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Subduction in the ways postulated to answer a number of known observations is impossible, specifically a 90 degree subduction. Not because I say so; but, because the laws of physics say so. As the angle of attack increases toward 90 degrees, the force of resistance verses force applied becomes impossible.

Your plate mass goes down so far and it melts. It is pushed very hard, yes. Its movement is resisted by friction with overlying layers, its own viscosity, and the sluggishness of the magma beneath. That doesn't mean it grinds to a halt. You see, the pressures keep building behind it. You wander near the answer here:

But, one must ultimately answer the one question that drives it all, where does the force come from that causes movement and what is that applied force across the volume?

What pumps new energy in all the time? It's called nuclear fission. Thus the earth can't cool off, for now. It still has uranium and other heavy elements in the core. The continents continue to drift like scum on hot cocoa and will for some time to come.

In answering that you need also to account for the heat generated from said force and show that said force can account for the 90 or near 90 degree subduction said to occur at the mid-oceanic ridge.

The oceanic ridges are the opposite of subduction zones. They're where new plate is created, spreading outward from undersea volcanic seamounts. You're just kind of spewing stuff you make up as you go along here, aren't you? You don't know beans about geology.

I didn't wander near it, I knew what to expect. You're essentially telling me that molten rock (mush) is forced up against solid rock with a length of rock ranging from the mush to solid and that the mush pushes a plate larger than a continent against friction and it's own weight across an expanse and subducts it at the other end into mush. It begs countless questions. And still doesn't answer the question fully. force applied to mush will push off a solid and scatter the mush, not align it. The exception would be if The mush were being compressed through a fissure of constant size. The problem here is that a fissure made of rock will not stay constant in size with molten rock constantly moving through it. but, that begs a further problem of a plate subducting at a point where another uplifts. The mechanics of this become at once impossible as subduction would run the subducting plate through the mass perporting to be uplifting and therfore interupting uplift energy and changing the vector of travel. We're still fighting physics to move this monster; but, I'm leaving that be for the moment. If two plates emerge at the same point and later subduct then the force applied at that point is double that applied by a single plate. Rock might form and waver in a molten state, it is not going to harden and subduct at 90 degrees in a cooled state. Friction or no. Saying plates meet and melt on subduction doesn't make it possible. Nor do we see the continuous high pressure violent jetting of water we would expect to see caused by uplifting plates. I mean you spit this stuff out like the laws of physics don't exist. I appreciate your tone and your approach. I don't see the physics and I can visualize what is described quite well.

Nice theory; but fission would destroy the rock before it moved it evenly. Further, when magma flows, we know how it flows, it bubbles up unevenly and seeks the path of least resistance, but it mound's up, it doesn't creat sheets and push the sheets as a solid mass. Magma, as you know, is molten rock. So differentiating molten rock from molten rock is not going to work. And we do have examples of how molten material escapes and behaves under water, it doesn't cool immediatly and it doesn't organize itself other than dictated by gravity, so one must ask what makes "tectonic plates" behave differently than magma otherwise behaves when it escapes on the ocean floor. If the governing principles are different, then you should be able to account for it. But on the ocean floor, it acts the same way as on the surface with one exception - it cools more quickly. It otherwise upshoots globs up around it's exit point then begins overruning itself seeking the path of least resistance. This is why we get volcanic mounds. The angle of attack makes little difference to the behavior.

Another observation is that though the cooling rate is different above water, the movement of magma happens much the same way. As the magma comes up, portions of it cool and create a crust. Hot magma flows through the center of that crust moving ever foward. The crust itself doesn't move for very long, it comes to rest as it cools and is added to as liquid magma channels through it to new ground. This is not news, it is recorded fact. And it is relied on by geologists when they measure the temperature on flows under the crust. They actually know the cooling rate within a margin of error which allows them to walk across the crust to where the flow is running and get their measurments. So bottom line, you're theorizing a way in which Lava acts differently than observed without any proof or reason for it to act differently.

The oceanic ridges are the opposite of subduction zones. They're where new plate is created, spreading outward from undersea volcanic seamounts.

You have a problem. Look at a map:

if the mid oceanic ridge is where material uplifts from, then you have a problem. A puzzle lover will see it quickly. The mid oceanic ridge got it's name not for where it exists but for where it was initially found. It wanders all the way around the planet in a snaking fashion and intersects itself - forking in the indian ocean and running up under Saudi Arabia. If Saudi arabia is sitting on two plates diverging, then you have some serious explaining to do. Where the ridge exists in the middle of the map is where the continents were once joined. Africa has moved away from south america as have asia and Europe moved away from Northamerica. Now, given that NorthAmerica stradles a zone where uplift is supposedly occuring in both directions California should have been long ago puvarized. Afterall, The ridge running under california should be on the east side moving east and on the west side moving west. Yet ya'll report that the Us and Europe are still moving away from each other.

North America rests largley on a zone that according to you should be moving the other direction. For California to be straddling a zone moving in opposite directions, this would mean according to your theory, that it has overrun a plate headed the opposite direction of it's own travel onto a plate that is headed in the direction of it's travel. In fact, if we look more closely at this notion, then the continent has long ago been ripped free of any moving plate and is ignoring tectonics in the direction it's heading. The other explanation is that the ridge suddenly becomes a subduction zone - the opposite of which you claim, and that Califoria has ignored your rules and is climbing off one subducting plate onto another moving the opposite direction. In effect, this should pulvarize the Western edge of the continent. It has not so done. The mass should have subducted with the plate. Why didn't it. And why has it not been pulvarized. If it's not a subduction zone, why has california not been ripped off the continent and transported away long ago. Why has the same thing not happened in Saudi Arabia. And worse, look at Iceland. Care to tell us what happened there? Iceland should be the smallest stinkin pile of boulders left on the ocean floor - straddling the ridge between Greenland and the British Isles. We know Iceland has been in that spot for at least a thousand years. Assuming constant speed of movement of 2 cm per year we can go back and say ok, the ridge is moving in opposite directions, therefore at this point there should be at a minimum a 2000cm separation splitting that island body in two. That translates to a 67 foot chasm running through it. If you can find it, I'll send you a cookie. It ain't there.

If the theory is correct, there are predictions we can make logically and should see the result of. The predictions are unfulfilled. And I've only addressed the most obvious ones - and not all of those. Something in me senses a deep abiding silence upcoming. I don't know why.