A lovely dose of non-consensus thinking can be seen in the december issue of 'New Concepts in Global Tectonics Journal' (see www.ncgt.org) … and choosing one out of all the articles is difficult, but I'll opt for Gennady G Kochemasov of the Russian Academy of Sciences offering. He compares the geology of Earth with Mars and Mercury, and claim tectonic granulation in all three is somewhat similar – yet only Earth has Plate Tectonics.
Kochemasov says Plate Tectonics is an inadequate consensus theory as it does not explain fundamental features of Earth tectonics and should be revised or abandoned. That is very strong stuff. Basically, he compares the Arctic Ocean depression with a similar depression on Mercury, on the northern plains of that planet (but without water filling the depression). The same thing can be found on Mars. The Pacific Ocean basin has remarkable similarities with the Vastitas Borealis depression on Mars. The wave nature of planetary tectonics is compared to tectonic granulations of the icy moon Titan and that of the metal and rock planet Mercury.
In Plate Tectonics the ocean basins are said to have appeared in the course of spreading activity – but similar structures occur on other bodies in the solar system without any Plate Tectonics to be seen. He claims one third of Mars is marked by the huge depression (mentioned above) yet no ocean exists. How then was it created? A recently aquired topographic map of the northern hemisphere of Mercury shows a vast depression quite comparable in shape and size as the basin of the Arctic Ocean. He says wave pressures excited by the elliptical keplerian orbits play a fundamental role in cosmic body structuring processes. The rotation of the planets around the Sun, oscillating wave movement, induces intertia gravity waves in planetary shells (and so on).