia (ancestral North America) didn't occur
until around 400 MYa.

The Folding of Sedimentary Layers:

The fact that continents rather than sea floor occupy the leading edges of two converging
plates seems to have no effect on the forces driving the plates together. As continental
material is too buoyant to be subducted, the continental material is variously buckled,
fractured, and/or folded as the continents are compressed against each other. The exact
nature of the deformation is largely controlled by the physical composition of the
continental margins. Accretionary wedges of unconsolidated sedimentary material, for
example, tend to compress by forming gigantic vertical folds or pleats. (An idealized
cross section is shown at right. Vertical scale is not exagerated.) The upper folds rise up
to form parallel mountain ridges, while the lower folds penetrate deep into the mantle,
becoming the 'roots' which provide buoyancy to support the mountains above. The
thickness of folded sediment mountains can be as great as 150,000' to 200,000' (45,000 to
60,000 m), producing mountains up to 27,000' (8,200 m) or more in elevation.

The upper folds of folded mountain ranges remain poorly consolidated sediments, and
erode away rather quickly. River courses tend to follow the orientation of the folds,
cutting their way deeper and deeper into the soft material. The roots, on the other hand,
are depressed so deeply into the mantle that the increase in pressure and temperature
partially melts the sedementary material and causes it to flow much like toothpaste
squeezed from a tube. As the tops of the mountains are eroded away, the buoyancy of the
roots causes them to be uplifted, until the partially remelted material, now cooled and
recrystalized as metamorphic rocks (granitite, schist, and gneiss) are exposed at the
surface. Much of this later uplift occurs as upthrust faulting, and is frequently
accompanied by intrusions of fully molten magmatic or granitic material into the cracks
and crevasses. (The Appallachian Mountains of the Eastern USA, now a mere ghost of
their former glory, illustrate nicely this stage of evolution.) Given enough time, the
mountains will be fully eroded away, leaving an essentially flat, peneplained surface of
metamorphic rock. Such surfaces, called cratons, form the cores of many of our present
continents. (The Canadian and Baltic Shields are prime examples.)

Cratons in Collision:
Generally, when two continents collide, one or both of them will have sizeable
accretionary wedges of sediment on their leading edges. These wedges, being the softest
material, will crumple first, normally into pleated folds as depicted above. Once the
sediments have been compressed as much as they can, and providing that closure
between the colliding plates continues, the next phase of deformation is determined by
the composition of the interiors of the two continents. Cratons, being composed entirely
of crystaline igneous (i.e. rock that has fully melted and re-solidified) and metamorphic
rock, are very brittle, and cannot be folded. They can, however, be fractured.
One possible scenario for the crustal shortening of a craton is overthrust faulting. It has
been reported that when the craton of India slammed into the southern coast of Asia, a
large wedge of cratonic material was sheared off the leading (northern) edge of the Indian
subcontinent and thrust up and southward over the Indian craton. The thickest (northern)
edge of this wedge is said to make up the south face of the Himalayas. A similar wedge
has been reported to have thrust eastward across Wyoming and into the Black Hills of
South Dakota.
A second scenario, likely to occur when two cratons collide, was reported from echo
soundings in one section of the southern Appalachians. It appeared that both continents
(Gondwanaland and ancestral North America) sustained multiple shallow dipping
fractures, allowing fingers of cratonic material to interpenetrate, much like shuffling a
deck of cards.

Conclusion: The Forest and the Trees.

It is very rare for nature to be so considerate as to simplify processes to the extent
described above. Most continents are in fact made up of a diverse variety of materials,
randomly mixed together. The composition of a continental margin can vary considerably

from one mile to the next. A typical margin might contain a basement of faulted cratonic
material, thinned during the rifting process that made it a margin in the first place,
covered by a thick layer of sediments. In a collision, the overlying sediments will be
folded, while the crystaline basement will be fractured into wedges. (This is probably
what occurred in the southern Appalachians.)
A typical active margin will also likely include odd erratics, bits of debris ranging from
sea floor sediments to ancient seamounts and small islands, that were scraped off of the
subducting sea floor. Intrusive magmas, deposited during the rifting process, may or may
not be present. Deep sea sediments uplifted by the collapse of the intervening trench will
likely also be found. Island arcs may end up becoming compressed into the mess as well.
Each of these pieces is likely to behave differently under the enormous pressures that
occur in a continental collision, and each adds its own bit of complexity to the resultant
structure. It is small wonder that the underlying processes are rarely visible and are
exceedingly difficult to interpret. In order to examine a forest, one has to look at a lot of
trees.

