Plate Tectonic Theory

The Earth has undergone many fundamental changes since its formation.
Have you ever wondered how the land masses, the islands and continents,
were formed? What would the Earth be like without plate tectonics? Did
they just exist the way they are now or the results of a long process and
sequential events? It was Alfred Wegener, an Austrian climatologist, who
first noted the theory on the movement of the Earth’s land masses and is
known today as the modern Plate Tectonic Theory (Oskin, 2017). In the
early 1900s, Alfred Wegener observed that the coastal areas of the
continents today seemed to look like jigsaw puzzle pieces that fit to each
other. With this observation, he inferred that the Earth could have once
been composed of only one continent and was split into several smaller
continents due to lithospheric processes through time. He observed that
plant and animal fossils, as well as rock layers, matched on the two
continents of Africa and South America.

Several theories were proposed to explain the changes in the surface

characteristics of earth, including the formation of different landforms.

1. Continental Drift theory (Alfred Wegener) (Oskin, 2017)

This theory states that the Earth was once composed of only one
supercontinent called Pangaea. Through time, this supercontinent split
into two sub-continents, Laurasia and Gondwanaland. Million years
further, Laurasia split into a few smaller continents forming the
continents in the northern hemisphere of the Earth. This includes (Asia,
Europe, North America, South America, and Africa). On the other hand, the
continents of the southern hemisphere, (Australia and Antarctica,) are the
two continents divided from Gondwanaland.
2. Seafloor Spreading Theory (www.divediscover.whoi.edu)
- Proposed by Harry Hess of Princeton University
- States that the seafloor not the continents move and only carry the latter.
- This theory proposed that the ocean floor is continuously spreading and
the extra crust gets recycled into the mantle.

3. Plate Tectonics Theory (www.ck12.org; Oskin, 2017)

- States that the crust is composed of different plates which move either
towards, away or past each other.
- The modern version of the Continental Drift Theory of Alfred Wegener.
- It incorporates the continental drift theory and seafloor spreading
theory.
- For plate tectonics, the lithosphere is composed of many independent
massive slabs of solid rocks called plates.
-Tectonic plates are composed of pieces of crust and uppermost mantle,
together referred to as the lithosphere.
- Plates under landmasses are called continental plates.
- Plates under the ocean are called oceanic plates.