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From the acclaimed author of The Last Volcano and Earthquake Storms comes the incredible story of the creation of a continet.For most of modern history, geologists could say little more about why mountains grew than the obvious: There were forces acting inside the Earth that caused mountains to rise. But what were those forces? And why did they act in some places of the planet and not at others? When the theory of plate tectonics was proposed, our concept of how the Earth worked experienced a momentous shift. As the Andes continue to rise, the Atlantic ocean slowly widens, and Honolulu creeps ever-closer to Tokyo, this seemingly impercepitable creep of the Earth is revealed in the landscape all around us. But tectonics cannot - and do not - explain everything about the wonders of the North American landscape.