The Mechanism of Plate Tectonics

Introduction; Speculation:
There appears to be no agreed upon explanation of the mechanism that drives plate
tectonics. (The notions that are presented here are original to this article, and to my
knowledge have never appeared elsewhere.) However, as was the case for premises
presented in previous lessons, various principles can be applied to impose constraints on
the kind of mechanism that must be at work.
What does appear to be accepted is that plate movement is driven by convection within
the upper mantle, powered by the temperature difference between the (relatively) cold
surface and the heat generated deep within the Earth. Whether the plates are themselves
the upper part of this convection system, with a static or reverse-flowing fluid mantle
beneath, or whether they are just rafted along on the surface of an actively convective
mantle, remains unanswered.
Clearly, for the plates to move, they must either be pushed away from spreading centers,
pulled down into trenches, or dragged along by the friction of convection on their
undersides. Conventional wisdom has it that all three contribute, although the proportions
contributed by each force remains undecided.

Ridge Push is the force applied to plates at spreading centers. As plates separate, new,
hotter material is extruded into the gap between plates. The elevated temperatures lower
the density of the recently deposited material, causing it to float higher in the mantle;
hence the formation of ridges. Gravity then takes over, drawing the ridge material down
and away from the spreading center, thereby widening the gap for more hot mantle
material to upwell.

Slab Pull is considered by many to be the dominant, or even the only, driving
mechanism for plate tectonics. Subduction zones typically occur a long distance away
from spreading centers, where the plates have had plenty of time to cool off. Lower
temperature makes the plate more dense than the material beneath it, causing it to subduct
into the mantle. As the plate edge is drawn under, it pulls the remainder of the plate
behind it.

Plate Drag is supported in several different models of plate tectonics. In one model, the
upper mantle is separated from the lower mantle, with little or no transfer of material
between them. Small, local convection cells in the upper mantle can occur beneath the
interiors of plates and can contribute frictional drag forces to reinforce plate movement.
In another model, the upper and lower mantle are more tightly coupled, with material
from plumes originating deep within the lower mantle and contributing significantly to
upper mantle convection, and hence to plate movement.

Considerations for a Convective Mantle:

The combination of ridge push, plate drag, and local convection can insure that a plate,
once set in motion, will tend to remain in motion. The interlocking zig-zag of spreading
center segments and transform faults tends to stabilize the accretionary boundaries of
moving plates; far less energy is required to continue with the same relative plate motions
than would be required to fracture each segment and shift the direction of motion. And
plates do appear to retain the same relative motion for spans of tens of millions of years.
However, rearrangements do occur. Prior to around 40 million years ago, the Pacific plate
was moving nearly due north, in contrast to its present northwesterly movement, as
evidenced by a change in direction of the Emperor Seamounts, which trail off from the
Hawaiian Islands.
Ridge push and slap pull can explain why plates remain in motion once spreading is
initiated, but do not adequately explain what initiates a rifting episode in the first place.
The traditional wisdom is that new rifts form under large continental masses, such as
supercontinents, where the greater insulating properties of continental material cause an
increase in heat buildup, leading to uplift, softening, and ultimately rifting of the
continental material. It is true that the supercontinent of Pangaea was incredibly short
lived, on a geologic time scale, starting to break up almost as it was being formed. (See
the companion article "The Formation of Pangaea: The Making of a Supercontinent", also
on this site.) But Gondwanaland, which was a supercontinent in its own right, survived
for almost a billion years before it broke up during Pangaea's formation. And there was
no supercontinent, in fact no continent of any sort, over the East Pacific Rise 40 million
years ago when it began spreading in a northwest-southeast direction.
Clearly the force applied to move the plates must be capable, at least occasionally, of
exceeding the tensile strength of the plate material and of breaking a larger plate into two
smaller ones. If this were not the case, the Earth would be covered by a single spherical
plate, and no relative motion between plates could occur. Also, the force applied cannot
normally be greater than the tensile strength of the plates, or else small pieces would be

