3. What scientific data was used to support the theory of continental drift? Identify and explain at least…
Evidence to support this theory is that there is that there have been fossils found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean of land animals which gives us the idea that they must have been together originally. There is also climate evidence for this as there is coal deposits and fern fossils in the Antarctica which shows it used to be more equatorial. There are also glacial deposits in India, South America and Australia which are too hot for glaciers today. Another piece of evidence is Structural trends as if the continents are fitted together then all the mountain ranges line up, suggesting that they have been split. Continents also partially fit together but not totally due to erosion. However each continent has a shelf 150ft below the surface which all fit together perfectly as have not been eroded.…
Pangaea was a supercontinent that formed around 300 million years ago and began to break apart around 200 million years ago, during the times of the Pangaea of the land was on one continent and all of the sea was one giant ocean. This theory was coined during a 1927 symposium discussing Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift, he posed the idea that prior to the breaking up and drifting to their present locations, all of the continents had at one time been a single supercontinent as seen pictured on the right. The breaking and forming of the supercontinents appears to have been cyclical through the Earth’s history. Alfred Wegeners theory talked about how icebergs may behave the same as moving continents, and how therefore plate tectonics caused the movement of continental crust.…
1. Continental drift and the formation of the Earth’s Oceans are formed from plate tectonics. Plate tectonics occurred on Earth millions of years ago when Earth was known just to have one giant supercontinent known as Pangea. Pangea was made up of all our seven continents today and had one ginormous ocean called Panthalassa that surrounded the supercontinent. After millions of years plate tectonics did its job and split apart the supercontinent to what we have today with our seven continents. Therefore the relationship between the continental drift and the formation of the Earth’s oceans is plate tectonics.…
The Continental drift was the process in which the Earth’s land surfaces ( at the time known as the pangea) started slowly breaking apart and drifting away. This has continued until the continents were in the places we know them to be today. This drift has caused the formation of separate oceans instead of one huge one. This drift still continues today.…
The Plate Tectonic Theory developed in the late 1960’s, when people noticed how continents either side of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to almost fit together. Francis Bacon, an English Philosopher was aware of this as early as 1620. Topographical and geological evidence built up and allowed Alfred Wegener to publish a theory in 1912, suggesting that the continents were once all joined together in a supercontinent he called Pangaea. Wegener proposed that at some time, the land masses had drifted apart until they occupied their current positions on the globe. There was lots of evidence to support his theory including Continental Fit. Sometimes continents, such as the west of Africa and the eastern seaboard of South America, seem to fit together if placed beside each other. This is particularly true is the continental shelves are taken into account as the true edges of the land masses. There is also Geological Evidence where rocks of the same age and type and displaying the same formations, such as in south-east Brazil and South Africa. The trends of the mountains are also similar in eastern USA and North-west Europe. Similar glacial deposits are found in Antarctica, South America and India, which are now many kilometres apart. Climatological Evidence shows that places as far apart as Antarctica, North America and the UK all contain coal deposits of a similar age that were formed in tropical conditions. They are no longer in tropical climate zones and must have drifted apart since the Carboniferous period. Biological Evidence shows that similar fossil formations are found on either side of the Atlantic. Plant remains from humid swamps that later formed coal deposits have been found in India and Antarctica.…
The plate tectonics theory was put forward by Alfred Wegener suggesting that the continents were at one point all conjoined in one supercontinent known as Pangaea. He then said that Pangaea had drifted apart through the movement of plates to give us the current places of continents we have today. Wegener's theory was linked to a variety of evidence, however it took further research and evidence for this to become a leading theory. This means that although volcanic and seismic events help to prove the plate tectonics theory valid, there is also a range of other factors involved.…
