Pacific tectonic plate may have grown from a single point
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.029983
Science News : The largest of Earth’s tectonic plates may actually have started out as the smallest, according to a new study in Science Advances. Unlike the other modern plates, which formed when ancient plates split into two, the Pacific Plate may have grown from a single point located at the junction of three older plates. Lydian Boschman of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and her colleagues say that at some time one of the three plates overlapped another one, causing a piece to break off and get pushed under the rest. That event created the three-way junction, around which the plates proceeded to glide past each other in a pinwheel motion rather than pull apart. As the gap widened, molten rock flowed up into the void, and the plate formed and grew.
