...In which the Woof demonstrates the importance of convection in plate movement...

 
"Now then,  everybody, ..you see how thi......What was that noise?"
"Please Sir, ..The Woof's bowels.  He farted."
"Oh, ..Didn't you go to the toilet at playtime, Woof"
"Yes Sir, but I couldn't get in.  The graffiti artists were."
"Were what?"
"In, Sir."
"Well never mind.  Just sit still.  What plate are you? "
"The American Plate, Sir."
"And you, BL, what plate are you?"
"Pleease Sir, please Sir, the European Plate, Sir, ..please.."
"Can I be the Australian Plate, Sir? "
"Not today, Dumnuts.  However it's good to see you taking an interest in this for a change.  Perhaps tomorrow,..you can be a plate all to yourself - if you like, ...and if you behave.  Just now we're looking at a very important principle.  How plates move.  And here we see, before you, occupying the floor, sitting facing each other, two plates.."
"Planks"
"Lomber, ...the Woof's 'lomber'.
"Timber, .."
"Same t'ing, were OI com frum."
"Yeah, ..And Buggerlugs is worth two planks, ..well, .. ponks to Pladdy there.."
"...which are not moving.  Sit still BL.  You can move later.  And remove your Ipod.  And Woof has just shown us, albeit a little more graphically than was my intention in this demonstration, the importance of internal convection.   His circulatory system is moving, but he, apparently, is not.  Correct?
<chorus> "Yes, Sir."
"WRONG.  You see? ...Now pay attention, ...and this is the sheer beauty of plate tectonics in explaining everything about the geology of the Earth. Although you cannot see, his internal convection is moving him along, very very slowly .. Fingernail-speed to be precise. Eventually, though it may not seem so to the casual observer he will end up sitting in BL's lap. Or more exactly since the circulation of both makes them move towards each other,  both of them will end up, ... abou...out  here, ..sitting in each other's lap."
"Sir, ..BL's the wrong way round, Sir, He's not very good at laps."
"He's not very good at anything if you ask me."
"Nobody's asking you, Daisy..  'Cept me, ..  ..Playtime?"
"Pay attention now, this is important, ..By effervescing and extruding a certain small excretion from his body (albeit inadvertently) Woof has demonstrated one way in which the plates move by virtue of the contained circulatory system within the Earth.  Woof is a Plate, and by the sum total of action of his circulatory system each little effervescence will accrete and move him along a tiny fraction till eventually he collides and crashes into BL.
"At fingernail speed."
"And throw up mountains. Isn't that right, Sir?"
"Yes, Daisy."
"Daisy's mountains' a bit of all right.  I wonder who's been colliding with her, ...lately."
"Not buggerlugs, that's for sure.."
"That's right, ..I read on a site somewhere that when the Earth farts it pushes it off ..."
"Now Sto..Who's whispering?  I should have guessed.  Dumnuts.  Speak up, Dumnuts.  It's rude to whisper, ..speak up and tell the class what it's about."
"Yes Sir, ..it was that last big tsunami that killed a lot of people, they worked out that the earthquake that caused it pushed the Earth off course a bit."
"Well done, Dumnuts.  Sometimes you remember things that are quite surprising.  I wish you could pull more stuff like that out of that stupid head of yours.   That's correct, .. It did, .. And everyone note that this was the conclusion from arithmetical calculation, and that if you want to be a scientist these days you need to be able to count on more than two fingers."
"Please Sir, does that mean that every time there's an earthquake, the Earth shifts a bit off course?"
"Well, yes, ..I suppose it does. <thinks> But of course that's if there's just one.  If many happen all at once then they'd cancel and you wouldn't need to worry about it."
"Please Sir, the USGS show about two hundred a day, ..are they going off at once and wouldn't count, or are they spaced out and would?"
"It's not 'wood' it's 'woof'."
"Quiet Dumnuts, I think Woof has a plank, ..I mean a question.."
"Yes Sir, ..Can I collide with BL tomorrow.  I need to go to the toilet."

<bell>

"...You know, Daisy, I don't think teacher really understands this, ...he's only interested in telling us, an' getting us to tell him back.   Whenever he gets a question, he dodges..."
 http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=lithosphere