Hawaii.....us Moving away......
The floor of the Pacific Ocean is divided into several plates. The largest one, the Pacific Plate is moving north west relative to the plate that holds North America, and relative to hot spots coming up through the mantle from below the plates (they generate islands like Hawaii). On the surface of the earth, nothing can move along a straight line, instead the plates rotate around a point on the surface. The pacific plate rotates around a point south of Australia. Around Hawaii, the plate is moving at about 7 cm/year, or about as fast as finger mails grow. The evidence for this motion is pretty convincing: Earthquakes: earthquakes occur on the boundaries of the plates as they rub past each other. The motion observed during these earthquakes agrees well with the expected motion. Absolute measurements: Thanks to the Global Positioning System navigation system, we can now measure the location of any point on the earth to within a few cm. The observed motions agree with exp...
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