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Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
How Misconceptions on Heat Flow May have Delayed Discovery of Plate Tectonics
How Misconceptions on Heat Flow May have Delayed Discovery of Plate Tectonics
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Since 1906 it has been known that sialic rocks are richer in heat-generating radioactive elements than simatic rocks. This led to the assumption that convection in the mantle must rise under the sialic continents and descend under the simatic ocean floors. So persistent was this view that convective flow in the opposite direction was evaluated seriously only after Hess and Dietz proposed it in the 1960's.
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