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Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') [1] is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago.
Early in the history of investigating the hypothesis only a short record of geomagnetic field reversals was available for studies of rocks on land. [8] This was sufficient to allow computing of spreading rates over the last 700,000 years on many mid-ocean ridges by locating the closest reversed crust boundary to the crest of a mid-ocean ridge ...
During the 17th century, Nicolas Steno was the first to observe and propose a number of basic principles of historical geology, including three key stratigraphic principles: the law of superposition, the principle of original horizontality, and the principle of lateral continuity.
It is therefore only due to Earth's high erosional rates and constant plate tectonics that the craters are not visible today. By scaling up the number and size of impact craters seen on the Moon to fit the size of Earth, it is predicted that at least 50% of the Earth's initial crust was covered in impact basins. [8]
The model displayed remnants of submerged plates located under oceans and in the middle of continents, which—according to our current understanding of the plate tectonic cycle—are all too far ...
A brief introduction to Plate Tectonics, based on the work of Alfred Wegener; Animation of continental drift for last 1 billion years; Maps of continental drift, from the Precambrian to the future; 3D visualization of what did Earth look like from 750 million years ago to present (at present location of your choice)
The Earth of the early Archean may have had a different tectonic style. It is widely believed that the early Earth was dominated by vertical tectonic processes, such as stagnant lid , [ 19 ] [ 20 ] heat-pipe , [ 21 ] or sagduction , [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] which eventually transitioned to plate tectonics during the planet's mid-stage evolution.
The evolution of tectonophysics is closely linked to the history of the continental drift and plate tectonics hypotheses. The continental drift/ Airy-Heiskanen isostasy hypothesis had many flaws and scarce data. The fixist/ Pratt-Hayford isostasy, the contracting Earth and the expanding Earth concepts had many flaws as well.