breaking off all the time, and there would be a myriad of very small plates bobbing about,
rather than the very few, large plates that we know to exist.
The obvious cantidate for a mechanism for transforming thermal energy into the
movement of plates is the action of plumes. Plumes are thought to be columns of heated
mantle material rising from deep within the mantle, possibly from the very bottom of the
mantle where it contacts the Earth's liquid core. The problem with models using plumes
to power plate movements is that the volume of material rising in the plumes is thought to
be small compared to the volume of the moving plates themselves. Yet if the plume
material is hot enough, which it shows every evidence of being, there may well be
enough energy available.
The Earth's mantle is not composed of a single mineral, with a sharp melting/freezing
point. Rather, it is a mixture of a large number of different substances, each with a
different melting temperature. Thus while the upper surface of an oceanic plate is a
crystalline solid, the underside exhibits a gradual phase change, from solid to plastic to
viscous liquid as the temperatures and pressures increase with depth. Yet even at great
depth, the mantle remains an exceedingly viscous fluid, flowing ever so slowly even in
response to extreme pressures. Any force postulated to either push or pull oceanic plates
would be quickly dissipated overcoming the friction of sliding over a static fluid mantle
beneath.
Furthermore, any pulling force great enough to tear a new plate off from an existing one
would surely tear off a piece immediately adjacent to where the pulling force is applied
(and therefore is the greatest, undiminished by friction), rather than creating a new rift
somewhere clear across the ocean. Nor can slab pull explain the orogenies resulting from
continental collisions. Once two continents meet, any oceanic slab separating them will
have been totally consumed by subduction, and the plate's leading edge will be made up
exclusively of continental material, which is too buoyant to be pulled down into the
mantle. Yet the Indian plate has continued to drive northward into Asia for something on
the order of a thousand miles (1600 km) since its collision with Asia. Only push or drag
forces can explain the Himayalas.
Similarly, any pushing force great enough to buckle a plate and form a new trench and
subduction zone would almost certainly form one immediately adjacent to an existing
spreading center, or at least no farther away than the point at which the new plate has
cooled to a normal deep ocean temperature, rather than at the opposite side of the ocean
or the middle of a continent. These arguments support the notion of a convective mantle,
with the plates being rifted apart and transported by the accumulated forces of frictional
drag on their undersides.
It should be noted that it is not necessary to postulate that the convective current beneath
a mobile plate exactly match the movement of the plate above. Any convection cell
model for the mantle that involves horizontal flow in many different directions beneath
the plates will cause motion of an overlying plate; the plate will simply move as the

vector sum of all the drag forces applied to its underside, provided that the frictional
drag forces applied do not exceed the shear strength of the plate material.

A Simple Convection Model

The simplest convection model is that of a contained layer of liquid sitting above a point
heat source. The liquid directly above the heat source will be heated, reducing its density
and causing it to rise. Upon reaching the surface, the heated liquid will spread laterally in
all directions until it reaches the edges of the container, where it will be deflected
downward to the bottom of the liquid layer, eventually to be drawn back towards the heat
source. If the amount of cooling at the surface exactly equals the heat delivered by the
point source, a self-sustaining toroidal convection cell will be created. If the cooling at
the surface is less than the heat added, the temperature will rise until an equilibrium is
reached.
Add multiple heat sources of equal intensity, uniformly spaced beneath the fluid, and
multiple toroidal convection cells, all of equal size, will form. If the heat sources are of
unequal size, hotter sources will create larger toruses. This provides the basis for the
proposed model for convection in the Earth's mantle, with the heat sources lying deep
within the Earth and plumes being the rising columns at the center of (approximately)
toroidal convection cells.

The Distribution of Plumes

Not all plumes are created equal. Some are energetic enough to produce conspicuous,
even spectacular, displays on the Earth's surface. Others are small and inconspicuous
enough that they can only be detected by sophisticated heat-flow measuring instruments.
Several hundred plumes have been identified, although some of the smaller ones may be
questionable.
Plumes are scattered in an apparently random manner all over the surface of the globe.
Many, but not not all, of the larger plumes are situated along spreading centers,
suggesting that plumes may be instrumental in the formation of rifts and the origin of
new spreading centers. A list of some of the more prominent currently active plumes is
provided in the following table:

Major Active Plumes

On Spreading Centers
Afar Triangle (East Africa)
Chagos Archipelago (Indian
Ocean)
Iceland (North Atlantic)
Azores (North Atlantic)
Ascension Island (South
Atlantic)

Not on Spreading Centers

Hawaii (Mid Pacific)
Yellowstone (W. North
America)
Pitcairn Island (South Pacific)
Rapa Island (South Pacific)
Madeira Island (North Atlantic)
St.Helena Island (South

Tristan de Cunha* (South

Atlantic)
Galapagos Islands (East Pacific)

Atlantic)

*Tristan de Cunha Island is not located exactly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but is close
enough to it to be contributing significantly to its activity.

