Subduction sucks

So, ...subduction is the driver for Plate Tectonics?  ... dragging the back-arc basins off the Western Pacific margin?   Well, certainly by that link* we can hardly deny the research that's gone into this (read: money spent, reputations gained, sleepless knights, kudos earned, Students taught, exam papers passed  etc etc,).  But for goodness sake, .. Teach! .... What are you *DoO*ing?

.....................

Five centimetres of dyke a year intruding the spreading ridge and making India crumple Asia all the the way to the Russian Peninsula is one thing, but a bit of cold subducting slab ("forced down by continental crust") dragging the whole of Asia and Africa as well as the back-arc basins of the Western Pacific is asking a bit much - especially when the movement /pull (arrows) is greater the further west we go.

First the back-arc basins, then what? .. the Persian Gulf? ...the Red Sea?  Where does it all stop?

What's that?  They've already begun to open?  Everybody get their scale ruler and see just how thick a few hundred kilometres is.  'Cos I don't think it would be as much as one of those red dots. ( Amazing the power in a bit of suck when it comes to a sinking slab.)  (Good job the Atlantic got in the way or it would be pulling the Americas as well..  )
 

******

"What's that from the back row? ..Subduction *is* opening the Atlantic as well?"
"Yeah, Teach, it has to be.  Subduction says.. "
"Says what?"
"The slab pulls everything.  The other oceans as well."
"That's right, Teach.  Has to, ..to keep everything the same size."
"Gee, .. Some suck in those  *Z*ones!  Or is it the roll-back and blobtonics? ... Teach?
"Look, ..If I hear another peep from anyone in the back row suggesting that satellite measurements don't support Plate Tectonics, I'm leaving this class and you can all set your own homework and make up your own end-of-term examination paper.  And I'll fail all of you.  You paid good money for me to tell you.  You think it's rubbish?  We'll soon see what's rubbish around here!."
"But we're not saying it's rubbish, Sir."
"No, ...that's right, Teach. We're just saying what you told us last week."
<"............">

"Gee Daisy, That sure was some wobbly Teach threw, wasn't it?.."
"Sure was, Nuts."

(Last week...)

 

(Subduction forms back-arc basins and causes overriding?) (...Some overriding.) (...Some subduction.)

Subduction - a myth?
 

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