Plate Tectonics Revisited Poem by Lone Dog

On a cold but sunny December day,
I wandered down to the ice-strewn banks
of the Detroit River
and observed, before me, a flotilla of ice rafts
fighting to make its way
through the narrow river corridor -
to the gentler, less crowded expanse of the lake.
Mesmerized by the violent collisions and upheavals
of these fast-moving ice sheets,
I was suddenly transported into
a microcosm of geological activity -
into a world of geological deformation,
of plate tectonics and of continental drift.

I heard the grating rumble of the ice-plates
and watched Pangea fracture along its fault lines
as the continents began to drift slowly apart.
I saw South America inch westward,
floating on a layer of denser river-mantle.
I witnessed the great subduction zones
along the Pacific Rim
as a massive ice sheet
overtook another slowed by congestion.
As a result, it was forced downward on an angle,
deep beneath the other's trailing edge.
On the larger sheets of ice, I observed vast continental plains
Veined with long, curving mountain ranges.
And then, to the left, two massive plates of ice
floating on the river-mantle violently collided.
I watched in wonder
as a high ridge of angular, shard-like mountain peaks
was suddenly thrust upward from the colliding edges.
As the flotilla of translucent ice-blue rafts,
moved ever onwards
and jockeyed for position of advantage,
I witnessed long fault lines, developing fractures,
and constant slippage,
and knew that, if cities had been there,
they would have been devastated
by the resulting quakes.

Startled back to reality
by the persistent complaint of a nearby sea gull,
I trudged homeward,
pleased that I knew something of geomorphology
and hungry to know more.