Japanese geophysicist floats theory of lifecycle for Earth's plates
(NEWSER) - Climate change has sparked heated debate about the Earth’s surface, but a controversial new theory is directing scientists to its core, Der Spiegel reports. To explain why contintental plates drift on the surface of the Earth's molten mantle, Maruyama Shigenori, a leading geophysicist, argues that continents actually have life cycles. Old, cold plates on continental fringes sink to “plate graveyards” deep in the Earth’s mantle, and then rise again, creating volcanoes. More»
