Abstract
The westdrift and the Eötvös forces, at present, are too low to overcome the asthenospheric viscous drag and to the principal driving forces of plate tectonics motion. However, an exact expression for the torque acting on the Earth's tidal bulge, responsible for the westdrift, seems to be almost eight orders of magnitude larger than that expected and a value of the Eötvös acceleration was recently obtained four times greater than the classic estimate. These stresses can be significant but probably smaller than other force ffields that act on the actual lithosphere, however, during the geological past, they may have reached an intensity high enough to contribute to the present-day continental configuration over a large part of the Earth's surface.
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