Major plumes such as these leave a conspicuous trail on the surface of plates as the plates
move over them. Island archipelagos and submerged seamounts mark their trail on the
sea floor, while basaltic lava flows mark the paths of continents. From the length of the
tracks and the age of the lavas produced, it appears that an average plume has an average
life expectancy of around 100 million years. It is generally assumed that plumes maintain
a relatively constant position as the plates move. It is this assumption that allows us to
plot the past positions of plates and continents in absolute latitude and longitude
coordinates.

Plume-Driven Convection
Plumes are generally believed to form over localized hot spots deep within or below the
mantle layer. The amount of material directly heated by contact with the hot spot is very
small, but the heat transmitted can apparently be quite great. Thus the heated material, as
it starts its migration upwards through the mantle layer, can be much hotter than the
surrounding material. Much of the added heat will therefore diffuse outwards into the
surrounding material. This elevates the temperature of the adjacent material, making it
less dense, and it, too, starts migrating upwards, albeit at a progressively slower rate the
farther it is from the hot center of the column. A relatively small amount of material
heated directly by the hot spot can therefore entrain vastly greater volumes of mantle
material, producing very large rising columns.
The material in the center of the column, being the hottest, will rise fastest, and only this
hottest material will likely reach the surface. When it does, it will spread out radially
beneath the frozen plate material, while the cooler entrained material will flow outward
beneath it. Surface flow under the plates will thus form a thermal gradient, with the
hottest, fastest flowing material nearest the surface and progressively cooler and slower
moving material flowing beneath it. Only when the surface material cools below the
material beneath it will it descend into the mantle below, ultimately to return to the heat
source.
Plumes rising from less intense hot spots may well encounter hotter material from a more
intense adjacent plume spreading out above it, well before the lesser plume reaches the
surface. Its material may then never reach the surface at all, but instead be deflected
laterally to flow along with the material from the hotter plume, thereby enhancing the
already existing flow. This is, of course, pure speculation, and the degree to which such
lesser plumes contribute to the movement of plates cannot be reasonably appraised. As
their flow never reaches the surface, their contributions cannot be easily detected.

A Model for Plate Rifting

The number of large, active plumes that are found deep in the interiors of plates strongly
suggests that a single plume, even a large one, is not enough by itself to initiate a rifting
episode. The pairing of large plumes in both the North and South Atlantic (the most
recently created major ocean) suggests that two plumes working in concert just might be
sufficient.
A possible convective model for how two plumes can act together to create a rift can be
illustrated using as an example the Iceland and Azores plumes, which lie roughly on a
north-south line. As the hot material from the Iceland plume reaches the surface, it
spreads out radially in all directions, gradually cooling as it goes. However, the material
that flows south soon runs in to the material flowing north from the Azores plume, well
before either flow has cooled sufficiently to sink back into the cooler mantle material
below. Where the two flows meet, both must therefore be deflected to the sides. As a
result, along a line between the two plumes, all surface flow should therefore be
redirected to the east and west, perpendicular to and away from the connecting line. This
'shear line' of opposing flows should effectively concentrate the drag exerted on the
underside of the plates to a degree that may be sufficient to initiate, or at least, redirect a
rifting episode. (The rifting episode that produced the North Atlantic appears to actually
have started far to the west, first separating what later became southern Mexico from
South America, and only later turning northward to open the North Atlantic.) A similar
shear line, also essentially north-south but offset far to the east, seems to have been
created when the Ascension and Tristan de Cunha Island plumes conspired to separate
South America from Africa.
The Atlantic ocean continues to widen, and North America is being dragged westward.
However, western North America seems to be moving westward faster than the rest of the
continent. A succession of paired mountain ranges, their steeper sides facing each other
and rift valleys separating them, progress eastward from California into Wyoming,
Colorado, and New Mexico. Starting with the Sierra Nevada and White Mountains,
separated by the Owens Valley, and the Panamint and Amargosa Mountains, separated by
Death Valley, paired ranges progress across Nevada and on into the Rocky Mountains of
Wyoming and Colorado. The easternmost pair of ranges in Wyoming are the Tetons and
the Absaroka/Wind River Range, separated by Jackson's Hole, a rift valley whose
northern end is Yellowstone National Park, site of the Yellowstone plume. In southern
Wyoming and Colorado, paired ranges, offset considerably to the east, include the
Medicine Bow and Laramie Ranges, separated by North Park; the Never Summer, Gore,
and Front Ranges, separated by the upper Colorado River Valley, Middle Park, and the
Arkansas River Valley; and the San Juan and Sangre de Christo Mountains, separated by
the San Luis Valley. The rift zone ends in the Rio Grande rift valley, near a minor plume
identified by heat flow measurements near Socorro, New Mexico.
The model suggested for these features is that a shear line exists between the Yellowstone
and Socorro plumes. However, the surface flow of plume material from this line is
insufficient to overcome the westward flow from the Mid-Atlantic shear line, driven by
the Iceland and Azores plumes. Rather, all of the flow from the Yellowstone/Socorro

