Viscous cycle: Quartz key to tectonics

(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 40 years ago, pioneering tectonic geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson published an article in the journal Nature describing how, over Earth’s long history, ocean basins opened and closed along North America’s eastern seaboard. His observations, dubbed “The Wilson Tectonic Cycle,” suggested this process had occurred many times; most recently causing giant Pangaea to split into today’s seven continents.

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