The Changing Earth

JONATHAN ALFREDO LOPEZ COLON, MSEM

DIVISIÓN DE CIENCIAS, TECNOLOGÍA Y AMBIENTE
UNIVERSIDAD ANA G. MÉNDEZ RECINTO DE CUPEY
Outline: The Changing Earth
Outline
 The geological time scale
 The theory of the Continental Drift
 The current model: Plate Tectonic Theory
 Earth Tectonic History
 Tectonic History of the continents
 Cenozoic Tectonics
 Tectonic Development Marine Basins &
Island Chains
 Climatic and Biogeographic consequences
of Plate Tectonics
The Geological Timescale
 William Smith

A Delimitation of the
strata of Egland and
Wales with Parts of
Scotlands (1815)
http://www.strata-smith.com/?page_id=312
Estimating Time
Estimating Time

 C. Linnaeus and this 18th- century colleagues

accepted the biblical doctrine that Earth was just
a few thousand years old, thereby compressing
the fossil records into that we now know to be a
hugely underestimated span of time.

 A. R. Wallace (1880) used an estimate of 400 Ma.

 Radioactive isotopes of uranium and thorium,

whose stable and product is lead, scientists have
pushed back the estimate of Earth’s age to 4.6Ga.
https://clickmica.fundaciondescubre.es/conoce/100-preguntas-100-
respuestas/se-basa-la-datacion-carbono-14/
Estimating Time
Estimating Time
Luminance dating
Charles Lyell
Antonio Snider-Pellegrini

http://atlantipedia.ie/samples/tag/antonio-snider-pellegrini/
 Frank B. Taylor
 American geologist and astronomer, presented a
details model (1910) in which the continental were
hypothesized to move, distorting crustal materials
into mountain ranges and island chains.

 Recent glacial periods were caused by movements

and massing of the continent near the poles and that,
during earlier periods, mountains chains and islands
arcs formed along the forward merging of moving
continent, which also opened ocean basing behind
them.

 Suggested movement of South America and Africa

away from the mid-Atlantic ridge.
Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880-1930)

• German meteorologist, conceived and

championed the theory of continental
drift (1910).

“ Doesn't the east coast of South America fit exactly

against the west coast of Africa, as if they had once been
joined? The fir is even better if you look at a map of the
floor of the Atlantic and compare the edges of the drop-
off into the ocean basin rather than the current edges of
the continents. This is an idea I’ll have to pursue ”.
 Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880-1930)
http://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/extra-news-archives/2016-articles/gowganda-tillites-in-ohio

• Wegener observed the glacial deposits or tillites, in what are now subtropical
Africa and South America suggest that these landmasses were once
displaced poleward.

• The tillites of North America seemed continuous with those of Europe.

Wegener’s Conclusions:
1. Continental rocks, called Sial (granitic rocks
composed largely of silicon and aluminum),
are fundamentally different, less dense,
thicker, and lees magnetized than the rock of
the ocean floor, which are sima( basaltic rock
consisting primary of silicon and magnesium.
The lighter sialic block, the continents float
on a layer of viscous, fluid mantle.

2. Earth’s major landmasses were once united as

a single supercontinental, Pangea. Pangea
broke into smaller continental plates, which
moved apart as they floated on the mantle.
Breakup of Pangea began in the Mesozoic,
but North America was still connected with
Europe in the north until Neogene or even the
Qyaternary
 Wegener’s Conclusions:
3. The breakup of Pangea began as a rift valley that gradually
widened into an ocean, apparently by adding materials to the
continental margins. Midoceamic ridges mark where opposite
continents were once joined and oceanic trenches formed as the
continental blocks moved. The distributions of the major
earthquake centers and regions of active volcanism and orogeny
(montaging building) are related to movements of these blocks.

4. The continental blocks have essentially retained their initial

outlines, except in regions of mountain building, so the manner in
which the continents were once joined can be seen by matching up
their present margins. When this is done, similarities in the
stratigraphy, fossil, and reconstructed paleoclimates of now-
distant landmasses demonstrate that those block were one united.
These patterns are inconsistent with any explanation that assumes
fixed positions of continent and oceanic island
Wegener’s Conclusions:
5. Rates of movements for certain landmasses range
between 0.3 and 36 meters per year. Thee fastest
moving landmass is Greenland, which may have
separated from Europe only 100,000-50,000 years ago.

6. Radioactive heating in the mantle may be primary

cause of block movement, but other forces are
probably involved. Whatever the causal processes,
they are gradual and not catastrophic.
The theory of Continental Drift

 CD, developed from a highly

contentious and broadly disputed idea
in early 1900s, to well-established fact by
the 1960s.

 Evidence
❑ The coastlines of the continents appear
to fit together like pieces of a puzzle
❑ Fossil Correlation: Identical fossils have
been found in the rocks on either side of
the ocean
❑ Rock and mountain Correlations:
Identical rocks and mountain structure
have been found on either of the ocean.
❑ Paleoclimate data: Coal has been found
in cold regions and glacial evidence has
been found in warm regions.
 Harry Hammond Hess

Marine Geology

SEAMOUNTS

Estos océanos modernos son

considerablemente más jóvenes que los
continentes.

GUYOTS
Se pensaba que eran islas volcánicas que
se habían formado sobre el océano, luego
se truncaron por la acción de las olas y
finalmente se hundieron a 1-2 km.
Magnetic Reversals

Bernard Brunhes
(1906) French geophysicist
known for his pioneering
work in paleomagnetism

 Changes in orientation of Earth”s magnetic field.

 Climatic Changes
https://joidesresolution.org/paleomagnetism-for-rookies-part-one/
Important Properties
Ocean Floors:
1. Basaltic rocks at the midoceanic ridges have
normal field (resent today)magnetics
properties.

2. Width of alternating magnetic stripes on

opposite sides if a ridge are often roughly
symmetrical, and the stripes are generally
parallel to the long axis of the ridges.

3. The banding pattern, if no the actual widths

of the stripes, of any one ocean closely
matches that of others, and ocean patterns
correspond approximately to reversal
timetables from terrestrial lava flows.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/science/midocean-ridges-volcano-underwater.html
The Current Model: Plate Tectonic Theory

 Plates are roughly thin, rigid layer of

crust, which adheres to the upper layer
of the mantle, and together they
comprise the lithosphere.
 The mantle also include a deeper, more
fluid layer, the asthenosphere, which is
composed primarily of molten material.
 Plate movement are caused by
combination of forces, including ridge
push, mantle drag, and slab pull.
The Current Model: Plate Tectonic Theory

The lateral flow and friction between

mantle and the overlying plate create
a dragging force- mantle drag
The Current Model: Plate Tectonic Theory

More often, dense oceanic plates

collide and sink beneath lighter
continental plates to form a
subduction zone

The result is a deep oceanic

trench
Caribbean trench
Tectonic plate movement
Himalaya Formation
Hotspot
 In geology, a hotspot is a location on the Earth's surface that has experienced active
volcanism for a long period of time.