Plate tectonics theory suggests that the continent of India broke free and in its wanderings suddenly accelerated.

How does a continental plate move around? How would it suddenly accelerate?

Why did Madagascar not continue drifting with the Indian plate continent?

Or could expansion of a small planet, where the plates fit together, into a much larger planet with separated plates be an alternative answer?

More than 140 million years ago, India was part of an immense super-continent called Gondwana, which covered much of the Southern Hemisphere. Around 120 million years ago, what is now India broke off and started slowly migrating north, at about 5 centimetres per year. Then, about 80 million years ago, the continent suddenly sped up, racing north at about 15 centimetres per year, about twice as fast as the fastest modern tectonic drift.
How India slammed into Eurasia at record speed | Asian Age

Continue reading →

Planet Earths continents could fit together to form a supercontinent like Pangea, or, they could alternatively fit together nearly perfectly on a smaller planet like on Mercury?

For 60 years the orthodoxy has been that these processes gradually form supercontinents, such as Gondwana or Laurasia, where a vast land mass is brought together before slowly breaking up and drifting away in pieces again. This has happened a number of times in cycles since the Earth was formed, collecting and then separating land over and over again. Now we have new information that suggests that the process is more complex than we had thought.
Continue reading →