shear line is deflected westward by the more powerful currents from the east. Thus all of
North America is being dragged westward, but the western part is being pushed harder
than the rest. As a result, a rift forms wherever the lesser shear line occurs, but continued
westward drift soon pushes the incipient rift west of the shear line, where it becomes
inactive, and a new rift is initiated farther to the east. The current series of rifts between
Yellowstone and Socorro are probably doomed to failure as surely as were their
predecessors farther west.

Triple Junctions
A common occurrence in the early stages of a rifting episode is for three rifts to come
together at a central point. As such triple junctions develop, one of the three arms
becomes inactive, while the remaining two continue to separate. One such 'failed' rift
occurred at the Gulf of Guinea, near the mouth of the Niger River, and extended north
into the Sahara Desert. It is thought to represent the failed third arm of the rift that opened
the South Atlantic. Another tentatively identified failed rift extends from the Gulf of
Mexico up the Mississippi River valley into the USA. This may represent the failed third
arm of the rift that separated Mexico from South America, and which subsequently
veered north to create the North Atlantic.
The classic triple junction, however, is the Afar Triangle of East Africa. The Afar Triangle
is actually a section of sea floor uplifted by the high heat flow from the plume beneath it.
It sits at the junction of three currently active rift zones: the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea,
and the East African Rift Valley. At the opposite end of the Carlsberg Ridge - the
spreading center responsible for opening the Gulf of Aden, is a plume beneath the Chagos
Archipelago. This is the same plume that created the Maldive and Lacadive Islands
farther north, and deposited the flood basalts of the Deccan Traps of India, when that
subcontinent passed over the plume around 65 million years ago.
Two other plumes are also postulated by the proposed model; one under East Africa near
the south end of the East African Rift Valley, which, it is suggested, is responsible for the
volcanos Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya, and the other, perhaps a minor plume, near the
north end of the Red Sea or in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The proposal is that a triple
junction occurs where four plumes occur in close proximity to one another, with the three
outer plumes forming a 'Y' and the fourth plume in the center. If two plumes are
insufficient to initiate a rifting episode (and it may be that the 'shear line' proposed above
is only sufficient to redirect and perpetuate a rift, but not to initiate one), then surely four
plumes in close proximity should suffice.
Triple junctions are rather rare occurrences in the geological record, but the small number
of plates into which the Earth's crust is divided testifies that the separation of plates and
the formation of new spreading centers is likewise rare. We are fortunate indeed that such
an event is playing itself out even as we watch.

The Formation of Pangaea:

The Making of a Supercontinent

Introduction:
The discovery of the one time existence of the supercontinent Pangaea was the crowning
triumph of the theory of Plate Tectonics. Books, articles, maps, and diagrams abound
describing Pangaea and documenting its ultimate breakup at the end of the Mesozoic era.
But Pangaea was, geologically speaking, a rather short-lived phenomenon. Many learned
articles have been written based on faulty assumptions of its antiquity and origin. Yet the
evidence of the last round of orogenies leading to the formation of Pangaea remain
visible for anyone who has the time and inclination to examine it.
What follows is one author's interpretation of those events during the Paleozoic Era that
led up to the formation of this Mesozoic supercontinent.

