Imagine if plate tectonics stopped tomorrow. Nearly all the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and the related human suffering would disappear. The Ring of Fire that circles the basin of the Pacific Ocean would be doused. San Francisco would be a safe place to live, as would Tokyo, Indonesia and every other place where the plates that make up Earth’s surface collide.
While that’s not likely to happen any time soon, a controversial new theory says it could in about 350 million years. Such an event may even have been an integral part of Earth’s history.
Earth’s surface is made up…
