Tectonic plates, those layers of the Earth that have the property of moving like huge blocks under the surface and whose friction is responsible for most earthquakes, have a new theory about their possible origin .
An international team of researchers has proposed a new explanation for the theories about its formation, a subject that is one of the greatest enigmas in the history of geology . The new conjecture states that tectonic plates could have taken more than a million years to form. Scientists have reached this conclusion after analyzing the minerals that make up the earth's crust and their microscopic properties using a computer model that simulated the earth's crust from billions of years ago (based on data collected on the composition of the mantle).
This model included a low pressure zone at the base of the crust, causing a portion of the crust to sink into the upper mantle . By repeating this process, a large tectonic plate was created with an active subduction zone, an event that would explain the formation of the tectonic plates at their origin. It is thanks to the weaker mineral materials that weak points are created in the earth's crust , which form the limits of the plates, occurring what is known as "plate tectonics" from which volcanoes, mountains or earthquakes are formed.
"We have a physical mechanism to explain how it could have happened", says one of the authors of the work published in the journal Nature , David Bercovici.
