Brian, except it is not true: it is not deforming at that rate. It is the spherical rotations. HW (heartland wife) has taught plate tectonics, and she was a teaching assistant for Tanya Atwater for Plate Tectonics. (Tanya was on my thesis committee). HW confirms what I say.

Xavier le Pichon came up with the spherical geometry in a 1968 paper. I had him as a teacher for a couple/few lectures when I got a degree (barely) at University of Paris VI. Le Pichon gave a talk at a workshop June 2011 in Istanbul on the North Anatolian fault system and I gave the talk after his.

I said it was an honor to give a talk after a God of plate tectonics, and then I sort of said his talk was inaccurate (not quite that way).

Chris