Essay about the growth and history of plate tectonics

Essay about the growth and history of plate tectonics

Plate tectonics comes from two words and phrases plate and tectonic. Plate in geological terms signifies a significant slab of tricky rock when tectonics in Greek implies’ to build’. Therefore’ plate tectonic may be outlined as how the earth’s is crafted on going the plate. It can even be well-defined for a rigid section with the Earth’s lithosphere that moves individually from those people encompassing it (Rodger, 1993). Principle of plate tectonics states the lithosphere on the earth is manufactured up of person plates which have been fragmented into many large and little pieces of solid rock. The plates transfer upcoming to one another in addition to the lessen mantle to produce varied styles of plate borders that have formed the Earth’s landscape in excess of a lot of a long time.(Oreskes & Legrand, 2001). Alfred Wegener, a popular meteorologist, is known to be the founder from the plate tectonic idea; He noticed 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 big plate called Pangaea which gradually began to drift apart more than 300 million decades 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 of the theory on which scientist have based their research on. However, Alfred Wegener plate tectonics concept could not www.bestessaysforsale.net ascertain how exactly the continents drifted away from each 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 concept of thermal convection to explain the gradual drift of your Earth’s continents. He based on heating and cooling cycle with the Earth’s mantle that caused the continents to move. 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 concept 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. Various major plates (continents) were formed which include North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Indo-Australian, Pacific, and Antarctica. Expounding around 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 large convection current of molten material in the Earth’s upper mantle produces a lot of energies which is transferred to reduced mantle. The lower mantle material finds their way to the crust causing the embedded rock to shift out and away from the ridge thus going 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 reduced 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 in the plates. Then lastly earth rotation is caused by centrifugal forces as earth rotates (Oreskes $ Legrand, 2001). Plates form different varieties of boundary as they interact with their movement. Some of the boundaries formed include Divergent boundaries form when a plate breaks along certain lines of weakness and move away from each other forming a new crust, for instance, Mid-ocean ridges. The other boundary is 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 numerous evidences proving that earth plates were once super plate which split into the current Continents. Some of the evidences include: the jig-saw fitting of your 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 tough 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 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 several kilometers away from the earth surface. From the satellite statistics, it is evidenced that the plates shift linearly and away from each and every other at the speed of 10mm to 100mm per year.

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