Plate Tectonics Essay

Submitted By haelsin

Words: 459

Pages: 2

Open Document

Student Essay on The Theory of Plate TectonicsBookRags, Inc.www.bookrags.comBookRags Student Essay
The Theory of Plate Tectonics
For the online version of The Theory of Plate Tectonics Essay, including complete copyright information, please visit: http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/3/17/223141/818/ Copyright Information
©2000-2014 BookRags, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.The Theory of Plate Tectonics Essay

Plate tectonics, or plate movements, have changed the way geologists think about the Earth. Long ago, people thought that the Earth never changed. Those people thought that it was exactly like it has always been. Overtime, scientists realized that fossils were found in places where they should not be. That made them begin to wonder. In the rocks at the top of the Himalaya Mountains, scientists found many fossils. Sand and gravel in long rows showed that the middle of the Sahara Desert was once covered in a glacier. In Antarctica, fossils of trees, ferns, and plant-eating dinosaurs were found. Antarctica was most likely near the equator millions of years ago. After a long time, it might've broken apart from Pangaea and moved south. This also explains the evidence of glaciers in the Sahara Desert.
The Earth's surface is broken into many different sections, called plates. When the plates force a high amount of pressure on each other, its causes earthquakes, volcanoes to erupt, and the formation of mountains. The area where two plates meet is called plate boundaries. Plate tectonics is a combination of two ideas, sea-floor spreading and continental drift. The creation of new oceanic crust at mid-ocean ridges is called sea-floor spreading. In 1969, spreading plate margins became part of the theory of plate tectonics. This theory explains not only about how ancient crust is destroyed along destructive plate margins, but it also explains how

plate tectonic essay

Plate Tectonics Essay W. Jacqueline Kious and Robert I. Tilling, wrote a book titled “This Dynamic Earth: The story of Plate Tectonic”. It tells us information of people who have explore the world, their discoveries that developed the theory of plate tectonic and how it has progressed through the years. Plate Tectonics is how the Earth’s surface is built of plates. The scientific theory of plate tectonics is that the movements of the large sections form the Earth’s surface. Plate Tectonics has…

Words 760 - Pages 4

plate tectonics Essay

Ch. 3 Outline *a key to the curious puzzle was found 50 years earlier by Alfred Wegener, a busy German meteorologist and polar explorer -in 1912 he proposed a theory called continental drift; he suggested all Earth’s land had once been in a single supercontinent surrounded by ocean -he called the land mass Pangaea (pan/”all”; gaea/”Earth, land”) and the surrounding ocean Panthalassa (thalassa/”ocean”) *although he wasn’t first to assemble the continents using geology + geometry…

Words 3335 - Pages 14

Essay on Balls: Plate Tectonics

Plate Tectonics Midterm Project Purpose: Students will research types and locations of different plate boundaries found on planet Earth and discover how these boundaries have influenced the culture in a particular location. ***Do not plagiarize, all work must original*** ***All work must be typed*** Part I (100 pts) Choose a Plate Boundary from one of the following boundaries Convergent Boundary India (Himalayas Mountains) Japan Andres Mountains (South America) Divergent Boundary…

Words 931 - Pages 4

Plate Tectonics and Continents Essay

Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics Background Continental Drift is the theory that continents move slowly about the Earth's surface, changing their positions relative to one another and to the poles of the earth. In the past the theory has been discussed but not generally accepted, most geologists believing the continents to be fixed in place and subject only to vertical movements, such as those observed during mountain uplift. In recent years, however, a sound body…

Words 853 - Pages 4

Essay on Evidence for Plate Tectonics

Evidence for plate tectonics Some of the evidence that suggests that the continents have shifted to their present positions is: 1. A number of continents have coastlines that appear to fit together like a jigsaw. These are remnants of the super-continents Pangaea and Gondwana 2. Fossils of an animal called Mesosaurus have been found in only two places – South America and Africa. Thus, this suggests that these continents must have been joined at some time. Other fossils, like a certain…

Words 470 - Pages 2

Essay on 4 Plate Tectonics

Plate Tectonics GSC 350 Natural Disasters -Provides the mechanisms for the next segment of class - Earthquakes - Volcanoes - Earth is a dynamic system not only as climate, but in solids as well - Rock solids move and interact - Source of energy is from within the Earth - Residual heat from Earth’s formation - Very term and concept heavy. Get these things down… GSC 350 Natural Disasters Components of Earth Crust (two types)Oceanic Crust- Thin, dense crust formed at mid-ocean ridges (basaltic)…

Words 510 - Pages 3

Essay about Tectonic Plates Worksheet

University of Phoenix Material Effects of the Motions of Tectonic Plates Worksheet From Visualizing Earth Science, by Merali, Z., and Skinner, B. J, 2009, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Copyright 2009 by Wiley. Adapted with permission. Part 1 This diagram was similar to one Alfred Wegener drew to show the distribution of continents 300 million years ago. His theory of continental drift was met with skepticism in the scientific community. [pic] 1. Describe three forms of evidence Wegener…

Words 850 - Pages 4

Plate Tectonics and Sea Floor Essay

* Active Continental Margins * Geologically active with plate boundaries leading to earthquakes, young mountain belts, and volcanoes * Ocean trench: narrow, deep trough parallel to the edge of a continent or an island arc * Deepest parts of the ocean * Mid Ocean Ridges and Trenches * Seamounts and Guyots * Seamounts: conical undersea mountains that rise 1000 meters or more above the sea floor * most are extinct volcanoes (except near mid-ocean…

Words 923 - Pages 4

Essay about Geography: Plate Tectonics and Oceanic Plate

Pacific Ocean. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over a lot of the worlds active and dormant. Another reason why Japan has so many earthquakes is because there are so many different tectonic plates (layers of the earth's crust) underneath it and each plate keeps rubbing with the other plates. Earthquakes cause a bit of damage but not a lot in Japan, this is because they have happened lots of times so people in Japan have managed create buildings that probably won't get destroyed by an…

Words 437 - Pages 2

Plate Tectonics and Hot Spots Essay

SECTION A Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American slaves has unfortunately taken precedence over analysis of the tales’ meaning and function. Cultural continuities with Africa were not dependent on importation and perpetuation of specific folktales in their pristine form. It is in the place that tales occupied in the lives of the slaves and in the meaning slaves derived from them that the clearest resemblances to African tradition can be…

Words 6099 - Pages 25