Viscous cycle: Quartz is key to plate tectonics. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 2, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2011 / 03 / 110316152949.htm. National Science Foundation.

More than 40 years ago, pioneering tectonic geophysicist J. Tuzo Wilson published a paper in the journal Nature describing how ocean basins opened and closed along North America's eastern seaboard.