14 DAY TRIAL // We weren't around billions of years ago, when our planet had just formed, but geological records tell us that young Earth looked nothing like it does now. Simply put, its appearance drastically changed over the millennia.
Plate tectonics had a huge say in shaping our planet as we know it. In fact, these processes are still transforming Earth. True, it is all happening too slowly for us to notice, but in time, all these small differences will add up to a really big one.
As detailed in the video below, plate tectonics processes occur because our planet's outer shell is divided into several plates gliding over the mantle, which is basically a rocky layer that surrounds Earth's core.
What's interesting is that it's not just the mantle that influences the behavior of tectonic plates. On the contrary, these plates too are in the habit of messing with the mantle in the sense that they upset its dynamics when sinking into it.
Mind you, the fact that Earth's crust comprises plates that like to move about and drag continents and oceans with them is now well known. Still, the fact of the matter is that this theory is merely 200 years old, and wasn't even widely accepted until the 1960s.
