Plate Tectonics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

carapace tectonics - Essay ExampleThis paper explores both(prenominal) Wegeners theory and Plate Tectonic Theory, explaining how the humankinds cut down masses hunt and the construction and destruction of the Earths crust and the features of plate tectonics as understood today. Plate Tectonics In 1911, Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), a German geophysicist, was intrigued to explain similarities in fossils of plants and animals put together on either side of the Atlantic . Scientific thinking of the season was that continents were joined by trim down link up that were now submerged by the ocean. However, Wegener also noticed the similar shapes of the coastlines of the continents and similar geology that supported his theory of Continental drift. He postulated that these land masses may have been joined together at one time and that the original land mass, called Pangaea (after the Greek for all of the Earth) has skintn up and drifted apart . Wegener found inference to support hi s theory of continental drift. He noticed that land masses fitted together with adjacent land masses. He also found signs of glaciation on the plains of Africa and coal deposits, usually associated with tropical areas, found near the wedlock Pole. He also found fossils of exactly the same prehistoric species located in the same areas if the land masses were joined together, see Figure 1. . Figure 1 Locations of spread of fossils across continents before they broke up . Wegener did not fully explain what caused continental drift. He suggested two hypotheses, one that continents travel repayable to the forces associated with the rotation of the Earth and a second, which suggested continents moved due to tidal attraction of the Sun and Moon . However, both of these forces were too weak. These hypotheses were ridiculed by other scientists because no answer could be provided to explain how continental masses move . The original theory of continental drift was discredited, helped along by the growing anti-German feeling in the 1910s and twenties and Wegeners lack of scientific knowledge of geology . Wegeners principle of continental drift was discredited scarce it did pave the way for scientists to explore why parts of the Earths surface have moved over time . Paleomagnetic studies, which measured the Earths past magnetic field, found that the magnetic North Pole seemed to grade around the Earth over time . Evidence from seismometers, originally installed to monitor nuclear testing by the 1960s, found that geological phenomenon, such as vol basinoes and earthquakes, were mostly found along the edges of tectonic plates . In addition, scientists found that rock crystals in certain rocks varied from normal to reversed polarity depending on when the rock was organize and solidified . These patterns mirrored themselves either side of the mid-oceanic ridge in the middle of ocean basins and rock samples were old(a) the farther from the mid-oceanic ridge . All this ev idence answered the problem Wegener was unable to that solid continental and oceanic plates of the Earths crust, or lithosphere, float on molten viscous rock called the asthenosphere, which forms the basis of Plate Tectonics Theory . Based on the Plate Tectonics Theory, plates adjacent to one another must move. Plates can move apart (forming a divergence plate boundary), together (forming a convergent plate boundary) or slide or grate against each other (creating a transform fault boundary) . A move plate