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Josephdirte t1_jbad0eb wrote

Reply to comment by Locedamius in How much influence does a natural satellite (like the Moon) have on the formation of continents ? by Aubin_kun

It's been a long while since I studied this stuff, but I believe the heat generated through the natural decay of uranium, with the insulation of earth's rocks, causes differential heating to the interior of the earth, creating convection cycles within the mantle. This drives plate tectonics

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Locedamius t1_jbafrmh wrote

Kinda true (slab-pull also has an effect but it sort of needs plate tectonics to already exist to drive plate tectonics) but that's happening in all planets, so what is special about Earth that it developed plate tectonics while Venus or Mars didn't?

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