quote:
Is 20 feet per day such an outlandishly fast rate? That's ten feet of separation on either side of the mid-Atlantic ridge being generated daily or less than 6 inches hourly. Again, at the beginning of the movement.
See message 25 here:
EvC Forum: Heat release from tectonic friction
Such rates will generate enough heat to boil more than a hundred oceans. The state of oceanic lithosphere (temperature, density, buoyancy, surface heat flow) is as expected from spreading over timescales on the order of 10^8 years, not less.