Earth as Jigsaw Puzzle

Africa

S.America

• In 1912 Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist proposed

that the continents were all together like one piece, named
them as PANGAEA (means All Land)
• Then drifted apart and reached their present location – a
theory of Continental Drift
Figure 20.1 A
Continents once fit together
A. Before continental drift a few hundred million years ago, the continents were clustered together as a giant “supercontinent”
that has been called Pangaea. The Atlantic Ocean had not yet opened. The pale blue fringes on the continents are continental
shelves, which are part of the continents. The areas of overlap and gap (in red and darker blue) are small.
B. Some distinctive fossils and mountain ranges lie in belts across the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
 Glaciation in Warm Areas
A. Continental masses of the southern hemisphere appear to have been parts of a supercontinent 300 million
years ago, from which a continental ice sheet centered on Antarctica spread outward to cover adjacent parts
of South America, Africa, India, and Australia. After separation, the continents migrated to their current
positions.
B. The inset photo shows glacial grooves like those found in the glaciated areas of those continents.
• Continental drift: The super-continent Pangaea began to break up about
225-200 million years ago.
• Fragmented into the numerous continents

Panthalassa
 If the continents are joined the occurrence and
distribution of fossil (flora) – plants and (fauna) –
animals show a definite patterns about their remains
(shown by the bands of colors)
Lithospheric Plates
Most large lithospheric plates consist of both continental and oceanic areas. Although the Pacific Plate is largely oceanic,
it does include parts of California and New Zealand. General direction and velocities of plate movement (compared with
hotspots that are inferred to be anchored in the deep mantle), in centimeters per year, are shown with red arrows.
The Earth on which we live is broken into a dozen of rigid slabs called
Tectonic plates (Lithospheric Plates) that are moving relative to
one another
What drives the plates?

• The mobile rock beneath the rigid plates is believed

to be moving in a circular manner somewhat like a
beaker field with water is heating to boiling

• The hot water rises to the surface, spreads and

begins to cool, and then sinks back to the bottom of
the pot where it is reheated and rises again.

• This cycle is repeated over and over to generate

known as convection cell or convective flow
1.8
Plate Motion
Eurasian Plate Eurasian Plate

North American
Plate

African Plate
Pacific Plate
Nazca
South American
Plate
Plate
Indo-Australian Plate

Antarctic
Plate
Distribution of Earthquakes and Active
Volcanoes along the Plate boundaries
 Plate Boundaries

Most movement occurs along narrow zones between plates where the results of
plate-tectonic forces are most evident.There are three types of plate boundaries:

Divergent boundaries -- where new crust is generated as the plates

pull away from each other.

Convergent boundaries -- where crust is destroyed as one plate subduct

under another.
Transform boundaries -- where crust is neither produced nor destroyed as
the plates slide horizontally past each other.
Spreading Centre

Subduction zone

Transform faulting
TYPE-I
DIVERGENT PLATE BOUNDARY OR CONSTRUCTIVE BOUNDARY
Divergent boundaries occur along
spreading centers where plates are
moving apart and new crust is
created by magma pushing up from
the mantle.
• During World War II detailed mapping of
the ocean floor was carried out
• Later H. Hess and R. Deitz modified
Holmes’s “ convection theory ” , and
called the new theory as "Sea-floor
Spreading".
• Among the seafloor features that
supports the sea-floor spreading theory
are: mid-oceanic ridges, deep sea
trenches, island arcs etc.
 African
plate

American
plate

• The best known example of the divergent

boundaries is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
• This submerged mountain range, extends
from the Arctic Ocean to beyond the
southern tip of Africa, is one segment of
the global mid-ocean ridge system that
encircles the Earth.
• The rate of spreading along the Mid-
Atlantic Ridge averages about 2.5 cm/yr, or
25 km in a million years
 Beginning of an Ocean

• The East African Rift

Valley spreads the
continent apart at
rates 100 times slower
than typical oceanic
rift zones.

• This rift forms one arm

of a triple junction,
from which the Red
Sea and the Gulf of
Aden form somewhat
more rapidly spreading
rifts.