Planetary scientists Robert Stern from the University of Texas at Dallas and Taras Gerya from ETH-Zurich, two co-authors of this study, suggest that the existence of both continents and oceans, as well as long-term plate tectonics, is essential for the emergence of advanced civilizations. So they propose adding two factors to the equation: the proportion of habitable planets with significant continents and oceans and the proportion of those planets with plate tectonics active for at least 500 million years. This modification, however, greatly reduces the value of this N in the Drake Equation…
According to new research, plate tectonics is essential for the development of complex life and advanced civilizations. The movement of the Earth’s plates creates different habitats, recycles nutrients, and controls the climate—all essential to life. It is important that plate tectonics last 500 million years, Gerya explained, because the evolution of complex multicellular organisms is very slow. “On Earth, it took more than 500 million years to develop humans from the first animals, which appeared 800 million years ago,” he said.
Here’s another from George Dvorsky, with the excellent Samir Varma.
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