Continental Drift Vs Plate Tectonics

Have you ever wondered how you could compare continental drift, sea-floor spreading, and plate tectonics? Well there are actually plenty of ways to compare these three topics in earth science. You could compare these topics in similarities; continental drift and plate tectonics both start on the same basis of idea, that Earth’s lithosphere is made up of tectonic plates. You could also state some differences, such as continental drift occurs on all plate types, but sea-floor spreading only takes place on oceanic crust, and oceanic-continental crust. These are some of the ways that you can compare these topics. There are a lot more ways to compare these earth science theories, so here they are.
SIMILARITIES
There are many similarities between
the theories that we discussed earlier, continental drift, sea-floor spreading, and plate tectonics, but here are three basic ones. Continental drift and sea-floor spreading both occur because of actions taking place in the mantle. For example; continental drift occurs because of convection currents in the mantle, and sea-floor spreading is caused when molten material flows out of the mid-ocean ridge from the mantle. Another similarity is that continental drift and sea-floor spreading both cause pieces of the crust to move. In the theory of continental drift, it states that the plates (sections of the crust) shifted, and land moved, and in sea-floor spreading, new sea-floor is created, and the sea-floor flows across the asthenosphere. The last similarity is the fact that both continental drift, and plate tectonics theories start off of the same general statement, that earth’s lithosphere is made up of of different sections called tectonic plates.
DIFFERENCES
There are also many differences between these theories. One of these differences is that continental drift occurs on every type of crust sections, while sea-floor spreading only takes place on oceanic crust, and oceanic-continental crust. Sea-floor spreading does not take place because of the tectonic plates, as continental drift does. Another difference is that sea-floor spreading has almost nothing in common with the theory of plate tectonics. Continental drift and the theory of plate tectonics’ statements do not relate back to each other, or have a lot in common. And finally, continental drift explains how the landmasses moved, and sea-floor spreading explains only how the oceanic crust moves. There are definitely hundreds of ways that we can compare the three theories of continental drift, sea-floor spreading, and plate tectonics. There are similarities between continental drift and sea-floor spreading. There are also similarities between continental drift and plate tectonics. There are differences between the two groups as well. There are still almost no similarities between sea-floor spreading and plate tectonics. While there are so many things that we already know about these three topics, there is still evidence left to find.