American geologists have suggested unusual episodes of global cooling 700 million years ago, dubbed 'Snowball Earth', were likely triggered by plate movements. Plate tectonics theory states the Earth's crust and upper mantle are broken into moving pieces or plates. These plates move very slowly, bout as fast as your fingernails and hair grow causing earthquakes and creating mountain ranges and volcanoes. The onset of plate tectonics should have disturbed the oceans and the atmosphere by redistributing continents, increasing explosive arc volcanism and stimulating mantle plumes, Dr. Robert Stern said.