NATURE GEOSCIENCE | ADVANCE ONLINE PUBLICATION | www.nature.com/naturegeoscience 1

news & views The motion of tectonic plates across Earth’s surface is driven by two main forces: buoyant upwelling mantle at mid-ocean ridges, termed ridge push, and the sinking of cold, dense slabs in subduction zones, also known as slab pull. The rate at which tectonic plates move depends on the magnitude of these driving forces relative to viscous stresses that resist — or enhance — the motion at the base of the plates and around the sinking slabs. Currently, tectonic plates move at sustained rates of no more than 1 to 10 cm per year, but during the late Cretaceous and early Palaeogene the Indian Plate moved up to twice as fast, for a period of 20 millio