Is plate tectonics needed to evolve technological species on exoplanets?

• Beginning life requires ocean. Evolution of technological species requires significant expanses of dry land.
• Large silicate planets change tectonic styles as they cool and their lithosphere thickens.
• Tectonic styles of large silicate planets may or may not include Plate Tectonics.
• The presence or absence of Plate Tectonics profoundly affects the evolution of advanced organisms.
• The search for technological species on exoplanets requires finding ones with oceans, continents, and Plate Tectonics.

As we continue searching for exoplanets, we wonder if life and technological species capable of communicating with us exists on any of them. As geoscientists, we can also wonder how important is the presence or absence of plate tectonics for the evolution of technological species. This essay considers this question, focusing on tectonically active rocky (silicate) planets, like Earth, Venus, and Mars. The development of technological species on Earth provides key insights for understanding evolution on exoplanets, including the likely role that plate tectonics may play. An Earth-sized silicate planet is likely to experience several tectonic styles over its lifetime, as it cools and its lithosphere thickens, strengthens, and becomes denser. These include magma ocean, various styles of stagnant lid, and perhaps plate tectonics. Abundant liquid water favors both life and plate tectonics. Ocean is required for early evolution of diverse single-celled organisms, then colonies of cells which specialized further to form guts, appendages, and sensory organisms up to the complexity of fish (central nervous system, appendages, eyes). Large expanses of dry land also begin in the ocean, today produced above subduction zones in juvenile arcs and by their coalescence to form continents, although it is not clear that plate tectonics was required to create continental crust on Earth. Dry land of continents is required for further evolution of technological species, where modification of appendages for grasping and manipulating, and improvement of eyes and central nervous system could be perfected. These bioassets allowed intelligent creatures to examine the night sky and wonder, the beginning of abstract thinking, including religion and science. Technology arises from the exigencies of daily living such as tool-making, agriculture, clothing, and weapons, but the pace of innovation accelerates once it is allied with science. Finally, the importance of plate tectonics for developing a technological species is examined via a thought experiment using two otherwise identical planets: one with plate tectonics and the other without. A planet with oceans, continents, and plate tectonics maximizes opportunities for speciation and natural selection, whereas a similar planet without plate tectonics provides fewer such opportunities. Plate tectonics exerts environmental pressures that drive evolution without being capable of extinguishing all life. Plate tectonic processes such as the redistribution of continents, growth of mountain ranges, formation of land bridges, and opening and closing of oceans provide a continuous but moderate environmental pressure that stimulates populations to adapt and evolve. Plate tectonics may not be needed in order for life to begin, but evolution of technological species is favored on planets with oceans, continents, plate tectonics, and intermittently clear night sky.

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