[mypyrex (OP)]

Hello All,
Please bear with me. I am new to this forum and have no qualifications in terms of science or geology.
I started getting curious about geology through my mountaineering and walking activities. I would wander amongst the mountains thinking "How was that mountain formed?" "How many millions of years did those limestone rocks take to form?" etc.
Now my question. Am I right in assuming that continental movement is still happening and at the same rate. I assume events such as earthquakes and volcanic activity are evidence that it is. Nine years ago I went to the Himalaya(actually saw Everest ) and thought "good grief, this lot used to be under the sea

[alancalverd]

Yes, and no!

Everything is moving, but there is no "same rate" as the motion is pretty random. It doesn't even make scientific sense to talk about "continents" - they are just a useful label for the largest contiguous bits of the solid surface that are above sea level at any particular time.

[mypyrex (OP)]

Thanks for that. I was reading about Pangaea and saw that it took something like 250 million years to "sub-divide" into the continents as we know them today.

[Bored chemist]

There's a lot more about it here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
including the amusingly memorable comparison "Plate motions range up to a typical 10–40 mm/year (Mid-Atlantic Ridge; about as fast as fingernails grow), to about 160 mm/year (Nazca Plate; about as fast as hair grows).".

[Bass]

alancalverd is correct about rates of movement changing over time. And while the theory of continental drift has been replaced by plate tectonics, continents do indeed exist and have been persistent over long periods of time. Continental crustal material (sial) is much thicker and lighter (due to magmatic crystallization and segregation) than the heavier, thinner oceanic crust (sima). So continents tend to "float" higher on the mantle- which also makes them more difficult to subduct or destroy. Parts of most of the continents are billions of years old, while the maximum age of almost all the oceanic crust is less than 200 million years.

[andrew7278]

This is really very informative.

[jeffreyH]

This is really very informative.

In what way was it informative in particular?

[Janus]

Thanks for that. I was reading about Pangaea and saw that it took something like 250 million years to "sub-divide" into the continents as we know them today.

Iceland sits right where the North American and Eurasian plates meet, and are presently moving away from each other.  As a result. Iceland is being pulled apart.
https://frontiers-of-solitude.org/sites/default/files/gallery-image/diana15.8_63.jpg