Plate tectonics
The theory focuses on the movements of mantle plumes under tectonic plates, viewing them as the major driving force of movements of (parts of) the Earth's crust. In its more modern form, conceived in the 1970s, it tries to reconcile in one single geodynamic model the horizontalistic concept of Plate tectonics, and the verticalistic concepts of mantle plumes, by the gravitational movement of plates away from major domes of the Earth's crust. The existence of various supercontinents in Earth history and their break-up has been associated recently with major upwellings of the mantle.