The Initial Setting:

At the Dawn of the Paleozoic era, the land mass known as Gondwanaland was already a
supercontinent in its own right, having formed relatively late in the Precambrian era. It
sat in what is now the South Pacific, extending from perhaps the equator to as far south as
the South Pole. It had by this time already scraped clean of all continental 'debris' a broad
swatch through what we now know as the Pacific Ocean.
Straddling the Equator on the opposite side of the globe sat the small continent Laurentia,
which later grew substantially to become North America. An unknown distance to the
east, and also near the Equator, lay another small continent, Baltica, which now
comprises a major portion of Europe. Shaped like a fat comma, Baltica's point lay along
side and west of what is now the Iberian peninsula, with its bulbous end comprising
Belarus and European Russia. An island arc bounded by a subduction zone ran along its
western margin. (The northern margins of Baltica and Laurentia remain obscure;
subsequent rifting and burial by sediments during the Pleistocene Ice Age have
obliterated many traces.)
Various other continental masses, most now welded to form sections of Asia, were
scattered in places as yet unknown. There is no definitive evidence that the Colorado
Plateau, the Rocky Mountains, or Alaska were attached to the continent of Laurentia at
this time. Circumstantial evidence suggests that they may not have been.

First Collision - the Acadian orogeny:

During the Ordovician period, around 500 million years ago, the continents of Laurentia
and Baltica collided. First contact, in the Lower Ordovician, occurred when the
southernmost of the islands off the southern peninsula of Baltica, west of modern
Portugal, bumped into western New York state. This resulted in the Taconic orogeny,
which formed the mountains of the same name west of the Hudson River. The New
England States of the USA and most of the Maritime provinces of Canada were part of
Baltica's island arc at this time.

The next impact occurred in the Lower Devonian in what is now the Maritime Provinces
of Canada. The Acadian orogeny, as this first collision episode is know, continued
through the Devonian and into the Mississippian. As the two continents ground into one
another, they obliterated most of the ocean that had once separated them. (Many of the
back arc basins behind the island arc on Baltica's western margin remain, as the North
Sea, the Irish Sea, the Baltic sea, the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, and the Gulf of St.
Lawrence.) When the orogeny was over, a range of mountains extended from the
Adirondacks north through Nova Scotia, the British Isles, Norway and the eastern margin
of Greenland, and possibly on to Spitsbergen.
Meanwhile, Gondwanaland was moving across the South Pole and northward up what is
now the South Atlantic.

The Entrance of Gondwanaland:

The supercontinent of Gondwanaland included all of Africa, South America, India,
Antarctica, Australia, New Guinea, and New Zealand, plus assorted pieces now attached
to other continents. Along its northern or leading margin was a subduction zone, fronting
an island arc that included several large islands, which now make up much of Central
Europe, Italy, the Balkan Peninsula, Turkey, and probably the Middle East and Iran. (For
a modern comparison, look at the islands of Indonesia.) All of the Eastern Seaboard and
Gulf Coast of the United States and Mexico south of Long Island, east of the
Appalachians and the Marathon Mountains of West Texas and south of the Ozark and
Smoky Mountains, were also originally part of Gondwanaland, as were the major islands
of the Caribbean.
The Pacific coast of what is now South America looked far different then. The Andes
Mountains didn't exist yet. The Gulf of Mexico was probably a back-arc basin, open
either to the north or west. (The existence of Central America at this time is doubtful. It
seems likely that the Yucatan Peninsula was attached directly to Colombia or Venezuela.)
The Amazon Basin, into which the Niger River discharged, was a large sea that opened
into the Pacific.

