Title: Future of Earth
Content:  The theory of plate tectonics demonstrates that the continents of the Earth are moving across the surface at the rate of a few centimeters per year. This is expected to continue, causing the plates to relocate and collide. Continental drift is facilitated by two factors: the energy generated within the planet and the presence of a hydrosphere. With the loss of either of these, continental drift will come to a halt. The production of heat through radiogenic processes is sufficient to maintain mantle convection and plate subduction for at least the next 1.1 billion years. At present, the continents of North and South America 
Title: Continental drift
Content:  similarity of Mantovani's and his own maps of the former positions of the southern continents. In Mantovani's conjecture, this continent broke due to volcanic activity caused by thermal expansion, and the new continents drifted away from each other because of further expansion of the rip-zones, where the oceans now lie. This led Mantovani to propose a now-discredited Expanding Earth theory. Continental drift without expansion was proposed by Frank Bursley Taylor, who suggested in 1908 (published in 1910) that the continents were moved into their present positions by a process of "continental creep", later proposing a mechanism of increased tidal forces during the Cretaceous dragging the crust towards the equator. He 
Title: Continental drift
Content:  use the phrase "continental drift" (1912, 1915) (in German "die Verschiebung der Kontinente" – translated into English in 1922) and formally publish the hypothesis that the continents had somehow "drifted" apart. Although he presented much evidence for continental drift, he was unable to provide a convincing explanation for the physical processes which might have caused this drift. He suggested that the continents had been pulled apart by the centrifugal pseudoforce (Polflucht) of the Earth's rotation or by a small component of astronomical precession, but calculations showed that the force was not sufficient. The Polflucht hypothesis was also studied by Paul Sophus Epstein in 1920 and found to be implausible.
Title: Seafloor spreading
Content:  At the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (and in other mid-ocean ridges), material from the upper mantle rises through the faults between oceanic plates to form new crust as the plates move away from each other, a phenomenon first observed as continental drift. When Alfred Wegener first presented a hypothesis of continental drift in 1912, he suggested that continents plowed through the ocean crust. This was impossible: oceanic crust is both more dense and more rigid than continental crust. Accordingly, Wegener's theory wasn't taken very seriously, especially in the United States. At first the driving force for spreading was argued to be convection currents in the mantle. Since then, it has been shown that the motion of the continents is linked to seafloor spreading by the theory of plate tectonics, which is driven by convection that includes the crust itself 
Title: Continental drift
Content:  Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener  in 1912, but his hypothesis was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle convection for that mechanism. The idea of continental drift has since been subsumed into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere.
Title: History of geology
Content:  formed a single landmass known as Pangaea; thereafter they separated and drifted like rafts over the ocean floor, currently reaching their present position. Additionally, the theory of continental drift offered a possible explanation as to the formation of mountains; plate tectonics built on the theory of continental drift. Unfortunately, Wegener provided no convincing mechanism for this drift, and his ideas were not generally accepted during his lifetime. Arthur Holmes accepted Wegener's theory and provided a mechanism: mantle convection, to cause the continents to move. However, it was not until after the Second World War that new evidence started to accumulate that 
Title: 20th century in science
Content:  In 1912 Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of Continental Drift. This theory suggests that the shapes of continents and matching coastline geology between some continents indicates they were joined together in the past and formed a single landmass known as Pangaea; thereafter they separated and drifted like rafts over the ocean floor, currently reaching their present position. Additionally, the theory of continental drift offered a possible explanation as to the formation of mountains; Plate Tectonics built on the theory of continental drift. Unfortunately, Wegener provided no convincing mechanism for this drift, and his ideas were not generally accepted during his lifetime. Arthur 
Title: Seafloor spreading
Content:  Seafloor spreading helps explain continental drift in the theory of plate tectonics. When oceanic plates diverge, tensional stress causes fractures to occur in the lithosphere. The motivating force for seafloor spreading ridges is tectonic plate slab pull at subduction zones, rather than magma pressure, although there is typically significant magma activity at spreading ridges. Plates that are not subducting are driven by gravity sliding off the elevated mid-ocean ridges a process called ridge push. At a spreading center, basaltic magma rises up the fractures and cools on the ocean floor to form new seabed. Hydrothermal vents are common at spreading centers. Older rocks will be found farther away from the spreading zone while younger rocks will be found nearer to the spreading zone. Spreading rate 
Title: Henry Robert Frankel
Content:  Continental drift is the theory which emerged in the early 20th century that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift was subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics in the mid-20th century. Plate tectonics explains that the continents move by riding on plates of the Earth's lithosphere. Frankel's four volume work, The Continental Drift Controversy (Volume 1: Wegener and the Early Debate; Volume 2: Paleomagnetic Support for Shifting Continents; Volume 3: Initiation of Seafloor Spreading; and Volume 4: Evolution into Plate Tectonics), published in 2012 by Cambridge University 
Title: Supercontinent
Content:   The causes of supercontinent assembly and dispersal are thought to be driven by convection processes in Earth's mantle. Approximately 660 km into the mantle, a discontinuity occurs, affecting the surface crust through processes like plumes and superplumes (aka large low-shear-velocity provinces). When a slab of the subducted crust is denser than the surrounding mantle, it sinks to discontinuity. Once the slabs build up, they will sink through to the lower mantle in what is known as a "slab avalanche". This displacement at the discontinuity will cause the lower mantle to compensate and rise elsewhere. The rising mantle can form a plume or superplume. Besides having 

Question: what process causes the continents to drift apart how?
Answer: Continental drift.