clipped from: www.abc.net.au   
Stephen Pincock

Dramatic changes to the temperature of Earth's atmosphere could cause the planet's crust to become locked in place, research shows.

volcano erupting

The Earth's crust is like a jigsaw of free-floating, rocky plates. Below those plates is a deep layer of flowing rock called the mantle, whose movements cause the plates to move slowly around.

Associate professor Louis Moresi of Monash University and colleagues wanted to understand better how atmospheric temperature might affect the characteristics of the mantle.

In practical terms, if you took the Earth and heated it up by 100°C then it would potentially make it very hard for these internal forces to break up the plates," Moresi says
The results have implications for the search for potentially life-friendly planets in our galaxy
Plate tectonics is the thing that provides many of the building blocks for life in the form of energy
The findings also help explain why Venus, our near neighbour in the solar system, has evolved so differently to Earth