While plate tectonics are the dominant mechanism for generating new continental crust today, in the distant past Earth's subsurface temperatures are widely thought to have been too hot to allow plates to form.

虽然板块构造是今天形成新的大陆地壳的主要机制，但在遥远的过去，人们普遍认为地球的地下温度太高，不能形成板块。