Essay within the advancement and history of plate tectonics

Essay within the advancement and history of plate tectonics

Plate tectonics emanates from two phrases plate and tectonic. Plate in geological terms usually means a significant slab of tricky rock while tectonics in Greek implies’ to build’. Therefore’ plate tectonic is usually described as how the earth’s is designed on shifting the plate. It might even be well-defined for a rigid section of your Earth’s lithosphere that moves independently from all those bordering it (Rodger, 1993). Concept of plate tectonics states which the lithosphere of your earth is designed up of unique plates which are fragmented into various big and smaller items of good rock. The plates transfer upcoming to one another along with the reduce mantle to build varied styles of plate borders which have formed the Earth’s landscape above lots of a long time.(Oreskes & Legrand, 2001). Alfred Wegener, a popular meteorologist, is known to be the founder of your plate tectonic theory; He noticed which the coastline of East South America and that of west coast of Africa seemed to fit together in a jigsaw manner like to form a bigger plate. He then proposed an idea that all plates (continents) were connected to a single large plate called Pangaea which gradually began to drift apart over 300 million yrs ago (Rodger, 1993). More scientific research on the plates’ coastline revealed that all the plate of earth’s continent somehow fit together. The theory was commonly known as continental drift principle, and Wegener became the founder on the theory on which scientist have based their research on. However, Alfred Wegener plate tectonics concept could not ascertain how exactly the continents drifted away from every single other. He proposed the earth’s rotations and the centrifugal forces towards the equator as the mechanism for continental drift. He said that Pangaea started at South Pole and earth’s rotation finally caused it to break up, sending continents toward the equator. His theories were discarded by the scientific community (Rodger, 1993). Arthur Holmes, (1929), a British geologist, came up with the idea of thermal convection to explain the gradual drift with the Earth’s continents. He based on heating and cooling cycle from the Earth’s mantle that caused the continents to transfer. The idea has been borrowed by scientist community in their quest for earth’s shape. Today scientist have researched and analyzed past evidences and findings by geologist and scientist to expound and come up with a better ways of explaining plate tectonic principle and forces that were behind the drifting of your plates. It is believed and proofed using geological evidence that earth’s plate at one time was one super plate called Pangaea. Due to three main driving forces namely, mantle convection, gravity, and the Earth’s rotation led to the drifting away of several plate from the main one. Several major plates (continents) were formed which include North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Indo-Australian, Pacific, and Antarctica. Expounding within the three main driving forces for the movement on the Earth’s tectonic plates; Mantle convection is the most extensively studied technique of tectonic plate movement. It was widely discussed by Holmes in 1929, in his concept. The big convection current of molten material in the Earth’s upper mantle produces a lot of energies which is transferred to reduced mantle. The lessen mantle material finds their way to the crust causing the embedded rock to move out and away from the ridge thus transferring the plate. Evidence of this is shown at mid-ocean ridges. Gravity is evidenced by the mid-ocean ridges where the elevation is higher than the bordering ocean floor. Convection currents within the Earth cause lower mantle material to rise and spread away from the ridge, causing the older material to flow toward the ocean floor due to gravity and aid in the movement from the plates. Then lastly earth rotation is caused by centrifugal forces as earth rotates (Oreskes $ Legrand, 2001). Plates form different forms of boundary as they interact with their movement. Some on the boundaries formed include Divergent boundaries form when a plate breaks along certain lines of weakness and transfer away from every single other forming a new crust, for instance, Mid-ocean ridges. The other boundary is www.bestessaysforsale.net called Convergent boundaries and is created when two plates collide with one another causing the sinking of one plate below the other. Transform boundaries forms at location where new crust created and without destroying it. Today, through research, scientists have come up with several evidences proving that earth plates were once super plate which split into the current Continents. Some from the evidences include: the jig-saw fitting from the East coast of South America and west coast of Africa appear to fit into one another; Fossils remains of plants and animals collected by scientist around the world showed similarities that were hard to explain unless continents had once been joined. For instance, Cynognathus was a land reptile. Its Fossils remains have been found in both Africa and South America, thus proving which the two continents were once joined (Oreskes $ Legrand., 2001). Scientist have also found out from the evidence of earthquakes happened continually and occurred along certain lines, near the boundaries between tectonic plates. As Wegener’s ideas forms the basis why the landscape in the earth is the way it is, scientist community currently advanced methodology of studying the plate tectonic idea. They use satellite to study evidences of plate tectonic where they position it lots of kilometers away from the earth surface. From the satellite statistics, it is evidenced the plates transfer linearly and away from each individual other at the speed of 10mm to 100mm per year.

References Oreskes, N., & LeGrand, H. E. (2001). Plate tectonics: An insider’s heritage from the modern principle in the Earth. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press. Rogers, J. J. W. (1993). A background in the earth. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.