Continental drift is when the Earth's plates move in different directions. Scientists think that Continental Drift is caused by the heating and cooling of the Earth's mantel which makes currents. These currents make the plates slide and move over the liquid and molten rock in the mantel. These currents made by the heating and cooling are called convection currents. The person who developed the theory of continental drift was named Abraham Ortelius in 1956. He thought of this theory by noticing that the land of South America seemed to fit Africa like a jigsaw puzzle. He then thought up that the land must've been torn apart by earthquakes and floods. Later on Alfred Wegener made a fully developed hypothesis on how the continents came to be where they are today. This was that the Earth's crust was once a supercontinent known as Pangeae. But the continents broke off not by earthquakes and flooding as Abraham Ortelius stated, but by volcanic activity due to thermal expansion. Then the new continents drifted by further expansion of the rip-zones. But then a theory without any expansion involved was developed by Frank Bursley Taylor. He proposed that the continents were dragged towards the equator by a lunar gravitational pull. But both of these theories were wrong, as I mentioned before, the continents move by convection currents in the mantel. This idea was founded by geologist Arthur Holmes. This is what continental drift is.…
Alfred Wegner is most associated with continental drift stating that the continental landmasses were drifting apart from each other across the earth and colliding into each other. Wegner came to this conclusion with the evidence that the continents fit together, glacial till deposits, and the shifting of climatic belts over time. Some of Wegner’s colleagues thought polar wandering caused this. It was not until the 1950’s that paleomagnetism, convention currents, and seafloor spreading were added onto these ideas. The world once believed that continental drift was the reason for the positioning of continents and later realized that they were wrong. So what makes the theory of plate tectonics a hundred percent fact? It is just the best hypothesis that we have figured out so far. Not saying it is wrong, but possibly in the future we might be able to produce a better hypothesis with newer technology.…
They discovered how the temperatures warmed and cooled several times. Scientists also believe that this ice age theory may also have to do with the continental drift. They believed that the ice movement, that occurred 2.1-2.4 million years ago, may have caused the continents to separate apart from each other and still to this day they believe that the continents might still be moving.…
Continental drift is a theory stating that the Earth's continents have been joined together and have moved away from each other at different times in the Earth's history. The theory was first proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912. Whilst his general idea of continental movement eventually became widely accepted, his explanation for the mechanism of the movement has been supplanted by the theory of plant tectonics. However there was a problem in accepting this idea originally because Wegener had no convincing mechanism or solid evidence for how the continents might move.…
Hello, I am Alfred Wegener, and I believe that 250 million years ago, the earth was at one point joined together in one massive super continent which I call Pangaea. I know it may sound crazy, but I have 3 reasons for you that support my theory.…
As he began to look at the borders of all the continents he noticed that the borders could almost fit together like puzzle pieces. Next, he found similar fossils in different continents. How could tropical fossils like ferns be found in the North Pole where there is no possible way a tropical plant could possibly grow in the cold climate of the arctic regions? It didn’t add up for Wegener, he then believed that the climate was much different when Pangaea was around two hundred million years because of the different places animals were able to live at the time, then millions found as fossils where it would have been impossible for them to grow and survive in that geographical place due to climate, and resources needed to survive. So he has this evidence that at some point all these continents were connected, but how did they split apart was the biggest question asked. He decided to publish a book that explained his thinking behind the theory of “continental drift”. Many didn’t buy a word of the theory “continental drift” that Wegener was trying to prove, the fact that he had no idea how the continents split, ripped, or in some fashion formed the present-day formation of what the earth is modeled like today was his most…
Continental Drift is the principle that the continent landmasses have not remained in fixed positions, but have moved around the earth's surface apparently independently. It is important in evolution because of the effects it has had on evolution and taxonomic diversity, brought about by the collision and moving apart of landmasses. The drifting apart of land masses brings about vicariance, where organisms are split up by the development of barriers, isolating descendent populations which then evolve to form new taxa.…
The theory of plate tectonics was first introduced by Alfred Wegener in 1912. He observed the continents an could see they interlock like a jig saw puzzle, for example the West African Coastline fits snugly into the South American coastline, he suggested that at one point in time there was only one giant continent called “Pangea”. Later evidence was found that proved this theory as the fossil remains of a dinosaur, the Mesosaurous was found along the coast of Brazil as well as along the coastline of Gabon, also fossilised pollen species and rock sediments were both found along these coastlines. This further demonstrated that Wegener’s theory was accurate.…