Аннотация:An attempt is made to determine the rate of oceanic crust formation during the Phanerozoic using conclusions drawn from current empirical rules for converging plates. These conclusions presuppose that 1) the increase in the average rate of movement of the Earth’s lithosphere plates leads to a sharp increase in the role of collisions and orogenesis with magmatism on continental margins of the Andean type and 2) the decrease in rate of plate movement will lead to a sharp increase in the role of formation of back-arc and interarc spreading basins. The estimate has shown that the average rate of lithosphere plate movement in the Phanerozoic has varied from preceding geologic periods.