Geography plate tectonics and associated hazard notes
Plate 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 been joined together at one time? As he later wrote: "A conviction of the fundamental soundness of the idea took root in my mind." Such an insight, to be accepted, would require large amounts of supporting evidence. Wegener found that large-scale geological features on separated continents often matched very closely when