Earth is an oblate spheroid, which means its surface curves most at the equator. This means ancient continents that moved from lower to higher latitudes would no longer be shaped to "fit" the curvature of the Earth. Is this effect at all significant and would it be enough to contribute to their breaking up? Is it operational today? 1. Tectonic plates, which cover Earth's surface and carry the continents, are flexible on large scales of time and space (hundreds of thousands of years and thousands of kilometres). This can be seen in the phenomenon of subduction, where one plate is pushed under another, for example the Pacific plate underneath Japan. Friction and mechanical stress during this process lead to volcanism and earthquakes. Another demonstration of tectonic plates' flexibility is the folding of rock to form mountain ranges like the Alps or the Himalayas, which occurs where two tectonic plates collide.
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