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very_humble t1_j2qbeyj wrote

Reply to comment by GeoGeoGeoGeo in 450 - 440 million years ago a ~50˚ True Polar Wander event swept Gondwana across the South Pole, triggering glaciation and the second most lethal of the “Big Five” mass extinctions, the end-Ordovician mass extinction by GeoGeoGeoGeo

This seems like something that would be fairly trivial to negate if it happened today. Even at 677.1 cm/year, that's 50,000 years to move NYC to where Boston is

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GeoGeoGeoGeo OP t1_j2qjl16 wrote

As to whether or not this would increase intraplate or marginal plate stress I really have no idea. If the plates don't move perfectly synchronously with one another there might be a bit of a jostling around per se. If there were, 677.1cm/yr (22 ft./yr) is potentially a lot of increased seismicity / strain within any infrastructure adjacent to or spanning major fault systems, along with subsequent increase in associated natural hazard risks. All that being said, TPW is effectively a decoupling of the fluid outer core to the silicate Earth (mantle and crust) so it really may be a bit of a stretch to think that there may be increased seismicity. Certainly interesting to ponder.

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