CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,673earthquake and tectonic studiesGeological and Geophysical StudiesHigh-pressure geophysics and materials

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 86 of the 86 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

On the Relative Importance of the Driving Forces of Plate Motion

Open access
Forsyth, D., Uyeda, S.·1975·Geophysical Journal International
DOI 10.1111/j.1365-246x.1975.tb00631.x
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

A number of possible mechanisms have recently been proposed for driving the motions of the lithospheric plates, such as pushing from mid-ocean ridges, pulling by downgoing slabs, suction toward trenches, and coupling of the plates to flow in the mantle. We advance a new observational method of testing these theories of the driving mechanism. Our basic approach is to solve the inverse problem of determining the relative strength of the plausible driving forces, given the observed motions and geometries of the lithospheric plates. Since the inertia of the plates is negligible, each plate must be in dynamic equilibrium, so that the sum of the torques acting on a plate must be zero. Thus, our problem is to determine the relative sizes of the forces that minimize the components of net torque on each plate. The results indicate that the forces acting on the downgoing slab control the velocity of the oceanic plates and are an order of magnitude stronger than any other force. Namely, all the oceanic plates attached to substantial amounts of downgoing slabs move with a ‘terminal velocity’ at which the gravitational body force pulling the slabs downward is nearly balanced with the resistance acting on the slab; regardless of the other features of the trailing horizontal part of the plates. The drag on the bottom of the plates which resist motion is stronger under the continents than under the oceans.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1365-246x.1975.tb00631.x

Cites

86 of 86 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 86 references

Research works printed but not linked: 17

  1. 1974, EOS TRANS AM GEOPHYS UN, 55, 358
  2. 1970, Science, 229, 101
  3. 1973, Nature; Physical Science (London), 243, 78
  4. 1928, TRANS GEOL SOC GLASGOW, 18, 559
  5. 1972, J GEOPHYS RES, 76, 6294
  6. 1972, J GEOPHYS RES, 76, 6283
  7. 1968, PROC CONF HISTORY EARTHS CRUST, 1966, 45
  8. 1967, J GEOPHYS RES, 72, 6291
  9. 1972, BULL AM PET GEOL, 56, 203
  10. 1973, GEOL SOC AM MEMOIR, 132, 7
  11. 1967, J GEOSCI, 10, 53
  12. 1962, Nature; Physical Science (London), 193, 313
  13. 1967, GEOPHYS J R ASTR SOC, 9, 503
  14. 1973, GEOPHYS J R ASTR SOC, 35, 285
  15. 1971, J GEOPHYS RES, 76, 1156
  16. 1973, TRANS AM GEOPHYS UN, 54, 468
  17. 1973, TRANS AM GEOPHYS UN, 54, 238

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 1,673

Related

Metadata

Authors
Forsyth, D., & Uyeda, S.
Affiliations
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
  • Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (US)
ORCID
Forsyth, D.
Venue
Geophysical Journal International
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
1975-10-01
Volume
43
Issue
1
Pages
163-200
ISSN
  • 0956-540X (ISSN-L)
  • 1365-246X
DOI
10.1111/j.1365-246x.1975.tb00631.x
OpenAlex
W2011893217
Cited by
1,673
References
86
Citations by year
2026: 33 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 57 · 2023: 78 · 2022: 64 · 2021: 66 · 2020: 82 · 2019: 52 · 2018: 73 · 2017: 60 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 50 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 37
FWCI
23.95
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
Geophysical Journal International (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • Office of Naval Research (N00014)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › earthquake and tectonic studies
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geology › Geological and Geophysical Studies
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › High-pressure geophysics and materials
Keywords
plate motion, plate driving forces, slab pull, inverse problems, plate tectonics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review