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Continental drift
- continental drift, large-scale horizontal movements of continents relative to one another and to the ocean basins during one or more episodes of geologic time.
www.britannica.com/science/continental-drift-geologyContinental drift | Definition, Evidence, Diagram, & Facts ...
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Sep 16, 2024 · Continental drift, large-scale horizontal movement of continents relative to one another and to the ocean basins during one or more episodes of geologic time. This concept was an important precursor to the development of the theory of plate tectonics, which incorporates it.
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Learn about the structure of the Earth, Wegener's continental drift theory, and plate tectonics with this BBC Bitesize GCSE Chemistry (WJEC) revision guide.
May 28, 2024 · Continental drift affects the Earth in profound ways. Over geological time, it alters global geography, shaping the arrangement of continents and oceans. This drift can lead to the formation of mountains, earthquakes, and volcanic activity.
- Why Did Scientists Reject Wegener's Continental Drift Theory?
- Evolving Theories
- What Evidence Is There For Continental Drift?
- Additional Resources
Geologists roundly denounced Wegener's continental drift theory after he published the details in a 1915 book called "The Origin of Continents and Oceans." Part of the opposition was because Wegener didn't have a good model to explain how the continents moved, something scientists later explained under the umbrella of plate tectonics — the theory t...
When Wegener proposed continental drift, many geologists were contractionists. They thought Earth's incredible mountains were created because our planet had been cooling and shrinking since its formation, Frankel said. And to account for the identical fossils discovered on continents such as South America and Africa, scientists invoked ancient land...
A map of the continents inspired Wegener's quest to explain Earth's geologic history. He was intrigued by the interlocking fit of Africa's and South America's shorelines. Wegener then assembled an impressive amount of continental drift evidence to show that Earth's continents were once connected in a single supercontinent. Wegener knew that fossil ...
Learn more about the history of continental drift and plate tectonics from the U.S. Geological Survey.Learn more about Alfred Wegener from the NASA Earth Observatory.Watch this short video on YouTube about plate tectonics and continental drift, from National Geographic.Oct 1, 2024 · The process of plate tectonics may be driven by convection in Earth’s mantle, the pull of heavy old pieces of crust into the mantle, or some combination of both. For a deeper discussion of plate-driving mechanisms, see Plate-driving mechanisms and the role of the mantle.
- German meteorologist Alfred Wegener is often credited as the first to develop a theory of plate tectonics, in the form of continental drift. Bringi...
- Although this has yet to be proven with certainty, most geologists and geophysicists agree that plate movement is caused by the convection (that is...
- The Ring of Fire is a long horseshoe-shaped earthquake-prone belt of volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries that fringes the Pacific Ocean basin....
- Earth’s hard surface (the lithosphere) can be thought of as a skin that rests and slides upon a semi-molten layer of rock called the asthenosphere....
Jul 24, 2019 · Continental drift was a revolutionary scientific theory developed in the years 1908-1912 by Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), a German meteorologist, climatologist, and geophysicist, that put forth the hypothesis that the continents had all originally been a part of one enormous landmass or supercontinent about 240 million years ago before breaking ...
Continental drift is the theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time. [1] The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics , which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the ...
