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Continental drift is a highly supported scientific theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time. [1] The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics , which studies the movement of the continents as ...
The Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis, also known as the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis, was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics. Its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid-ocean ridges to be computed.
For example, the African plate includes the continent and parts of the floor of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Some pieces of oceanic crust, known as ophiolites, failed to be subducted under continental crust at destructive plate boundaries; instead these oceanic crustal fragments were pushed upward and were preserved within continental crust.
Obduction zones occurs when the continental plate is pushed under the oceanic plate, but this is unusual as the relative densities of the tectonic plates favours subduction of the oceanic plate. This causes the oceanic plate to buckle and usually results in a new mid-ocean ridge forming and turning the obduction into subduction. [citation needed]
The granite outcrops of the Seychelles Islands in the central Indian Ocean were amongst the earliest examples cited by Alfred Wegener as evidence for his continental drift theory. [1] Ridge–plume interactions have been responsible for separating a thinned continental sliver from a large continent (i.e. India). [2]
The theory of continental drift provided an alternate explanation that did not require land bridges. [4] However the continental drift theory was not widely accepted until the development of plate tectonics in the early 1960s, which more completely explained the motion of continents over geological time. [5] [6]
A widely known example is Alfred Wegener's theory of continental drift, which eventually served as the basis for the accepted model of plate tectonics. [17] [31] Other ideas that have made the transition include the germ theory of disease, [32] Birkeland's explanation of the aurora, [33] prions, [17] and complexity theory in project management ...
The root of this was Alfred Wegener's 1912 publication of his theory of continental drift, which was a controversy in the field through the 1950s. [2] At that point scientists introduced new evidence in a new way, replacing the idea of continental drift with instead a theory of plate tectonics. [2]