Convection in the mantle drives the system Large scale thermal convection in the mantle. If the rising part of a convection cell is beneath a continent, it will cause it to RIFT apart. Also causes seafloor to rift apart at mid-ocean ridge. Continents move alont with ocean crust, and do not plow through it. Many seemingly unrelated geologic facts are unified by the plate tectonic theory.
Plates move over hot spots creating a chain of volcanoes.
Hawaiian Islands, Emperor Sea Mounts Triple Junction - where three plate boundaries meet. Associated with divergent plate boundaries. Pangea Pangea was a supercontinent which existed during the Permian Period about 225 million years ago. Diagram of five maps of the Earth showing Pangea and the positions of the continents as they split apart over time, from the US Geological Survey. According to the continental drift theory, the supercontinent Pangaea began to break up about 225-200 million years ago, eventually fragmenting into the continents as we know them today.