How slowly would continental gears need to turn to not destroy everything?

Out there in the vastness of space there is a colossal machine by unknown makers. An entire artificial planet that, underneath the initial crust, has massive systems of clockwork with the topmost pieces being continent-size gears that are slowly ticking.

By ticking, I mean that over the course of some amount of time, they will slowly start turning, turn for a while, then stop again.

What I want to know is, how fast could this rotation possibly be without destroying a modern city or even a city similar to Rome at the height of the Roman Empire with the city located at the edge of the gear?

Additional Information:

• The planet is approximately the size of Earth.
• The continental gears are around the size of Europe or, about 4 million miles squared.
• The gears are made of a material that acts similarly to steel except strong enough to endure the massive scales of all this.
• The gears are not directly exposed, they are beneath a large layer of rock and soil that acts as a crust.

posted about 8 years ago

santyclause‭

1 reputation 1 0 0 0