If the Pacific Ocean/Ring of Fire is subducting and the Pacific Ocean is shrinking as required by subduction, how is it possible that Australia was once connected to South America?
Most of the marsupials alive today are confined to South America and Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupial
Harrison, L., The Migration Route of the Australian Marsupial Fauna, Australian Zoologist, Volume 3, Pages 247-263, 1924There are about 334 species of marsupial, and over 200 are native to Australia and neighboring northern islands. There are also 100 extant American species; these are centered mostly in South America
Briggs, J.C., The Ultimate Expanding Earth Hypothesis, Journal of Biogeography, Volume 31, Issue 5, Pages 855 - 857, 2004
McCarthy, Biogeographical and Geological Evidence for a Smaller, Completely-Enclosed Pacific Basin in the Late Cretaceous, Journal of Biogeography, Volume 32, Issue 12, Pages 2161 - 2177, 2005
Ali, J.R., Biogeographical and Geological Evidence or a Smaller, Completely-Enclosed Pacific Basin in the Late Cretaceous: a Comment, Journal of Biogeography, Volume 33, Issue 9, Pages 1670-1674, 2006
Briggs, J.C., Another Expanding Earth Paper, Journal of Biogeography, Volume 33, Issue 9, Pages 1674 - 1676, 2006
Ebach, M.C., and Tangney, R.S., Biogeography In A Changing World, 2007
"The present-day cordilleran system of eastern Australia was formed in still earlier times; it arose at the same time as the earlier folds in South and North America, which formed the basis of the Andes (pre- cordilleras), at the leading edge of the continental blocks, then drifting as a whole before dividing." -- Wegener, A., The Origin of Continents and Oceans, 1915