How to Use plate tectonics in a Sentence

plate tectonics

noun

• Mars lacks plate tectonics, the sliding of pieces of the crust that shapes the surface of our planet.
  — Kenneth Chang, New York Times, 17 May 2022
• The mantle contributes to the evolution of the crust and plays a role in plate tectonics.
  — Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 12 June 2023
• This might be a clue as to why the Red Planet doesn’t have the plate tectonics that drive the frenzy of volcanism on Earth.
  — Matt Simon, Wired, 22 July 2021
• Her keen eye also spotted the first hints of plate tectonics at work beneath the waves.
  — Mark Barna, Discover Magazine, 16 Dec. 2022
• Then, over time, plate tectonics lifted Panama up out of the ocean.
  — National Geographic, 23 June 2020
• In my very first week, a lecturer who happened to be a giant in the field of plate tectonics talked to us about the evolution of the Alps.
  — Steve Nadis, Quanta Magazine, 7 June 2023
• If Mars had plate tectonics, those also stopped long ago.
  — Marissa Grunes, Discover Magazine, 6 Apr. 2023
• The answer has a lot to do with plate tectonics and how buildings are constructed.
  — Allison Chinchar, CNN, 1 May 2021
• But there’s more to plate tectonics than earthquakes and eruptions.
  — Quanta Magazine, 7 June 2018
• Such a thick lithosphere, Khan says, could be why Mars lacks plate tectonics today.
  — Jonathan O'Callaghan, Scientific American, 22 July 2021
• Smrekar suspects Venus is a good analog for the time when plate tectonics began on Earth.
  — Paul Voosen, Science | AAAS, 2 June 2021
• The rift is probably a sign of things to come as the plate tectonics under Africa rearrange themselves.
  — Laura Geggel, Washington Post, 7 Apr. 2018
• Most rocks on Earth are much younger than four billion years because of the constant recycling of the crust by plate tectonics—a process that does not occur on the moon.
  — Erica Jawin, Scientific American, 2 July 2019
• The Earth has plate tectonics, which gradually shift and distort the surface, as well as winds and oceans that erode the evidence of past events.
  — Jason Thomson, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 July 2021
• The lesions can change shape and location, a little like an oral version of plate tectonics.
  — Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Apr. 2022
• As for why Earth has plate tectonics, and our planetary neighbors don’t?
  — Bruce Dorminey, Forbes, 24 Sep. 2021
• The Rift Valley is subject to ongoing plate tectonics and crustal movement that can affect the lakes.
  — Sean Avery, Quartz Africa, 16 Oct. 2020
• The melt layer doesn’t have any influence on plate tectonics.
  — Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 8 Feb. 2023
• In addition, the researchers noted that plate tectonics likely did not play a major role in the rise of these cratons.
  — ABC News, 14 Nov. 2021
• At the site, shifting plate tectonics in the ocean crust fueled by heat from the mantle cause earthquakes and lead to the formation of mountains and volcanoes.
  — Camille Fine, USA TODAY, 6 June 2023
• Scientists suspect that, at one point, the surface of Venus looked a lot like Earth, with plate tectonics and shallow water oceans.
  — Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 5 Jan. 2020
• As these islands were moved about by plate tectonics, the sharks were carried to a new territory far from their fellows.
  — Kate Baggaley, Popular Science, 24 Jan. 2020
• Above that, there was likely a global ocean since plate tectonics wasn't building mountains yet.
  — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 11 Aug. 2022
• Scientists know the moon is too cold and still to have plate tectonics, like Earth, which keeps our whole crust sliding around in giant, continent-sized pieces.
  — Korey Haynes, Discover Magazine, 13 May 2019
• That means the forces from plate tectonics seem to account for the height of the mountains, without any additional influences.
  — Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 13 June 2020
• But Pangea and the related concepts of plate tectonics explain how a seafloor near Brazil ended up as a clifftop in Newfoundland.
  — Neil Ever Osborne, Smithsonian, 30 Sep. 2017
• Without plate tectonics, carbon won’t be pulled out of the atmosphere.
  — Paul M. Sutter, Discover Magazine, 16 Feb. 2023
• The team’s analysis of tungsten isotopes in the rocks reveals Earth in the act of transitioning to plate tectonics around 3.2 billion years ago.
  — Quanta Magazine, 25 Mar. 2021
• Today in Nature, researchers are proposing a sort of addendum to the theory of plate tectonics.
  — Byhannah Richter, science.org, 7 Aug. 2024
• During that same decade, the field saw an equally dramatic shift with the widespread acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics—the slow drift of separate chunks of the outermost layers of the planet atop the mantle.
  — Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2024

Last Updated: 3 Nov 2024