A Thorny Debate in Plate Tectonics May Finally Be Resolved
Scientists believe they’ve answered: How deep is a continental plate?
“In the grand scheme of things, plate tectonics is a young theory,” says Brian Savage, a seismologist at the University of Rhode Island. “The plate-tectonic theory is 50 or 60 years old. That’s not old. I always tell my students to compare it to evolution—that’s 150 years old, about as old as electricity and magnetism.”
In the half century since it found general acceptance among geologists, plate tectonics—the theory that continents drift and oceans open up across the surface of Earth over hundreds of millions of years—has become the common wisdom. Americans know why earthquakes happen and why Africa and South America seem to fit together. And geologists have learned much
