...Specific Purpose: My purpose is to inform my audience about the theory of Continental Drift. Central Idea: My central idea is making sure my audience has a better understanding of the Continental Drift and how the theory was formulated. The Continental Drift Theory` I.(Introduction) For years scientists struggled to explain how similar rocks and fossils were found on continents that are far apart from each other. Until the 20th century when scientist Alfred Wegener's theory of Continental Drift was introduced. A. "Before Wegner introduced his theory it was thought that mountains formed because the Earth was cooling down, and in doing so contracted. This was believed to form wrinkles, or mountains, in the Earth's crust. Wegener suggested that mountains were formed when the edge of a drifting continent collided with another, causing it to crumple and fold". ("The Earth in the Universe,"1999) -BBC reference. 1. Alfred Wegner noticed that the continents seemed to fit together at the edge of their continental shelves . 2. He noticed this because he observed that continents in the Southern Hemisphere have similar rock and fossil patterns. B. He believed that the continents were all once apart of a large supercontinent called Pangea. II. Aside from fossils and rock patterns there were other observations that led to his theory. A. "Glacial till deposits in the Southern Hemisphere aided Wegners hypothesis".("The supporting Evidence of Plate Tectonic Theory",2008) 1. ...
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...geologist is Alfred Wegener. He was born on November 1, 1880. He died in November, 1930 at the age of 50. He married Else Koppen Wegner and one kid Elsa Wegner. Alfred Wegener was known continental drift. Continental drift was a theory that explained how continents shift position on Earth's surface. For his findings he went to Alexander DuToit. Alexander DuToit was a Southern geologist. Alfred Wegener is best known for continental drift. Alfred Wegener was born on November 1, 1880. Alfred Wegener went to Humboldt University of Berlin in 1905. There he studied the way the plates moved. He married Else Koppen Wegener they had one daughter names Elsa Wegener. Alfred Wegener died from congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure is a weakness of the heart that leads to a buildup of fluid in the lungs and surrounding body tissues. He...
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...Alfred Wegner Speech By: Neala Edward Good morning fellow scientists, peers, and public my name is Alfred Wegner and I am here to talk about continental drift. Have you ever wondered why the Earth’s continents are located where they are, and not somewhere else? Well I’m here to tell you. My theory that I have developed of continental drift, can explain the present location of the continents. About 300 million years ago, all of Earth’s land masses collided to form one supercontinent, which I call Pangaea. They were not separated like they are now, but joined together to form one massive land mass with water surrounding it. Also some land that is visible now was under water 300 million years ago; which explains how the continents were able to form one land mass. Obviously Pangaea did not last forever. About 200 million years ago this supercontinent started to break up, and the broken up land masses (continents) drifted apart to their current position. You may not believe my theory, but I have evidence to prove that this is true. If you look at a world atlas you can notice that by the shapes of South America and Africa, they could probably fit together. The pointed area on the east side of South America could fit perfectly like a puzzle with the indented western area of Africa. This proves that all the continents were once fitted together to form Pangaea. Also while studying the lands of South America and Africa I have discovered fossils of the same plants and animals...
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...Lorinda White Feb-09-15 PHS120 Essay 2 1. Cite the lines of evidence Alfred Wegener used to support his idea of continental drift. Why did scientists doubt that continents drifted? Alfred Wegner’s evidence was the way the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, fossils of the same prehistoric species were found where continental drift was expected to be (for example fossils of the same species were found in western Africa and South America), matching mountain ranges, and land features and climate change. His ideas were not accepted because Wegner could not give an explanation of what caused the continental drift. 2. Discuss the trade-off between money and human lives when considering construction in earthquake-prone zones. Consider factors such as housing costs, taxes for safer public facilities, different standards for different types of buildings (e.g., homes, apartments, stores and shopping centers, nuclear power plants, etc.). Building in earthquake-prone zones can be costly as the codes for creating buildings that can withstand earthquakes changes almost yearly, and several factors outside of an earthquake can cause the building to fail and cost human lives. Most earthquake related deaths come from human construction failing and killing people in or near it. When building in these high risk zones, companies and the government must decide is it better to spend a lot of money on constructing building, roads, and bridges that can withstand an 8.0 magnitude earthquake...
