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Dr Rebecca Bell, a reader in tectonics at Imperial College London, said that to accommodate all of this motion, faults - cracks in the rock - form which allow tectonic plates to "slither" sideways.

Pressure from the collision of the Indian and the Eurasian plates 40-50 million years ago formed the Himalayas and plate tectonics remains the major reason for their continued rise.

Earth scientists have long studied and debated the origin of plate tectonics, and other theories have been offered.

"When we first want to understand how earthquakes work, we look to plate tectonics, because that is and will always be the number one reason why an earthquake happens," Frank says.

Researchers have used zircons to try to date the onset of plate tectonics and the origin of continental crust.