Stories from the Deep Earth

Plate tectonics can drift continents and push up mountains, but what drives the plates? This is an insider’s account of how we answered questions posed over two centuries ago, and completed geology’s quest for a driving mechanism. Plate tectonics can drift continents and push up mountains, but what drives the plates? This is an insider’s account of how we answered questions posed over two centuries ago, and completed geology’s quest for a driving mechanism. Forging through confusing evidence, apparent contradictions and raging debates we arrived at not one but two mechanisms: sinking plates and rising plumes.