This is not true, and in fact there is a very famous thought experiment called the "sticky bead argument" that was pivotal in developing the consensus that grav

This is not true, and in fact there is a very famous thought experiment called the "sticky bead argument" that was pivotal in developing the consensus that gravitational waves are a real, physical effect and not just a "gauge" effect (an artifact of the coordinate system): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_bead_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_bead_argument On the other hand, I definitely agree that gravitational waves are almost certainly too weak to cause any tectonic effects.