Subduction controls the distribution and fragmentation of Earth’s tectonic plates

Numerical simulation of the movement of the mantle and the surface of a virtual Earth. The boundaries of the calculated surface plates are white. Inside the mantle, the hot zones are red hot plumes originally volcanoes and the blue areas are cold plates subducting. The continents are visible on the surface (pink). The theory of plate tectonics describes how the surface of Earth is split into an organized jigsaw of seven large plates1 of similar sizes and a population of smaller plates whose areas follow a fractal distribution. The reconstruction of global tectonics during the past 200 million years suggests that this layout is probably a long-term feature of Earth, but the forces governing it are unknown. Previous studies3, 5, 6, primarily based on the statistical properties of plate distributions, were unable to resolve how the size of the plates is determined by the properties of the lithosphere and the underlying mantle convection.