Subduction initiation at early Earth and start of Plate Tectonics

The Earth is the only planet in the solar system that exhibits plate tectonics, but how that process started remains an unanswered question. In collaboration with RU1 an advanced 3D numerical modeling work has demonstrated that a hot mantle plume rising to the lithosphere from the deep mantle might have broken the intact outer shell of the early Earth and induced the first large-scale subduction. The study suggests that mantle plumes may play an important role not only in the formation of divergent plate boundaries and oceanic plateaus, but also the initiation of subduction zones and possibly also the start of plate tectonics on Earth.

See more in Gerya et al (2015)