Earth's plate tessellation

Fun geologic process of the day: The numbers and sizes of Earth’s tectonic plates are controlled by styles of mantle convection

Earth’s two largest tectonic plates (Pacific and Africa) are on exact opposite sides of the globe (antipodes) and it is perhaps not a coincidence. The numbers and sizes of all of the earth’s plates aren’t random either, but instead are controlled by movements in the mantle. Morra et al. (2013) analyzed the position and size of earth’s plates over the last 200 million years and suggest the systematic tessellation (the gap-free arrangement of tiles, or plates) of Earth’s surface is a consequence of mantle convection styles that alternate between being subduction driven (top-down) and deep mantle driven (bottom-up).

Source: Gabriele Morra, Maria Seton, Leonardo Quevedo, R. Dietmar Müller, Organization of the tectonic plates in the last 200 Myr, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 373, 1 July 2013, Pages 93-101, ISSN 0012-821X,(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X13002021).