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Science 6 June 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5881, p. 1291
DOI: 10.1126/science.1155338
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Technical Comments

Response to Comment on "Intermittent Plate Tectonics?"

Paul G. Silver1* and Mark D. Behn2

Korenaga takes issue with our proposal that intermittent plate tectonics provides a solution to the thermal catastrophe paradox, arguing that the heat flux in the absence of plate tectonics is too high. We show that this flux is small enough and changes rapidly enough in response to variations in slab flux to produce a reasonable thermal history back to at least 3 billion years ago.

1 Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road, NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
2 Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Mail Stop 22, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: silver{at}dtm.ciw.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Palaeoproterozoic supercontinents and global evolution: correlations from core to atmosphere.
S. M. Reddy and D. A. D. Evans (2009)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 323, 1-26
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)