Explain the origin of plate material (including the ocean floor and continents)

the process involves plates being dragged into the mantle at certain points and moving away from each other at others, in what has been dubbed 'the conveyor belt'.

Plate tectonics depends on the inverse relationship between density of rocks and temperature.

At mid-oceanic ridges, rocks are hot and their density is low, making them buoyant or more able to float. As they move away from those ridges they cool down and their density increases until, where they become denser than the underlying hot mantle, they sink and are 'dragged' under.

But three to four billion years ago, Earth's interior was hotter, volcanic activity was more prominent and tectonic plates did not become cold and dense enough to spontaneously sank.