A limit theorem linking continuous plate models to the topology of the plate boundary network

Abstract

Plate tectonics is described in two registers: a discrete one, in which rigid plates tile the sphere and meet at trivalent junctions, and a continuous one, in which Bercovici and Wessel (1994) replace hard plate outlines by smooth shape functions of finite boundary half-width $δ^*$. We prove that the two registers are connected by a limit theorem. Generalizing the shape functions to a signed-geodesic-distance construction, we show that they converge almost everywhere, exponentially in $1/δ^*$, to the plate indicator functions; that the sharp plate mosaic is a finite regular trivalent CW decomposition of the sphere under an explicit structural hypothesis; and that a component-counted weighted Euler characteristic $χ_w^{δ^*}(τ)$, built from the super-level sets of the shape functions, equals $V-E+F=2$ for all $δ^*$ below an explicit threshold $δ_0(τ)$, with its face, edge and vertex terms converging separately to the numbers of plates, boundary arcs and triple junctions. The theorem is proved unconditionally on the signed-distance offset cover under positive-reach, separation and bounded-sector hypotheses, and transferred to the normalized partition-of-unity field for thresholds $τ<1/3$ by a comparison lemma whose junction-ball step, a planar single-crossing property, is certified numerically. The residual $|χ_w-2|$ defines a topological diffuseness index for diffuse plate boundaries. For the present-day PB2002 network the hypotheses are measured to be non-vacuous, with $δ_0(0.15)\approx2.8$ km. The theorem is the mathematical foundation of the topological audit of plate reconstructions presented in a companion paper (Kim, 2026, submitted to Geoscience Frontiers).