Geology of the United States A slice of the Earth from the Pacific Ocean through the Pacific Northwest might look something like the adjacent image. Beneath the Cascades, a dense oceanic plate plunges beneath the North American Plate; a process known as subduction. As the oceanic slab sinks deep into the Earth's interior beneath the continental plate, high temperatures and pressures allow water molecules locked in the minerals of solid rock to escape. The water vapor rises into the pliable mantle above the subducting plate, causing some of the mantle to melt. This newly formed magma rises toward the Earth's surface to erupt, forming a
Downward to the Earth Downward to the Earth Downward to the Earth is a 1970 science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg. It is a tale of the quest for transcendence (a frequent Silverberg theme) set on another planet, and includes references to "Heart of Darkness", Joseph Conrad's classic tale of colonialism, including the name of Kurtz. Its title references Ecclesiastes 3:21 in the Bible (""Who knows if the spirit of people rises upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?""). "Downward to the Earth" was originally published as a four-part serial publication, starting in the November 1969 edition of