Elements Of A Piece Of Evidence For Plate Tectonics

For example, The appalachian Mountains were formed by a massive continental collision over 300 million years ago. According to page 88 in my science notebook, the rocks in the Chattooga River is evidence of the continental collision. Mountains are formed when two continental plates collide, and form the mountains. The Appalachian mountains, were formed during Pangea. The North American Plate and the African Plate collided. When this happened the Appalachian Mountains were formed. These mountains then grew bigger, but as soon as it started growing, it also eroded. Erosion and

Around the world our water supply is depleting. Our water is becoming contaminated making it harmful for both mammals and aquatic life. Today over one billion people go without adequate water supply and every fifteen seconds a child dies of waterborne illness. Sources of water that once supplied water to millions can no longer meet the supply and demand of the water need. Scientist predict that the amount of useful water will keep depleting greatly in the years to come. In the next couple of pages it will talk about both the geological and human reasons as to why are water supply is depleting.

II: Plate tectonics shows the features and movement of the Earth. The theory of plate tectonics says that the outer shell of the earth is broken down into pieces often called plates (Korenaga). These plates hover over the mantle creating movement (Marshak). With plate tectonics you can determine the earth’s features without actually seeing it.

But in fact these also proved plate tectonic theory because they showed temporal change ie they were once at plate boundaries but have moved away because of plate movement. All the evidence, sea floor spreading, hot spots and subduction proved the plates moved this knowledge then developed into the understanding that something must be providing energy or a current so that the plates could move; This theory then came about as ‘convection currents’. Convection currents is a liquid in the mantle that moves and the currents come from the subduction zones.

Overall the plate tectonics theory does seem valid as there is lots of evidence to prove it right. For example fossils on either side of the ocean, climates being the same in different continents and hot spots. But there are some stronger pieces of evidence like the ring of

Refer to the images above. Discuss in detail the two pieces of additional evidence that supported Wegener’s theory, now known as the theory of plate tectonics.

Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that attempts to explain the movements of the Earth's lithosphere that have formed the landscape features we see across the globe today” (Briney). Geology defines “plate” as a large slab of solid rock, and “tectonics” is part of the Greek root word for “to build.” Together the words define how the Earth’s surface is built up of moving plates. The theory of plate tectonics dictates that individual plates, broken down into large and small sections of rock, form Earth’s lithosphere. These fragmented bodies of rock move along each other atop the Earth’s liquid lower mantle to create the plate boundaries that have shaped Earth’s landscape. Plate tectonics originated from meteorologist Alfred Wegener’s theory, developed in the early 20th century. In 1912, he realized that the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa appeared to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle. He further examined the globe and deduced that all of Earth’s continents could somehow be assembled together and proposed the idea that the continents had once been linked in a single supercontinent called Pangaea. To explain today’s position of the continents, Wegener theorized that they began to drift apart approximately 300 million years ago. This theory

To support the theory of continental drift is through topography, surveying the floors of oceans, charts of rock magnetism, and statistics on rock ages (Trefil & Hazen, 2010). At one time scientist believed that the deep ocean floors were flat; accumulating the sediment that progressively wore away from the prehistoric landmasses (Trefil & Hazen, 2010). However, they discovered steep-walled valleys and elevated highlands. This was evidences that just as the continents are transformed and are active, so to is the seafloor (Trefil & Hazen, 2010). The Mid- Atlantic Ridge, positioned in the central part of the Atlantic Ocean, is recorded to be the longest mountain range on this planet. Volcanoes, lava flow, and earthquakes are a source of

The first, would be Land features. Alfred Wegener saw how the coal fields in North America and Europe lined up, he also realized that mountain ranges in North America and Africa lined up. The second, evidence he used were the fossils. There were three types of fossils he found the first was the glossopteris a fern like plant found in Africa, South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica. The second and third were the Mesosaurus and the Lystrosaurus fossils, they were freshwater reptile fossils on continents separated by oceans. The third evidence Alfred Wegener used was, the climate zones. Alfred Wegener looked at the past of the climates and he found scratches in rocks from glaciers in South Africa. Those were the three main evidences Alfred Wegener used to prove Continental Drift

However, although there is a lot of evidence from volcanic landforms that can be used to explain plate tectonics theory, there is other important evidence that cannot be ignored.

Plate tectonics is a theory that the earths outer rigid layer, the lithosphere, is divided into plates that are constantly moving across the earths surface, much like ice does on the surface of a lake. When the plates pull away from each other, it creates what is known as a divergent boundary. When the plates crash into each other, it creates what is known as a convergent boundary. Finally, When the tectonic plates have hot spot, or holes that allow hot magma to rise through the crust to the surface of the earth it is called a hot spot.

Ironically, most of the greater civilizations were clustered along the seismogenic tectonic boundaries and succumbed to their wrath. The environmental characteristics of different civilizations varies depending upon the water resources available, soils, topography and shores. The distribution of ancient sites (Mycenaean, Greek, Aegean, Corinth and Rome) along the African-Eurasian plate boundary were associated with the southern shore of Mediterranean and other north-eastern shores. Interestingly the trade routes that connects the civilizations from east to west mimics the tectonic boundaries. The reason could be the civilizations located near to the tectonic boundaries offer different cultural character than those which were far away and also

It can be argued by some geologists that significantly more time is lost at bedding planes than is recorded by the accumulation of sediment and its later lithification into a sedimentary rock. In the present paper, the continuity of the sedimentary record is investigated. It is hypothesized that sedimentary strata preserved predominately records episodic sedimentation events and gaps represented by bedding planes symbolize more time than the preserved strata. The incompleteness of the geologic record and the role of rare events was studied using data gathered from a variety of sedimentary outcrops and cores. The author addressed his hypothesis using this collected data in terms of sediment preservation and represented preservation as a function of two modes of geomorphic processes: Magnitude and frequency. The author tested his hypothesis using relatively modern storm events to represent sedimentation, showing how daily processes can distort the geologic record, and by using ancient examples to illustrate how some storms can be preserved in spectacular condition.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, James Hutton proposed a theory, uniformitarianism; “the present is the key to the past”. It held that processes such as geologic forces- gradual and catastrophic-occurring in the present were the same that operated in the past. (Matt Rosenberg, 2004) This theory coincides with the theory of Continental Drift that was first proposed by Abraham Ortelius in December 1596, who suggested that North, South America, Africa and Eurasia were once connected but had been torn apart by earthquakes and floods. He also discovered that the coasts of the eastern part of South America and the

In junior high school, I have learned the Continental Drift Theory, and my geography teacher told me there was a new theory based on the Continental Theory, i.e. Plate Tectonics. I accessed to the Internet to find the information about Plate Tectonics.