Abstract

Following the devastating tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, there was a lot of talk about how the subduction of the Indian plate beneath Indonesia was the root cause of the earthquake that triggered the disaster. However, a significant number of earth scientists dispute the existence of subduction and question the classical plate-tectonic model of which it forms part (see Meyerhoff et al., 1996; Pratt, 2000, 2001; Smoot, 2001; Smoot et al., 2001a,b; Storetvedt, 1997).