Study shows tectonic plates not rigid, deform horizontally in cooling process

Tuesday, November 4, 2014 - 14:00 in Earth & Climate

The puzzle pieces of tectonic plates that make up the outer layer of the earth are not rigid and don't fit together as nicely as we were taught in high school. A study published in the journal Geology by Corné Kreemer, an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and his colleague Richard Gordon of Rice University, quantifies deformation of the Pacific plate and challenges the central approximation of the plate tectonic paradigm that plates are rigid.

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