Second Collision - the Appalachian orogeny:

The behemoth called Gondwanaland, comprising well over half of the world's land mass,
was moving north. The combination of Laurentia and Baltica -- now known as Laurussia
-- was in its way, and the Pennsylvanian and Permian periods were crunch time. The
exact sequence of events remains unclear, but contact appears to have occurred in Late
Mississippian in Oklahoma, in Early Pennsylvanian in the Appalachians, but not until
Late Pennsylvanian in Alabama. (Remember that the coastlines of approaching continents
don't match each other like adjacent pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The 'bumps' tend to hit
first.)
Timing of events in Europe are not known by this author, but the collision ultimately
resulted in mountain ranges extending from the Marathon Mountains of West Texas,

through the Ozarks and Ouachitas, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Appalachians, and
the Cevennes of France, to the Carpathians of Eastern Europe. Any orogenies that may
have occurred at this time in the Middle East are obscured by later events.

Third Collision - the Urals:

While this crunch was going on, but at a time difficult for the author to document
precisely with the information at hand, another small continent, here called Angaria,
collided with Baltica's eastern margin, uplifting the Urals and the mountains of Nova
Zemlya. Angaria, named from the Angara shield at its core and the Angara river that cuts
through it, comprised most of Siberia from the Ural Mountains to the Lena River. (A
small wedge of land in modern Kazakhstan, identified as a separate plate by Russian
geologists, remains unaccounted for.)

The Conclusion:
If all the land masses described above were truly joined by the Permian period, then
Pangaea (from Greek, literally all of Earth) truly deserves its name. Only Eastern and
Southeastern Asia, and (arguably) Western North America, including the subcontinent of
Beringia (Alaska and Siberia east of the Lena River) were not included. However
Gondwanaland was starting to break up even as it slammed into Laurussia; further
evidence is needed to determine if Australia/Antarctica and India were still joined to the
rest of the supercontinent at the time of impact.
The fact that most of the Earth's land masses were connected during the Mesozoic era
does not mean that they actually comprised one continent in the sense in which we use
that word in the modern world. Asia today is connected to Europe across the Ural
Mountains, to Africa via the Suez, and technically, to North America via a shallowly
submerged bridge of continental material that includes the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
(This 'bridge' is a minimum of 1100 miles wide, and shallow enough that it stood high
and dry during the last ice age.) North America is in turn connected to South America by
the Isthmus of Panama.
So, in a very real sense, all the Earth's land masses except Australia and Antarctica are
'joined' today. If actual shorelines for Pangaea were known with any accuracy, we would
undoubtedly be inclined to divide it into numerous 'continents' as well. Not all the backarc basins along Baltica's west coast were collapsed during its collision with Laurentia;
remnants remain today as the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the Grand Banks off
Newfoundland, the Irish, North, Barents, and possibly Baltic Seas. These 'seas' formed an
interior seaway that virtually cut 'Europe' (i.e. eastern Pangaea) off from 'America' (i.e.
western Pangaea). Parts of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas, and
perhaps the Persian Gulf represent possible remnants of similar basins along the north
coast of Gondwanaland, separating 'Europe' from 'Africa' (i.e. southern Pangaea). The
Gulf of Mexico as yet another a back-arc basin has been mentioned earlier.

Leftover Pieces:
For most of the Mesozoic era, roughly the time that Pangaea existed, Western North
America was isolated from the rest of the continent by a waterway known as the Great
Interior Seaway. Whether this was entirely made up of submerged continental crust - and
thus was truly an 'interior' seaway, or whether an actual ocean basin separated the two
land masses, remains conjectural, but the Laramide Orogeny of the later Mesozoic does
look suspiciously like the result of a continental collision. It is my postulate that the
Colorado Plateau, along with a northwest to southeast trending series of island arcs which
now make up much of the Rocky Mountains and ranges westward, collided with Pangaea
(Eastern North America) somewhere around the Late Jurassic period, causing the
Laramide Orogeny. This mountain-building event occurred too far from any now
apparent continental margins to be explained by known mechanisms of plate tectonics.
Upper Jurassic deposits, such as the Entrada and Morrison formations, can be found on
both sides of the orogeny zone in Colorado, but correlations between western and eastern
slope formations earlier than these are problematical at best.
It is also unlikely that the various pieces that now make up eastern Asia (modern China,
Tibet, and Mongolia), plus the subcontinent of Beringia (which includes Alaska from
Anchorage to Mackensie Bay, the Chukchi and Bering Seas, and Russia east of the Lena
River) were attached in their present positions to the Pangaean continent. Some of these
pieces might have been attached to Pangaea elsewhere, and subsequently rifted away,
only to collide again in a different position.