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Evidence for the past existence of plate tectonics on planets like Mars [144] which may never have had a large moon would counter this argument, although plate tectonics may fade anyway before a moon is relevant to life. [141] [142] Kasting argues that a large moon is not required to initiate plate tectonics. [87]
On 8 September 2014, NASA reported finding evidence of plate tectonics on Europa, a satellite of Jupiter—the first sign of subduction activity on another world other than Earth. [107] Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, was reported to show tectonic activity in images taken by the Huygens probe, which landed on Titan on January 14, 2005. [108]
Oceanic and continental crusts are, at the present day, produced and maintained through plate tectonic processes. However, the same mechanisms are unlikely to have produced the crustal dichotomy of the early lithosphere. This is thought to be true on the basis that sections of the thin, low density continental lithosphere thought to have ...
Eoarchean geology is the study of the oldest preserved crustal fragments of Earth during the Eoarchean era from 4.031 to 3.6 billion years ago. Major well-preserved rock units dated to this era are known from three localities, the Isua Greenstone Belt in Southwest Greenland, the Acasta Gneiss in the Slave Craton in Canada, and the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in the eastern coast of Hudson Bay ...
The evolution of tectonophysics is closely linked to the history of the continental drift and plate tectonics hypotheses. The continental drift/ Airy-Heiskanen isostasy hypothesis had many flaws and scarce data. The fixist/ Pratt-Hayford isostasy, the contracting Earth and the expanding Earth concepts had many flaws as well.
Plate tectonics is an efficient method of heat transfer from the interior of the planet to the surface. Earth is the only planet plate tectonics is known to occur on, [6] although evidence has been presented for Jupiter's moon Europa undergoing a form of plate tectonics analogous to Earth's. [7]
The Englishmen Dan McKenzie and Robert Parker published the quantitative principles for plate tectonics (Euler's rotation theorem: Individual aseismic areas move as rigid plates on the surface of a sphere, quote: "a block on a sphere can be moved to any other conceivable orientation by a single rotation about a properly chosen axis.")
Evidence from paleomagnetism led to the revival of the continental drift hypothesis and its transformation into the modern theory of plate tectonics. Apparent polar wander paths provided the first clear geophysical evidence for continental drift, while marine magnetic anomalies did the same for seafloor spreading .