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...The Development Theory of Plate Tectonics * Introduction In this report I will be describing the theory of the Plate tectonics and showing its main points of development. There are matches between the shapes of South America and Africa. The two continents look like pieces of a jigsaw. Alfred Wegner thought that this meant that the continents where moving. They had once been joined together. He looked for evidence which was recorded in their rocks. In 1912 Wegner presented the idea of continental drift and his supporting evidence to a meeting of the Geological Society of Frankfurt. Geologists around the world read the English Translation of his book the Origin of Continents and Oceans which was published in 1922. He found interesting evidence from mountain chains, rocks and fossils on different continents. However most geologists reject such a grand and unlikely explanation of these explanations. Wegner Claimed: Fossil plants from both Africa and South America were identical. Reptile fossils matched too. People claimed he couldn’t just draw conclusions from a few fossils. They thought that there could once have been a land bridge joining Africa and South America. Wegner disagreed with the idea and asked for the evidence of there being a land bridge. The rock types on each continent fit like pictures on a jigsaw. The continents were once joined together. He claimed continents moved slowly. However one of the key principles of geology was to ‘use the present to interpret...
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...The Development Theory of Plate Tectonics * Introduction In this report I will be describing the theory of the Plate tectonics and showing its main points of development. There are matches between the shapes of South America and Africa. The two continents look like pieces of a jigsaw. Alfred Wegner thought that this meant that the continents where moving. They had once been joined together. He looked for evidence which was recorded in their rocks. In 1912 Wegner presented the idea of continental drift and his supporting evidence to a meeting of the Geological Society of Frankfurt. Geologists around the world read the English Translation of his book the Origin of Continents and Oceans which was published in 1922. He found interesting evidence from mountain chains, rocks and fossils on different continents. However most geologists reject such a grand and unlikely explanation of these explanations. Wegner Claimed: Fossil plants from both Africa and South America were identical. Reptile fossils matched too. People claimed he couldn’t just draw conclusions from a few fossils. They thought that there could once have been a land bridge joining Africa and South America. Wegner disagreed with the idea and asked for the evidence of there being a land bridge. The rock types on each continent fit like pictures on a jigsaw. The continents were once joined together. He claimed continents moved slowly. However one of the key principles of geology was to ‘use the present to interpret...
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...Evaluate how plate tectonic theory helps our understanding of the distribution of seismic and volcanic events (40 marks) Outline the theories Supporting evidence Notes: * Alfred Wegner – suggested that continents were once all joined together in an ancient super continent called Pangaea. Land masses had drifted apart until they got to a certain position. Used 4 different pieces of evidence to help support his theory: 1. Continental Fit – If you placed certain continents together they look like they should/could have been joined together at some point. For example western seaboard of Africa and Eastern sea board of South America. 2. Geological Evidence – Rocks of similar type and age sharing the same formation can be found in South East Brazil and South Africa, which were believed to be joined. Also similar glacial deposits found in the Antarctica, South America and India. 3. Climatological Evidence – Similar coal deposits have been found in places such as Antarctica, North America and UK, all of similar age and all formed in tropical conditions. Neither of these places is still tropical therefore the coal must have drifted apart. 4. Biological Evidence – Fossil formations can be found on either side of the Atlantic. An example of this is the Mesosaurus, this reptile could not fly, however its fossils were found only in South America and South Africa. Therefore they must have been joined; otherwise the fossils would not be in the same place. * Paleomagnestism...
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...September 2013 The world as we know it may or may not have always existed. The formations of land masses and, the joining of the waters and ice caps that we recognize as earth in aerial photographs likely looked very different in the past. In this paper I hope to shed some light on the theory of continental drift and explain the various ideologies that attempt to explain these theories. The first term that must be understood in order to grasp the theory of continental drift is plate tectonics. The idea of plate tectonics dates back to the 1600’s, but was not given much credibility until 1915. It was at this time that meteorologist Alfred Wegner released a book based on his study of the continents. He proposed that the continents of the earth were once connected. This idea was based not only on the fact that the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, but also the fact that there are similar fossils of both plants and animals found in the areas which would be connected if the continents were put back together. Wegener called this one continent world Pangaea.. Although Wegener offered the most credible evidence of continental drift to date, only a few others were confident in his theory. Most geologists ridiculed him for his ideas. The major flaw with Wegener’s theory was that he could not explain how the continents moved. His idea was that the continents simply drifted, forcing their way through the ocean floor. This simply was not enough...
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...Continental drift is happening. Discuss the evidence Continental drift is defined as the gradual movement of continents across the Earths surface through geological time. As early as 1620, Francis Bacon noted the jigsaw-like fit between the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa. However, it was in 1912 when a German meteorologist, Alfred Wegener, published his theory that all the continents were once joined together in one large supercontinent, which was named Pangaea. Wegeners theory of continental drift combined information from several subject areas, examples include: maps, biology, geology and climatology. Be that as it may, specialists in those disciplines rejected his ideas partly because he was not regarded as an expert himself, but mainly because he could explain how solid continents had changed their position. Wegener could never come up with an underlying reason for the motion of the continents. The theory of continental drift eventually evolved into the modern theory of plate tectonics. This holds that the lithosphere (or the Earth's crust) is made up of numerous plates that literally float on the underlying liquid asthenosphere. The motion of the plates and resulting activity at their edges to form mountains, trenches, and volcanoes explains the planet's topography. The first piece of evidence that really inspired Wegners quest to explain Earths geology was a map of the continents that showed the interlocking fit of Africa’s and South Americas...
