Evidences of Plate

Movements
Quarter 1 Module 5
 An Idea Before its Time
• Continental Drift – hypothesis that proposed
that the continents had all been joined together
to form one “supercontinent”, the supercontinent
broke into pieces and drifted apart forming the
modern continents
• Pangaea – the supercontinent from continental
drift, means “all earth”
Breakup of Pangaea
 Evidence: The Continental Puzzle
• Wegener first thought
the continents had
been joined from the
almost perfect fit of
the shorelines of
Africa and South
America
 Evidence: Matching Fossils
• Fossil evidence for continental drift includes
several fossil organisms found on different
landmasses.
• The Mesosaurus is known to have been a type
of reptile, similar to the modern crocodile, which
propelled itself through the water with its long hind
legs and limber tail. It lived during the early
Permian period (286 to 258 million years ago), and
its remains are found solely in South Africa and
Eastern South America.
Evidence: Matching Fossils

Modern-day representation of the

Mesosaurus.
Matching Fossils
 Evidence: Matching Fossils
• The now extinct Cynognathus was
a mammal-like reptile. Roaming the
terrains during the Triassic period
(250 to 240 million years ago), the
Cynognathus was as large as a
modern wolf. Its fossils are found
only in South Africa and South
America. As a dominant land
species, the Cynognathus would Modern-day representation of
the Cynognathus
not have been capable of migrating
across the Atlantic.
 Evidence: Matching Fossils
• The Lystrosaurus, which translates
to "shovel reptile," is thought to
have been a herbivore with a stout
built like a pig. Lystrosaurus fossils
are only found in Antarctica, India,
and South Africa. Similar to the Modern-day representation of the
land-dwelling Cynognathus, the Lystrosaurus.
Lystrosaurus would not have had
the swimming capability to traverse
any ocean.
 Evidence: Matching Fossils
• Possibly the most important fossil
evidence found in the plant,
Glossopteris. The Glossopteris
fossil is found in Australia,
Antarctica, India, South Africa, and
South America—all the southern
continents.

Modern-day representation of the

Glossopteris.
Evidence: Matching Fossils

260 million years old fossilized leaves of glossopteris

 Concept Check
• How does the distribution of Mesosaurus
fossils provide evidence for continental
drift?
• Mesosaurus occurs only in eastern South
America and southern Africa
Evidence of Plate Movements:
Seafloor Spreading Theory
• Seafloor Spreading Theory that will strongly
support the idea that continents are drifting
and find out the site of origin of plate
movements.
• The idea of continental drift circulated in
scientific circles until World War II,
• when sounding gear called SONAR
 Evidence of Plate Movements:
Seafloor Spreading Theory
• It happened that the command of one attack transport ship, the
USS Cape Johnson, was given to Harry Hammond Hess, a
geologist from Princeton University.
• He discovered that the bottom of the sea was not as
smooth as expected, but full of canyons, trenches, and
volcanic sea mountains. He realized that the Earth's crust
had been moving away on each side of oceanic ridges,
down the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, long and
volcanically active.
• He published his theory in History of Ocean Basins (1962),
and it came to be called "seafloor spreading."
 Evidence of Plate Movements:
Magnetic Reversal
• Magnetic Reversal
• Further evidence came along by 1963, as
geophysicists realized that Earth's magnetic field
had reversed polarity many times, with each
reversal lasting less than 200,000 years. Rocks of
the same age in the seafloor crust would have taken
on the magnetic polarity at the time that part of the
crust formed.
 Evidence: Rock Types and
Structures
• If the continents existed together in Pangaea,
they should have matching rock types and
features should match closely in age and type
• Rock evidence for continental drift exists in the
form of several mountain belts that end at one
coastline, only to reappear on a landmass
across the ocean
• The Appalachian Mountains on the Eastern side
of North America have similar ages to mountains
in the British Isles and Scandinavia
Matching Mountain Ranges
 Concept Check
• How does the location of mountain chains
provide evidence of continental drift?
• If mountain chains can be continued
across present-day oceans, they provide
evidence that the areas were once
connected
 Evidence: Ancient Climates
• Wegener was a meteorologist by
profession and so looked closely at the
ancient climates of the different continents
• He found evidence for massive glaciers all
over Africa and South America that
matched each other in age and position
• The problem was figuring out how ancient
glaciers were on these now tropical
regions, unless the continents moved to
their current positions
Glacier Evidence
 Rejecting the Hypothesis
• The main objection to continental drift was
that it lacked a mechanism
• Wegener proposed that the continents
“plowed” their ways through the ocean,
however no evidence on the ocean floor
was ever found to support this
• In the years that followed Wegener’s
hypothesis, we gained greater knowledge
of earthquakes
 Concept Check
• Why was Wegener’s hypothesis rejected?
• He could not provide a mechanism for the
movement of the continents
 Earth’s Major Plates
• According to the plate tectonic theory, the
uppermost mantle, along with the overlying crust,
behaves as a strong, rigid layer; the lithosphere
• Plate Tectonics – the theory that proposes that
Earth’s lithosphere consists of individual plates that
interact in various ways producing earthquakes,
volcanoes, mountains, and the crust itself
• Plate – segment of the lithosphere, which moves
and continually changes shape
• The plates move relative to each other at a very
slow rate ~5 cm/yr (about the same rate your
fingernails grow!
Earth’s Major Plates
 Concept Check
• What is plate tectonics?
• A theory that states that Earth’s rigid outer
shell is broken into plates made up of the
crust and upper mantle, also known as the
lithosphere. A plate moves as a unit with
respect to the surrounding plates.
 Types of Plate Boundaries
• The three main types of boundaries are
convergent, divergent, and transform fault
boundaries
• Divergent Boundaries – two plates
moving apart and producing new
lithosphere
• Convergent Boundaries – two plates
move together and destroy old lithosphere
• Transform Boundaries – two plates grind
past each other without the production or
destruction of lithosphere
Types of Plate Boundaries