Essay around the enhancement and background of plate tectonics
Plate tectonics comes from two text plate and tectonic. Plate in geological phrases suggests a considerable slab of challenging rock though tectonics in Greek implies’ to build’. Therefore’ plate tectonic could be defined as how the earth’s is built on moving the plate. It can even be well-defined to be a rigid segment from the Earth’s lithosphere that moves independently from individuals encompassing it (Rodger, 1993). Principle of plate tectonics states the lithosphere of your earth is made up of particular person plates which might be fragmented into many substantial and compact pieces of stable rock. The plates shift upcoming to each other in addition to the lessen mantle to make varied types of plate borders that have shaped the Earth’s landscape about a lot of years.(Oreskes & Legrand, 2001). Alfred Wegener, a popular meteorologist, is known to be the founder with the plate tectonic concept; He noticed which the coastline of East South America and that of west coast of Africa seemed to fit together in a jigsaw manner like to form a bigger plate. He then proposed an idea that all plates (continents) were connected to a single massive plate called Pangaea which gradually began to drift apart in excess of 300 million yrs ago (Rodger, 1993). More scientific research on the plates’ coastline revealed that all the plate of earth’s continent somehow fit together. The concept was commonly known as continental drift principle, and Wegener became the founder with the concept on which scientist have based their research on. However, Alfred Wegener plate tectonics theory could not ascertain how exactly the continents drifted away from each individual other. He proposed the earth’s rotations and the centrifugal forces towards the equator as the mechanism for continental drift. He said that Pangaea started at South Pole and earth’s rotation finally caused it to break up, sending continents toward the equator. His theories were discarded by the scientific community (Rodger, 1993). Arthur Holmes, (1929), a British geologist, came up with the idea of thermal convection to explain the gradual drift from the Earth’s continents. He based on heating and cooling cycle from the Earth’s mantle that caused the continents to move. The idea has been borrowed by scientist community in their quest for earth’s shape. Today scientist have researched and analyzed past evidences and findings by geologist and scientist to expound and come up with a better ways of explaining plate tectonic concept and forces that were behind the drifting with the plates. It is believed and proofed using geological evidence that earth’s plate at one time was one super plate called Pangaea. Due to three main driving forces namely, mantle convection, gravity, and the Earth’s rotation led to the drifting away of various plate from the main one. A number of major plates (continents) were formed which include North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Indo-Australian, Pacific, and Antarctica. Expounding over the three main driving forces for the movement in the Earth’s tectonic plates; Mantle convection is the most extensively studied technique of tectonic plate movement. It was widely discussed by Holmes in 1929, in his concept. The significant convection current of molten material in the Earth’s upper mantle produces a lot of energies which is transferred to decreased mantle. The lessen mantle material finds their way to the crust causing the embedded rock to transfer out and away from the ridge thus relocating the plate. Evidence of this is shown at mid-ocean ridges. Gravity is evidenced by the mid-ocean ridges where the elevation is higher than the bordering ocean floor. Convection currents within the Earth cause lessen mantle material to rise and spread away from the ridge, causing the older material to flow toward the ocean floor due to gravity and aid in the movement on the plates. Then lastly earth rotation is caused by centrifugal forces as earth rotates (Oreskes $ Legrand, 2001). Plates form different styles of boundary as they interact with their movement. Some on the boundaries formed include Divergent boundaries form when a plate breaks along certain lines of weakness and shift away from each and every other forming a new crust, for instance, Mid-ocean ridges. The other boundary is called Convergent boundaries and is created when two plates collide with one another causing the sinking of one plate below the other. Transform boundaries forms at location where new crust created and without destroying it. Today, through research, scientists have come up with a number of evidences proving that earth plates were once super plate which split into the current Continents. Some from the evidences include: the jig-saw fitting from the East coast of South America and west coast of Africa appear to fit into one another; Fossils remains of plants and animals collected by scientist around the world showed similarities that were difficult to explain unless continents had once been joined. For instance, Cynognathus was a land reptile. Its Fossils remains have been found in both Africa and South America, thus proving the two continents were once joined (Oreskes $ Legrand., 2001). Scientist have also found out from the evidence of earthquakes happened continually and occurred along certain lines, near the boundaries between tectonic plates. As Wegener’s ideas forms the basis why the landscape from the earth is the way it is, scientist community currently advanced methodology of studying the plate tectonic theory. They use satellite to study evidences of plate tectonic where they position it lots of kilometers away from the earth surface. From the satellite statistics, it is evidenced the plates go linearly and away from every single other at the speed of 10mm to 100mm per year.
References Oreskes, N., & LeGrand, H. E. www.bestessaysforsale.net/ (2001). Plate tectonics: An insider’s history from the modern idea of your Earth. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press. Rogers, J. J. W. (1993). A heritage with the earth. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
Leave a Reply