Is Subduction “Infectious?”

Earth’s surface is composed of huge plates of relatively stable continental crust and oceanic crust that are constantly forming and recycling. Where they meet, subduction frequently occurs, with ocean crust plunging beneath continents. Thus oceans open and close, appear and disappear.

- BY JIM BRACE-THOMPSON

An article in the journal Geology is entitled “An invasion model for the start of Paleo-Pacific subduction.” An invasion? Sounds violent, and it is!