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Plate plate tectonic theory give wage hike to Earth ’s mountain kitchen range , quake and the long - full term drift of Continent , and may even haveprovided the veracious conditions for life on Earth . But as far as we screw , no other body in thesolar systemexhibit home base tectonics today . Why is our world different ?
" We do n’t bang for sure,“Bradford Foley , a geodynamicist at Penn State , told Live Science . " I think it ’s still considered one of the great unsolved problem in geophysics today . "
Earth is the only body in the solar system that currently exhibits plate tectonics, whose movements explain this surface crack along the San Andreas Fault.
Earth ’s geosphere — its incrustation and fixed upper drapery — is split into more or less 15 forever - moving plates . These plates are perpetually shifting , colliding and pull apart from one another . Though scientists are n’t sure how the lithosphere came to be divided into plates , certain aspects of Earth ’s geology keep theplate tectonicengine chugging along .
For a planet to sustain shell tectonics , it must have a convective drape , Foley said . cold-blooded , dense airfoil material sinks back into the mantle at subduction zones , where one plateful slip beneath another , and new material rises up where plates spread apart . Without the convective curtain , there would n’t be enough energy to move the plates .
But convection on its own is n’t enough to undertake that a planet or moon will demo plate tectonics . The lithosphere has to be both thin enough to weaken into plates in the first property and impenetrable enough for those plates to eventually sink into the cape , saidGeoffrey Collins , a geologist at Wheaton College in Massachusetts .
Earth is the only body in the solar system that currently exhibits plate tectonics, whose movements explain this surface crack along the San Andreas Fault.
link : How many architectonic plates does Earth have ?
Interactions between plate boundary and liquid water might also play a role , saidRussell Pysklywec , a geophysicist at the University of Toronto . " When we hydrate these rocks and they go down into the Earth , it actually serves to , for lack of a skillful account , lubricate the rocks a trivial bit more , " Pysklywec told Live Science . " It might be that at subduction geographical zone where the two plate are come together , and with our melted oceans , we ’re actually adding that lubricant in that helps ease plate tectonics . "
The combination of these factors could explain why Earth is the only satellite known to display plate tectonics today . In a 2022study , Collins and his colleagues found that Jupiter ’s icy lunar month Europa had exhibit " plate - tectonic - similar " activity in the past : Parts of the moonshine ’s icy scale were broken into plate that spread out and collided . The warm water beneath the ice may have buoyed those plates along , but because chicken feed is less dense than water , the plates did n’t sink into the oceans the same way Earth ’s plates sink back into the mantle .
Earth’s lithosphere is thin enough to break into plates and dense enough for those plates to eventually sink into the mantle.
Europa ’s plate - like demeanour also does n’t cross the moon ’s intact aerofoil . " On Europa , it seems to just be patchy , like there ’s a little spell bechance over here , there ’s a little piece come about over there , and then it does n’t seem to be happen in between , " Collins told Live Science . " The other patchiness is that it ’s patchy in metre , so it appears to turn on and off . "
— Why do earthquakes encounter far away from plate boundaries ?
— When did plate tectonics begin ?
— How big is the prominent possible temblor ?
Other planets , such asMars , adopt a " moribund lid " configuration . These planet have convective mantles , but the surface is n’t broken into plates . " rather of being check up into these freestanding plates that move around with that convective curtain , there ’s one big shell covering the whole major planet , " Foley said . " It ’s like a lid on top of its convective mantle . "
But without any other nearby planets exhibiting home plate tectonics to compare Earth ’s system to , it ’s hard to know exactly what cause a planet to develop plate tectonics , Foley order . " If we had one C of rocky planets , and all sorts of different conditions , we could credibly empirically calculate out what the key factor are . But it ’s hard to do with just one . "
