What makes Earth’s tectonic plates move?
Whitehead came to WHOI in 1971, attracted partly because it had become a hub for the nascent field of geophysical fluid dynamics. The term “GFD” was coined by a group of scientists and students that began gathering each summer since 1959 at WHOI for a fellowship program to exchange ideas in the different scientific disciplines that deal with the dynamics of fluids in oceans, atmospheres, and the interiors of planet. One way or another, a sizable proportion of the world’s leaders in the field of GFD have come through the program. Whitehead has been a fixture in it for the lion’s share of that history. Whitehead said the early 1970s “was an incredibly stimulating time.” The theory of plate tectonics was red hot. Scientists had just begun to understand that Earth’s surface was carved up into individual segments, or plates, that moved apart or collided, forming ocean basins and mountain ranges. But what fueled the plates’ movement? While many scientists got out their pencils and paper to d
