When I went through the then current geology courses, the prevailing official belief about plate tectonics was assuming the original continental mass was one continent, named Pangaea by our academia. The current global pattern of continents suggest all were physically joined, then separated into the current pattern. I remember cutting out continents then fitting them together almost perfectly into one continent as a short class exercise. From that came reasons for specualtion as to how long it took for those to move to present locations. Today a new factor has become more plausible, that the major part of that continental separation was catastrophic in nature due to studies of the oceanic divides (trenches) and associated rifts, mountain ranges in the ocean floors that suggest the oceanic trenches are still spreading, producing uplifts that affect continental uplifts, the mountains we see above sea level. After some ancient initial upheaval the whole process has slowed to a very small rate of inches per year, such that now continents are actually pressuring other continents towards a reunion. In the natural that would take millions of years at current rates, but meanwhile create great geologic havoc from earthquakes.
Another effect is geologic "subduction", a concept of the earth's crust being recycled at the oceanic trenches or continental shelves close to edges of continents, sending what we see back to the supposed original source magma deep in the earth. Actually that part of the earth is often relatively part of the outer crust, giving evidence through amazing geologic events like volcanoes. That's probably what you referred to. There is plenty of evidence to suggest most geologic activity has happened relatively recently, in tune with the record of the Bible. Had current geologic signs been a regular steady occurrence, life as we know it could not have continued.
