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The Continental Drift Theory Handouts
The Continental Drift Theory Handouts
The Continental Drift Theory Handouts
Most geologists were highly skeptical and the Mantle and magma rises material flows
idea was NOT widely accepted. sideways pushes the seafloor away from the
ridge creates a crack magma flows out and
Evidence 1: The continental jigsaw puzzle cools down formation of new seafloor new
The edges of one continent fits the edges of oceanic crust pushes the old oceanic crust far
another. from the ridge
e.g. South America-Africa e.g. Red sea- from the separation of Africa plate
India, Antarctica, Australia and Arabian plate.
Eurasia-North America
East Pacific Rise- one of the most active site of
Evidence 2: Fossils sea floor spreading (14 cm per year).
Fossils of the same plants and animals on
different continents now separated by vast Subduction Zone- occurs when two oceanic
oceans. They could only be found this way if the plates collide or where an oceanic plate and a
continents had once been joined together. continental plate collide.
e.g. Glossopteris-an extinct plant found in 250
million years old rocks were located in South *The rate of formation of a new seafloor is not
Africa, Australia, India, and Antarctica. always as fast as the destruction of the old
seafloor at the subduction zone. E.g. The Pacific
Mesosaurus and Lystosaurus are freshwater Ocean is getting smaller while the Atlantic
reptiles were found in South America and Ocean gets wider.
Africa.
Evidences of Seafloor Spreading
1. Rocks are younger at mid-ocean ridge
2. Rocks far from the mid-ocean ridge move over a layer of hot magma (molten rock)
3. Sediments are thinner at the ridge in the mantle layer of the Earth, below the
4. Rocks at the ocean floor are younger crustal plates.
than those at the continents.
The Earth’s crustal plates move due to
Continental Drift Theory vs Seafloor Spreading convection currents in the Asthenosphere layer
Theory of the upper mantle.
CDT: Continents move through unmoving
oceans 3 types of plate movements:
: Larger and sturdier continents broke the a. Divergent
oceanic crust. b. Convergent
c. Transform
SST: The Ocean is the actual site of tectonic
activity. Convection Current
Heat from the core, causes magma in the upper
Magnetic Reversal mantle to move.