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What is palte tectonics and how has it affected the evolution of life on earth?

where besides the earth do we find signs of tectonic activity? How do Venus and mars comepare to earth tectonics?

Public Comments

1. The earth is divided into sections, roughly about 10 or 12. They move around and cause earthquakes and volcanic activity. There's a lot of information about this topic and it's hard to be exactly precise. So... here's a link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_techtonics I understand it's hard to get evolution out of all of this, so here's my rough estimate: You gotta think about the nature of plate tectonics. They move around and adjust over many years. So, think about how one plate tectonic was connected to others over time and then split away at some point to another region of the earth. The other region may have a different climate and environment all together. Well, in order to cope with that climate/environment organisms are subject to change/evolve to survive as all creatures are inclined to do.
2. possibly plate tectonics had a strong influence on how hospitable the Earth is now. the flexing and moving of the plates bled off some of the energy of the Earth's core, a madly spinning ball of solid iron, which along with the molten iron above it, produce the Earth's unusually large (compared to Venus and Mars) magnetic field. This field protects the surface of Earth from outbursts by the Sun and protects the atmospere itself from being blown away bit by bit, like Mars. Venus has no plate tectonics and thus its core is all molten, with very little spin, it produces minimal magentic field.