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Fossils And Plate Tectonics

Decent Essays

The realization of South America and Africa connect together like a puzzle is not the only fact that Alfred and some scientists now has found. In the article, The Distribution of Fossils and Plate Tectonics, it said that Alfred spent his life traveling around the world looking for fossil evidence to prove his theory correct because that is what was also recognized when he formed his theory. The article also mentioned that the evidence he established was “similar plants and animal fossils on the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America.” Furthermore, other fossil evidence that was found about plate tectonics is how plant fossils “in the Antarctic and glacial deposits in the arid Vaal River Valley in Africa.” For example, in …show more content…

Geologists has mapped the ocean floor and they learned that there is a large mountain range that lies underwater in between the continents called the mid-oceanic ridge. The plates are actually shifting because they are carried on currents that are in the upper mantle. These convection currents are what is causing the oceanic ridges to rise and create mountains and new crust. In the article Plate Tectonics it says that, “the magma from the mantle rise up between the tectonic plates and spread outwards”, and when that happens the crust moves slowly dragging the continents with them. Also, there are specific types of boundaries that prove the floor we are on is not actually stationary. For example, the convergent boundary. It is where tectonic plates move into one another either pushing against one another creating mountains or one plate rising over another while the other sinks underneath creating mountains as well. Another boundary is the divergent boundary. It occurs on both land and the ocean when the plates are being pushed away from one another. An example of a divergent boundary is the Great Rift Valley in Africa. Finally, another boundary that is none by most people is the transform boundary, also known as the strike-slip fault. It happens when the plates slide against each other sometimes causing …show more content…

According to the video Animated Life: Pangea, Alfred Wegener spent his 20-30 years of his life trying to prove to everybody else that his theory was correct. This is evidence is important because his discovery of the South America and Africa fitting was the first piece of conformation of plate tectonics. Also, fossils from one side of the Atlantic Ocean is on the other side is an piece of evidence that matters because it displays that it would be impossible for the dinosaurs and animals in the past to swim across it. Therefore, proving that Alfred Wegener’s theory was correct because the continents had to be connected for the animal and plant fossils to be in different regions of the world. The fact that the plates traveling is an important piece of evidence because it tells us that the Earth isn’t a solid as some people might think we are, and that there is always a part of the crust that is moving at a slow rate. In the video Animated Life: Pangea there was a speaker named Roger Mccoy, a professor at the University of Utah, said, while referring to the continents and plate tectonics, “And in fact are still moving today.” Based on what is known about plate tectonics, the Earth in 100 million years would more likely be different than what it would look like today. In 100 million years from now the Earth would probably have less land and more waters, meaning the continents

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