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... 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 used to support his ideas of continental drift. Wegner suggested that the continental shelves of the continents seemed to fit together similar to a puzzle. According Bugielski (1999), "continents in the southern hemisphere exhibit an identical pattern of rock and fossils known as the Gondwana sequence. The most logical explanation was that the continents themselves were once parts of a much larger super-continent (Early development of plate tectonics). Another point that Wegener used as evidence was by looking at the glacial till deposits. When the contintents were together, the glacial movement was, "more streamlined motion of the glacier from southern Africa and Northern Australia outward" (Bugielski, 1999). The last important piece of evidence that was used was by examinung sedimentary rock that was able to show a change in climates proving the theory of the continental drift or that the poles had moved. (Bugielski, 1999). Bugielski, M. (1999). The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Retrieved from http://loki.stockton.edu/~hozikm/geol/Courses/The%20Earth/Content%20Web%20Pages/Bugielski/webpage.htm 2. Years later, the continental drift theory reemerged as plate tectonic theory, with...
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...Structure and composition of the Earth The overall composition of the Earth is very similar to that of meteorites, and because of this, it is thought that the Earth originally formed from Planetesimals composed largely of metallic iron and silicates. What makes Earth unique? Soon after the Earth formed, unique processes occurred - division into metallic core, silicate mantle and crust - which, along with surface water, made it different from the other planets in our Solar System. The formation of the early mantle was important as it consisted primarily of ferromagnesium silicate minerals, some of which contained water as an essential component (e.g. amphibole group minerals). Water-bearing magmas (molten rock) from deep in the lower mantle then rose towards the surface (being liquid, they were lighter than the surrounding solid rock) and emerged as volcanic eruptions. The Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere developed from the degassing (loss of gaseous elements such as carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) of the early-formed core and mantle during this volcanic activity. In the present, abundant gases are still released from the Earth during volcanic eruptions and these are mainly composed of water (77%), carbon dioxide (12%), sulfur dioxide (7%), and nitrogen (3%), with minor amounts of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, sulfur, chlorine and argon. The Earth can be divided into two main parts. Atmosphere: measured from the surface of the Earth upwards to 150 km (anything above this...
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...20th century a variety of propositions have been put forward to suggest the existence of plate tectonics. The most prominent of these theories is the existence of seismic waves and volcanic activity, especially the location and distribution of these. Along with these theories is the discovery of fossils and their locations across the globe, as well as the shape of the existing continents and the “jigsaw” theory. During the 17th century Francis Bacon noted that the West coast of Africa and Europe coincidentally looked as though they would fit with the East coast of the Americas. However, Bacon had little evidence for this theory, meaning it was swiftly forgotten. During the 1920’s, Alfred Wegner, proposed that the formation of the continents today has occurred via continental drift. However, Wegner goes on to suggest that 300 million years ago there was a single landmass, commonly known as Pangaea, as shown in Figure 1.1. Pangaea was one supercontinent that existed during the late Palaeozoic and carrying on into the early Mesozoic eras. It consisted of one huge land mass located in the southern hemisphere and was surrounded by one huge ocean. This modern theory is generally globally accepted, with valid evidence to back it up with, for example, the distribution of fossils, the earths geology, coal deposits and fauna and flora deposits. Figure 1.1: World map of what Pangaea would have looked like 300 million years ago. Figure 1.2: Shows...
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...tectonics and associated hazards Geomorphology – the study of landforms of the earth’s surface Plate tectonics – a theory explaining the structure of the earth’s crust and many associated phenomena as resulting from the interaction of the rigid lithosphere. Geomorphological hazard – an event causing harm to people or property, caused by Geomorphological processes e.g. plate tectonic movement. Francis Bacon 1620 As far back as 1620, Francis Bacon spotted that the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America looked as if they would fit together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Between then and 1912 other people identified further similarities between other continental coastlines. Robert Mallet 1870s Robert Mallet was a nineteenth century scientist who managed to measure the speed at which earthquakes spread. Alfred Wegner 1911 While at Marburg, in the autumn of 1911, Wegener was browsing in the university library when he came across a scientific paper that listed fossils of identical plants and animals found on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Intrigued by this information, Wegener began to look for, and find, more cases of similar organisms separated by great oceans. Orthodox science at the time explained such cases by postulating that land bridges, now sunken, had once connected far-flung continents. But Wegener noticed the close fit between the coastlines of Africa and South America. Might the similarities among organisms be due, not to land bridges, but to the continents having...
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