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The Key Role of Plate Tectonics for Accelerating the Evolution of Complex Life: Quest for the Missing Extraterrestrial Civilizations by Taras Gerya and Robert Stern, EGU 2023 #EGU23 PC3 Humans, hominoids and extraterrestials Time interval in video: 2:00 - 7:20 Basic premises: 1. Civilizations can only be expected on planets with oceans, continents, and plate tectonics 2. Such planets most likely form a very small (<<1 percent) of habitable planets with primitive life Co-Evolution of Life and Plate Tectonics #gsa2021 #utdgss Another lecture that touches on this is "Segmentation of subducting slabs and its implication for the onset of modern plate tectonics" by Dr. Taras Gerya." It will eventually be posted to "Virtual Seminar in Precambrian Geology" Yours, Paul H.

Large meteorite impacts drove plate-tectonic processes on the early Earth, PhysOrg, September 26, 2017 https://phys.org/news/2017-09-large-meteorite-impacts-drove-plate-tectonic.html Did meteorites create the Earth’s tectonic plates? Cosmos, September 26, 2017 https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/did-meteorites-create-the-earth-s-tectonic-plates The paper is: O’Neill, C., Marchi, S., Zhang, S., and Bottke, W., 2017. Impact-driven subduction on the Hadean Earth Nature Geoscience (2017) doi:10.1038/ngeo3029 Received 12 December 2016 Accepted 22 August 2017 Published online 25 September 2017 http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo3029.html?foxtrotcallback=true Another article is: Australian rocks suggest early Earth may not have had plate tectonics, Cosmos, September 28, 2017 https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscience/tremors-shake-tectonic-plate-theory Plate Tectonics May Have Begun a Billion Years After Earth's Birth, Live Science, September 21, 2017 https://www.livescience.com/60478-plate-tectonics-gets-new-age.html The paper is: Johnson, T.E., Brown, M., Gardiner, N.J., Kirkland, C.L. and Smithies, R.H., 2017. Earth’s first stable continents did not form by subduction. Nature, 543(7644), pp.239-242. https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7644/abs/nature21383.html Yours, Paul H.

Earth probably began with a solid shell. New research suggests that plate tectonics began later in Earth's history, University of Maryland, February 27, 2017 https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/features/3814 The paper is: Johnson, T.E., Brown, M., Gardiner, N.J., Kirkland, C.L. and Smithies, R.H., 2017. Earth’s first stable continents did not form by subduction. Nature. 543(7644):239–242 (09 March 2017) DOI: 10.1038/nature21383 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v543/n7644/full/nature21383.html Yours, Paul H.

Iturralde-Vinent, M. A., A. García-Casco, Y. Rojas-Agramonte, J. A. Proenza, J. B. Murphy, and R. J. Stern, 2916, The geology of Cuba: A brief overview and synthesis. GSA Today. Vol. 26, no. 10, pp. 4-10. http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/26/10/article/i1052-5173-26-10-4.htm http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/26/10/pdf/i1052-5173-26-10-4.pdf Travels in Geology: Journeying through Cuba's geology and Culture by Debra Hanneman, Earth Magazine, July, 2013 http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/travels-geology-journeying-through-cubas-geology-and-culture Yours, Paul H.